The Little Friar

Over the course of the past months, I've come to distinguish a kind of lifestyle gap that plagues certain segments of my sister and brother Christians. Some folks will label that gap hypocrisy, but I don't think that's quite right. First, a diagnosis of the lifestyle gap problem.  I've lamented here in the recent past that we Christians need to be more concerned about kindness over love. That our lack of respect and concern for others is making being Christian more difficult to the world. As any number of my non-Christian friends see us, there's a negative view of the Christian brand. More specifically, they tend to see Christians as "unChristian" in their attitudes and behaviors. I've even taken a rather informal census among them. Here are my results. Of my non-Christian friends who also don't identify as other religious: 1. 80% admit to knowing 5 or more Christians. 2. Of those, only 15% admit to noticing a qualifiable difference betwe...

I've been thinking a good deal lately about the difference between what we Christians call liking  and what we call loving.  It seems to me there's a quantitative (and certainly a qualitative) difference here.  What I see most often called loving  is an expression of concern over one's ultimate destiny (whether or not I end up in hell) but very little about the heavier matters of general good-will, concern and respect in daily life.  And it's not only hard for me to understand the distinction.  It makes defending the faith for those on the outside really laughable.  Why be Christian when there are kinder, gentler people outside the fold? "I'm called to love you, but I don't have to like you", I hear some of us say.  And I have to wonder what that even means.  Christians talk a great deal about feeling  loved  by God.  Rarely do they speak of being  liked  by God.  In a similar way, Christians claim to love  ...

Blogging isn't good for your soul.  I'm learning this.  Not so long ago, in a Facebook group, someone asked a question about the Bible and universalism.  I found myself nearly ready to post a link to a blog post when I realized something:  I was more interested in bolstering my reputation than answering the question.  So I have a new rule:  No more blogging about blogging.  Some of this is just consideration for you, the reader.  You came here today to read some thoughtful content, not for me to talk about my plans for this blog, or that I'm nearing my 750th post here.  You came here to think and reflect, so I try to keep my eye on that ball. But the main reason, if I'm honest, is that sort of blogging -- or posts in Facebook that just lament my bad day or my diet or my newest round of headaches -- come from a very unhealthy place.  Take, for example, the notion of getting noticed for blogging.  If I gain some noteriety as an a...

I was re-reading Mark 14.1-9, the story of the woman at Bethany.  Quite probably like everyone else, I've always read this narrative and focused on that line, "the poor you always have with you".  Today, though, something different:  " She has done a beautiful thing". What strikes me so much about this line?  The Greek word that Jesus used for "beautiful" is καλός ( kalos ), which is more usually translated "good.   It crops up all over the NT, but -- for me -- most significantly in John's Gospel, where Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd; for the word means not only "good" and "beautiful", but also "good at the job".  And when Luke reports Jesus saying "Love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you", the good we are called to do isn't only "good (for them)" but also "beautiful".  In other words, if the woman did what she did for Jesus kalos , we're called to do likew...

My issue is theodicy.   First, just to get everyone up to speed, what is a theodicy?  A theodicy is a theological attempt to reconcile a loving and all-powerful God with the experience of human suffering and pain.  CS Lewis called it The Problem of Pain .  The lament psalms also speak to this situation.  Why would a powerful and loving God allow so much pain and suffering?  Answers to this question are forms of theodicy.  I'm a Christian because I have hope in God in Jesus.  That puts agnosticism out as a possibility.  I'm one who hopes so strongly in God in Jesus Christ, reconciling the world, that theodicy is a big deal.  Any theological account that doesn't do its best to work against the brokenness of the world isn't going to fare well under my critical eye.  My heart breaks for the poor, oppressed, imprisoned, rejected, and abused of the world.  So that got me to thinking:  What about my personality makes theodicy suc...

The Greek word  katallagete is the word used for the imperative "be reconciled" from 2 Corinthians 5.20.  I try to make the case -- all the time -- that this is the NT's simple rule for everyday Christians.  As a minister, folks ask me from time to time what they should do in a certain circumstance.  And I quote to them 2 Corinthians 5.20.   What sort of message is that?  What am I getting at? Simply this:  Be reconciled, with everyone.  More precisely, recognize that you are, in Christ,  already  reconciled to every human being.  The goal, then, is simply to be what you are, a reconciled person.  If that still seems a bit vague, let me unpack it in three steps.  First, we recognize that reconciliation is a new social reality that has been created by Christ.  This is firmly a Christian  confession.   Second, we recognize that this reality eradicates all other human categories, group memberships, boundar...

A few weeks ago, a friend articulated the key difference between us, theologically, in this way:  She believes in "justification by grace through faith" whereas I don't.  That isn't to say I believe salvation is accomplished through works.  It isn't.  I take the Bible seriously on this count:  "Salvation is of God" (Revelation 19.1; Psalm 68.20; Titus 2.11; Philippians 2.12-13; Acts 4.12).  Lots of folks have preached and taught -- quite insistently -- all my life that salvation can't be earned.   And that's seemed so strange to me.  Not because I think it's true, but because I think it's funny.  Everyone I know has a hard time believing they can really, truly save themselves.  Even drug addicts know they need help.   Rather, what strikes me is that folks believe there's plenty they can do to screw salvation up .  So maybe that is what the fuss is all about, an attempt to lift the load of shame and guilt from people's shoulders...

Time and time again, I hear folks resorting to the notion of free will  as part of their account of Christian faith.  And my problems with this are myriad.  So let me attempt to lay them out here in as clear a way as I can.  First, there's the deeply theological  issue.  I don't think anthropology (what it means to be human, in this case with a free will) is all that fine a place to begin when talking about God.   It may have worked well for Feuerbach and Freud (not really, but we'll at least pretend), but it won't do biblically.   Why would you build any account of Christian faith upon a non-biblical, philosophically contested, scientifically disputed, and perennially controversial anthropocentric abstraction?   A theological reliance upon free will seems sketchy to me, like building on quicksand.  Personally, I'd like to see theology come out right because we are getting  God  right rather than getting humans  right. ...

Any number of my friends lately have been dealing existentially with the effects of what I call "the intellectual turn" in Christianity.  The intellectual turn  has to do with the intellectualizing of Christianity, and its correlative trouble dealing with doubt.  Intellectual  doubt is less about lament and the absence of God than it is about intellectual skepticism, having difficulty believing, epistemologically speaking, in the existence of God.  Such intellectual doubt has become particularly acute for them because that there's been a hollowing out of faith in many sectors of Christianity.   More specifically, for lots of folks, faith simply means belief .  Further, "belief" is taken to mean "I think proposition x is true".  Thus, having faith means something like "I believe God exists".  While atheists are defined as those who say "I don't believe that God exists".  Faith becomes reduced to asserting (or denying) propositi...

"Jesus stopped ..." (Matthew 20.32; Mark 10.32).  Those words always give me pause each time I read them.  I've been thinking of my strengths and weaknesses as a pastor lately, so what follows is an extended thought about one of my personal weaknesses.  I tend to work on a pace that borders on insane.  I walk fast between places.  I focus on projects with a red-hot intensity.  And I typically don't view interruptions favorably.  Sure, I don't say anything, but internally such interruptions create chaos for a moment.  So in those words, I'm given a spiritual pause.  Literally.  That's because, in those two little words -- "Jesus stopped" -- there's a spiritual discipline particularly important for pastors.  It's the spiritual practice of interrupt-ability :  The ability to be interrupted for the Kingdom's work.  Basically, interruptibility is a form of welcome and hospitality .  It's a way of making room for others. ...