Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, "Glory to the Newborn King!"

As people of faith we have wondered and wandered the past four and a half weeks of Advent discerning God’s coming into the world. Two thousand years ago God came in a most unexpected way that we celebrate today, in the form of a vulnerable infant. The birth of the Christ child ushered us into witnessing God’s Kingdom on earth and the conquering of death. Yet, what was still more unexpected was that Christ went to the cross of death to free us from sin and give us eternal life. Such is God’s radical and wonderful Kingdom, where love knows no bounds and will go to any length for God’s creation.

Yet after Christ died on the cross and was resurrected, we have found ourselves in a world that continues to bear witness to God’s activity.  But it is one that is not completely conformed to the ways of the Lord. This life is one that the royal psalms write of and prepare us for the coming again of God.

The royal psalms as a genre within the book of psalms speak directly about the human Davidic King during certain times such as celebrating military victories, weddings, and times of mourning. As the Israelites adopted the governmental form of a monarchy they hoped that they might be saved by this king. However, they were not. King after king continually disappointed the people of God as well as God, never fulfilling their vocational calling.

During the compiling of the psalms into an enduring collection of songs and prayers, the editors found it important for some reason to keep the royal psalms despite the fact that the monarchy had been disestablished. That reason was hope that the King, not the flawed kings of old, but that the ideal and anointed King from God would come to redeem Israel. The royal psalms were kept because they offered this hope.

Such a confidence kept the faith alive that God would fulfill the covenantal promises of long ago made with our ancestors. Theologian James Limburg writes, “Even though there were no more kings, no more coronations, no more celebrations involving the monarch, the royal psalms were still used. Now they expressed the people’s hope for an ideal ruler who would come…a messiah” (Limburg, Psalms, 7). This messiah came, this messiah was born away in a manger.

Let us sing together with the saints and angels that God has indeed kept the ancient promises of salvation and redemption. Let us proclaim to all the world that God is with us. Let us go to Bethlehem to honor the Christ child, the newborn King!

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"

Christmas Blessings,
Tom

Christmas Faith Formation

It is one week from Christmas day! Time has certainly flown by since Thanksgiving and I am trying to catch my breath in light of finals and preparing for Christmas Eve. I think I am almost there!

In thinking about Christmas, it occurred to me that a lot of my childhood memories are from this time of the year. A tree with presents. Sledding with my siblings and neighbors. Eating Christmas cookies on Sunday evening. Attending Christmas Eve service at my grandfather's church. All of these formative memories flood my mind in a somewhat nostalgic fashion. However, Christmas is also a time in which our faith is formed.

Christmas provides a time in which we eagerly await the coming of God in unexpected ways. Christmas provides a time for us to slow down and to consider how we are living out our faith, are we like the shepherd in the field or are we like Herod? Christmas is a time in which we can concretely see that God has said yes to creation by coming to us.

I'd like to share with you a video about my definition of faith formation that I created for a class. It is short (3 minutes), but it gets at this Christmas view of faith formation. That such learning is not in a straight and narrow path, but it is a narrative with twists and turns. Faith formation is a beautiful mess.

Faith Formation Definition

Happy Advent!
Tom

Waiting for Help

Cars and me do not get along very well. I'll spare you the details, but this morning I discovered I had a flat tire when I really needed to be grocery shopping. After muttering a few obscenities underneath my breath I went back inside to scour the internet for the best deals and settled on a national chain that had a decent end of the year sale. However, I had to wait until 3:00pm for an appointment unless I wanted to wait there all day long. I took the appointment and began working on papers for my courses because it is finals week of all weeks! So I began to wait.

I went back outside at 1:30pm giving myself plenty of time in case any problem should arise...and of course it did. I emptied the trunk into the back seat (wow I have a lot of crap back there!) to get at the spare. I lifted up the false bottom to get at the spare tire and I discovered it had no air in it. Not enough to limp to a gas station to fill it, absolutely no air was in it. It was like a tire on a bike during the winter, you could squish the rubber down to the rim.

So I went to my neighbor's door and knocked hoping she could give me a ride to the nearest gas station to fill it up. I waited there pondering what would I do if she did not answer or could not help me. "I could walk or jog there, it wouldn't take too long. But then I probably wouldn't make my appointment" I told myself. It felt like forever as I played out different situations in my mind. And then she answered the door. "Of course I can help you Tom!"

We went and got the tire filled within 10 minutes. Now back to the business of changing the tire. I have changed many a tire, but this one was stubborn. Tried as I may, the lug nuts would not budge. I grew frustrated and in all honesty rather angry. Why today of all days?!?! So I did what any helpless person does, call AAA.

I placed the request for assistance and they said they would be there within an hour, officially making me late for my appointment. I called the tire shop and informed them. I waited in the car for the roadside assistance to call me when the mechanic was 5 minutes away. I paged through a magazine, thought about upcoming church services, and stressed about the homework that needed to get done. No phone call came. I sat there waiting.

And then all of a sudden a tow truck came. I hopped out and it stopped. The driver asked if I has called AAA and affirmed that he was sent to help. Within 10 minutes he changed the tire (he had an extended pipe that allowed for more leverage to loosen the lug nuts) and I was on my way to my appointment. And guess what?! I made it there on time. So here I am sitting in the lobby sipping on some weak, not so tasty coffee. But I am thankful that in all of my situations of waiting in need, help came. It arrived unannounced after long expectation.

My day thus far has been a day of Advent. In this church season we wait for God's coming to fulfill the covenants of old, sometimes patiently...sometimes not. We expect and have faith that God will be faithful to God's promises. The Hebrew word that expresses such faithfulness is "hesed." The New International Commentary of the Old Testament on the Psalms describes this word:

Hesed includes elements of love, mercy, fidelity, and kindness. Hesed is a relational term that describes both the internal character as well as external actions that are required to maintain a life sustaining relationship. While the term is used both of humans and God, in the Psalter it is above all a theological term that describes God's essential character as well as God's characteristic ways of acting - especially God's characteristic ways of acting in electing, delivering, and sustaining the people of Israel. Hesed is both who the Lord is and what the Lord does (NICOT, Psalms, 8).

The psalms of thanksgiving testify to such faithfulness, such hesed-ness. We see this word throughout the Bible, yet psalms of thanksgiving address God's tangible, concrete activity in the world. Rising from a crisis the psalmist fulfills their promise to praise God after God has saved them from calamity and woe. Advent is indeed a time of hesed-ness for God keeping the particular promise of coming to save us. God came two thousand years ago as a baby in Bethlehem and so we look into the future expecting that promise to come again...even if it means waiting for that help to come.

Waiting in the tire shop,
Tom

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

My wife recently received a new full time position at St. Joseph’s Home for Children as an assistant supervisor for daytime treatment and schooling. She was showered with congratulations from family, friends, and those from the realm of social media. However, not a one expressed praise to God! Have we forgotten how to thank and praise God for all blessings great and small? Or is it easier to give ourselves credit for such work? We need to shift our thinking from everything being our doing, and to praise God from whom all of our blessing flow. Additionally, we need to recognize that this needs to occur not just within worship, but in every aspect of life.

The hymns of praise in the book of Psalms can help us to refocus how we praise God. The purpose of these writings are, “to tell who God is by telling what God has done” (Jacobson and Jacobson, Invitation to the Psalms, 45). In other words praise psalms are explicit testimonies to God’s very identity and God’s unfolding action within the people of God. This testimony is completed through a call to praise as well as unfolding testimony to God’s actions. The same could be said of our congratulating of others. The flow is as follows:
Congratulation / Call to Praise
Reason(s) for Congratulation / Reason(s) for Praise

Let’s be honest though, we want to give ourselves credit for doing all of the hard work for things. My wife is the one who has worked her tail off at St. Joseph’s for over a year to get this promotion, shouldn't we tell her what a good job she has done? If we take such a road, we quickly forget where such gifts, talents, and abilities came from, God. Instead we create a world where we are the rulers and must take responsibility for all of its happenings, we limit our possibilities by saying no to God’s options, and finally we negate the polemical and political power of praise (Jacobson, The Costly Loss of Praise, 381-383). By praising God we are making God’s abundant blessings realized and recognized. Perhaps when we do this on a more regular basis we can begin to make praise a part of our everyday language.

But why should we do this? We praise God because we offer thanks for blessings and also to make a new world known. Both are important, but the latter deserves a bit more attention here. When we praise God we make God’s activity in everyday life known. Lutheran theologian Rolf Jacobson writes, “Praise assumes a world where God is an active agent, and then praise evokes this world by naming God as the agent responsible for specific actions and blessings. There is no such thing as uninterrupted reality. By ascribing agency to God for specific transformations, praise interprets reality in such a way that God is evoked as an active agent in daily life” (Jacobson, The Costly Loss of Praise, 377). Praising God acknowledges God as an active and thriving God who is not cloistered away in the heavens. Praise makes the bold statement that God loves each and every one of God’s creation to be involved at an intimate level, to come to us as a baby.

I propose the following to help us praise God anew: we ban the word “congratulations” as a reminder to praise God and embark in an Advent of praise. The refusal to say the “C” word will remind us that it is not our efforts that generate our blessings, but it is God. For example, when a friend has a new baby praise God with them for this new life and blessing. Or when someone graduates from school, praise God for the blessings of education and leadership.

Finally, such focus will praise God for all that God has done in the past to deliver God’s people and it will praise God for coming to us as a child. But furthermore it will evoke God as the incarnate Word as an active agent in the world who is deeply needed to make a new horizon of healing and justice for the world. If we do not praise God, this radical reality of God coming to us is not recognized and may go unseen. Let us praise God from whom all blessing flow on Thanksgiving day, then let us look to the manger as the proof positive of God’s active agency and bring forward the gift of praise.

Peace,
Tom Westcott
tomw@stmarks-nsp.org

What is Real Community?

A few weeks ago my favorite TV show started a new season, The Walking Dead. It's a show about people surviving in a world of zombies. It may not seem that appealing to most folks, but the show is more about the relationships between the survivors than about gore. In the opening episode a new minor character was explaining his view of friendship in light of the zombie apocalypse. He said, "I don't have any friends. I mean I know people, they are just assholes I stay alive with. Is that other woman your friend? I used to have them, we used to watch football on Sundays. Went to church. I know I did, but I can't picture it anymore" (AMC's The Walking Dead, season 5 episode 1). This clip asks us in our current context, that is not ravaged by zombies, if we have a community as well or if we have people we just survive with. While we can take many different approaches to this question, it seems to me that German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers us a unique perspective on what it means to be community as Christians in his work Life Together.

“Christian community means community through Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. There is no Christian community that is more than this, and none that is less than this. Whether it be a brief, single encounter or the daily community of many years, Christian community is solely this. We belong to one another only through and in Jesus Christ.”
 – Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 30

This passage from the opening chapter of Life Together illustrates Bonhoeffer’s main thrust of his definition of community that it can only exist through the mediation of Jesus Christ. He expands on this point in the following pages by describing Christians as needing others for the sake of Christ, a Christian comes to others only through Christ, and finally that we are united with Christ in eternity (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 30-31). This threefold description of what it means to be in Christian community begins with our justification. It is not done by our own merits, but through Jesus Christ alone (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 31).

This means that in the Christian community there is a continual movement of death and resurrection. The Holy Spirit works in us from the outside, deconstructing us and our self-made constructions, and giving us new life in Christ. It can then be said that Jesus on the cross is the primary moment of deconstruction, it is the moment in which we are told we do not save ourselves because it is Christ on the cross who does. Such a realization creates community because it relieves us from the expectation of performance before God, or climbing the spiritual ladder, it frees us to serve our neighbor.

From this comes Bonhoeffer’s second point, “…a Christian comes to others only through Jesus Christ” and our efforts to do so on our own are failures because we run into our own egos so we rely only on Christ to mediate our knowing of the other (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 32). This means that we can only experience others from Christ’s actions, not our own. We are then opened up to live, love, and serve with and for others. We are once again freed from the expectation of serving according to our egos and we are shown a way of being through Jesus’ ministry and the Holy Spirit stirring within us.

Bonhoeffer’s final point of defining a Christian community relates to the person of Jesus Christ and how we are united with him. He writes, “Third, when God’s Son took on flesh, he truly and bodily, out of pure grace, took on our being, our nature, ourselves…Wherever he is, he bears our flesh, he bears us. And, where he is, there we are too…” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 32). With this description, community becomes much more than a gathering of people, community becomes the body of Christ that lives out the life of Christ in the world. Such a community embraces the costly grace of God, clamors for the theology of the cross and resists the theology of glory, serves the neighbor, and engages life in all of its beauty and messiness.

Indeed we seek relationships out of self-serving goals (like this character's noting he gathers with people to simply survive), so it is God who mediates community for us showing us that community is not about physical connection, but instead a spiritual one. Such a community is about the Word of God in Jesus Christ, truth, light, service, and where the Spirit and Word of God in Jesus Christ rule (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 38-40). This is what Bonhoeffer envisions as being the Christian community, the spiritual community that is radically active in the world.

While we agree with Bonhoeffer and admit that this is what we strive for, we know that it is not necessarily reality because it is a hard calling! Yet, Bonhoeffer further challenges us, “Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it” (Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 38). This makes Christian community not something that humans must meet as if it were a law, it is the opposite. We enter into community simply by the free grace, faith, and justification from God. We are wholly undeserving of these things, but we are given it. It is God who created us to be in community and provides us such an opportunity.

Real community then is about embracing the struggle of everyday life while simultaneously living out the gospel message. For the characters in The Walking Dead, their morals and their underlying discipleship to God is tested daily by decisions to act mercifully or selfishly, emotionally or spiritually, peacefully or violently. And in these decisions their view of community and communal reality is challenged. Do we welcome this person into our group out of gain because of their skills? Or do we welcome them because that is what we do, extending hospitality and love in a dangerous world?

This reality is not so far from us is it? My wife has a thousand and one friends whom she would consider real community because they do just about anything for each other and build each other up out of love and live in service to the world. But I find myself having far fewer friends when I look at my real community. There are of people I stay alive with and know, but not many that fit into Bonhoeffer's vision of community. Now I do not lament over this, rather it opens up a perspective about how we all interact  in the world and challenges us to live out of thanksgiving to God for giving us such an opportunity. Where do you find yourself in this spectrum of community? Are your friends plentiful or just enough? Do you have real community or ones that you just live with?

May you rethink who your community is and in the process find God calling your community to more than survival.

Peace,
Tom

Online Testimony

I am going to be completely honest, I see people posting things on Facebook that make the individual seem holier than Thou. In essence, I see a lie. I know them to be deceitful, harsh, rude, and disrespectful yet they present themselves as a saint online whose life revolves around the Bible. So how far is too far when we provide testimony in our online communities? Or does it even matter? 

Perhaps this is not even a true testimony. Thomas Hoyt Jr. writes about testimony, "In different ways, testimony happens in every vital Christian community. It also happens, as we shall see, in the midst of daily life and in the life of society. In testimony, people speak truthfully about what they have experienced and seen, offering it to the community for the edification of all" (Practicing Faith, Kindle Loc. 1912). Perhaps then the sanctification of the self is not even true testimony because it does not tell the truth as it is. True testimony from this perspective might look like this, "I am dishonest, selfish, and narcissistic. I am a sinner. But God love me still..."

I am guessing that most of us will not be posting or tweeting our faults and flaws online anytime soon, but maybe we need to check ourselves before we write something online about God or make ourselves appear to be saintly. Are we really providing a true testimony? It seems to me that we need to revisit providing testimony to God throughout our lives and not just posting a picture of a sunset with a psalm. One of my friends who is a new mom was driving home and she ran into some car problems on the highway. While neither her or her son were injured, her Facebook post notified her community of friends what had happened and expressed how thankful she was to be safe and how lucky she was to be a mom. This might be the testimony we are after. A story from the randomness of life that describes what God has done (Practicing Faith, Kindle Loc. 1952).

These are just a few thoughts on the matter. I'd love to hear what you all think!

Peace, 

Tom

Fasting

This week I took up the spiritual discipline of fasting. In all honesty this is not something I have a lot of experience in. The extent of my practice in this discipline before this week has only extended to refraining from eating meat on Fridays during Lent. As you might be able to tell, fasting is not something I am used to, and in all honesty it is not something that is all that interesting to me. I love to cook and try new recipes, so the thought of abstaining from this hobby of mine seemed outrageous. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the insights I learned this week.

 

I emailed my professor for assistance before taking this on. His wisdom framed fasting as a way in which the body prays and is reminded of its limits. He also told me not to do anything too radical, rather skip a specific meal or food. With this in mind I decided to forgo lunch this week and in its place I decided to enter into a time of silence or reading as a form of prayer. I have mixed feelings about the practice of fasting after a little less than week of regular use.

This spiritual discipline was able to help me focus on my body and what my body actually needs (not necessarily food, but hydration and rest). This was accomplished through reflection and realizing that I deeply resonated with a book I am reading on spirituality, I think I know what my body needs, but I don’t. And so I took this learning to the realm of spirituality. Am I engaging my spirituality enough? Or am I settling for a mediocre form that really leads to spiritual stagnancy?

I also noticed that when I fasted during the usual lunch period I was not too terribly concerned with my hunger, but an hour or so after I found myself craving food. It got to the point where I was focusing on dinner and not the work at hand! And while this was annoying and concerning, such thinking gave way to more intentional applications of fasting. This lead me to rethink how much my body needed to eat, how much I actually ate, and how others in the world do not have nearly as much to eat.

All in all this exercise humbled me, made me aware of our culture’s infatuation with food, and helped me to appreciate how much I have been blessed with. However, I am unsure how practical this practice is for most people. I am concerned that fasting from a meal for an extended period of time may not be of any help spiritually or physically. Rather it would distract the participant from spiritual practice and focus instead on the physical needs of sustenance. So when might fasting be appropriate? It seems to me that fasting would be able to add importance to liturgical seasons. For instance, fasting on Good Friday would highlight humanity’s need for God’s grace as much as we need daily bread and water.

Peace,
Tom

Spiritual Discipline: Walking with a Psalm

In one of my courses at Luther Seminary the class is charged with experimenting in a multitude of spiritual practices. Each week we are to try on of the three or four suggested practices with the hopes of finding one that works best for at this point in life. I thought reflecting on these exercises might help encourage you all to engage in a spiritual discipline as well. So for the next six weeks or so I'll ask that you take up a weekly spiritual practice, they can be the ones that I will describe or totally different. Here goes!

Walking with Psalm 123

1 To You I lift up my eyes, 

      O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

2 As the eyes of servants

      look to the hand of their master, 

as the eyes of a maid

      to the hand of the mistress, 

so our eyes look to the Lord our God,

      until he has mercy upon us. 

3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, 

      for we have had more than enough of contempt.

4 Our soul has had more than its fill

      of the scorn of those who are at ease,

      of the contempt of the proud.

My attempts at spiritual discipline have been quite varied throughout my life. Often times I take on a different discipline with each liturgical season with the constant of daily prayer. I hope that these exercises will assist in equipping me with a deeper discipline of engaging my spirituality. This week as I walked my dog, Summit, I recited Psalm 123. I approached this practice by briefly memorizing a verse prior to each walk and would speak it aloud or within as I walked around the local park. 

Throughout the week I noticed a few things. First, I slowed down. Usually walking Summit entails a quick pace with a few encouragements for him to cease sniffing a bush for five minutes. However, as I recited the particular verse our pace became more relaxed as did my attitude. I was able to take in my surroundings and to simply be in the moment.

I also was able to gain new insight into the text. Often times when I preach or compose a Bible study I rely heavily on biblical commentaries as opposed to self-discernment and reflection. Maybe I don't think my ideas are right or good enough. But it is a practice I need to change. This discipline offered me a view of the text from life itself, not from the dust jackets of academia. 

After close to a week of walking with Summit and this text I could not help but be drawn into the theme of vocation. As we were walking Summit stopped and was sniffing a tree...I stood there waiting for him, getting lost in the repetition of verse one. Suddenly I looked at Summit and he was staring at me, a bit confused as to why I was not hurrying him along. I thought to myself, "The psalmist looks to the Lord, but does that always have to be to the heavens? What about when we look to the world and see God in our vocations and everyday life?" It seems like an unlikely intention from Psalm 123, but it refocused my attention to my duties in life as being sacred...doing God's work with my hands.

As the week progressed the psalm shifted as the writer asked for God's mercy from contempt and scorn. However, I could not shake the theme of vocation. As I dwelled in this psalm I thought that the writer might be drawing us out of our own anger and frustrations and moving us towards God's mercy. In doing so, we are called to reflect that mercy back out into the world in our daily life. These words helped me let go of anxieties and stress (or at least lessen them!) of starting my final year at seminary. In their stead I was given a place to rest within the mercies of God and given the sustenance to move forward with confidence and hope. If only it couldn't always be this way!

That's it for this week. I encourage every one of you to take up a spiritual practice this week and comment on this post. Let this space be a place for you to voice and share your own experiences!


Peace,
Tom

The Walking Dead

Well it is finally here, the last blog post on faith in pop culture! For this week's post I want to look at something that seems to have grabbed many TV viewers attention, zombies. In doing so we will look at the specific show The Walking Dead, but before that we should look at zombies themselves.

If for some reason you are unfamiliar with what a zombie is, it is usually defined as a genre of film, literature, or game where the dead come back to life as a mindless creature preying on living humans. Traditionally they are known to eat the living, though most often leaving some remains behind to become reanimated as a zombie. To kill one of these things, one needs to kill the brain whether through  forced trauma or with a bullet wound. Sounds pretty scary and disgusting doesn't it? 

However, the genre of zombie usually concerns itself less with the horror and more so with social commentary. More recent zombie films have critiqued racism, classism, consumerism, science, and individualism. Writing about each of these realms of critique deserve their own article, but it is enough to say that zombie writers and directors are making us look at the horror our sins and wrongdoings unleash upon the world. 

Theologically speaking, zombies offer us a closer look at our sins and human brokenness. Anthony R. Mills writes, "Most zombie films end up asserting that other living humans are a greater threat than the hordes of cannibalistic walking dead, not only in the metaphorical suggestions and parallels to real-life systemic injustices but also in the power struggles among the survivors, which often lead to them killing each other" (Don't Stop Believin', 205). Mills' argument is unfortunately true. Our sinfulness and brokenness pits us against each other when we need community most. Ending world hunger...good luck. Ending homelessness...yea right. Education for all...forget about it. Our human condition does not generate life, it creates ruin. We need God's grace to heal our wounds and to restore the world. It is only when we work with each other and with God to end these injustices of the world that the impossible becomes possible. 

With all of this said I turn to AMC's The Walking Dead as a prime example of our faith being lived out in zombie film. The setting is typical, a virus has spread across the world turning some into the walking/living dead leaving a small percentage immune to the pandemic. We meet our host of characters in the southern U.S., specifically Georgia. Rick is a former sheriff's deputy who awakens from a coma (he was shot in the line of duty prior to the zombie virus) to find the world he once knew long gone. Eventually he reunites with his family, but he struggles to find the meaning behind all of these terrible things. In the opening episode of season 2, Rick and the group narrowly escape a large group of zombies and take refuge in a church. Rick looks up to the statue of Jesus and asks for a sign that he is doing the right thing:

"I don't know if you're looking at me with what sadness, scorn, pity, love...maybe it's just indifference. I guess you already know I am not that much a believer. I guess I just chose to put my faith elsewhere, my family mostly. My friends. My job. The thing is we...I could use a little something to help keep us going. Some kind of acknowledgment, indication I am doing the right thing. You don't know how hard that is to know. Well, maybe you do. Hey look, I don't need all the answers just a little nudge, a sign. Any sign will do."

He gets no response, at least in the way he was hoping. Rick is struggling to find his faith a midst the horrors of the world and often times we do as well. With the recent military action in the Holy Land, planes being shot out of the sky, gun violence in Minneapolis, and child abusers being brought before the public we sometimes struggle to see exactly where God is working in the world. But God is here, God is not dead. God is working in those who combat the ills of the world, God is working in the the offenders to make them stop, God is sending those on the sidelines into the fray to be a part of the solution and healing of the world. Rick may not have gotten the answer he wanted, but God was working through his leadership to navigate a dark and frightening world for a small band of survivors. 

Another scene I would  like to mention reflects on what it is to pray. Often times we have a specific prayer we offer up to God, I have opened prayer the same way every night since I was in Sunday School! As a community we all pray the Lord's Prayer. But sometimes those words do not speak from our hearts, sometimes we need different ways to pray. Another character named Herschel, who serves as one of the group's doctors (he was a veterinarian before the zombie take over), has been running around trying to cure everyone of a flu like illness that has infected their now large group who currently resides in an abandoned prison. After a long day of treating people and fighting off a zombie infiltration, he sits down to read the Bible (he was and still remains a Christian), but can't. Instead he weeps. You see, sometimes we can't find the words to pray, sometimes they just don't do us justice. We can learn from Herschel to weep, or maybe to yell, and in some cases laugh. To let our emotion go and lay before God our pains and joys is indeed an honest prayer from the heart. 

My hope through this post and previous entries has been to open eyes to the work of God in the world. The Bible might be a closed book, set in stone if you will, but God's work is not. God is alive and well working throughout time and space to bring about healing, redemption, justice, mercy, and peace to the world. We need to listen to the Spirit calling us by our baptismal vows to be partners with God in this world. May we always find God in the unexpected doing the unbelievable. 

-Tom

Harry Potter!

I can recall my Dad ordering my siblings and I a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone from amazon.com when we were youngsters and were enchanted by all things mysterious and magical. I eagerly tore through those pages and could barely wait for the next book to be published. These memories are not all that dissimilar to others who grew up with Harry Potter as the book series of their generation. And so it is to the Harry Potter franchise that we turn to in our examination of the 2000s.

The Harry Potter books (there are seven of them) focus on the life of Harry Potter from his infancy to young adulthood. The newly orphaned Harry is left on is Uncle and Aunt's doorstep and endures years of what I would deem "servitude" to his own family. All until he begins to notice that he has special powers and then on his 11th birthday he is invited to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is a wizard. The rest of the books describe his adventures and mishaps while at school and also wrestle with the evil villain, Lord Voldemort. This man wants to control the world and rid it of "muggles" (non-wizard folk) and any wizard who may come from a family without any magical parents of grandparents, or "mudbloods."

The literary series, the movie series, the theme park, the supplemental series have made J.K. Rowling the first author to make over one billion dollars. With over 400 million books sold in 67 languages, plus the movies series being dubbed in other languages, one must say that the Harry Potter enterprise has left an imprint in our global culture.Now some may dismiss the Harry Potter series as whimsical books and movies for children or even worse, as awful works that promote witchcraft and should be avoided and/or destroyed. But such attitudes do not value the implicit elements of faith that present themselves to readers and viewers. Let's look at a few of them.

The Issues of Ethnic and Racial Discrimination
Lord Voldemort's focus and obsession with his cohorts to promote the wizard pure bloods reminds us of racial and ethnic discrimination similar to that of World War II. Both Hitler and Stalin had massive pogroms aimed at killing and/or ridding them of those deemed undesirable. Included were Jews, people with disabilities, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, political dissidents, and more. This issue can bee seen perfectly in the character of Draco Malfoy, Harry's enemy at school, who has blonde hair, blue eyes, and whose parents are Voldemort supporters. Such attitudes of superiority are not supported by Harry and the rest of the "good guys" of the series because they see all people and magical creatures as worthy of having their own voice and should be respected as such.

Economic Inequality
The Malfoy family is of high economic standing with Draco's father working within the government. However the Weasley family, Harry's good friends and pure blood wizards, don't enjoy such economic privilege despite the fact that the Weasley father works for the wizard government as well. Throughout the series the Weasleys are looked down upon by those of greater wealth, but they do not let such attitudes bring them down nor do they give them any credence. What the Malfoys have in money, they lack in values. The Weasleys are the ideal family: they stick up for each other, they make the best whatever situation they are in, and they love each other fiercely.

The Power of Death
It seems safe to say that groups around the world and throughout time have been fascinated with death and all have dealt with it in different ways. So the same reactions are played out in this series. Lord Voldemort seeks to thwart death by becoming immortal. He even goes so far as to split his soul into seven pieces so that he could come back to life if he were to die. Indeed Voldemort wants to control death by conquering it.
Harry and his like minded friends and family take a different route. They focus on death as not something that needs to be fought with every waking breath, instead they focus on the value of relationships here in this world as well as looking past death. Eric Bumpus notes, "Harry reads two scripture passages on the tombstone of his parents and of Dumbledore's mother and sister...The first is from Matthew 6:21 ("Where you treasure is, there will your heart be also") and the second from 1 Corinthians 15:26 ("The last enemy to be destroyed is death")..." (Don't Stop Believin', 181). Such passages note that there is a life after death, not a life without death. And Harry lives these out when he willingly sacrifices himself in Christ like fashion to save others, but ends up returning from the dead to stop Voldemort, the personification of evil, once and for all.

So please, do not dismiss Harry Potter as pure fiction or heresy, there are some excellent nuggets that pertain to our faith. It is in looking for God in unexpected places that we may be the most surprised! Next week is the final week of the faith in pop culture series. Any suggestions for a new series or something of the sort?

Peace,
Tom

"It is my belief...that the truth is generally preferable to lies." - Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Goblit of Fire, 2000

Ellen

We are coming close to finishing up the series of faith in pop culture! After this entry we will have only two more, so if you have any suggestions feel free to comment. With that said, I noticed that I have only discussed men in the prior blog posts. If you know me I do not pretend to be a chauvinist or anything of the sort. The reason for me only writing about men these past few weeks is because I have gravitated towards what I like, so it is time to break the cycle and write about someone who deserves and needs to be written about. For the decade of the 1990s we will look at Ellen DeGeneres.

Ellen started her career as a stand up comic working her way through clubs and coffeehouses eventually performing on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1986. She also has had a few unsuccessful sitcoms, has been in a few movies (most notably Finding Nemo), but has had the most success with her own daytime talk show. She currently captures roughly 2.74 million viewers per episode! The Ellen show is quirky and fun with a lot of audience participation, dancing, hilarious sketches, and heart warming acts of generous giving.

And yet, this does not capture who Ellen DeGeneres is for most people. Many need to qualify her as a lesbian celebrity. And she makes no efforts to hide her sexual orientation because she is not ashamed of who she is. Robert Putnam describes her as an "Aunt Susan." Barry Taylor describes this as, "...someone who holds different views than we might but is someone who we know and love" (Don't Stop Believin', 136). We all know an Aunt Susan don't we? It seems to me that as a church community we all have different opinions and views on how things should be done, different views of God, different views of social and political issues, yet we come together as a community of faith.

Ellen could be considered the Aunt Susan of America. She is showing many people that the LGBT community is not scary, they are not weird, they should not be avoided, they are normal people! They are part of God's good creation, no different than any other person! Ellen's big personality in various TV and movie mediums make her a household name and a celebrity that everyone can relate to. And it is her ability to be herself that connects us to a woman who identifies as a lesbian and makes many others embrace her for who she is simply because we care about her and not just her sexual orientation.

I foresee this post being a hot topic for quite a few people, but I invite you all to meditate and pray over whatever may bother you. If it brings you any solace, look to the sacrament of Holy Communion. Everyone is invited to the table to share in the rich feast of God's blessing and grace, no one is left out. That's the God we believe in, a radical God who showers mercy and grace upon all! So why can't we welcome those of all sexual orientations? Perhaps we need to let go of our own personal prejudices and simply do what God asked us to do and displayed for us on the cross...love.

In Christ,
Tom

1980s: The King of Horror

Growing up I was fascinated with the supernatural and the unknown. I remember many times as a small boy going to the local library to get books discussing the topics of the Loch Ness monster, ghosts, Bigfoot, the Yeti, Aliens, and more. I also recall begging my parents for books containing a dozen or so ghost stories each year my school had a book fair. There was, and still is, for me something disturbingly attractive about what we do not know for fact, but have only heard through myth and lore. We are drawn to the unknown. When you hear a bump in the night you may cower in fear at first, but curiosity more than likely draws you from the comforts of your bed to investigate. We all know it is almost always nothing, but author Stephen King has tapped into that curiosity of the possibly horrific through his gift of writing.

King has had a successful career selling over 350 million copies of his works with many being transformed into movies or TV mini-series. He is the king of horror.

However, what impact does he have on faith? It seems to me that his greatest contribution is in asking questions. R.W. Bonn lifts up some of these from four of his novels (Don't Stop Believin', 104):

1. "Jesus watches from the wall, but his face is cold as stone. And if he loves me - why do I feel so alone?" (Carrie, 1976)
2. "I don't want Church to be like all those dead pets! I don't want Church to ever be dead. He's my cat! He's not God's cat! Let God have his own cat!" (Pet Cemetery, 1983)
3. "Do you know how cruel your God can be, David? How fantastically cruel?...Sometimes he makes us live." (Desperation, 1996)
4. "If it happens, God lets it happen, and when we say 'I don't understand,' God replies, 'I don't care.' " (The Green Mile, 1996)

Indeed these quotes and his overall focus on the macabre and mysterious leads one to believe that he has some form of belief system. In fact King was raised in the Methodist church, focusing a lot of his formative years of  youth on doctrine. However, it seems as though such intensity burned King out. He currently admits to reading the Bible and believing in God, but has no interest in organized religion. He likes to look at questions more than anything else when it comes to faith.  Bonn writes, "Is Stephen King a Christian? In portraying the religious teachings of his childhood and confronting a suspenseful, horror-filled world where God often seems absent and cruel and the behavior of his followers puzzling if not down right evil, what if Stephen King is asking the same of us?" (105) The answer seems to be yes. 

King addresses the view of a doctrinal God he was given from the perspective of a young child, a scary God with sometimes worse followers, in most of his work. And with such an understanding of the divine, he forces us to answer for our beliefs. What God do you believe in? How do you follow God? What horrors have you released onto creation? As a Lutheran I am the first to admit that I am both a sinner and a saint, a flawed human being, but still called as a disciple and a child of God in baptism. It is living in the messiness of the world where I can let God's love shine forth in the darkness. 

As I am writing this, a friend of mine just texted me voicing frustration over ministering to a difficult pastoral care situation. I will not go into details, but it is a hellish situation that no person should experience. However, as a pastor-to-be I know that God has called me by name, sends me into the shit of life, and equips me to be the divine peace, hope, and comfort in any given situation. News flash everyone...so are you. Discipleship calls us in all of our imperfections to minister to each other, even if that situation is as frightening as a Stephen King novel. Despite what life throws at you, despite the questions without clear cut answers if any at all, despite living in the gray not so black and white world, take consolation that we are a resurrection people who will overcome the scary, the horrific, and the macabre. We will not come out unscathed, we will be beaten and bruised. But we will come out...and that is worth living for.

Peace,

Tom

P.S. Here is a list of my favorites from Stephen King

• Dreamcatcher
• The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
• The Green Mile Series
• The Shining

Go ahead, make my day

Per a request that came in via email, I am going to look at an actor from the 1970s that has helped define the genre of action film in this decade...Clint Eastwood.

Clint Eastwood helped to make horror the acceptable way to do business in many of his films such as Dirty Harry where he plays a homicide detective who deals out his brutal form of justice as he sees fit. He is an antihero in a sense, but we root for his success none the less. We cheer him on in his murderous deeds because he kills "for the greater good," to stop the criminals before they can incur further damage on innocent people.

Many of us have experienced such ethical and moral dilemmas where we want and encourage the Dirty Harry in our lives to step forth and take care of the justice that no one is willing to do. But at what cost do we make this move? Do we lose a bit our our life and faith each time we go to such lengths? Or are we strengthened in our resolve and beliefs? It seems to me that we tread a slippery slope when we deify such action and people. Sure there are times when bold action is needed to help save the world (such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer), but do we need to mindlessly kill all criminals without due process?

It seems as though Eastwood himself struggled with such the violent ethics of Dirty Harry. Writer Garreth Higgins notes Eastwood's transition from movies where violence was strictly the underlying motive of his characters, to the point of his characters (Don't Stop Believin', 73). In 1992's Unforgiven Eastwood is a mercenary cowboy who's soul diminishes each time he kills. In 2003 he directed Mystic River that tells the adage that the sins of the father always continue, but he adds that it does so in horrific and community destroying ways. Higgins further comments on this development, "By this stage, Eastwood was clearly saying that he knew bullets did not stop anything: they merely perpetuated the cycle of violence" (73).

However, Clint Eastwood further atoned for his sinful characters of the past by his direction of Million Dollar Baby, Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, and Gran Torino In each of these films he plumbs the depths of humanity: fear, pride, lust for power, racism, and stubbornness. Eastwood's later films have expressed a sort of regret for his earlier works, but have none the less used violence as a way to teach the world  that violence does not always solve the case as Dirty Harry may have argued.

Which Eastwood resonates with you better, the younger or older?

Taking requests for next week...the 1980s!
-Tom

Stan Lee and Marvel Comics

I apologize that it has been so long since my last post! It seems as though a vacation and trying to catch up with the speed of a church is a lot more time consuming than I had planned. Anyways, back to our series on faith in U.S. pop culture.

Admittedly I was never much of a comic book kid. I was much more interested in playing outdoors and collecting sports trading cards. Whatever reading I did was from a traditional book as opposed to comics. However, there has been a huge resurgence in the interest of comic book heroes. Look at all the movies that have been made recently: a new Batman series, two Spiderman series, the Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, Ironman, X-Men, Superman, and I am sure there are others I am forgetting. It seems as though that as the baby boomer generation has aged,  Hollywood is playing back to the nostalgic past for many of the men by bringing their childhood heroes to the silver screen. Not to mention they are simultaneously introducing these heroes to a new generation of fans.

But let's go back to the actual comics of the 1960s. DC comics had been producing comics with heroes that were stoic and not easily related to. And so Stan Lee and Marvel comics arrived on the scene wanting to change that. Lee focused on creating characters that fans could empathize with and know their experiences. This included taking on the difficult hot topics of his time such as war, racism, and sexism. The end result was an ethic of a superhero, fighting evil wherever it rears its ugly head. Anthony R. Mills writes, "Lee's ethics, moreover, are anything but passive. He is a firm believer that all of us have a duty to fight evil and injustice wherever we find it, and to whatever extent we are able" (Don't Stop Believin', 49). 

So how in the world does this relate to faith? First I would like to note that Lee's humanistic approach can aid us in our views on the person of Jesus Christ. So often we think of Jesus as the risen Lord and untouchable. But what about when Jesus is so angry that he flips over tables in the temple? What about when he sweats blood in the garden? And what about his lament from the cross, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Indeed these few instances show us that Jesus was most certainly human and not just a holographic image of the divine on earth. As Christians we confess in the paradox that Jesus was both fully God and fully human. By focusing too much on the holy, we relegate the human side of Jesus to the profane at the expense of ourselves. Much like Lee's attempts to create heroes that readers can relate to, the gospels show us a savior who experiences things just like us! The divine coming to live as one of us is a bold move by God indeed. But it was a move that showed the radical extremes to which God goes to know creation and to save creation from the powers of sin. 

Another way in which Lee's ethic of the superhero helps us in our faith today is to model a way of life. Lee shows us that these heroes are flawed and go through the same struggle we do, so why can't we be superheroes too? To review the above quote from Mills, we have the duty to fight evil wherever it arises. We are charged by God with the gift of an ability to act in the face of such troubling issues. We need to live into that vocation and be the superheros we were made to be! Can you imagine what a world would look like if we donated some money  or food to food shelves or if we ate only what our bodies needed? I am guessing hunger would no longer be an issue. Can you imagine if we stood up against environmental violence? I assume that global warming would begin to web away. No matter where you find yourself, try and be a superhero today. You just might change and save the world!

That's all for now. Next post will be on the 1970s...any requests?

The Man in Black

For the past two years or so I have been intrigued and interested in where people find faith or God in pop culture. Previous posts of mine have gotten at this when I have discussed film or music. However, pop culture is so much bigger than those two genres. Pop culture includes fashion, fads, art, and so much more. To help feed my interest in these areas of life I recently started reading a book, Don’t Stop Believin’: Pop Culture and Religion from Ben-Hur to Zombies, edited by Robert K. Johnston, Craig Detweiler, and Barry Taylor. In this work these editors, along with a multitude of authors, attempt to find theological words for 101 of the most influential pop culture happenings by tracing them through recent decades (starting in the 50s and progressing through today). So far it is a stimulating read because each entry is not terribly long and provides excellent food for thought. In order to further engage this work and the cultural items addressed I thought it might be appropriate to lift up one of the entries each week starting in the 50s. While this will take a bit of time to complete, it will not restrict other entries that may come to mind! So let’s look at the 50s with the legendary Johnny Cash.

The 1950s: Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash is heralded as one of the best musicians in country music by many people, though his musical talents also expanded to the genres of rock and roll, blues, gospel, and folk. Despite his musical prowess and success he faced a serious addiction to drugs, alcohol, and even attempted to commit suicide in 1968. However, from that experience he was able to articulate that he felt God’s presence with him in the darkest moments of his life. But does it take such extremes to find God? Maybe, maybe not. God’s presence is everywhere, we just sometimes turn blind eyes and deaf ears to that still small voice calling out to us. Sometimes it takes extremes to wake us from the stupor that can be the mundane of everyday life to realize that life is in fact full of the divine. And yet maybe we need to simply take hold of those ears God gives us to hear the divine’s melody in the everyday.

After his suicide attempt Johnny Cash tried to turn his life around by resisting alcohol and drugs, however it was a battle he waged for the rest of his life. But by the early 1970s Cash had become “the man in black,” which was in stark contrast to the flashy rhinestone suits and boots of many of his contemporaries. Barry Taylor reports on this distinct way of dressing as having deep meaning:

He wrote a song, “The Man in Black,” to explain his dress, saying, “just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back / up front there ought to be a man in black” He went on to sing that he wore black on behalf of the poor and hungry, the imprisoned, the elderly, and those betrayed by addictions and the “lives that could have been” (6).

One could say that Cash lived his faith and values on his sleeve in a clear and tangible manner. Do we dare do the same? And if so how do we it? I can think of two very visible ways in which some do this: tattoos and clerical collars. Tattoos, especially of the religious type, seem to communicate a Christian leaning in faith life. However, we all know that humanity lives in the paradox of being both saints and sinners and such tattoos may not accurately describe our faith or how we live it. Many reality TV stars have crosses on their arms or backs, but they can be seen doing some rather, well, stupid things. Wondering around drunk, engaging in meaningless casual sex, and fighting other people. It seems that in such situation the cross is relegated to an accessory. But there are other who do commit to a religious tattoo and live a less extreme life, but a life of the saint/sinner paradox none the less.

Yet, in my experience the clerical collar is the most tangible way people can see my faith, although it is a mixed bag. Some people have called me “father” or “padre,” others look at me and smile, some just look at me and scoff, and worse some look at me with suspicion. The clerical collar communicates different things for different people. But I like to think of myself in tune with Johnny Cash’s song for wearing black. I want my black shirt with a white tab to be a symbol of a God who stands up and acts on behalf of the poor, oppressed, sick, and suffering. A God who lifts up the lowly, scatters the proud, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away empty (see Luke 1). If such a faith can be communicated by a man in black, I hope it can be communicated by me in a clerical collar.

Wearing our faith is a difficult subject to discuss because we all have our good days and our bad. And yet we are continually drawn back into conversation with God. My prayer is that God inspires us all to be so bold to wear our faith for the world to see as well as ears and eyes to witness God’s work in the world. But if we find ourselves struggling to find these instances of God’s presence, I hope we have the patience and imagination to awaken to that still, small voice calling us by name. 

Peace,
Tom

Celluloid Dreams

"The same God who spoke through dreams and visions in the Bible is still communicating through our celluloid dreams - the movies."     

-Craig Detweiler, Into the Dark

At my internship site we have what we call "God Moments" in the liturgy for each worship service. One of the pastors or a member of the congregation is invited to identify where they have recently found God in their life. It could be as simple as attending a grandchild's first communion, getting into college, or finding strength while being unemployed. These God Moments are ways in which we can share the divine in tangible ways from our life, ways in which we have likely shared a similar experience. But God does not occasionally break through the din of the world to speak to us, God is always working in the world. So why not look to everyday mediums to find God? In a culture that is extremely visual, movies seem to be the best way to look for God. Such a discourse needs to happen because God is not trapped within the confines of a congregation, God is out and about doing big things! We need to get caught up.

When we look at movies to find God, faith, inspiration, or ethics we need to do so through the lens of general revelation. This term can be defined as God revealing something about the divine through the created order. It is general because it gives indirect information about God that is available to all humankind. For example, when someone sees a sunrise or a sunset they might be filled with awe and come to know that there is higher being that has created such a majestic world. This is different than special revelation which focuses on God's revelation of salvation history within Scripture. General revelation tends to look outside of the Bible, though there are instances of general revelation within it. Such an approach makes sense because we find God not only in Scripture, but also within our lives. It is by being open to God's general revelation that we can notice God sneaking up on us through unlikely people and unexpected situations.

However, we must also be literate of the nuances in film that communicate such revelations from God through the writer, director, editor, make-up artist, cinema photographer, etc. In Robert K. Johnston's excellent work Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue he notes a few things for people to take note of when viewing a film alongside theology. Among them are editing, setting, composition, lighting, color, camera, special effects, imagery, opening credits/sequence, and the ending. To put all of this in practice is a lot of work. But with continued use it becomes easier to pick up on these things. Let's engage such a task with an example.

Last night I watched The Pianist (2002) for the first time and I was impressed to say the least. This film is about Wladyslaw Szpilman (played by Adrian Brody), a Polish Jew, who is a brilliant pianist and the movie follows him as he witnesses the encroachment of the Nazis into Warsaw. As the Nazis gain control, he is forced into the Jewish ghetto with his family only to be shipped out to labor camps. However, he escapes and tries to live within the ruins of Warsaw. But what is God revealing in a film focusing on the past?

The Pianist forces us to look at matters of perseverance, how much we can tolerate, and what courage can we muster in the face of wartime horrors. In this film Brody's character does not become one of the resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, rather he blends into his surroundings in order to survive. Craig Detweiler notes, "The Pianist represents a rare instance when passivity in a title character works. We cheer for him to vanish, to go unnoticed" (Into the Dark). It seems to me that this works because such passivity is the experience of many people. Yes people have convictions, but when action is necessary some prefer to blend into the background and vanish as opposed to risking their life for vocal expression. It begs us to reflect on what we would in his situation. It shows us that God was most certainly present with those in the death and labor camps of the Nazi regime, but also in the frantic hiding of so many others.

This movie also reveals the divine through music. So often we find holiday music in congregations moving and inspirational. It holds a certain nostalgic quality that brings us back to a time when things were better, when innocence was maintained. Music in this film plays a similar role. As a musician Szpilman lives to play, but can't when he must keep quiet to evade detection. However, later in the film he must play for a German officer in order to live, and play he does. The piece is haunting yet life giving, frantic and peaceful, beautiful and tragic. It is this song that saves his life. It is through music that God's hand is at work.

However through our lens of general revelation we must also take into account that the German officer becomes the source of salvation (as opposed to the cruelty of other Nazis throwing a man in a wheelchair out of a window for not standing to greet them). God works through Szpilman's enemy to give him life and sustenance. Such a twist in the narrative forces viewers to look to "the other" as a means of divine activity in the world.

More can be said about The Pianist, but this was just a cursory exercise. My intention was to awaken sleeping eyes to God working through unconventional means, the movies. Paying attention to film and television may then serve as a primer to looking for God throughout our entire lives. Music, relationships, work, chores, sports, hobbies, eating, walking, breathing. God is in all of it, God is in our life redeeming and reconciling the world in fantastic ways. May we discover such love everyday.

Peace,
Tom

Living in the Questions

The latest  findings from the American Bible Society (ABS) are unfortunately not that surprising. ABS, a non-profit and non-denominational organization, recently conducted a study to determine the state of the Bible in the U.S. for the year of 2014 and found that just as many people are engaged with the Bible as are skeptical of the Bible. Some definitions need to be addressed here. "Engaged" was defined as "believing the Bible is the actual or inspired word of God with no factual errors, or believe the Bible is the inspired word of God with some factual errors; and read the Bible everyday or at least four times per week." Conversely, "skeptical" was defined as "those who selected the most negative or non-sacred view of the Bible from five options, saying they believe the Bible is just another book of teachings written by men, containing stories and advice."

So what do we make of the fact that 19% of the people polled are skeptical or engaged? It seems to me that the reality of a "post-Christian" culture is becoming more and more clear. It is our duty to engage this culture shift. One of my favorite professors at Luther Seminary, Christian Scharen, recently posted on his Facebook page a response to these findings:

"Especially interesting to see how Pew Research findings on Millenials regarding lack of religious affiliation directly connects with viewing the Bible as irrelevant. Just another bit of evidence supporting the case of cultural disestablishment of Christianity and the need for Christians to be able to tell the stories of faith in ways that 'ring true' to the lives of those who are disconnected from faith...If newcomers 'think' we in the church have all the answers, and they are the only people with questions, they'll be less likely to ask them and we'll be less likely to engage in good conversation about what really matters in their spiritual lives."

Truer words could not have been written.

The church often takes on the persona of being a spiritual feeding station, used by people weekly or when convenient. It has been given the identity of a place to find answers by a culture that once was Christian. But what has happened since our world has become less and less influenced by the Christian faith? People have questioned the "norms" of various congregations and denominations. And then the numbers decline, involvement drops, funds dry up, faith falters. This is our fault. This growing number of disenchanted people has been growing because we have ignored their spiritual needs, failed to discern responses with them to their questions, have ignored the changing culture, and have forgotten what it is to imagine a different way of being.

It is our task to rethink what it means to be church. Does that mean worshiping in a certain way? Does it mean doing certain ministries? Or does it mean discovering what God is up to in the world and participating with God in those ventures no matter where they may lead us?

One such way that Scharen mentions is embracing and encouraging questions. Since when does God shy away from questions? Throughout the Bible we see people questioning God and God interacting with them! Moses did it. Job did it. The disciples did it. They all had questions because they didn't get it, and neither do we! How dare we assume that we have a monopoly on faith because we identify as a Christian or "engaged" with the Bible. If anything, the Bible encourages us to ask questions and to wrestle with God over paramount matters. Just because we may be steeped within a tradition does not mean that such a way is the way, rather that it is an interpretation of the way Jesus set before us in his ministry.

If we can think about who we are called to be as a church in new ways, then we are starting to ask questions about ourselves and that is good. But the next step is to live in the messiness of questions from people who do not identify as "churched" or active in their faith. We need to express that we may not have answers, but instead have responses to their wonderings. We need to welcome questions, we need to welcome doubt, we need to welcome all people. In doing so we radically live out the Lord's Table where all are invited to the feast of God as the body of Christ.

Asking questions and discerning responses directly ties in with the ELCA’s mission model of accompaniment. Briefly, accompaniment can be defined as emphasizing mutual respect, mutual decision making, and mutual support, building each other’s capacity to participate in God’s mission, and recognizing gifts that each party has in God’s mission (ELCA, The Accompaniment Model). Because the act of asking questions is open to all people regardless of ideas, opinions, or worldviews, this engagement with people does not set out to convert the "unchurched." Rather discussing questions seeks to build up community and relationships through talking about God. A natural byproduct of such discussion is a deepened faith through the vehicle of exploring new and different takes on faith. While the ELCA Global Mission unit has taken on this relationship model of mission, we can use it in the post-Christian culture as well. The Global Mission unit states, “When a good relationship is nurtured first, companion church bodies can more freely discuss priorities and make decisions” (“Accompaniment is Relationship,” ELCA Global Mission). It seems to me that accompaniment via living in questions can be used to build relationships here at home to cross the secular, religious, and ideological divides that exist in our culture. 

Questions can be the seeds of our faith. When we let them be still in stagnant soil they will not grow nor will they establish deep roots. When we till the soil with questions we allow the seeds of faith the opportunity to blossom into whatever they may be. That is what we are called to do. We as a church need to assist in that process by welcoming questions with the hopeful outcome of a more engaged, though still post-Christian population.

We live in a reality that loves questions. From instant replay in sporting events, to testing knowledge, to finding answers to questions. It's a brave new world for ministry, we just need to catch up to what God is already doing by embracing and living in the questions.

Peace,
Tom

Roll Jordan Roll

I cannot sing, that is a fact.

Ask anyone in my life and they will tell you that they would prefer to never here my singing voice again! It's not like I haven't tried, I just sing too flat or too sharp, or just simply too poorly. My wife encourages me to sing in the shower and the shower alone. My dog cocks his head from side to side as if he is confused to what wailing noise is coming from my mouth. And my mother tells me that I get it from my grandfather. He was a pastor of a small Latvian immigrant congregation in Minneapolis. One Sunday he forgot to turn off his microphone and the congregation heard him singing. At the end of the service one of the congregants informed him what happened and told him to make sure it is always turned off so they wouldn't have to hear his singing voice again. 

Singing is clearly not my gift, but it is hard not to be inspired by music. Throughout my life I have listened to and loved all types of music. Country, classical, blues, folk, rock, I love it all. However, some music goes beyond simple toe-tapping and dancing. Some music speaks to your soul and could be the soundtrack of your life. That is the music that lives within you, that empowers you, that voices your experience. The ancient philosopher Plato said, "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." Such is that music that transcends all others and moves you into the world as an inspired being.

Lately I have found such music to be calling to me from the simplistic and soulful Delta Blues, the peaceful plucking of an acoustic guitar in Folk music, and the can't help but dance Jump Blues. However, more than most I have found myself clinging to and embracing slave songs from the American south. The passionate and profoundly truthful expressions of their experience moves me. It helps me appreciate their lives, it forces me to see God as a slave with them, it makes me want to be a better person, it makes me want to give these people the justice they so richly deserved. And through all of this, inspired by these songs, God is calling me to be a pastor. Though I cannot sing, that is something I want to be in tune with.

Perhaps the most poignant example from recent culture is the incredible film 12 Years a Slave. This movie is based on the life of Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man living in New York state who was abducted and sold into slavery. Against all odds, insidious cruelty, hate, and oppression he held onto his dignity and hope that one day he would be free. During the film one of his fellow slaves died in the field and the slave community gathered for his funeral. During this ceremony we witness Solomon's transformation from defeat to hope through a song titled "Roll Jordan Roll." While this rendition is only partially original, it speaks volumes to Solomon's character. At first he hesitates and resists joining in, but soon he sings. And as he does, he adds a specific blues style voice that gives further texture and emotion to the song.

So where is God in all of this? Everywhere, for better or for worse. We see the slave owners preaching their version of the Christian message throughout this film, all the while the slaves have taken that same message and interpreted it differently. The slaves have taken the Christian faith and subverted it against the slave owners in order to express their needs and messages that are most relevant for them. In "Roll Jordan Roll" we hear about the river Jordan, John the Baptist, and the hopes of getting into heaven. All of these can be interpreted in a faithful manner, but also in a coded fashion. In terms of faith the song speaks to enduring the persecution that Jesus and the disciples faced everyday during Jesus' time on earth, it speaks to being claimed as a child of God, and it speaks to equality before God. As a code the song gives endurance in the face of despair as well as hinting at the Mississippi River serving as a guide north.

I cannot sing, this is a fact. 

But what I can do is preach, teach, and share the good news of a God who sings in solidarity with the oppressed. A God who weeps at the whipping of slaves. A God who works with abolitionists to make freedom a legal reality for all of humanity. A God who works through unexpected means to bring about redemption for the world. A God who dies for us on the cross of Good Friday. That is the God I know. That is the God I believe in, who is active throughout the world working for justice, peace, mercy, and salvation. Roll...Jordan.. roll.

-Tom

Mission in a New Light

How do you view mission? How does your congregation view mission? What the heck is it? The traditional approach to mission has been something we as churched people do in the world for somebody else who is need of assistance. Say, when we follow Jesus’ teachings to feed the hungry and clothe the poor we are doing mission. This definition also has the nasty habit of becoming commonplace and stagnant. For example, many churches participate in a charity of their city. When asked why they do this, often times the only answer people can give is, “Because we have always done it.” What is the point of doing something that has fallen from importance and become so normal, perhaps even peripheral, that it is no longer given any thought? Why is such a ministry significant? How is it participating in mission? Professor Chris Scharen of Luther Seminary helps us rethink the concept of mission and in doing so opens us up to divine creativity.

In a recent blog post for Luther Seminary’s Ministry in Context, Scharen argues that an understanding of mission where some of “us” in the church help “other people” is no longer fit for a world where the culture continues to become more and more post-Christian. In this sense, post-Christian means that the world’s culture is no longer Christian dominant and it’s influence as a religion no longer holds it as prevalent in modern thinking. So what do we do? Do we give up and let the church die by continuing to do things as if the church were rapidly growing as it was in the 50s? No.

Scharen offers up the following approach to mission in our world:                                                                                          

What if we understand mission as less about what we do and more about what God is doing?  God is loving and reconciling the world, and God, we claim, catches us up intothat work — all of us, all the time.  That is a pretty exciting vision for being church, and it just might change what we think mission means.   

                                                                                                               

Such an attitude toward mission seems to me to be full of energy and life. It forces us as a people of God to discern what God is up to in our communities as a congregation, as a local city or town, and as a larger world. Such discernment may lead us to familiar answers, but it also may lead into a bold new direction.

At my internship we have partnered with the high school across the street to address the hunger problem many students are facing. Over 80% of the students participate in the free or reduced lunch programs because they are financially incapable of providing regular meals. My internship site has created a backpack program where the neediest students are identified and given backpacks filled with food for the weekend, enough for a family of four to have 3 meals on Saturday and Sunday. We call it “Polar Packs.” The response from this congregation has been resounding in their continued giving and enthusiasm for this ministry and has opened the door to future partnerships between these neighbors.

During the first month of the program’s activity, a student received a backpack with an added bonus, a cake mix with frosting. As the student and her mother baked it together on Sunday afternoon they decided that the cake was not going to be dessert, it was going to school with her. The student brought it to a class taught by one of the Polar Pack organizers saying, “We wanted to say thank you and give back what we can.” From that simple backpack she was moved to give back from the abundance she received and bless others with her blessing.

Another example from my internship and a new vision of mission is my personal project, Pub Theology. Such a ministry is certainly not new or innovative, but I viewed it as a practical medium in which to hopefully reengage the younger adults of the congregation in a life of faith. For years I have been interested in the Catholic Church's "Theology on Tap" where a group of people get together in a bar and have a Bible study or watch a presentation from a church leader. What a great idea! However, as I have continued my seminary journey I started to question why the people can't have their own discussions without the guidance from a church official. Why can't we let loose and freely discuss matters of faith while the Spirit take us where it wills? This, joined with a desire to have people reconnect to their faith in an informal and non-threatening environment and a plethora of fantastic local craft breweries, Pub Theology was born.

As I began to formulate my ideas about how to make this happen I did some research and discovered Bryan Berghoef's books on this very subject. I blazed through these works with eager excitement and a burning desire to get something like this going. And so I did. With only four meetings under our belts we are still working out the kinks, but have had fantastic discussions about things ranging from the definition of evil to the authority of the Bible in our culture. These open, faith-filled, respectful conversations have allowed people from the target group of twenty and thirty somethings to the elders an avenue to express their faith in a bold new way. My hopes and prayers are that such experiences allow them to live their faith out loud and not in the quiet of their Sunday morning hearts and minds.

So are these two ministries that I have offered up in tune with Scharen’s view of mission? I say yes. In each case the founders of the programs have prayerfully listened to the needs of the community, paired it with their vocational interests, were open to where God was leading the community of faith, and sought out opportunities to participate with God’s preexisting action in the world.

I hope whoever reads this blog is to take on Chris Scharen’s definition of mission. I guarantee you will be energized and open to where God is calling you right now, where God is calling the church right now, and where God is calling the world. May you be as bold as Abraham to listen to God’s command to leave your comfortable surroundings, may you be as brave as Moses to debate with the divine, and may you be as courageous as the disciples to openly ask questions and wrestle with the big issues. This is what it is going to take to move mission in a post-Christian world. So, how are you getting involved with what God is already up to?