In a rather ironic twist, one of the writers at the Christian ? Network has posted a quote and called attention to our mission statement here at .info. I, for one, am pleased that the writers of C?N are finally recognizing what we have been saying all along.

So here’s the quote by J Gresham Machen posted by Stephen Macasil:

[W]hat is the trouble with the visible Church? What is the reason for its obvious weakness? There are perhaps many causes of weakness. But one cause is perfectly plain–the Church of today has been unfaithful to her Lord by admitting great companies of non-Christian persons, not only into her membership, but into her teaching agencies. It is indeed inevitable that some persons who are not truly Christian shall find their way into the visible Church; fallible men cannot discern the heart, and many a profession of faith which seems to be genuine may really be false. But it is not this kind of error to which we now refer. What is now meant is not the admission of individuals whose confessions of faith may not be sincere, but the admission of great companies of persons who have never made any really adequate confession of faith at all and whose entire attitude toward the gospel is the very reverse of the Christian attitude. Such persons, moreover, have been admitted not merely to the membership, but to the ministry of the Church, and to an increasing extent have been allowed to dominate its councils and determine its teaching. The greatest menace to the Christian Church today comes not from the enemies outside, but from the enemies within; it comes from the presence within the Church of a type of faith and practice that is anti-Christian to the core.

I am sure and certain that I speak for all of us here at CRN.info when I say, “Amen.”

By the way, all emphases in the above quote belong to Macasil. Thanks Stephen for posting this and for plugging us. I am glad you guys are coming around to see our point of view!

We’ve been talking about a number of important issues the last few days. I’m glad we have. It is important, no matter how much we disagree, to continue to dialogue with one another. Irony sharpens iron they say.

So we continue to talk and converse with folks from all corners of the haunted church because we recognize that it matters not where truth comes from if it is truth and, to be sure, we never know what sort of strange vessel the Lord may use to interrogate us, strip us naked, or beat us to a pulp. Lately, for one reason or another, the Lord has been using a class I am taking on Diversity in Educational Settings to strip me naked and expose my inherent, deliberate flaws.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling being the minority. Anyhow.

I’m reading a book that I recommended to a friend. I think some of my recent experiences with the church have left me not a little angry, hurt, and confused and the book is most helpful for exposing those things and working towards forgiveness and wholeness. I’m trying to get along with God right now even if it seems that he is rather content to get along without me. Churches are strange creatures. That book is Soul Survivor by Philip Yancey–a book I highly recommend if you have ever had issues with the church, with any church, or with the people who make up the church. Today’s thought comes from Yancey’s pen:

I have had to forgive the church, much as a person from a dysfunctional family forgives mistakes made by parents and siblings. An irrepressible optimist, G.K. Chesterton proved helpful in that process too. ‘The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried,’ he said.

[...]

For this reason, when people tell me their horror stories of growing up in a repressive church environment, I feel no need to defend the actions of the church. The church of my own childhood, as well as that of my present and my future, comprises deeply flawed human beings struggling toward an unattainable ideal. We admit that we will never reach our ideal in this life, a distinctive the church claims that most other human institutions try to deny. Along with Chesterton, I’ve had to take my place among those who acknowledge that we are what is wrong with the world. What is my snobbishness toward my childhood church, for instance, but an inverted form of the harsh judgment it showed me? Whenever faith seems an entitlement, or a measuring rod, we cast our lots with the Pharisees and grace softly slips away. (58, 58-59)

And so he says.

This is the lesson that I want (and need!) to continue learning every day if I am going to be a receiver and giver of grace. I also think this is one of those reasons why God continues to break us down, strip us naked, beat us up, tear us apart, and generally render us completely undone. God has no ability to work on people who are already put together, but those who are ripped to shreds–there is where the true miracle of Christianity is: He takes those shreds and weaves the tiny fibers back together until we are readable again.

You can’t make out a story when the book is torn asunder and the pages are scattered in mud. But when the pages are healed, put in order, and bound again to the spine–ah, then the complete story can be read.

And it makes sense.

Grace and peace.

I don’t suppose that this needs much comment at all.

The ultimate weakness of violence
is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate….
Returning violence for violence multiples violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

–Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”
1967

Amen.

“While those who wielded the Constantinian sword throughout history undoubtedly convinced themselves they were wielding the sword in love–this is a common self-delusion among religious power brokers–lording over, torturing, and killing people does not communicate their unsurpassable worth to them; it is not loving….One wonders why no one in church history as ever been considered a heretic for being unloving. People were anathematized and often tortured and killed for disagreeing on matters of doctrine or on the authority of the church. But no one on record has ever been so much as rebuked for not loving as Christ loved. Yet if love is to be placed above all other considerations, if nothing has any value apart from love, and if the only thing that matters is faith working in love, how is it that possessing Christlike love has never been considered the central test of orthodoxy? How is it that those who tortured and burned heretics were not themselves considered heretics for doing so? Was this not heresy of the worst sort? How is it that those who perpetuated such things were not only deemed heretics but often were (and yet are) held up as heroes of the faith?”

Greg Boyd – The Myth of a Christian Nation

Those “born again from above” are regenerated by the Holy Spirit at the Father’s good pleasure, not by how YOU present it.

This comment was posted recently by a detractor who occasionally visits us here at CRN.info. As is often the case, the comment thread had taken a turn to a minor subject that was both irrelevant to the original topic and also the topic of heated debate. In the midst of a discussion about presenting the Gospel in varied ways this comment was inserted.

Now, theologically I would agree. Yet, theology is not what we were talking about – we were discussing practical issues and strategy of Gospel presentation. And while the two are, of course, nearly inseparably intertwined – they are still two separate issues.

This comment represents a whole (and here I freely admit I am raising it as a metonymy) school of thought – a school that derides new ways of delivering the old message, that mocks the need for considering the position of the hearer, that scolds others for trying to be relevant to unbelievers. Now, I also grant that there are those who take this too far – yet our detractors often throw out the proverbial baby with their bathwater

Since I am working on my doctorate in missiology, the issues surrounding the communication of the Gospel cross-culturally are of particular interest. Therefore comments such as the one above pique my interest.

Then I read this in a mission’s publication:

After several people died in Brazil’s Pacaas Novos tribe due to illness, the missionaries felt they needed to speed up the sharing of the Gospel. The missionary with the best grasp of the language stood in front of the people and started sharing. His delivery was animated; he wanted to convey how important this was. Another missionary seated in the middle of the group overheard one man ask another what the missionary was talking about. “Oh, don’t pay attention to him, he’s just drunk,” said the other.

More time learning the culture and the language revealed that only when they were drunk did the Pacaas Novos stand up and talk to a group. So everything the missionary said that day was discounted and ignored, due to the culture of the people he was speaking to. (emphasis mine)

So apparently it does matter HOW you present the Gospel.

Of course, opposition to new methods is nothing new. William Carey was confronted one day by a man in England who objected to new ways of reaching the heathens in far off lands – “If God wants to save the heathens” he was told, “He can do it without your help.” What the man objected to was change… he also objected to a message that challenged his comfort, his way of thinking, his assumptions about God.

Here we are 200 plus years later and people are still saying- “God can save the heathens without you repackaging the message.”

I suppose these missionaries could have skipped the study of their intended people group… they could have stood there and “Preached the Gospel” in the Pacaas Novo language and assumed they had done their duty (does this bring any videos to mind?). How many times a day in America does someone think they have fulfilled their calling to preach the Gospel – yet, due to their lack of understanding those to whom they preach… that is all they have done – “preached.” They have “communicated” nothing.

The missionaries were not satisfied with just preaching the Gospel, their goal was to communicate the truths of the Gospel. And this is a completely different endeavor. Often the latter measn the former… but the former does not guarnatee the latter.

Even though it is the Holy Spirit who regenerates a person upon salvation to the pleasure of the Father – it does indeed matter how WE present that truth.

Tags: Add new tag

Here’s a super thought:

“We love men not because we like them, nor because their ways appeal to us, nor even because they possess some kind of divine spark. We love every man because God loves him. At this level, we love the person who does an evil deed, although we hate the deed that he does.”

–Martin Luther King, jr. (The first two sentences are quoted by Philip Yancey in Soul Survivor. The last sentence is from Strength to Love. The entire quote is from Strength to Love.)

Tags: grace, jr., Martin Luther King, Strength to Love

FYI – We will be switching servers tonight at 10:30 EST, and will be coming back up as soon as we’re stable.

Here you will find what a few of us have expressed over the past year about how the church should handle the topic of sex.  I think the difference is that this says it more succinctly and more appropriately.  It raises the bar for the discussion and the act.

Because I know there are a lot of lazy people out there like me who can’t even click a link, here’s a snippet:

If the theology of the cross doesn’t affect every aspect of life, it isn’t properly applied.

*Sorry for the rabbit hole, but when something is said well, why change it? Click the link already.

Tags: marriage, relationships, Sex

Let’s be honest with one another. Do we really understand grace?

The trend, it seems to me, is that we are saved by grace and then it’s all up to us. That is, God does the initial work of ‘saving’ us and then we do the maintenance on our own. I suppose we might pay lip service every now and again to the work of the Spirit. I’m not persuaded that I am any closer to the truth of grace. I still try too hard to be holy not because I love God but because I really want to impress God. Really. Don’t we all want to hear God say, “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into your master’s joy today”? Grace is someone else’s reconstruction project and not my maintenance project.

Maybe I want to hear that because I want God to be impressed at how in control I am of my situation. I’m not too particularly concerned to be dependent. I like control and being in charge. I certainly do not want to cede control to anyone. Lately I have found myself in a place where I have no control. I’m about one meal away from having to go to the local food pantry and beg. I’m about one drink away from falling off the wagon I have been on since 1991. I’m about one missed day of work away from not making the mortgage. Grace is someone else in control besides me.

I want to be close to God and yet right now I am about as far away from him as a human on earth can be from one who came near. On the other hand, I am closer to him than I have ever been. It’s oxymoronic, but true and it has nothing to do with me. I’m not so good at hiding, and God is so very good at finding. Grace is someone else finding me and not me making myself known.

I don’t understand grace. Maybe I should quit trying and just enjoy it. Or Swim in it. Or blame it. Run to it. Run from it. Eat it. Drink it. Put it in my pocket. Fly it like a kite. Grace is someone else’s idea of sustenance not mine.

I read this short essay tonight. Well, it’s not really an essay. It’s more like a blog post—a good one: short, sweet, and memorable. It’s called Refrigerator People and the Unfair Grace of God. Here’s a clip:

The One I serve is the Author of wildly beautiful, unfair grace.  He permits me to pray for people the world dismisses with a few well-placed words.  Dirtbags.  Scum of the earth.  Criminals.  Crazy people.  You know, the ones who “deserve it” when the going gets rough.  He invites me to dare to believe He’s big enough to redeem even these…and that He longs to do exactly that.  As I join Him in the conversation about them, He shows me much about their brokenness and their beauty…and much about mine as well.

The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.  My prayer today is that every person on my fridge and on my heart will accept the unfair grace of God, and know freedom in this life.  I long to meet them on the other side, and celebrate with them the magnitude of that grace.

Grace will always be unfair. I’m undone. We are all undone by the God of grace because none of us can stand before him, read off our list of credentials, and hope to get in with a pat on the back and a smile. But we can expect to ‘get in’ when we are nothing more before God than who we are because of God. That is, when we make no effort whatsoever to impress him aside from just accepting what he offers in the form of grace, empty vessels holding up empty hands that have been lifted up by his strength that we hope he fills (faith?). Grace is God being pleased with us because he wants to and not because he has to.

I think some Christians put way too much stock in impressing God than they do in being impressed by God. Grace is God loving us because he can, not us loving him because we can’t.

I don’t really think I understand grace. I think the minute we think we do is the minute we will probably die because how can God afford for that message to be shared with the buildings full of Christians who think they are impressing God by being in church on Sundays and putting their trinkets into the passing plates and eating stale bread and warm juice? Jesus said it best, though, didn’t he: “It’s not the well who need a doctor, but the sick.”

He also said something like, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” I know for a fact this verse angers people in the church more than any other verse in the Bible because there is not one of us who would dare admit that we are blind. We see all too well which is exactly why we make a wreck of the church. We see all too well which is exactly why the church, some churches anyhow, has become a museum for relics to be admired, dusted, and preserved instead of a distribution center of grace and goods; a feeding trough for the hungry and helpless; a hospital for the beaten and broken; a truck-stop for the weary and worn out. The church should be a pair binoculars or a telescope or reading glasses instead of a mirror. Grace is something we look through not something we look at.

That’s what grace does. It changes our perspective and shifts our gaze. Grace is someone else’s vision and not our own.

I know that’s what upsets people about grace: We prefer to look at ourselves. Grace demands that we do not. Grace demands–yes demands–that we cast our nets wide, and empty. Grace demands that we haul in the catch someone else has provided.

Grace forces us into the uncomfortable position of having to consider someone else which, interestingly enough, is kind of what God did in Jesus.

And grace is unfair to a fault. Newton should have written that song: His unfair Grace, how disturbing the sound, that saves so many like me…

The ones we think deserve the most hell are the ones God invites to the wedding supper; the ones we think will most certainly be under wrath are the very ones being saved; and the ones we hope suffer the worst are the very ones God is in the process of healing the most. And we don’t like it because we know that Scripture says such people are under wrath and, thus, deserve to be. We understand not the mysteries and secrets of how the Kingdom works and grows and produces–nor why God happens to invite to and secure in his salvation the most wretched and ugly among us.

I’m not making predictions for God’s grace because I don’t understand it any more than anyone else. If I did, I would be dead. Grace is someone else seeing me as I am and not me seeing myself as I should be.

Grace is unfair because grace is the business end of God’s dealings with sinners—sinners of all kinds, and not just the ones we think God should deal with, like ourselves. I don’t deserve God’s grace any more than anyone else but I’ll gladly take what he gives.

I’m happy to let God be God. I’m happy to let God save the way God saves. I’m happy to let God save those God saves.

I’m happy that salvation is the work of Jesus, not me. I’m happy it’s about grace and nothing else.

Tags: Devotional, grace

From here:

It seems massively ironic to me that a book about full life is often read out as if it’s a shopping list or a takeaway menu, and that the account of God doing every last thing possible so he can to reach people is delivered in such a form that it alienates most of the population. I’m serious.

Freaking wow!

Tags: bible, grace, quote