Welcoming the Stranger

Whenever I am engaged in a discussion about immigration the dominant driver of that conversation usually is xenophobia (fear of the stranger). It is rarely ever driven by philoxenia (love of stranger). 

Look, I understand this, I really do. In a post 9/11 world it is fear that shapes the American psyche more than any other emotion. We are humans and as humans we are deeply susceptible to fear; yet when fear becomes the primary driver of our actions we are in trouble.

We fear a lot of things, from microscopic germs to the macro threat of terrorism.

Perhaps this is why the Bible warns us against fear more than any other emotion.

When it comes to the practice of hospitality, fear is the most dominant impediment preventing us from welcoming the stranger among us. 

In the ancient world of the Bible (including the world of Jesus) folks lived according to the Ancient Law of Hospitality. This bent towards practicing hospitality towards strangers was deeply embedded in the ancient culture of the Middle East.

Strangers were often welcomed into the homes of native hosts in spite of the potential dangers involved. Not only was a complete stranger welcomed into the home for an overnight stay and much needed nourishment, but was also afforded the protection of the host (see Genesis 19:1ff).

The attempted violation of this Ancient Law of Hospitality plays a huge role in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction. Read the story as depicted in Genesis 19.

In the Gospels Jesus is often portrayed as one who regularly practiced hospitality (as well as being on the receiving end of it). He was not shy about welcoming all comers into the embrace of God’s generosity, grace and love. There is no instance in the Gospels, that I am aware of, in which Jesus turns anyone away.

In fact, Jesus warned that our hospitality to the stranger (or lack thereof) is going to be the main feature of the final judgment (no, it will not be all about whether one is saved or not).

Today we live in a complex times; times that indeed call into question the wisdom of practicing hospitality to the stranger. The idea of welcoming anyone from outside our own national borders has become too difficult for many to embrace, let alone practice. It really is a tough issue to be sure.

Yet it saddens me to witness the largess of the American heart shrink in fear. What always made me so proud to be an American was that my country was one of the most hospitable nations on earth. In spite of our flaws, we Americans truly are an hospitable people (maybe more back then than now).

Welcoming the stranger is one of the basic core values of the Gospel. It has its risks to be sure. Welcoming the stranger makes us all vulnerable. But walking on any street in America is an experience in vulnerability yet we don't stop walking those streets do we?

Just stepping outside the safe confines of our homes exposes us to danger yet we don't become hermits do we? We don’t stop driving on freeways just because they are dangerous do we?

Do we become isolationists because it is too risky to be welcoming?

Isolationism is the world’s tactic. It is borne out of fear. But remembering the words of the Apostle Paul may be helpful here:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Insofar as practicing hospitality we are to “put on the mind of Christ” in our outreach to strangers.

Is it dangerous or risky? Yes! But we have not been called to be patrons of a safe society isolated from the dangers of this world. We are called to carry the cross of Christ into the world as we attempt to practice hospitality towards the world.

Love indeed is the antidote to fear. The more we learn to love the less fear will have a grip on us.

 It sounds strange I know but is borne of the Gospel of Christ.

Prayer in School?

People are still complaining over the removal of prayer from the public schools,  claiming that it is contributing to the moral decline of our nation. 

So all we have to do is get a bunch of sixth or seventh graders repeating the Lord’s Prayer, by rote, each morning and the moral barometer of our nation will immediately surge upwards: teenage pregnancies would decrease, drug use by high schoolers would decline, kids would become better students and their GPA would climb, and a broader respect for parents and teachers would occur.

Really, do people actually believe this? Saying the Lord’s Prayer each morning would have this kind of effect on the youth of America? 

I can only speak from experience: We prayed the Lord’s Prayer each morning in homeroom. The teacher also read a few verses from the New Testament. 

Guess what? 

Such religious observances had little to no affect on the overall behavior of the students in my high school. Guys still sneaked outside to smoke, girls continued to get pregnant, students cheated on their tests, and there was always that pervasive disregard for authority among many of the students.

Now please don't misunderstand me, not everyone in my high school was a bad egg. Most students were respectful, well behaved, good students academically, and many were mindful of certain moral expectations (particularly when it came to dating).

But my suspicion is that they learned this kind of behavior from their parents, not from their teachers.

Okay, people have been complaining about State sponsored prayer being prohibited in the public schools for over fifty years now. Once again, the claim is often made that this government act (which was enacted to protect the rights of all people (religious or not) is a big reason for the so-called “decline of our nation.”

But I believe the problem lies deeper than the removal of prayer from the public schools. I also believe that the problem lies closer to the Christian doorstep than many realize.

The loss of Christian credibility in America has little or nothing to do with the lack of prayer in schools. It does, however, have much more to do with Christian behavior, or lack thereof, in the public arena or marketplace.

The decline of religious influence on the American life may have more to do with American Christians than with the removal of school prayer. This may be a big pill to swallow but our taking responsibility for the way we live in the public arena is a huge step in helping reverse the trend of disrespect being shown towards Christianity in general.

Church historians have pointed out that Christianity grew the fastest and the furthest during the first couple hundred years of its existence. It was a movement on fire and conversions to Christianity were plentiful given the negative status of Christianity in the Roman Empire. 

One such historian, Alan Kreider, offers compelling evidence that what stood behind this unprecedented growth was not the result of evangelism or missions programs, but rather it was the way these early Christians behaved in the public arena. The modern practice of “soul-winning” was unheard of back in that time.

But they did live with a passion for Christ. Christianity was not just a Sunday morning religious observance but rather a way of life. Their Christianity defined them as followers of Christ and promoters of his teachings. They lived what they professed. They practiced what they preached. 

More importantly they loved as he loved. 

These early believers were not prone to making enemies, were patient towards those outside their own tribe. They helped care for the poor and cared for the marginalized among them. They deeply cared for one another.

They were peace makers and thus not prone to war or violence. Most would not participate in war. They did not believe violence solved any of the social conflicts they encountered. Actually, Christians were forbidden to serve in the military until the time of Constantine (4th century). 

In a word, they lived their faith like their faith really mattered.

If they were living today they may very well coin the phrase: “Faith Matters!”

I would contend that we today might learn some things about what the Christian life ought to look like to the public eye; what the optics of our way of life should look like; how our lifestyle and words there with our Christian identity.

If anything, reflecting Christ to the world by the way we live and relate may help reverse any trend of disrespect for our faith in today’s world. It may even help reverse the trend of decline of our faith in America.

It’s something to consider.

God & Country!

American Christians today should find themselves living in the tension between being an American citizen and being a citizen of God’s kingdom. 

I hope you got that: Christians "should" recognize the tension that is created by their faith in Christ and their national citizenship.

According to historian Alan Kreider: “In the ancient world, when Christians were at their best, they sensed a dynamic interplay between . . . affirmation and critique.” 

In other words, early Christians recognized the importance of both affirming their culture (nation) and yet critiquing it in light of their commitment to Christ.

This is no small issue for us today, especially in a time when populous nationalism is on the rise, not only in our own country but abroad as well. A nationalism that demands unconditional loyalty from its adherents.

In fact, in our own country such nationalism is often expressed as, “America first!” Such an attitude runs counter to the Christian mantra "Christ first!" Now do you see the tension?

Christians throughout the past two millennia have always lived locally, participating in the society to which they belong, but also recognizing that they were not obliged to unconditionally submit to secular authority (Kreider).

What allegiance they had to any government authority or nation was at best conditional.

It is this “conditional” dimension of our national citizenship that creates the tension between one’s loyalty to Caesar and one’s loyalty to Christ.

I am suggesting that it is this very tension that makes all Christians of all nations “Resident Aliens” (Hauerwas and Willimon) to whatever nation one belongs. This is why Christians from different nations may consider themselves brothers and sisters in Christ. Such a relationship supersedes any form of nationalism. Such a relationship knows no borders or boundaries that divide us from one another.

Living as a Resident Alien in one’s country demands that one practice good citizenship while living under the authority of Christ. As a citizen of any given country one is required to live according to its laws, participate in the life of the community as much as one deems appropriate, celebrate it’s holidays, and live peacefully for the sake of the Common Good.

But there are Gospel driven limitations to one’s allegiance to any secular authority. Whenever the expectations or requirements of a given secular authority conflict with the authority of Christ then one must be willing to “put on the mind of Christ” (Paul). Herein lies the tension in which we often find ourselves as subjects of two very different kingdoms or nations as it were.

Of course we are free to ignore this tension and offer our full uncritical allegiance to a secular power whose authority to which we choose to submit.

When any government authority acts or behaves in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ, we as followers of Christ are under no compulsion to oblige those authorities. We are to peacefully and persistently resist such authority.

We are responsible for critiquing all secular authority when the values of the Gospel are called into question by the secular authority.

Let me say it as plainly as I possibly can:

“We Christians are not obliged to take our marching orders from Caesar but rather from Christ!” 

We may still remain good citizens of our nation and love it, as well we should. But in a conditional sense, as Resident Aliens, submitting to the authority of Christ rather than the unjust mandates and policies of an authority that may not recognize Christ as our ultimate authority.

It is time for Christians of all stripes to recognize this difficult tension in which live together. Throwing our full fledged uncritical support behind government policies that are both systemically and prejudicially unjust is to ignore the life-giving mandates of the Gospel, as well as to ignore the tension that is imposed upon us by virtue of our faith in Christ and our national citizenship.

“Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need” (Matthew 6:33).

Is Easter all about the Afterlife?

This Sunday morning churches all across America will swell in attendance. It will be a welcomed sight to many pastors and church leaders who are otherwise demoralized throughout the year by the steady increase of empty pews. 

Easter Sunday will be a glorious day no less and for a fleeting moment it will restore some hope that all those worshipers who were conscpicoulsny absent for the rest of the year will return again next Sunday and the next and the next . . . 

Of course most will not return, but who’s complaining? I’m not because this one Sunday tells me that there are great numbers of people today looking for a word of hope—and Easter Sunday fits the bill rather nicely for all of us. 

On this one Sunday of each year preachers will pontificate on the theme of resurrection with grand sermons on the promise of the afterlife, of heaven awaiting those of us not yet deceased, and a present reality for those who have long since passed.

Yes, the Easter message of resurrection is comforting and reassuring. But have we missed out on an opportunity to challenge our worshipers with the Easter story? Have we heretofore focused so intently upon the afterlife dimension of resurrection that we miss the real point of resurrection:

New life in real time! 

Have we misled those Easter worshipers into believing that resurrection is only something we hope for following death?

I don't say this in a judgmental or mean-spirited way. I am happy the annual Easter worshipers attend Easter Sunday worship. I welcome them with open arms. But over the years have we missed the opportunity to tell them that Easter is not all about heaven after we die; that it has real time implications for us in real time and offers us real hope in an otherwise hopeless world?

The early disciples of Jesus learned this in the very first worship service on Easter evening. 

According to John’s Easter account Jesus appeared to the disciples on the evening of that first Easter Sunday. One could say that this was the first Easter worship service on record. Jesus appeared and twice greeted the frightened disciples by saying: “Peace be with you!” Then he breathed upon them the Holy Spirit. Afterwards he commissioned them to become peacemakers in the world—that is, to live the resurrection life right then and there.

From that moment forward these frightened followers or Jesus became bold witnesses to the resurrection they had just witnessed (and experienced I might add). They too were risen to a new way of being human; a new way of being in the world. 

I always challenge Easter worshipers by asking them:

“Has this special Sunday changed you in any way?”

Does it change how they think about the world? Does it compel them to want to follow Christ in the way of peace? Will this Sunday worship experience alter the way they live in the world—the way they practice life in general? These are legitimate questions even if they are a bit pointed.

So here’s the challenge of Easter: 

Having worshiped this Sunday will you notice any discernible change taking place within you? Will you leave worship practicing resurrection in real time (à la Wendell Berry)? Will your thought processes be transformed (à la the Apostle Paul, Romans 12:2) thus giving you a new way to be in the world?

Will you approach life in a different way now? Will all your relationships be renewed and restored? Will you become a marinating influence on those around you? Will you view poor people of all stripes differently now? Will you now look at your enemies differently? 

Will you become less judgmental and more gracious—even to those you think are undeserving or those with whom you disapprove? Will you become more resolved to love as Christ loved? 

Resurrection life is available to each of us right now. For those searching for a new way to be in the world then this is it—practice resurrection now!

This is real time resurrection and quite frankly it is our only hope in the world today! 

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

War & the Cross of Christ

The Swiss theologian Emile Brunner once remarked: “He who understands the cross aright . . . understands the Bible, he understand Jesus Christ.”

I would add that unless one understands the profound meaning of the cross one will never understand the Christian’s opposition to violence and war as a means for conflict resolution.

I no longer debate with those who seem to misunderstand or have no understanding of the cross of Jesus why war is simply a human exercise in futility. In other words, war is the perpetuation of unredeemed violence; it is the driving force behind the endless cycle of human violence. 

Yet trying to explain the merit of this reality to one whose mind has not been formed or shaped by the meaning of the death of Christ is exhausting, and quite frankly, impossible. 

Writing to the Christians at Philippi the Apostle Paul commanded: “Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). In other words we are to try, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to think like Jesus thought, especially in the ways he reacted to threatening violence on his own life.

I have often heard the argument: “I believe God wants me to protect myself and if I have to shoot someone to do that then he would be okay with it.” Well Jesus never thought this way, I cannot find one incident in which he would have responded to violence in this manner.

In fact, one of the most telling episodes that demonstrated Jesus’s response to the threat of violence came when he was being arrested in the garden. Peter unsheathed his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant; a clear attempt to protect Jesus.

So what did Jesus do? He healed the man’s ear and bluntly told Peter: “ . . . put the sword away, all who draw the sword will die from the sword.” In Luke’s version of this story Jesus is reported to have said: “No more of this!”  No more means no more, right?

Then in John’s depiction of the story Jesus is reported to have said: “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” 

Is this demonstration of nonviolent resistance indicative of the mind of Christ? Is this reaction to the threat on one’s life reflective of the way Jesus thought about how to respond to threatening aggression and violence?

I suggest that this is exactly how Jesus thought and we are to think in similar ways ourselves. Now I realize this is not easy. Some have accused me of being simple minded at worse or naive at best. Some have accused me if living in “la la land” (whatever that means).

But I am convinced that this one incident is a foreshadow of the meaning of Jesus’s death on the cross. Jesus willfully and humbly accepted his role as a Suffering Servant. He willfully embraced the mission to respond to evil and violence with self giving love. It’s a radical approach for sure.

He knew that this was the only way the cycle of human evil and violence could ultimately be broken. He believed that redemptive love was his only response to the Evil that was intent on killing him.

For us to respond in like manner is to put on the mind of Christ. Yet I realize the difficulty of such thinking for those whose lives have yet to be shaped by the death of Jesus. I also realize that this way of thinking is too often obscured by a view of the cross that only sees Jesus’s death in terms of saving souls for heaven. 

The cross of Jesus, rightly understood, provides Christians with an appropriate platform for responding to the violence and war that never seems to end. The endless cycle of violence rolls on and on and until that cycle is broken by the self-giving love of Christ I am afraid we will simply self-destruct as a human race.

So the cross of Jesus was his ultimate response to all the systemic evil and violence the world throws at us. The cross is Jesus’s nonviolent approach to Evil. 

Until my detractors come to understand this redemptive and non violent meaning of the cross there will never be any reason to debate the utility of war with one another. Until we can somehow approach this issue from the same operating system (to borrow a commuter metaphor) there isn’t much hope for healthy discussions concerning violence and war.

Peace be unto you!

There is a Better Story than the One We've Been Told!

Many Evangelicals, and former Evangelicals like myself, were raised on a common story of salvation. The story goes something like this:

We humans are depraved. We were born separated from God. If you were raised in a hyper Calvinist tradition you were born “totally depraved.” God help us!

As the story goes there is no good in any of us. We are incapable of doing any good on our own. We are sinners alienated from God. The chasm that exists between God and us is unbridgeable. We are hopeless and helpless. We are hell bound in our natural sinful state.

But God, who exists far away from earth (Sky God), decided to remedy our depraved condition by punishing his only Son Jesus in our place. Therefore, our sins are forgiven, washed away by the sacrificial shedding of Jesus’s blood on the cross. Sounds pretty primitive doesn't it? Well, it is.

God, in his mercy, decided to rescue us from eternal damnation (hell). Otherwise there is no real future for us humans other than to be cast into “outer darkness” or worse yet into the “lake of fire.” This is the fate that awaits all non-Christians.

So the scenario is often set up this way: If a depraved sinner can somehow believe that Jesus paid the penalty for his or her sin then that person would be saved and go to heaven following death. 

Otherwise only hell awaits the unsaved person.

So this is a conditional version of salvation. 

Believe or burn is the outcome of this story which ironically is considered “Good News” by those who embrace it.

Now this particular story of salvation works quite well for many Christians today. It is the first, and for many, the only salvation story they have heard. There are no other competing stories of salvation. This is the story we inherited.

It is not hard to find various verses of Scripture to defend such a horrible story. One can cut and paste a plethora of passages in order to build such a dark narrative.

Yet this story no longer works for me and an increasing number of people who have evolved beyond such a primitive narrative. In fact, it is also surprising for many to learn that an alternative story of salvation is available to them.

My theology professor in seminary often reminded his students: “Hold on to what you believe in until you find something better with which to replace it.” 

Well I was able to discover a far better story of salvation that works much better for me. The story tells of a God who is never separated from his creation and from those whom he created—that is you and me.

We are not depraved sinners or filthy rags or incapable of doing any good unless God saves us. God’s grace is far more powerful than all the human badness in the world.  

His love supersedes human sin. 

Love wins! Indeed!

To be saved, according to this story of salvation, is to be awakened to God’s presence within us. I take this to be at the heart of what it means to be “born again” or “born anew.” God has never abandoned us nor does he need to punish Jesus so he can love us. That is simply a toxic version of salvation.

We are never separated from God. As author Marcus Borg once quipped, God is “separated from us only by the membranes of our own consciousness.” In other words, if there is any separation it exists in our unawareness of God’s presence within us—even still God remains faithfully present to us.

Why is such a story of salvation so important? Because the story emphasizes the eternal love of God for all of his creation. Because this kind of love drives out fear—a fear of a vengeful get even God, who will burn you in hell should you not comply with his offer of eternal life in heaven.

Is God so fickle and insecure that he would eternally torment anyone who rejects him? This is the way humans act towards one another my friend, but not the way God acts.

This is a salvation story I can live with because it honors God and validates his eternal love for everyone, and it is consistent with the God Jesus revealed! 

This is actually Good News!

Thank God For Evolution!

I recently had a conversation with an old seminary classmate of mine whom I have not seen in years. We became best friends while attending seminary together. 

Those were heady days for the both of us, times in which we often would discuss theology for hours, debate our views with one another and with others, and entertain new ways to read and interpret the Bible. Nothing was so sacrosanct to escape our curiosity nor our critique.  

Well this is the way I remember it; my friend on the other hand may have an entirely different recollection.

From my perspective, I miss those years we shared in seminary. They were some of the most exciting years of my life. 

Yet life moves forward and we found ourselves on different life trajectories, living in different places and taking different career paths. We each evolved according to our own individual experiences and pace of life.

Well, back to our telephone conversation. My friend made it clear to me that he was now an old dinosaur and that entertaining new ideas about theology or politics did not interest him at all. 

He was simply satisfied with where he had landed in life and was not interested in developing exciting new ways to think about God, faith or life.

Well, it seems my friend has long since given up on evolution. In other words, he no longer is interested in evolving as a human being. His life journey, it seems, has screeched to a halt and there was no point in going any further with our conversation.

So when I hung up the telephone a dark sense of sadness overcame me. I was sad because my friend seems to have simply stopped growing.

I thought to myself: “If this is what it means to grow old then I am not quite there yet!”

Look, I don’t mind aging in spite of the physical limitations that come along with it. Sure I can’t hit a golf ball as far as I used to; I can’t and shouldn’t climb up ladders anymore; I no longer go jogging;  I can’t sleep late like I used to when I was younger; and there are certain physical things I can no longer do.  

But I am not ready to stop evolving intellectually, psychologically, theologically or spiritually. I am not ready to throw in the towel on my own personal evolution as a a person of faith and as a human being.

I think if I do that I will be one step closer to dying. I will be a dead man walking as they say.

This, I believe is the central problem with Evangelical conservatism in America today: It has a huge problem with evolution; not just evolution in the Darwin since of the word, but evolution in the way we humans evolve in our thinking, our knowing, our experiencing, and our relating. 

Certainty is the bedrock of Evangelical theology. Their mantra is simple: 

“The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it.” 

So any notion of recalibrating how one might read and interpret the Bible is simply unthinkable. Besides, doesn’t the Bible say: 

“Jesus the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow?” 

Or something to that effect. So why evolve? Why change? Why alter course?

Well the short answer is that death is waiting at the door for you if you stop evolving and growing as a human being. 

I’ve written in the past that I believe Evangelical Christianity, in its current manifestation, is trending towards decline. The major reason for this impending decline is its refusal to evolve beyond the present—to move off of its top dead center.

The truth to be learned from this is that God cannot be reduced to the certainty of long established beliefs that never change. God refuses to be shrink wrapped by conventional ways of reading and interpreting the Bible.

 He is bigger than all our ideas of him taken together.

I know, this is a difficult pill to swallow for those in love with certainty.

In fact, our understanding of the Bible should evolve. 

We humans are evolving. Human society is evolving, slowly but surely. In some areas of the world it’s evolving almost imperceptibly, but it is evolving. 

It is true that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. 

But our understanding of him as the eternal Christ continues to evolve nonetheless. 

Thank God for evolution!