“Christian” Music
Okay, give me a break—I was twenty and idealistic—but loved music with a passion and was driven to discover the best from new artists.
Another thing: I really disliked so-called Contemporary Christian music. I served on staff in the summer of '81 up at Forest Home Christian Conference Center. They only played Contemporary Christian music. In the dining hall, the auditorium, and the speakers mounted high around the lake, it was all Christian pop, all the time. I felt like I was in Christian Red Square. Not only was CC in the air on every speaker, but all the counselors talked like its sworn advocates:
"They sound just like the Doobie Brothers, but they're Christian!"
"They sound like Fleetwood Mac, but they're Christian!"
I thought (but did not ask)," Why not just listen to the Doobie Brothers? Why listen to a Doobie Brothers wannabe band?" But I knew the answer: "Because they're Christians!" Can't argue with that.
The whole thing embarrassed me for the Church. Aside from a hundred or so Dan Fogelberg clones, Christian music had little variance in style. Christian Pop plowed the middle of the road and baked a lot of plain white bread. Apparently, this allowed good Christian youth the acceptable pleasure of listening to the rock music they really like, only rehashed and blessed by an evangelical seal of approval.
At first, I complained: How come there are no Christian bands that sound like David Bowie or Brian Eno? or Where are the Christian versions of King Crimson or Pink Floyd? In time, I just shut up and returned to the comforts of creative secularists. But here's my ongoing beef(part I): If we Christians claim to be vessels of the Holy Spirit, the Creator, and the giver of life, then why can't we be so intensely creative that the rest of the music world clamors to imitate us? Are we not plugged into the Holy Spirit? Then why do we have nothing but rehashing other non-Christian forms to call good? Why do we wait for the seculars to invent all the music only to copy them? Why aren't we the inventors, innovators, and co-creators? I don’t want to sound cynical, but come on!
Part II of my beef is the "Christian" label itself. It is a marketing ploy saying, in effect, Here's another mediocre act of cheap gospel lyrics served up in a style stolen from sinners but now blessed, rehashed, and suitable for Christian ears. There is nothing good about it.
It is not Christian music, though it is produced by Christian people. There is no Christian music—no Christian Cmaj7 chords—just music that may or may not glorify God.
For my tastes, when I think of Christian music, I go straight to music that—to my tin ear—glorifies God: Palestrina, Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Handel, Haydn, and the organ stylings of E. Power Biggs. Combined, these account for about 2 percent of the music-buying public. But as the saying goes, There's no accounting for taste. The Church has always embraced and encouraged art that edifies the Body of Christ and glorifies God. It is an ongoing project, and we learn through trial and error. There's a lot of great new music made by Christians, and I'm still hungry and looking for it. In the meantime, I'll be listening to the Clash, listening for that call to seek the Kingdom and serve God with an honest, authentic heart. †
NDE: Bob’s Trip to Heaven
As a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, I chose Near-Death Experiences (hence, NDE) as a topic for an educational psychology paper. I spent two weeks in the Psychological library of Princeton University, poring over every issue of the Journal of Thanatology, gathering the most professional NDE data I could find. Upon graduation and ordination, in my first church in Dallas, Texas, my hard work as a student was blessed by a whopper of an account:
Bob was one of those highly-motivated Bible students you love and endure simultaneously. He was a devout, well-informed follower of Jesus. He had several mail-order degrees from magazine-ad Bible colleges, none of which I knew, which means he was in my office twice a week to challenge me on the finer points of scripture and doctrine.
Bob entered the hospital with a massive stroke and was there for months. Elders and I prayed over him, anointed him with oil, and waited. He was moved to intensive care, and we awaited the phone call telling us he had gone to be with his Lord. The phone call came, but it wasn't what we expected.
Over the phone, his wife pleaded with me, "Please come; Bob woke up, and I think he's been to hell—all he kept saying was 'I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back!'" I zoomed to the hospital, knowing that this was likely an NDE. When I entered the room, Bob looked relieved and pleased to see me. I sat down and asked him to tell the story from the beginning. I should say that Bob was not entirely as he was; he was emotional and poetic, and his heart was on the surface, eager to please and lovingly warm—very unlike the Bob I had known. He began:
“I went there! I was in heaven! And Pastor, it's all just like it [the Bible] says. Everything was gold: the streets were gold, the buildings, the statues—everything—and it's not like the gold here. Oh, Pastor, you're going to love it! The gold there was pure. It was so pure you could see through it. It was so pure it made you pure to be near it. I wanted to see Jesus; I wanted to be with him, and I could tell where he was, and I went to him, but there were huge golden doors with no handles on them, so I started knocking and praying and asking to be let in. This guy comes up to me and asks me what I'm doing. I said, ‘Jesus is in there, and I want to be with him.’ He says, ‘You can’t.’ I asked why and he said, ‘because Jesus needs to be alone sometimes.’ I didn't like that, so I said, ‘Well, who are you?’ He said, ‘Paul.’ And I said, ‘Paul, who?’
At this point, Bob's eyes seemed filled with authentic shame, and his face folded up in tears like a small child’s: “He said, ‘PAUL!’ And I felt so embarrassed. But then others were there: Philip and Bartholomew and others. And it was so wonderful being with them; you could ask them anything, and they'd tell you.”
I interrupted Bob and asked him what they talked about and for how long. He said a long time, but he could remember nothing of the discussion. There was a break in Bob's memory of the experience at this point, but it picked up again toward the end.
“I finally got to see him[Jesus] and Pastor; it was so wonderful! It is what we're made for—I was on my face before him, and was everything complete and perfect. I just wanted to stay there forever—someday we will—and you're going to love it. To be there praising him was the completion of my soul. It is for all of us. But after a while, Jesus said I have to go back, and I said, ‘WHY?’ [when he said this, it was whiney like a child] He said I had more to do, but I didn't want to go. Finally, I said, 'Okay, Lord, whatever you want, and I started getting pulled away from him. It was the most painful thing I can imagine feeling—to be so near him and then being drawn away—it was impossible, and I changed my mind, and I pleaded: 'I don't want to go back! I don't want to go back!'“ Again, these were the words he said aloud as he sat up in ICU out of his coma.
I asked him if there was anything he learned of the mind of Christ while he was there--could he remember anything Jesus had taught him or revealed. He seemed to be searching and unable to remember anything, but then it came to him in a flash:
“Oh yes, there's one thing. Do you know how churches always fight and argue about their differences and all the different splits and denominations? Jesus hates that!”
This was from the mouth of one obsessed with right-thinking, correct interpretations, and proper doctrine.
I promised Bob that he would have the chance to share his story with the congregation in time. He remained in the hospital for several more days and was released. The stroke had caused him uncontrollable drooling and weeping, but he was sound in mind and retraining himself for public life.
He and his wife returned to church about six weeks later. I asked him if he was ready to tell his story to the congregation sometime soon, and he said, "What story?" I later sat down with him and recited his account to me verbatim, and he remembered none of it.
Two signs of his experience lingered: one was his solid, convictional faith in Christ, and the other was an event I observed during Sunday School. As I walked around checking on the different classes on Sunday, I listened at the door to a discussion involving Bob. The subject was death, and Bob—now usually rather quiet—piped in: "You don't have to worry about death! There's nothing to be afraid of at all!" I stepped in and challenged him: "How do you know that, Bob?" He looked at me as though I had questioned the most obvious fact in the universe. He seemed to be searching for an answer—or the source of his conviction—and said, "It's in the Bible!" I smiled and nodded. †
A Call to Prayer/Arms
Shooting after shooting, school after school, community after community traumatized and permanently affected—something is going on—and we should know it is more a spiritual failure than a political one. To think that politics can fix soul-sickness is itself a soul sickness.
Guns have always been around, but mass shootings were rare until today. The states with the strictest gun laws still tally the highest gun violence statistics. Something much deeper has changed—something in the American character—that has born the fruit of these mass killings/suicides.
Guns are merely the means, not the cause, of such murders. If we remove guns, the sickness remains. If the soul-sickness is not addressed, we will only see a change in the tools of destruction. We'll be dealing with mass stabbings, mass poisonings, mass bombings, and desperate politicians pushing to abolish knives, poisons, and explosives. In other words, we will be exactly where we are now—no progress made—just changing the band-aids on an endlessly festering wound.
Christian action is not the same as worldly reactions. While politicians continue their endless search for more expensive band-aids, the Church aims beneath the skin. Unless we attempt to reach the depths where the sickness originates, we will only be making mid-flight adjustments on a plane flying in the wrong direction.
America seems to be sicker than it once was. At times, it looks as though our nation is committing a slow—perhaps unintentional—suicide. Alienated loners, overmedicated and under-loved, come to hate life(including their own). They feel hopeless because they are Godless. It's not complicated: our death ends everything if there is no God to whom we must answer. If there is no God, then when we die, it is as though the universe never existed. For the Godless person, reality all begins and ends with them, and if reality ends with them, it means nothing for them to shoot up a school of innocents on their way down. If they have come to the unholy conclusion that their own life doesn't matter, then why would they value the life of anyone or anything else? It's not complicated at all.
Our problem is neither guns nor government; our problem is moral and spiritual. America has a faith problem and a love problem. Faith and love can—and will—prevent even the most darkened souls from acting on the worst of their worst instincts. Those who believe in God can believe that birth is not the beginning, nor is death the end of the story.
America needs faith, hope, and love if it is to be saved. I believe these virtues have no basis without God, and I believe you and I serve the mission to deliver antidotes for soul sickness.
We can make an enormous difference in the world. Love one person—particularly a lonesome outsider—and you may save lives. Tell one depressed neighbor that God loves her and means for her to flourish and know joy, and she may affect dozens of other lives. Tell the truth that you know in your heart; namely, God is known and knowable through Jesus Christ, who came that we should have life and life in abundance. Tell the hard truths: "You're mistaken," "You seem confused," "You're better than that," "Don't fool yourself"—and the lovely ones: "You matter infinitely to God," "I will be your friend," "Let me help you see how wonderful your life can be!"
America must turn from its current moral decline. The Church of Jesus Christ is its best hope for doing so. We bear full rights to distribute the antidotes freely, and there may be dozens of means to help turn the nation, but every one of them depends upon prayer first.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor executed for complicity in the plot to assassinate Hitler, held prayer as the foremost tool of activism. He says prayer is neither apathy nor passiveness, but prayer is a display of the most robust possible activity.
We need to believe this and believe it deeply. We must trust with our whole hearts that our prayers move mountains, change hearts, and redirect nations. We must pray and pray constantly for national renewal and let no one naysay the value of doing so.
As for other actions, they come to people humbled before God in the form of God's calling. We need not trust our best ideas and self-made schemes of correction; instead, let us go to God, encourage others to do likewise, and set before him (as an early American Presbyterian put it) our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Tribeless Christianity
The Grateful Dead may be as well known for their “deadheads”—fans who follow them from venue to venue, year after year—as for any of their music. I’ve spent several hours listening to their best-loved songs, at times attended by devout deadhead friends most eager to secure my endorsement. I love my friends, and I hate disappointing them, but I don’t “get” the Dead.
Likewise, I like some Bruce Springsteen songs. He has penned some excellent lyrics and artfully phrased them, and I like a lot of what I hear, but when Springsteen fanatics urge me to agree that his music is genuinely great, I don’t get it. I admit that the problem may be me; I may suffer a fails-to-fully-appreciate-the-Boss gene.
At the same time, I deeply love lots of other music, and I would stand by the greatness of that music whether or not others share my appreciation. But here’s the thing: there is a kind of love that has little to do with the medium itself and everything to do with the tribe that celebrates it.
Deadheads love and relish their community, which may translate into such phrases as “Isn’t their music [Grateful Dead] absolutely the best?” Springsteen fans claim, “If you ever see him live, you’ll be sold!” Certainly not all—but some—of the appeal is the community surrounding the music. That’s the love of one’s tribe, which one can conflate with one’s feelings about the music itself.
This long set-up has nothing to do with music and everything to do with the gospel’s truth. In short, there is a kind of Christianity that is more in love with the tribe of Christendom than of Jesus Himself. When “being a Christian” is more about one’s own identity than the truth claims about Christ, it has become tribal. Fill in the blank: “I am a Catholic/Orthodox/Reformed/Evangelical/Independent/Presbyterian”—all of these are statements merely about oneself and one’s chosen tribe. Even to say, “I am a Christian!” is all about oneself. A group of Christians can quickly become a tribe and suffer a fall from true faith to tribal self-interest. Whenever a group of Christians becomes more interested in tribal self-preservation than the mission of the gospel, it has ceased to be the Body of Christ. When a church fails to think theologically—that is, when it no longer cares for the particularities of its beliefs—it quickly becomes little more than a self-preserving tribe. At that low point, there is no difference between a congregation deliberating over which hymns to sing and a group of Deadheads picking out which tie-dyes to wear to Coachella.
When Christians celebrate their tribe—be it by denomination, congregation, or the lure of good ol’ church nostalgia—they practice tribal Christianity, which has nothing to do with the gospel. We would do much better to embrace tribeless Christianity, total devotion to Christ without regard to a tribe.
Tribeless Christianity sloughs off whatever is not critical to the gospel mission. Tribeless Christianity insists, “It’s not about us—what we want or like does not matter—all that matters is God’s glory and the pursuit of the gospel mission.”
We may form great communities (local congregations) and have some ideological affiliations (denominations), but we are not interested in developing an identity based on those things. Our identity is in Christ alone, and the degree to which we embrace any tribalism affects the integrity of our faith. We lose touch with the quality of the music and merely celebrate our own in-groups. We think what we believe is good and true only because everyone else in the tribe thinks it’s good and true. We don’t really know, and we don’t do our homework. That is a failure.
Becoming a group of tribeless Christians means we will not allow our group identity (be it denominational, ideological, or otherwise) to determine the gospel. We will find our gospel in Scripture alone, and we will make sure our hearts’ deepest affections and devotions hold focus there.
We are in this for God’s glory, not our own. We are devoted and committed to Christ, not the groupthink of our beloved communities and church family. We will study God’s Word and shape our beliefs accordingly, whether the rest of our tribe “gets it” or not.
The cheerful irony is this: when we go tribeless, our faith finds its proper focus, and the members of our community connect more richly and more deeply than before. So let us abandon tribalism—including Christian tribalism—and embrace Christ. Without a doubt, our life and its music will grow more wondrous than ever. †
We are Not our Opinions
We all have opinions, but we are not our opinions. Does that seem simple enough? Does it feel true or untrue for you? How we view our relationship to our opinions matters deeply because basic civility appears to be eroding all around us. With civility, people of very different opinions can still love each other and treat each other with kindness and respect. Without civility, there is no civilization.
Laura McMullen had to send more than a dozen kids home from Upland High in the first week of this post-covid school year, primarily for fighting. What? In one week? What happened? Through the months of lockdown, too many young people substituted digital connections for real ones. You know what that leads to—you do read the comments after news stories, don’t you? In online interactions, people are short—short-tempered, short-sighted, and short-worded. In clearing out all the care of careful wording, we end up with brute rudeness. Amplify all that rudeness on TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram (and all the socials we adults don’t even know about), and we have a formula for moving people from the slightest offense to utter outrage in less than a heartbeat.
Civility lives in that gap between perception and response. If we feel offended, the clock is ticking on our response. Civility takes its time and measures many consequences. Foolishness simply reacts—shoots from the hip—and fast-draws one’s opponent to gun them down asap. That reaction time may be shorter today than ever.
Case in point: this year’s Oscars. A top comedian pokes fun at several multi-millionaire A-listers, and in the blink of an eye, the rules change. A black-tie affair becomes a black-eye affair. The thing to note is the incredible speed at which a standard, good-natured ribbing turned into an unforgivable offense—one calling for violence and the crudest kind of rebuke. What happened to that gap—that pause between perceived insult and acting out in violence? What happened to thinking it through and responding instead of reacting? One answer is the erosion of civility.
We are not our opinions. We have opinions, and we hold opinions, but they are not us—they are ideas with some emotional commitment behind them—but if someone else insults your opinion, they have not insulted you unless you fail to make the distinction.
I have no problem sitting with total atheists friends—who think Christianity is the greatest plague on civilization—and do so as good friends. Of course, my opinion is that they are blind as cave moles, but I still like them personally. I don’t conflate their mistaken ideas with their soul or personhood. They just have and hold opinions that are, in my opinion, half-baked. Likewise, I am not hurt when my friend scoffs at what he thinks I believe. He attacks an idea, not me. I take no personal offense and feel no need to defend my honor with angry fists, nor will I go off to pout about it. There is no need.
Civility allows others to think differently and hold different opinions without feeling personal slight or offense of dignity. It is crucial to acknowledge that they are just ideas—even bad ones—but those ideas are not the same as a person’s soul.
God commands us to love freely and unconditionally—even our enemies—and to do that, we must see our enemies as God sees them: as his beloved creatures. Yes, his beloved creatures can have wacky, wrong-headed ideas, but those wrong opinions do not diminish God’s perfect love. Our task is to locate our souls—our most serious spirituality—within that perfect love. Doing so takes time and patience. The forces of evil depend upon quick and thoughtless reactions.
We are more than our opinions. Let us prove it. As we seek to grow in Christ and make Him known, let us agree on the value of patience, gentleness, and the discipline of slow responses from our participation in God’s perfect love. It will build a more civil world, and we will find ourselves living in the joy and justice God intends. †
Greatest Story Ever Told
There are three ways to tell a story:
1. From the beginning toward the mysterious, unknown future;
2. From the present looking back and forward;
3. From the ends, looking backward.
In Heaven, there are no stories because, being eternal and outside of time, all of time is seen as present. What we know as a story requires a sequence of events unfolding in past, present, and future. Every story we know has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
The narrative walks us from the beginning “Once Upon a Time,” through the middle with its conflicts and action, toward its end, usually a satisfying conclusion. If the end has no resolution, we’re left hanging in the air disappointed, even anxious.
When our favorite, binge-worthy cable series reaches the end of the season with a cliff-hanger, we can be peeved that we will have to wait eight months before we find that resolution. There are those strange stories that start at the end and walk you through how things developed, or stories where you enter in the middle of the narrative and must have the past unfolded for you bit by bit, but we all long for a good ending, which means a resolution of the tension, the end of a war, or the couple getting married with the promise of living happily ever after.
All four of the gospels are written in the past tense, from the end looking back. They are victory stories, like Americans talking about World War II or Vikings at their celebration banquet toasting their latest conquest. You may have gone out for pizza after your Dodgers won the World Series. What did you talk about? A play-by-play review of all the best moments and a celebration of the greatest players. The gospels are all this kind of story.
The original audience—the first and second-century readers—already knew how the story ends. They already know and believe in Jesus’ passion, resurrection, ascension, and Pentecost. The gospels were written to keep the story straight and true. They were written to shape right thinking about God in Christ.
As Christianity spread to pagan countries and cultures, many elements of the story were unavoidably spun by pagan ideas. The gospels mean to set the record straight and to guide the story’s trajectory. They were written as proclamations for all humankind as the faith spread throughout the ancient world. In this sense, they were (and are) statements of faith instead of objective journalism or plain history.
The central theme of all four gospels is the same: Jesus is Christ, Lord, and God. Miss that point, and the rest is irrelevant because the entire narrative exists to reveal and support that central theme in every detail and sequence. To know Jesus is to know God Almighty. To not know Jesus is to still be wondering and guessing about God.
The gospels’ purpose is to proclaim that Jesus is Lord. The story is told from the victor’s perspective, looking back, which means the story is resolved; it is no cliff-hanger; it is not waiting for another season to explain the previous seasons’ tensions.
Yet they do look forward, for as long as there is an Earth and Heaven, the story continues to play out. But unlike American movies, it is not building up toward its climax but winding down like the 3rd and 4th acts of a Shakespearean play. We already know how the story ends. We know Who stands there to greet us when Heaven and Earth finish God’s purposes for them.
So we gather at the great table, like Vikings in their great hall, or Dodgers fans at the pizza parlor post-win, or a gathering of old WWII vets—in great joy we lift our cups in gratitude, celebrating our win, retelling the story and offering a hallowed toast to our Champion and Hero who made all the difference, winning the game/war/story for us all.
Truth & Sentimentality
SENTIMENTAL
Definition of sentimental:
1a : marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism
b : resulting from feeling rather than reason or thought
It’s hard to dispute: Christmas is the most sentimental time of the year. Jewel colors, sparkling tinsel, evergreen bows with faux snow, twinkling lights, and sweets galore at both home and work—the sights and sounds of the season are meant to sweeten our hearts and gentle our disposition, making us kinder, more generous people, at least until New Year’s.
For the most part, there’s nothing wrong with sentimentality, but when we allow good feelings to rule entirely, the truth can be pushed into the back seat. When we feel good about something, sometimes the truth doesn’t even matter. That’s politics and the current media—tell people what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not.
When it comes to Christmas, truth and sentimentality can be challenging to keep apart. As a pastor, I delight in the Christmas season. People come close to being their best selves at this time of year. However, all that good, sentimental glee can detract from a correct reading of Scripture. I tread very lightly here because even as a diligent, committed teacher and preacher, I fear and tremble at the thought of messing with Christmas. But I shudder even more at the misrepresentation of Scripture, as I should. Can I address the errors of our sentimentalist Christmas traditions and do Scripture justice without walking all over everyone’s positive Christmas feelings? Hmmm, we’ll see.
1. There was no inn and no innkeeper. Luke 2:7 says, “no place for them in the inn,” but “inn” is a wrong translation. The Greek word katalumati refers to the guest room of an ordinary house. Rightly read, there was no place for them in the “guest room.” The only place the word “inn” appears is later in Luke (10:35) in the parable of the Good Samaritan, where the victim is taken to the inn (Greek pandoxeion, literally “all welcome”). That place—the ancient equivalent of a hostel—had a pandoxei, or “innkeeper,” but nothing in Bethlehem.
2. No wise men visited baby Jesus in the stable. How many Christmas creches have you seen with wisemen (at least 3) standing around the manger? Even one is too many, for Matthew clarifies that the Magi came much later, at which time the holy family was in a house [Matthew 2:11]. There—in the house—they delivered royal gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The shepherd boys and animals were long gone.
3. December 25 is not Jesus’ birthday. Sorry, but it’s more likely Jesus was born in the spring, when a Roman census would have taken place (think April 15 as a modern parallel). Why then December 25th? In the Roman world, paganism ruled. Two of the biggest and most unruly festivals occurred at harvest time and at the beginning of winter around December 21st. The harvest festivals celebrated the fruitful profits of an agricultural year, and Saturnalia, named for the god Saturn, marked the return of the light after the shortest day of the year. Saturnalia likely culminated around the 25th with much wild partying. Masters would serve dinner to their slaves (Boxing Day in England has preserved this custom).
When Christianity became the official Roman religion, leaders still had to manage the Roman people’s very popular (and very sentimental!) holidays, so they turned them into Christian feasts. November 1 became “All Saints Day,” wherein all people reverently honor the saints with their celebrations. Saturnalia became the most important mass of the year—the Mass of Christ—or, you guessed, Christmass. The pagan booze-ups were transformed into religious holidays. With time and sentimentalism, we came to call December 25 the birthday of Jesus. True, we celebrate his birth on the 25th—God’s gift of the Christ/Messiah—but it was not and is not his birthday.
So, you’re wondering, are we expected to change everything now? Get rid of the misconstrued creches and change all the children’s plays and programming?
In short, no. While it’s important to know what’s correct, accurate, and Scriptural, it’s not essential to split too many hairs over it. The good feelings of the Christmas season do translate into acts of kindness and generosity, and it is better to have those qualities uplifted than to undermine them by being a fussy and cranky Bible teacher. Which is to say, I’m working on it, but Merry Christmas to you and yours. Let us all make it the best celebration we can.
Toxic Sensitivity
Sensitivity is a big deal in our time. The 70s saw a drastic rise in the value of “the sensitive male,” as opposed to the masculine, insensitive kind of men who won World War II and helped build the greatest country in the world. Today, it’s called “toxic masculinity,” but in general, you can boil it down to the absence of acute sensitivity.
The thing about sensitivity is that some of it is simply genetic. What hurts one person doesn’t hurt another. Like hot sauce—what sends one man running in tears toward the gallon of milk barely affects the next, who reaches for another hot wing. This isn’t a matter of weak versus strong but a matter of nerve endings and how efficiently they send messages to the brain.
I knew a man—a kind and gentle Mr. Rogers-type guy—who went to the dentist and never used novocaine! No joke: he had teeth drilled and filled. His comment: “Yeah, it hurts a little, but not that bad.” If you’re anything like me, even a routine teeth cleaning has me digging my nails into the arms of the dentist’s chair. Different bodies mean different sensitivities.
The other kind of sensitivity is emotional, and it, too, differs from person to person based upon their experience. I am bald. I get it—I’m over it. If someone makes a bald joke in my presence, I don’t experience it as insulting or painful—honestly, I don’t care. But the next guy might be much more sensitive to pain, insult, or injury. Our sensitivities differ because we are different people.
Some say America has become terminally over-sensitive. I don’t know about “terminally,” but I think there is some truth in it. In our social life, we have erected a hierarchy of offense and offended-ness. You can make fun of some things, but not others. You can make fun of some people groups, but not others (good news: politicians are still fair game). A king-of-the-hill competition for legal protection now rules the airwaves, nowhere more apparent than in the conversation regarding gender identity and preferred pronouns.
There is nothing new about men playing women and women men—it’s as old as gender itself—but we have never seen such people so greedy to grasp the power of having been offended. This is because today, in crazy places like Canada and California, being offended has legal teeth. Offend the wrong person, and you’ll pay—either in legal fees or the humiliation of “sensitivity training”—and this year’s offenses become next year’s public school curriculum.
Here’s the thing: sensitivity—enforced by special training and the law—is a poor substitute for love. Sensitivity is not love. Sensitivity training is the attempt to legalize empathy—to force people to feel what others feel—which is impossible. Yes, there are parallels and principles to apply, for we all know what pain is and know that it is always unpleasant for anyone. And yes, we should not hurt one another, but making oneself more sensitive is still not the same thing as love. We’d do far better to teach good manners and proper etiquette instead. We need charm schools, not Clockwork Orange re-programming.
Legislated sensitivity is toxic sensitivity. Toxic because it favors the feelings of some over and above those of others. The co-workers in training have no case in saying that they find pink rabbit costumes in the workplace offensive to them--that ship has sailed—their feelings do not matter. Worse, it is now a state matter.
The failure of toxic sensitivity is guaranteed because there are no objective standards to determine whose feelings deserve greater protection. Instead, politics takes over, and the state arbitrarily rules for the feelings of those who donate the most money.
The Christian faith teaches love, not sensitivity. Love acts beyond the self and one’s feelings. As far as showing love goes, feelings are utterly irrelevant. Treating other people well—good manners and a bit of etiquette—have nothing to do with what we feel. It doesn’t matter if we feel positively or negatively toward others; what matters is that we behave ourselves because Christian love is manifest in our actions, not our feelings.
Of course, the more we practice acts of love, the more our hearts and feelings are shaped toward positive emotions. “Love others” should be the rule. Without regard to sensitivity, let’s agree to be kind and gentle toward the guy in the pink bunny suit. We all know it is what Jesus wants us to do. †
Dealing with All the Garbage
“I never asked to be born!” says the sullen teenager to his parents. What possible interaction could elicit such an extreme response? What horrors of oppressive parenting were hounded upon this poor boy’s head? Could they not see that he was deeply interested—and quite competitively engaged, mind you—in his web-based, video game? It’s not like the trash is going anywhere; it’s been there for days without causing much trouble, so why must they mercilessly nag him to take it out? It comes down to this: be it video games or group texting, life is more important than taking out the garbage like we’re supposed to. Parents! It’s like they can think of nothing else and young people are reduced to the value of an empty trash barrel with a new plastic liner. So that’s it? That’s all I’m good for? I might as well not even exist, so long as you have your clean-and-happy, empty trash cans!
Yes, life can be hard, and hard is definitely relative. Living in the most affluent culture that has ever graced this planet produces the undesirable side-effect of constantly expecting things to work out in our personal favor. Yes, it’s good to believe in ourselves and it’s good to seek the higher virtues of mind and soul, but these things do not put us above the regular need to take out the garbage, because garbage is universal and thoroughly contagious. Garbage begats garbage, and once you begin to look the other way—or just allow yourself to neglect it by a constant attention to more attractive distractions— it can take on a life of its own. The garbage of this world has a life all its own. It seeks to multiply itself and replicate its DNA into every soul, family, community, culture, and society. It’s greatest chance for success comes from you and me—from us ignoring it, hoping someone else will deal with it, or simply fantasizing that the garbage will grow legs, make its way out the back door and jump itself into the garbage cans. The garbage absolutely wins the game when people just plain get used to it.
The truth is that the garbage is toxic and must be removed on a regular basis or else it begins to grow and stink up the whole house. Yes, it’s work—potentially unpleasant work—but if it is not done, we soon condemn ourselves to its miseries.
The season of Lent is all about taking out the garbage; namely, our personal, internal garbage—all the stuff inside of us that is stagnant and toxic. It doesn’t matter how many trips around this planet you’ve made; once you’re reminded that it’s time to take out the garbage, the sullen teenager inside us all starts to roll his eyes and get huffy.
“Do I really have to? Really? I mean, today? Right now? Can’t I just mind my own business and finish what I’m doing before I have to go to all that trouble and mess?”
The Holy Spirit says, “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s garbage, it’s beginning to fester, and if you don’t do something about it soon, you’re going to be knee-deep in the stuff and I won’t even be able to come into the room!”
So we are diligent about confessing our sins and asking the Holy Spirit to seek out the trashy corners of our souls. Things may look fine to us, but that’s not what matters. Pigs love life in the slop, but our calling is seek the image and likeness of our Lord Jesus in thought, word, and deed.
And yes, we live in a world that is in many ways trashy. How much of the trash have we just grown accustomed to? How much of it do we secretly love? All the more then, we need the Holy Spirit working in us, routing out the refuse. No, it’s not fun, neither is it easy, and the messiness factor sends the needle off the charts, but it simply must be done or else it can and will take us over entirely.
The Christian is life is unavoidably filled with difficulties, pains, trials, and constant trash. Part of our essential purpose is to make our way through the journey of this life without getting overwhelmed by the garbage. At the heart of the gospel is the promise that Jesus took out all the garbage—once and for all—that might actually destroy us. The garbage dump is called Calvary—the place where Jesus bore all the trash in the world—and on Good Friday, all that trash was destroyed. That the cross of Calvary has the power to destroy trash is still in effect. You and I can take our trash there anytime and be guaranteed its destruction.
It’s good news to all who dislike trash. It’s bad news to those still in love with all the garbage—and that says something about the final judgment.
Let us be diligent, encouraging each other in dealing with the garbage around us—in our homes, in our culture, and in ourselves—always remembering that the triumph of Christ over it all is permanent and absolute. †
God With Us
Here’s an idea: let’s all quit our jobs, leaving all sources of income behind, and, after borrowing all of our neighbors’ jewelry, let’s convoy out to live in Death Valley for, oh, forty years or so. Sound good? No? Has it ever occurred to you what a tremendously influential person Moses must have been? Speaking simply in the name of “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” Moses led tens of thousands (at least) of underpaid, over-worked servants out of Egypt into the Arabian desert.
Perhaps they were just excited about a change. They had been crying out to God for relief, but the world power of the day—Pharaoh—was neither sympathetic nor interested in even hearing their complaints. He hated the Hebrews and feared the growth of their population. What made things worse, they seemed to succeed at everything whereas he and his had to work diligently for any advances. So Pharaoh, wanting Egypt to be more purely Egyptian, works them to within an inch of their lives and implements male infanticide as a policy. Life is utterly miserable for the Hebrews, but God hears their prayers.
Moses, born Hebrew but raised Egyptian, is no saint; in fact, he is a murderer. Yes, he killed a bad Egyptian in a good cause, but that hardly excuses murder. Moses, un-hero-like, runs away to an absolute nowhere in the desert. His kindness to Jethro’s daughters nets him a beautiful spouse, and he settles down to desert life. One day, while he was minding his own business tending sheep, he sees a burning bust that isn’t actually burning. When he checks it out, The Lord speaks to him: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, and I have something for you to do.”
Moses seems glad for the plan in general, but when he realizes he will have to do some public speaking—which terrifies him—he asks whether or not God might have the wrong number. God simply tells him, “I will be with you.”
Isn’t this what about 90% of our prayers amount to? “Lord, be with my friend in the hospital,” “Lord, be with my husband as he travels,” “Lord, be with us as we grieve”—so much of our prayer life is simply this: calling upon the Lord’s presence and asking that he be present with those who suffer afflictions, dangers, pains, or perplexities.
The promise to Moses that, “I will be with you” is as wonderful and gracious a promise as any of us could hope for. To have God with us is our ultimate comfort and final hope. What would you and I not face with the assurance that God is with us? No trial, no temptation, no earthly danger can compare to the blessed assurance of God’s presence.
It was the mere presence of God that empowers every great act of faith. It put David before Goliath in trust and strength. It kept Daniel cool-headed in the lion’s den. It made Paul—when on death row—feel and act as though he were on vacation.
When we pray, “Oh Lord, be with…” whomever we pray for, we invest ourselves in trusting God’s power and presence. Furthermore, we do so joyfully, knowing that we do in fact have access to the greatest power of all. That is why it always blesses us to pray for others.
But Moses wasn’t convinced. When God lays out the plan, Moses tries to give God the third degree: “Lord, if I’m to do this, I need some serious authorization! If I, a stranger [and a murderer, don’t forget], tell them all this, they’re going to ask for my credentials. How shall I tell them about You and who You are? Who am I to tell them about You and Who You are?” It is as if Moses didn’t even hear the “I’ll be with you” part.
Moses goes for broke: “Give me your name so I can use it to authorize myself. So…what is it?”
God sighs. “Moses, I AM WHO I AM! God reveals himself to Moses as the one, true GOD in the midst of a pagan world of manmade idols. Moses says, “Okay, exactly how do you spell I AM WHO I AM?” and, I think, God sighs again. After this, Moses makes his faith clear: “Please Lord, can’t you ask somebody else?”
God is revealed through servants who are reluctant—who want to stay at home even if that home is a slave hut—and there is much complaining and griping on the road to freedom and the land of God’s promises. Moses wanted to throw in the towel more than once, but deep down, God helped him and grew his faith. We don’t so much say that Moses had faith; rather we say that God was with him, and that made all the difference †.