Mother’s Day, it seems, has become a sacred festival. Not many churches across our country fail at least to mention mothers on “their day”, which is this Sunday. Many churches have mothers and motherhood as the theme of worship and the sermon.

Odes to Mom are shared. Special music is played, often accompanying a slide show of pictures that make everyone cry. And Proverbs 31 is read – at least verses 28-29 that mention a mother’s children and husband praising her.

I wonder how many churches honor our Mother who gave life to us all – Christ?

One of the most beautiful theologies of what happened on the cross was given to the world by Julian of Norwich. At the age of 31 and a half (ca. 1373), she suffered from a potentially life-ending illness. As she neared death, Julian experienced sixteen intense revelations, or “showings”, as she named them, of Jesus.

Upon recovering, Julian wrote a narration of the visions. This recording, along with a theological expansion of each showing written about 20-30 years later became Revelations of Divine Love. Julian’s work is believed to be the first book written in the English language by a woman.

Unique to Julian’s theology is the motherhood of God. Beyond giving us life via creation, God lovingly took a greater step in bearing us to eternal life. Christ revealed himself to Julian as mother, the mother who gave all of humanity new life through the labor pains of the cross.

[Our] great God, the most sovereign wisdom of all … dressed himself in our poor flesh to do the service and duties of motherhood in every way. The mother’s service is the closest, the most helpful and the most sure, for it is the most faithful. No one ever might, nor could, nor has performed this service fully but he alone. We know that our mothers only bring us into the world to suffer and die, but our true mother, Jesus, he who is all love, bears us into joy and eternal life; blessed may he be! So he sustains us within himself in love and was in labor for the full time until he suffered the sharpest pangs and the most grievous sufferings that ever were or shall be, and at the last he died. And when it was finished and he had borne us into bliss, even this could not fully satisfy his marvelous love, and that he showed in these high surpassing words of love, ‘If I could suffer more, I would suffer more.’[1]

Look at the meaning of the cross in this atonement theory: God is not angry. God is not demanding recompense for sin or a perfect blood sacrifice. God is displaying love, love and more love.

The cross is God’s way of showing humanity the extravagant extents God will go to help us understand how deeply, widely and completely we are loved.

Not only does Christ our mother suffer out of amazing love to bring us to eternal life, he nourishes us by feeding us himself – his body and blood that are our Sacrament. He also nurses us “through his sweet open side”. And as we nurse, Christ looks up on us, his children and rejoices: “Look how I love you.”

Human mothers blow it. All of us who were born of mothers and raised by them (or not) could tell our own tales. Those of us who are mothers could list a myriad of ways that we fear we’ve messed up our kids for life. No human mother is perfect.

A perfect Mother does exist, though – the one who will not let us down, abandon us, embarrass us, bully us, abuse us, nor ever stop loving us. Jesus labored and gave us life so that we might live, and have life abundantly.

Hug or remember your Mama this weekend. Then give praise, glory and honor to your Christ your Mother. Great things he hath done.

[1] Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Elizabeth Spearing (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 141.

About Today’s Guest Post

Angie Mabry-Nauta is a theologian, freelance writer and speaker in Plano, TX.  She is an ordained Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), and served in congregational ministry for six years.  She blogs regularly at her own website, "Woman in Progress…" and for the RCA at the Church Herald Blogs. Follow her on Twitter @Godstuffwriter.

She was also listening to the big band music that I associate with a by-gone era.

All of the cool, hip things from 1963 did not connect with how we define cool and hip today.

Humor works the same way. Have you ever tried to watch an older comedy? Some comedians are timeless, but at a friend’s suggestion I watched a classic comedy that was made in 1938 and didn’t laugh once. It was described as hilarious and screwball by critics, but I was bored.

Fashion, music, comedy, and who knows what else shift and change so radically from one generation to another.  Each generation has its own way of expressing its values—anything from reverence to humor will shift from one generation to another.

Last week a lot of folks were sharing a stat from the new book called The Millennials which tries to give a picture of this generation’s relationship with the church. The big money statistic was this: 70% of millennial think the church is irrelevant.

I suppose I didn’t find that shocking. In light of how radically our culture shifts with merely our movies, how we relate to God is also bound to change. The church has a relevance problem today, but I don’t think it’s quite as bad as we think.

In fact, we don’t have to let it continue to be a huge problem.

The Relevance Problem

I attended a graduation ceremony for a Ukranian Catholic high school this summer, and the administration gave us a two for one: mass and a ceremony. The Ukranian Catholic Church has their own unique liturgy, and to be honest, I felt like Dr. Who had just taken me back in time.

I’m going to toss in a caveat at the end of this post about the value of our traditions and the importance of the liturgy, but we also should not be surprised that the liturgy developed at a particular time and place feels strange today. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I know that myself and many others today have a tough time meeting with God in that format.

We have similar problems with our other church formats today among Protestants. The only difference is that we’re removed by a few less generations. Honestly, even the rock music worship service that took hold among baby boomers doesn’t really connect with me.

Should we be surprised that the worship cultures of previous generations don’t work for Millennials today?

The Culture Problem with Worship

Our trouble is that we have a hard time sifting through our culturally determined forms and the timeless aspects of worship that should always remain. We should sing and make music to God as one form of worship, but how and when? What style of music should we pick?

We should teach scripture, but should we rely more on testimonies and sharing or formal sermons?

We should pray together, but should we recite prayers, rely on specific leaders to pray, or sit in silence listening for God?

We all want to worship God, but there are real generational differences that come into play when we gather together. The older generations have been at this longer and certainly have more wisdom in many ways, but who determines how the diverse body of Christ worships God?

God’s Flexibility with Culture

With a book like Coffeehouse Theology to my name, I’m certainly guilty of trying to figure out this business of theology, culture, and relevance. In today’s context, I like the idea of theology being paired with a conversation in a coffeehouse because it communicates to people today.

As I’ve studied scripture, I have a theory about God. I hold to it loosely, but here it is: God doesn’t care about culture all that much. He works with it and looks more on our hearts than the forms we choose. God’s preoccupation with the motives and actions of his people comes up over and over again in the prophets.

However, the trump card for me has been Solomon’s temple. God clearly showed up and inhabited that holy space, but when we compare Solomon’s temple to other religious structures from that time period, we find many striking similarities. In other words, God chose to reveal himself in a temple that was designed according to the culturally appropriate form of that day.

The people of Israel had an idea of how to worship a god, so the only God in the universe met them where they were because the cultural aspect isn’t too big a deal, provided they didn’t include practices that he opposed such as sacrificing infants or temple prostitution.

A Call for Simplicity?

If you fear that your church is either irrelevant or soon to be irrelevant—which is inevitable by the way—I’d like to suggest taking a deep breath. I’ve spent a lot of time stressing about this stuff too. I’ve tried to figure out what churches need to do in order to be relevant to this generation and the next.

Honestly, I think we just need to step back and relax.

As a veteran of the worship wars, I’ve seen how churches can get caught up in fighting over one worship form or another. Some days I wished that church just didn’t have music at all during the worship service. While I think we can still use music in our worship services, perhaps the solution is simplicity.

Whatever forms we invest in will one day pass. Whatever we hold onto, we’ll have to let go of in one form or another. We still need to pray, worship, teach, and share communion together. However, our forms will shift and change over time. The more we invest in making one form perfect and standard, the harder it will be connect with each new generation.

We spend all of this time trying to figure out how the next generation meets with God because they don’t want to come to our churches. So we go through a painful change process, codify whatever the “new” thing is, and then we freak out when the next generation after that one finds our hard-won innovations irrelevant.

“Culturally relevant worship” is a hamster wheel that will prevent us from focusing on the encouragement, mission, prayer, and teaching we could do a bit better if we kept our worship of God simple.

We will always incorporate values and practices from our particular culture. I mean, there are a lot of sanctuaries these days that look like coffee shops and that’s not an accident. However, perhaps the way forward isn’t to stress over preserving a form or finding a new form.

Perhaps the answer is to strip everything down to simple worship gatherings, whether you’re old school with 3 hymns and sermon or new and hip with a rock band. The less we invest in preserving or creating a culturally relevant form, the better prepared we will be to welcome the next generation. My guess is that in attempting to keep things simple, we’ll incorporate some things from our culture, but we’ll make our transition easier from one generation to the next rather than passing through some cataclysmic shift to another.

If we always have a time for teaching, but we don’t stress over the form it takes, perhaps we’ll be able to find more time for mission and reaching out to those who need to experience the freedom of God’s Kingdom.

Culture will always find us, but the less we invest in it, the less we have to lose.

We probably can’t be relevant, but we can be real.

One Last Caveat…

Having said all of this, I think there is a lot of value in learning from our traditions, especially the liturgies passed onto us. I’m glad we have churches who keep liturgies going because that form of worship seems very valuable even if I don’t participate in it every Sunday.

I used to fret, “The ‘truly Reformed’ are going to wreck evangelicalism! They’re going to turn it into a new kind of fundamentalism!”

I’m sure the truly Reformed picture me attacking the Bible with large scissors, chopping out the parts I don’t like, using US Weekly as my guide.

That was awesome because then I could feel attacked and misrepresented. I not only got to think I was right, I could attack the truly reformed with righteous indignation. “How dare you caricature me!”

I don’t do that anymore—even though I sometimes feel the old righteous indignation simmering.

I’ve learned to not care about the word “evangelical” as a label or group to protect for the future. The label evangelical as a cause doesn’t have too much value. While I am committed to what I believe evangelicalism stands for, it’s not my job to “protect” the label. I can preserve the label by embodying what it stands for

That being said, we can make a huge mistake if we act like evangelicalism doesn’t matter. It certainly does.

Evangelical History Matters

For starters, we need to understand how evangelicalism impacts us historically—especially if you claim that label for yourself. A friend of mine was talking about the way churches emphasize evangelism to the point that you’d think that it’s the only thing we exist for. Hint: we don’t.

I thought he did a great job of perceiving how an important practice, sharing the Gospel, came to define evangelicals to the point that we sometimes forget to mention that the greatest commandment is to love God. If we figure out the Great commandment, we’ll eventually figure out the Great Commission—not the other way around.

Speaking for myself, I have been shaped by evangelicalism profoundly. I react to the shortcomings of evangelicalism and cling to its strengths. I need the evangelical label in order to remind myself where my beliefs come from, what I tend to do well, and what I need to do better.

Fighting for the Evangelical Future?

While I am committed to preserving many of the good things that come from evangelicalism, I’m not interested in theological or ministry turf wars to define it. “Evangelical” has always been a slippery term, and I can see now that I’ve spent way too much time worrying about the details of the label, rather than actually embodying its best attributes.

From what I can tell, evangelicalism didn’t necessarily arise because a bunch of pastors and theologians got together and said, “Yo, we need some kind of broad coalition with specific theological parameters so that we can all be more awesome.”

God worked in congregations, pastors, theologians, and missionaries in a variety of congregations, and as they all committed themselves to the Gospel and found common ground in their preaching, daily living, and service to others.

The banner didn’t come first.

People followed Jesus, joined together, and then formed a banner under which to gather.

Evangelicalism is not about the banner. It’s about the work of God among a broad group of people committed to the Good News that Jesus is Lord. Let’s commit ourselves to Christ above all else, and let the labels come as they will.

Perhaps we need a new label. Maybe we can sort out our differences in the evangelical camp. To be honest, I’m not too worried about it now. I’d rather let God work among and through us, and let the labels fall where they may.

The future is in God’s hands, and in light of that, I’m not worried about the future of evangelicalism. As for today, I’m committed to the Gospel. Am I an evangelical? It depends who you ask at this point…

I used to lead worship. Hymns were my enemy. I always lost my place in the verses. The chord changes were insane. And they usually ended with some wondrous transport to the gleaming starry hosts of heaven while the earth boiled and flamed below under God’s judgment.

Not exactly the “Kingdom of God coming to earth” theology I prefer…

And then I attended a wedding where everyone in the wedding party sang professionally in a church choir.

Hymns made sense in that context. Hymns are a different kind of animal from my preferred poppy, classic rock songs. They reflected the theology, music, and culture of a different time and/or style. They weren’t irrelevant. They were just different.

I could sing hymns by way of honoring another tradition and learning from it.

As we  look at the shifts in American Christianity of late, I’d like to start with worship. Worship is the low-hanging fruit that will give us a pretty clear picture of what has happened among American Protestants of late and what we should do now since it is often influenced dramatically by culture.

What Has Happened

One of the themes I’m going to hammer on this week is the ignorance of evangelicals regarding their past. When it comes to forms of worship, we have always mingled biblical worship with our culture. It’s inevitable.

We could (like some authors) call many of the influences on our worship “pagan,” but in reality there is no one biblical model for worshipping God. We are always adapting biblical worship with forms that are familiar to us. Therefore it shouldn’t surprise us that each new generation is looking for ways to worship God that feel familiar.

Even if we tried to worship in stripped down house churches along the most strictly biblical lines we can figure out, I’m certain that future generations will one day critique us for allowing the hyper-individuality of postmodernism to fragment our worship into small, independent (not interdependent) meetings that function very little like the “body” of Christ.

Robert Webber has written about our recent worship shifts as liturgy has become popular among many who were raised in lower church traditions. Dan Kimball’s Emerging Church book focused on this as well, where he, in many ways, wrote about retooling typical evangelical worship services to incorporate a broader range of ancient prayer practices.

Whether we call it culture or we call it a generational shift, many Christians are seeking different forms of worship than what they knew 15-20 years ago. Many of these forms incorporate older elements such as weekly communion, scripture readings, and liturgical prayer.

As I’ve watched my own shifts from hymns to contemporary to a more liturgical form of worship, it’s tempting to say that one is more authentic or relevant than another. We can make value judgments about which one is the most authentic way to worship God, never mind the other formats of worship we don’t even consider from around the world.

In the past 15 years I’ve seen many Christians react against either a dry form of liturgy or a shallow form of contemporary worship. They are seeking a deeper experience with God, and oftentimes that search takes them to other forms of worship in various denominations.

What Should We Do Now?

As we try to hear God today, the forms of worship that take shape in various cultures, time periods, and regions will have different strengths and weaknesses, and we should expect them to change with time.

Perhaps in twenty years Christian worship music will have a more driving beat and a greater emphasis on a simple chorus—think Lady Gaga meets David Crowder. Perhaps worship services will place a greater emphasis on silence and holy space as our work and entertainment follow us wherever we go.

I can’t predict what the future will look like, but I can say that after glimpsing our past, we can expect more shifts. Liturgies will be modified. Some will seek a high church expression, while others will be drawn to a decentralized, simple meeting.

In a sense, we should critique the past. Our forms of worship need to change as we encounter God afresh in the present. However, we should not cut ourselves off from the past. More times than not, a people cut off from their past are at the mercy of the present culture and thereby more vulnerable to its influence.

In our worship we live in an “ancient-future” tension that Webber speaks of, though we recognize that we are all making different kinds of shifts. Some are leaving the ancient forms for the contemporary, while others are leaving the contemporary for the ancient forms. 

It should not surprise us that we’re passionate about our forms of worship. It’s important. And yet, we should not let our worship, that will be predictably diverse, cause more divisions than necessary.

Worship has always boiled down to meeting with the Lord, and a good worship service will create space and provide tools to accomplish that. Hymns are no holier than the latest pop worship song, since the real goal is leading us into God’s presence so that he can meet with his people and lead us.

When I prayed to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I moved from my Catholic upbringing to a conservative Baptist church. Everything with the Baptists was new, sometimes intense, and oddly exciting—it felt like a big deal.

Everyone sang loud in church. I read my Bible and prayed sometimes. Sermons were double or triple the length of most homilies. The Baptists and other conservative Christians I knew followed some strict rules, generally voted for Republicans, served on missions trips, and tried to read the Bible as literally as possible.

In the early 2000’s things started to shift for me.

I lightened up on my rules. I reconsidered my politics. I read and interpreted the Bible differently. Prayer didn’t seem to be working all that great. I learned about the beliefs of Christians from a variety of traditions, historical backgrounds, and continents. I burned out on the megachurch ministry model. I began to wonder if there were other ways to serve others.

Around the same time Christians from a variety of backgrounds, who were rethinking either all or some of these matters, began to make changes in these areas and to share the process online. A number of groups have emerg… er… taken shape over time as Christians have tried to sort this out.

I’m not too concerned with labels right now. Once we start using labels, folks get defensive or offensive depending on their perspectives, and to be frank, I want to keep this series of posts as broad as I can within the bounds of American Protestant Christianity, even if such posts are limited by the scope of my anecdotal evidence and research—meaning they’ll have an evangelical slant for the most part.

In brief, I want to ponder two questions about American Protestant Christianity:

1. What is wrong?
2. What should we do now?

Each of these questions will be applied to four different aspects of American Protestant Christianity

1. The Worship Shift
2. The Practice Shift
3. The Belief Shift
4. The Service Shift

Some groups have their fingers on what’s wrong, but have no idea what to do next. Others are befuddled by both questions. A few may have figured out both.

In each of these areas, I believe we can notice some general trends of late. I’ll speculate on what’s behind these trends, but for the most part, there are a large number of Christians today, especially those in the Gen Y and X categories (but not limited to them), who know that the faith of their childhood needs a serious upgrade if they’re going to stick with Jesus.

Now, there are some in the Gen Y and X camps who don’t see the need for this. Great for them. I hope they’re happy and fulfilled as they follow Jesus. However, for the rest of us who are struggling with things that don’t line up, I think it helps to consider what exactly is wrong and what we should do now.

I’ll be honest, when I realized that the rules and church meetings of my teen and college years left me feeling far from God and burned out, I grew angry and resentful. I complained a lot. The early years of this blog chronicle that quite well unfortunately.

In my early 20’s I was going through a kind of Christian puberty where things didn’t make sense and my frustrated confusion came out in the form of negative self-righteousness. Some good things happened too, but I can see in retrospect that I had no idea what was going on or what to do next.

I don’t think I’ll be able to untangle the state of American Protestant Christianity in four blog posts, but let’s be honest, Protestants, Evangelicals especially, have a terrible track record when it comes to knowing their past. I think some of the restlessness and discontent we are experiencing today is a direct result of that.

We can’t figure out the healthy future that God has planned for us if we can’t diagnose the root causes of what ails us. I don’t intend to be comprehensive or final in my assessment. I only offer my thoughts here as one piece of what will hopefully be a much larger process.

Tomorrow we’ll begin with the worship shift.

When I sit down to read the Bible, it’s sometimes tough to jump into the world of the Bible after I’m thinking about doing the dishes, my to-do list, or cleaning out the rabbit’s litter box.

Other times I can read it perfectly well, but don’t get much out of it. I think to myself, was that really worth it?

Yesterday we looked at some good reasons to read the Bible, but how exactly do we make sure our Bible reading is doing what it’s supposed to do? I know why I need the Bible and the ways it can bring me closer to God, but what should I do when it doesn’t meet that goal?

There are plenty of different approaches, and some may feel quite different from each other, which is kind of how things work in a relationship with God. There are no magic formulas.

Sit with a Few Verses for a While

Whether you call it Lectio Divina, meditation, or plain old prayer, meditating on a verse of scripture for a while is a great way absorb it and to let God speak to you. Read a passage of one or two verses slowly, sit with it, read it again, and let it soak in for another 5-10 minutes. Ask God to speak through the passage and pay attention to any words or concepts that jump out at you.

If you want to learn more about praying the Bible, check out my friend Lisa Delay’s site.

Read Big Chunks and Reread Smaller Portions

My favorite way to read the Bible involves a quick overview reading (4-5 chapters per day) followed by a slow follow up reading (1 chapter per day) of a particular book. I just began an overview reading of the book of 1 Corinthians, and I hope to follow that with a closer reading that focuses on how Paul addresses conflict and false teaching.

This approach helps me to see both the forests and the trees and helps me absorb a lot more of the biblical narrative so that God can use it in my life either today or in the future.

Try a Different Translation

The New Living Translation has helped me jump into my daily Bible reading much easier due to its readable style. I still use the New Revised Standard for serious study, but for daily reading, the right translation can launch you on your way.

Invest in Background Reading

This is the more academic part of Bible study, but really, anyone can do it in small chunks and enjoy the benefits. There may be dry moments when you’re reading a book or article about the background of a passage, but the more familiar you become with the biblical world, the more it will make sense.

How many other ancient books do we read on a regular basis? Would it really be a good idea to read ancient literature without some knowledge of the context and time?

To that end, we need Bible dictionaries, articles, introductions, and other books to set us straight. In addition, the Old Testament is critical background reading for the New Testament. Unless you understand the Old Testament Law, you won’t have an inkling of how revolutionary and controversial the actions of Jesus were.

While the background reading may put you to sleep, you’ll eventually read the Bible with your eyes wide open as you realize that these stories are about people just like us who wrestled with God and took leaps of faith.

For a little more on this, check out my brief E-book: How to Study the New Testament Like a Pro. You can download it as a PDF for free and will discover some simple free and low-cost ways to get more out of your Bible study time.

Still hungry for more? if you’re interested in New Testament background, dig into NT Wright’s The New Testament and the People of God and Jesus and The Victory of God.

Do you have a favorite book or resource for your own Bible study? What’s a must-have?

Today we continue my Christian Survival Guide series focusing on the topic: Sharing the Gospel.

Why do we share the Gospel?

Last week I talked about our motivation for sharing the Gospel. In brief, Jesus commanded us, and we have experienced the love and freedom of Christ. However, there may be another reason driving us.

We also fear what may become of those who resist the love of God.

Hell can be a powerful motivator, driving us to tell everyone we know that they need to follow Jesus or risk missing out on the life he offers in this world and in the world to come.

Do our beliefs about hell shape how we share the Gospel?

Do our beliefs about hell make us more up-tight when sharing the Gospel? With so much at stake, especially if we believe that hell brings eternal, conscious torment, I think it’s very possible that the love of God can be lost in the process. We can turn into messengers who only warn of a coming flood with a message of how to find safety.

That does not mean we should ignore hell. The Bible makes it quite clear that there are consequences for rejecting the love of God. However, sharing the Gospel is more about whether or not we will be with God, not whether or not we will be eternally punished. The former is relational and consistent with a Messiah who calls us his friends and his children, while the latter is a transaction.

And then there’s another possible response to thinking of hell as eternal, conscious punishment. We may block out the negative images from our mind. Is it perhaps so terrible that we cannot deal with it? In other words, can our view of hell drive us to the point that we fail to think about it?

I personally have wrestled with this. I almost can’t bear to think of hell and what it could mean for anyone, let alone someone I know. Hell has been a terrible abyss that I’m afraid to stare into, to consider, to wonder if it really is so.

Will a less terrible picture stop us from sharing the Gospel? Are there any possibilities for hell beyond eternal, conscious torment?

Can we know what is hell really like? Does it matter for sharing the Gospel?

At the most basic level, hell means separation from God. I think hell essentially can begin on earth as we make choices to move away from God’s caring rule. Being outside the Kingdom of God, as depicted in the Gospels, is a place of weeping and regret.

For the sake of argument, I’m going to rule out Purgatory and Universalism. While I know that some Christians believe in them, I’d rather focus on the ones that I and the majority of my readers here are likely to find more plausible. The traditional view of hell says there will be fire, darkness, and torment for eternity. The metaphorical view of hell states that hell exists but the details of New Testament are viewed as metaphor and hyperbole. Lastly, the conditional view proposes a hell where those within it are annihilated.

Will there be torment, suffering, and fire? Are we reading the scriptures as intended? A plain, literal reading does not work for poetry, metaphors, and hyperbole, and if we are mistaking metaphors and hyperbole for hard facts, we could be misrepresenting God and his plans for humanity.

It has been my suspicion that a real hell exists, but that the majority of references to fire and eternal suffering range toward metaphor and hyperbole ( I don’t have time to get into all of the arguments, but I’ll post links to other resources below to follow up). Jesus often used this Rabbinic teaching method (eg. “cut out your eye”), and many of the references to hell occurred in parables and stories. In addition, keep in mind that the Old Testament doesn’t speak of hell all that often. The dead go to Sheol, though a few later books like Daniel and the end of Isaiah make references to hell, which makes sense since the Intertestamental books of the same period also began to mention hell.

All that to say, we should be very, very careful when speaking of hell and using it as a motivating force in our evangelism. I think it is quite accurate to warn people about being separated from the love of God, but telling others they risk eternal, conscious punishment in flames and darkness (which when you come to think about it, doesn’t go together) may stray from the point. Will there be suffering in a state of separation from God? I have no doubt about it. But focusing on the nature of it, pulls us off course.

God desires that all people will come to know him. If we have also shared in the life he offers, we have two very good reasons to tell others about the good things God has done for us and to live differently because of the impact he has had. The consequences of rejecting him offer a third reason, but we should carefully consider the way hell impacts our evangelism.

For further reading on hell, see:

Four Views on Hell

Two Views of Hell

Wikipedia on Hell

Religion Facts on Hell

Have you ever noticed that the dictionary is a boring read. The plot is lacking, the main characters aren’t developed, and after the first few pages you know that you’re in for hundreds, if not thousands, of pages that  feel exactly the same.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about words and language.

And while the dictionary is organized alphabetically, it’s terribly difficult to find anything in a dictionary. There’s no search box. If you misspell a word, it doesn’t supply corrections or words that you may have meant. You’re left flipping pages, hoping that you spelled the word correctly and can read the tiny print crammed onto the page.

Clearly the authors of the dictionary did not care about helping us find information.

Using the Wrong Standards

The Bible is capable of doing a lot for Christians today. Nevertheless, sometimes we ask it to do something that it cannot do and judge it by the wrong standards: to support our faith as the completely error free foundation. Even if we aren’t staying up late to line up the chronology of Israel’s kings, which some folks do, many of us still speak of the Bible as the number one item in our doctrinal statements.

Does that sound familiar? If I had a nickel for every doctrinal statement that lists the Bible first, I’d be able to buy a lake house… and probably a mountain or two.

The trouble is, we’re asking the Bible to be something that it is not able to do, and we’re using standards to measure it that are not relevant to its original intent. The Bible is a reliable and trustworthy source of information about God, it is not deceptive, and it certainly is essential.

However, it was not intended to stand as the foundation of our faith. Minor oversights in chronology or numbers do not nullify its status as inspired by God. We weren’t intended to read the Bible and to then worry about the Bible’s minute details.

If reading the Bible only makes you more obsessed with the Bible, you’ve missed the point.

Witnesses to What?

The book of Acts utilizes the word “witnesses” frequently in reference to the testimony the apostles gave. The Bible is the written account of witnesses—their testimony about something that happened.

The testimony itself can only be judged successful if that testimony persuades listeners and readers that the events described are true. A testimony from a witness points to something other than the testimony itself. The testimony is valuable and reliable, but as Christians we can take things a step further.

We ourselves become the witnesses.

So, we read the testimony, we believe, and then we meet with God. And when we meet with God, we have reached the goal of the testimony. The testimony remains valuable, but there is no other foundation to our faith than Jesus himself and no greater source of truth for us than the Spirit of God who was given to us. We use the Bible, and use it often, to keep ourselves focused on meeting with Jesus.

Whatever folks prove or disprove about the Bible, it only exists to connect us with God. And when we meet with God, encountering him becomes the evidence we rely upon. The testimony is proven true when we ourselves experience God as we were told to expect.

When you meet the living God described in the Bible, suddenly controversies about chronologies become moot points.

Keep in mind that significant chunks of the Bible, say half of Exodus and all of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, spell out the laws that govern God’s interaction with his people in the tabernacle. The goal is meeting in the tabernacle, not the boring book that explains how to set up the tabernacle.

I know we don’t usually read those books in the Old Testament, but that may be why we have this problem. Fellowship with God is our goal, and the Bible is one of the tools used to make that happen.

Note: This post addresses some of the issues brought up in Jason Boyett’s post.

Over the past weekend I had a chance to hear a variety of Christians speak about writing and our call to be ambassadors for Christ. For the most part I was encouraged by the sincerity, kindness, and insight shared among these believers.

However, at certain key points I heard speakers, some who spoke to large crowds, sharing a kind of counterfeit version of the Gospel that almost left me in tears. I’d like to address this matter, but I want to avoid words like “danger” or “threat” that just inject venom and anger into these discussions. I’d rather just say that I heard some sincere followers of Jesus clouding and possibly distorting the Gospel and particularly our motivations for sharing it.

I’ll spend the majority of my time focusing on my understanding of the biblical witness concerning what the Gospel does and why we should share it. I’ll end with a few words of caution about ways Christians have distorted these ideas.

What Does the Gospel Do?

The Gospel reconciles us with God. I think we can all agree on that. As we join others who share the same Spirit and relationship with God, we form the people known as the church. We have all been saved and sustained in the same way.

The Gospel makes us citizens of God’s Kingdom, which is the other worldly and this worldly place where his will is done. When we pray, “Your will be done, your Kingdom come,” we are asking God’s Kingdom to expand on earth as his will is done.

Why Should We Share It?

We share the Gospel because Jesus asked us to do so, because it is the way others can be saved, and because God intensely loves his creation and longs that all would come to know him. We don’t share the Gospel to preserve our churches, to ease our egos, or to give a soul fire insurance. We want others to know the joy and freedom that comes from knowing Jesus today, sharing in his sufferings, and moving toward eternal life with him.

What’s at Stake

In getting back to our problem of a distorted Gospel. I heard several speakers challenge the Christians present to preach the Gospel in order to preserve America’s Christian character and to prevent God’s judgment from falling upon us. One speaker made it clear that Democrats were to blame. Such teachings cloud the real reasons why we should share the Gospel and what it accomplishes.

I used to think that America was a Christian nation, so when I speak of Christians who operate from this assumption, I can identify as a former insider. The trouble is that the Kingdom of God cannot be affiliated with the agenda of any one nation since the Gospel is Good News for “all people” and “all nations” are blessed through Abraham.

In addition, classifying America as Christian at its founding raises serious historical questions since many founders were deists, slave owners, and generally greedy and corrupt. While some may have resembled evangelicals today, crediting good fortune to Providence—a common practice among the founders—did not make someone a Christian.

Christian sociologist Bradley Wright has also found that there is a much higher proportion of Christians in America today than during the Revolution. We could point at some places where Christianity impacted the founding of America, but calling America a Christian or godly nation from the start is a mistake that only white Americans could make. Our African American friends have much to teach us in this regard. America’s history is not a fall from grace spurred on by Democratic politicians. It’s more realistically a mix of high and low points.

Having said that, we should not ignore the possibility of God’s judgment. The Old Testament shows that time and time again God will judge a nation that neglects the poor, allows corruption, attacks its enemies without mercy, and concentrates wealth among the few to the detriment of the many. These are real, bi-partisan problems to consider in America.

Nevertheless, we should seek righteousness and preach the Gospel not as a means to preserve America or to keep America as a Christian nation. That turns the Gospel into a self-serving, political tool that unintentionally brands unbelievers and sometimes Democrats into religious terrorists who are calling down God’s judgment on America and only the true patriots will hold off destruction through their preaching.

In a sense, this kind of thinking turns the objects of God’s desire, those who do not know him, into enemies who are ruining our country and our place as the keepers of our country. Christians are servants who are called to follow Jesus and Jesus alone. Even allegiance to one’s country cannot be allowed to cloud the goals and motivations behind our calling.

I won’t say that such teachers are ruining Christianity or America, but they are distorting their Christian practice with political agendas and suspect history. As I stated in Coffeehouse Theology, an unexamined context can influence our theology and fool us into thinking that we are free from its influence.

Sadly, there are still some evangelicals who are failing to consider how American culture and particularly conservative politics are skewing their understanding of the Gospel and our mission as believers. They can be Christians who happen to be American patriots. That’s a different conversation. Our problems come when they create a Christian patriotism that uses the Gospel as a means of preserving America.

America is not the light on a hill. The light is Jesus shining through his people—a people that is not limited to those found in America.

As I look back on the positive impact diverse Christian perspectives have had on my faith, I should not neglect the downside of diversity.

Some question the merits of being overly inclusive, and caricature diversity as a wishy, washy and uncritical validation of every perspective. That, of course, is not what I’m talking about in this series on diversity. So while I’ve shared what we stand to gain, perhaps it would help to paint a realistic picture of where it could go off track.

A Time of Corrections and Over-Corrections

Many Christians in the west, particularly in America, are in a time of adjustment and correction. We could say this about nearly every period of Christianity, as we’re always making adjustments to the mistakes of those who preceded us, while clinging to all the good things they also left us.

During this time of correction for the mistakes of the past, it’s quite possible to become divisive in our embrace of diversity. In other words, we can set a bar for inclusivity and then alienate others if they aren’t as liberal or progressive as we think they should be.

While we want to correct the mistakes of the past, we should be careful to avoid a wholesale rejection of what has been passed to us or of those who still hold to what we view as a flawed version of the faith.

A Variety of Points without a Center

By including a variety of perspectives in our Christian faith, whether by denominations, locations, income, or ethnic make up, there is a danger of never quite settling on some central beliefs. Without a center for Christianity, we run the risk of letting the faith become reshaped dramatically into something that it may not be.

In this sense, both extreme exclusivity and extreme diversity run the same risk of remaking Christianity so that it reflects one or many perspectives. Either way, we can make the same mistakes without a center.

The hard part is that we arrive at our center through a diversity of perspectives: the revelation of the Triune God, the scriptures, Christian tradition, and the local/global body of Christians. Therefore, we have an imperfect but still Spirit-directed process where we hold to the central creeds and beliefs of the Christian faith while we interact with other perspectives.

Our beliefs and practices may change dramatically over time, but our interactions with diversity should not tinker with the core. If one particular culture can’t believe that God would enter the world incarnate in human form, then we can’t rewrite the Nicene Creed by way of accommodation.

We may be wrong about a lot of things, but there are certain beliefs and practices that stand at the center of Christianity. Someone has every right to disagree with us, but then that person is not talking about the historic Christian faith that has been passed down to us by Christian communities and the scriptures.

We gain much by interacting with a diverse group of perspectives, but the core elements of Christianity are not for us to modify.