Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Ron Dart on The Absurdist Podcast - Culture Wars, Hierarchies vs Egalitarianism

In which Ron Dart reasons with a right-wing commentator, critiquing the ideologues' (right or left) oversimplification (gnostic) and misread of history for their own ends.

Love is the Ultimate Expression of "the Prophetic" - Andre Lefebvre

LOVE - IS THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF THE "PROPHETIC"

From time to time a word, a song, a hymn, a picture will trigger a resonance inside and bring me to bow down inwardly to catch a divine drift, to pause and whisper a prayer. That is why I believe in the prophetic nature of artistic expression, it speaks to the heart mostly without words. Yet we sense that "we get it."

But I don't believe that God consistently - DAILY - talks to someone else about my life and relationships, with new directions, Bible verse slogans, teasing me with promises of prosperity or political victories "if only." Nor do I believe it is healthy to be constantly measuring my spiritual journey against so-called prophetic words published by so-called prophetic ministries.

But I have witnessed the birth of a "prophetic industry" producing so-called ministries (what they mean by "ministry" often relates to being a non-profit teaching outfit and fundraising business) that foster to the expectation of "hearing from God," personal oracles supposed to help on the journey.

What ends up happening over time, is that these act as a substitution to the voice of the Spirit in us, in favor of a "quick fix" voice of the very spirit that is driving these people. Which voice are we then following? They use trigger words and trendy topic to attract those interested in "going deeper with God." I believe it is a monumental mistake to enable these merchants of wind. I have seen people be so addicted to these that they consult their favorite "oracles" multiple times daily, as well as the oracles of other ministries they consider reliable.

A Place to Stand - Eric H. Janzen

What a year. What a crazy, tumultuous year! I could spend a lot of words describing this past year but I know I don’t need to. We all know. In one way or another, every one of us has reached the crest of a wind-driven wave and followed the falling curl into the foaming waters below. We’ve felt the crashing currents tugging us one way then pushing us another way. Into the midst of all the storms of reality, competing voices have risen on so many soapboxes that you can become dizzy trying to follow them all.

If you are like me you’ve spent more than one time of prayer looking to Abba and crying out, “What!? Why!? When are you going to do something? How are you going to deal with this?” And those questions can apply to so many things—not just the Covid-19 pandemic. If you’re reading this, I’m sure you can think of all the areas where your prayers of lament and—let’s be honest—complaining apply. I don’t think there is anything wrong with lamenting or complaining to Abba. In fact, the way God so graciously and patiently listens to me when I pour out the frustrations in my heart is one way He shows me the depth of His love.

Today, I received some good news after three days of not knowing whether it would be good or not. It could have been terrible news. Yet, it wasn’t and I was able to take a deep, relieved breath. One more storm navigated. One more challenge is overcome. Through it all, Jesus faithfully sat with me lending me peace and comfort as I did my best to keep my focus on Him and not my circumstance. At times, I am good at that. At other times, I struggle. Even in the moments when my heart raced a little more than usual, Jesus drew near. I could hear him saying, “I am with you in this. I am right here.” I saw Him sitting on a rock, calm and at peace…no hint of worry on his face. What a comfort that picture has been for me the last few days. This is the true blessing of hearing His voice.

Q&R with Brad Jersak - "I struggle with prayers to the Mother of Jesus"

Question:

 

Hi Brad, I'm wondering if you would point me to some articles or resources that might help me better understand the prayers to the Theotokos ["Mother of God"]. As a pastor whose entire upbringing and training has been in the Evangelical church, I struggle most with any prayers directed toward the Mother of Jesus. 

 

Response:

 

When I think of Orthodox prayers to the Theotokos, some separate puzzle pieces come to mind that bear thinking about. Which pieces you use and how you assemble them is going to be personal to you.

Puzzle Piece 1 - John 19:25-27

And standing by the Cross of Jesus his mother, and the sister of his mother, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary, the Magdalene. Jesus, therefore, seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by, said to his mother: “Woman, behold thy son.” Then, he said to the disciple “Behold thy mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own [home].

The historic/apostolic tradition understood this passage to mean that Christ gave his mother to become the mother of his church family. At other times (as in Shepherd of Hermes), Mary also represents the church itself, which serves as a mother to individual disciples. But the point is that the legitimate felt-need for a 'Mother God' in Protestant Progressive movements would be redundant for Orthodox and Catholic believers who already know the love of a mother in the Theotokos. They believe Christ himself directly gifted her to us for that very purpose. How we see this passage is a major puzzle piece in our theology of Theotokos.

 

Puzzle Piece 2 - "Prayer" and "Mediation" 

 

It's important to understand what Orthodox and Catholic believers mean by "pray" in its ancient English form, which simply refers to making a request. Think Shakespeare. "I pray thee." Pray in this sense is something we do all the time, particularly if we are sending out "prayer requests." I ask friends and family and even strangers to pray for me all the time. Granted, I am more likely to ask my wife to pray for me than most other people I know because of her love for me and her track record of faith-filled, fervent and effective prayers (cf. James 5). If I ask Eden to pray for me, I am not denying my own direct access to God. I can ask God for myself. So why do I invite her to join her prayers to mine? I don't know how it 'works' but I do see the apostles modeling that same request to their congregations (e.g. Eph. 6). And so we invoke help in presenting our requests to God. Pretty normal. 

 

So why would we not invoke the prayers of the Theotokos who is (a) alive, (b) with Christ, (c) has an earthly track record of making bold requests of him, (d) and is now glorified with divinized capacities to minister as an intercessor? To seek out the best makes sense to me and who has ever modeled a greater combination of surrender and boldness before God (Father, Son, and Spirit) than Mary? 

 

The fact that Mary is a living person (we believe she's alive, right?) who continues to intercede for the saints (as we all should) shouldn't stumble us, but somehow, Protestants got fixated on the problem of mediation. Paul said, "We have one mediator between God and man--the man Christ Jesus." True! But apparently, his unique mediation does not exclude intercession by a concerned third party mother at the Throne of Grace, nor does it disqualify any of us from ministering on God's behalf to his children. We have one mediator but many intercessors before God and many ministers from God.      

 

Puzzle Piece 3 - "Save us" 

 

When I chant hymns to the Theotokos, what I notice first is that they are primarily Christological affirmations that assert the deity of Jesus Christ. The whole reason we call Mary the Theotokos was a refutation of Arianism. The human Son in her womb is also fully God. So we call her the Temple, the Holy of Holies, and the Ark of the Covenant for this reason: to proclaim that the One who she bore in her womb is none other than the Shekinah Glory of God, the Living Torah, the Living Manna, the budding Staff of Aaron. As Christological affirmations that simultaneously fulfill the angelic call to bless the Virgin, I enjoy singing them.

 

That said, when I first chanted hymns to Mary from the hymnal we call the Octoechos, I found some of them jarring as they called on her to "save us." We have one Savior ... and so does Mary. The Virgin bore her own Savior. But I habitually think of salvation exclusively in its capital S soteriological sense. But again, there's a language issue. If we can just comprehend how God employs many servant-ministers to help us, to rescue us, to 'save' us when we are in dire straights, then we don't need to become confused or offended when we ask for Mary's help. To ask for her help or your help IS to ask for God's help embodied in his willing helpers.

 

I was once on the verge of drowning and called out to my friend Bob Ekblad to stretch out his hand to save me. Oddly, God did not seem to feel slighted, nor did Bob rebuff me for heresy. In fact, God actually seemed to empower Bob to save me. "Prayers" (requests) for the Theotokos to "save (help) us" are nothing more (and nothing less) than spiritual 9-1-1 calls to our loving mother. I've had a lifetime of making regular calls to my earthly mom, Irene Jersak, invoking her prayers and her help. Likewise, I'm grateful for a heavenly mom whom God dispatches on request. 

 

Still, on occasion, I read an odd hymn that is simply over the top. To read some of these hymns (very few) literally does seem idolatrous to me. To be generous, I could just read it as the poetic excess of an overzealous, adoring child of Mary. I've noticed that some such hymns are (1) clearly not as ancient, (2) smack of Mariolatry, (3) or obviously and inappropriately hyperbolic. I shake my head and move on, just as I move on in Protestant worship services when the songs spout heresies of God's wrath being poured out on Jesus or the Father having to turn his head away. Sometimes hymnographers screw up. It happens.    

 

Puzzle Piece 4 - Experiencing Mary

 

I had a great chat with Fr. Michael Gillis (a wise Antiochian archpriest) when I was first asking the same questions. His advice was something like this: don't give too much energy worrying about Mary until you experience her. When it's time, God may grant you a spiritual experience that involves her, makes sense to you and clears the path for the rest of these questions. In other words, the topic of Mary shifts once you meet her. Happily, in my case, prior to my move to Orthodoxy, I had already encountered her in the context of an inner healing moment. It's a long story but the punchline is that "little Bradley" (a child part of me) was feeling lost and scared. As fixed my eyes fixed on his voice, I felt him putting me in his mom's arms. I felt her holding me close and I felt her intense motherly love pour an indescribable balm of solace into my soul. The Beatles' "Let It Be" and the Catholic Rosary Prayer flooded through my mind:

 

"Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. [Yes, Jesus is with her, and therefore with me].
Blessed art thou amongst women, [As we read in Luke's Gospel]
And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. [Because he is the point]
Holy Mary, Mother of God, Pray for us sinners, [Inviting her intercession]
Now and at the hour of our death. Amen." [As every 'letting go' is a tiny death].

 

And I so I came to understand Jesus welcome my invocations to Mary by experience.

But I also knew to continue holding my focus on Jesus' face, even while six-year-old Bradley relaxed back into Mama's healing arms. 

 

All that to say, don't worry about it. Keep your focus on Christ just as Mary does. Pope John Paul II's corrective to Catholic Maryolatry was simple: When you come to the Throne of the Grace, set your gaze on Jesus Christ. Don't be surprised if you see her at his throne, too. But if you see her, don't be distracted. Rather, let her disciple you by emulating her unwavering gaze on the Son of God.

 

And if he wants to give her to you personally--to say, "Behold, your mother,"just as when he gave her to John the Beloved--he'll get to it at just the right time for you.

 

But I will repeat this reminder and clarify: the impulse or longing in our heart for Mother God is holy. I experienced it when reading Paul Young's The Shack. To experience the Mother heart of God is a divine gift. Receive it! But also, understand how for the 'Mother

Church Tradition,' the Mother heart of God is most often experienced through the divinized empathy and affection of Jesus' own precious mom, whom he so generously shared with us from his Cross.

Consent & Participation in Democracy & Theology - Brad Jersak

“Let the Process Play Out”?

In a recent podcast from the pollsters at FiveThirtyEight.com, Galen Druke asked Clare Malone (the senior politics writer) about the values and dangers of a “Let the process play out” stance on court challenges to the 2020 American election. Her response was telling:

“What Divided the Electorate in 2020,” Fivethirtyeight.com (11-16-2020)

Galen Druke: “They’ve said, ‘Let’s let the process play out. President Trump has the right to bring these legal challenges, etc.’ and in some ways giving credibility to these conspiracy theories surrounding voter fraud instead of saying ‘all the secretaries of state said that this an election that has been conducted with integrity, a secure election, etc.’ Are there any long-term problems for small-d democracy in the broader Republican apparatus not forcefully rebutting this?”   

Clare Malone

Clare Malone: “For sure. Even though we all know to read through the lines that ‘he should get security briefings’ means ‘we think he won the election,’ there’s a big difference between saying that and saying, ‘He won the election; let’s move on.’” It’s not a healthy sign, it’s not a good thing. This is not me saying American democracy is over, but it is me saying, “In order to stay healthy, you eat well and exercise.” This is people, like, smashing hamburgers and shooting heroin into their veins.”

Later in the podcast, Clare Malone goes on to describe the essential problem as the necessity of consent in a democratic social contract, which I’ll restate and expand on here:

Consent & Participation: Essential to Democracy  

Political Science Fact: Consent is an essential pillar of small-d democracy. Refusal of candidates to concede an election is not merely an exercise in bad sportsmanship. It breaks a central feature of the social contract—rule by consent. Yes, we must do everything possible to ensure fair and legal elections. But opting to battle election results in court, based on unfounded claims of voter fraud, is not consent. Even when the losing party loses the election a second time in court, the ‘consent fundamental’ has still been effectively removed and democracy is crippled. Without consent, elections become just another form of coercion and there’s nothing exceptional about that.

Further, without consent, the outcomes of the election move from the electorate to the courts. In the worst case, the courts may overrule the will (participation) of the people. And even in the best case, the decision to confirm or veto the will of the electorate is still relocated to the judiciary. Participation of the people is subordinated to decisions by the gavel. Surely that is not what the founders imagined.  

One American commentator said to me, “We’ve reached the point where more than half of Republicans are just about ready to say it out loud: ‘We don’t give a damn about democracy.” That’s to be expected when one’s primary aim and political platform is reduced to securing power (by admission). At the very least, it’s a revisioning of democracy without consent, a phenomenon in other nations that Americans have historically called out, as in Russia and Iran for instance.

Please note carefully: democracy in America does not turn on whether Biden or Trump ‘won.’ What matters here is whether whoever loses (Trump, in this case) is willing to play their role to maintain democratic consent by willingly conceding. We see in retrospect why it was so important for Al Gore to concede to George Bush despite the kafuffle around Florida recounts in 2000. Gore’s concession meant that Bush’s presidency and American democracy were ultimately consensual. That didn’t happen this time.¹ And now it can’t—because even if President Trump concedes after losing in court, it’s no longer conceding by consent. It’s a downgrade for sure—so obvious to the rest of the world—but if that’s the future she chooses, we’ll have to accept and adapt to America’s new political reality. We’ll be okay.

Consent & Participation: Essential to Theology

Sadly, a (the?) dominant force in the erosion of democracy in the U.S.A. has come via the efforts of American(ized) Christianity to marry politics with faith. I think FiveThirtyEight saw this but what follows are my own conclusions.

 

Paula White

Yes, please, let your faith guide your political choices with integrity and truth. But when the President’s ‘spiritual advisor’ prophesies that God told her angels have been dispatched from Africa and South America to change election results—that victory has already been secured in the heavenlies—we’ve entered Christian voodoo territory. It’s a partisan political appeal to divine sovereignty sans the crucial (literally) doctrine of divine consent, and therefore a critical crack in Christianity’s theological foundations.  

 

How do consent and participation figure into Christian theology or our political theology? Simone Weil and George Grant (both political philosophers) saw the Cross as a revelation of divine consent and participation:

• The Cross reminds us of God’s consent in creation, making kenotic space for authentic otherness. Creation itself is a manifestation of “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

• Thus, God consents to the reality of secondary causes, including natural law and human freedom, without direct interference in the shadow sides of tragedy and evil … or elections.

• At the Cross God even consents to our defiance as we reject and crucify Jesus Christ (or truth and justice) even while harnessing the great crime of deicide for our redemption.

• At the Cross (and really, beginning with Gethsemane), we see Christ consent to the will of his Father in drinking the cup of affliction for our sake, bearing the worst of human history in himself (to become the Lord of history).

• At the Cross, we come to the end of ourselves, fall to our knees and consent to the healing grace that flows from the wounds of Christ.

• The Cross reveals God as far different from that of the Deists who penned the Constitution. This is the crucified God who fully participates in the human condition, undergoing our limitations, our injustice, and even our death.

• The Cross reveals the path of redemption that calls not only for our consent but also our full participation in his project (‘the kingdom of God’)—God’s rule and reign by love (i.e. consent and participation) rather than by coercion.

In the end, it’s no surprise that when a nation-state becomes a global empire, we would inevitably see slippage away from democracy by consent and participation into partisan will-to-power. It may be disappointing, but apart from historical amnesia, not unexpected. But for Christianity itself to stray from the cruciform theology of consent and participation into theocratic delusions is simply tragic—and as I’ve said elsewhere, attaching Jesus' name to such ambitions is blasphemous.

It may be odd, then, to hear a word of hope. But those willing to acknowledge and abandon the lose-lose cul-de-sacs into which our culture has wandered may still find an exit. Alternative paths may present themselves, but they will look nothing like the powerplays of spectrum ideology or bastardized faith. Personally, I’m watching for cues from those on the margins who embody the Beatitudes of Jesus. Here’s hoping.   

NOTES:

[1] Barry Richard—George Bush’s top Florida lawyer in the case that went to the Supreme Court—denies any claims that the current barrage of 30+ lawsuits in 6 different states are in any way similar to 2000. https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/politics/decision-2020/bush-v-gore-lawyers-2020-court-fight-is-not-similar-to-2000/2326866/.

Put Not Your Trust in Princes - Mike Neelley

Put not your trust in princes,

In a son of man, in whom there is no salvation…

 

Blessed is the one whose help is the God of Jacob,

Whose hope is in the Lord their God…

 

The Lord sets the prisoners free

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down

The Lord loves the righteous

The Lord watches over the refugee

He upholds the widow and the fatherless

Psalm 146 (excerpts)

This is a clear call to not put our trust in human political leaders, the people in ruling power (princes).

It is easy to look at this Psalm and say, of course, we don’t put our trust in President Donald Trump or the Republican party. Many have been saying that, not just these past few weeks, but for four years. Yet, it should be equally true of President-Elect Joe Biden and the Democratic party. We are not to put our trust in them, either. We are not to lift them up as the ones to bring salvation.

The word salvation is important here. When we talk about salvation, we are not talking about political solutions. It is about our hearts, our spirits, our lives. It is about coming from death into life. It is about rescue from the rule of darkness. And that rule of darkness is still very operative on the earth and in our political system. When it comes to the deep, transforming work of salvation that God is about, there isn’t a political solution for this.

And we are not to put our trust in them.

To trust something or someone for salvation means to put our full weight on them to hold us. It means that we are looking to them as solid ground, an unshakeable foundation to stand on, to build on; the bedrock that will hold the weight of our lives, our loves, our passions, our fears and concerns, our cries for justice and salvation.

The truth is that no one who has been in power, no person or party, can do this. And when it comes to the things that are God’s priorities in this Psalm, no one has truly served or benefitted, let along saved, those who are the most vulnerable, the marginalized, those from the Struggle who live with their backs to the wall. Some people and parties do better than others, but even with a change in leadership, there is a lot of work to be done because all the oppressive systems are still in place, and because of the sin and brokenness of human hearts in a country that is split down the middle regarding what is good and right and true and important. And we are also a Church that is split down the middle on what they believe is at the heart of God.

One of the reasons why we are not to put our trust in princes is that they are a human and their plans don’t last; they come to nothing. Verse 4 tells us that human plans perish along with humans, whereas the Lord “remains faithful forever,” (v.6) and “will reign forever, to all generations.” (v.10)

Human plans, political platforms declaring what they will be about, don’t last, according to this. We saw that in 2016. After President Obama spent eight years putting his plans in place, President Trump came in and has sought to overturn and undo everything that President Obama did. Chances are good, once President-Elect Biden comes into office, that he will seek to undo much of what President Trump has put in place. Human plans perish. Say it with me – human plans perish.

This isn’t a new thing. It’s not an American thing or even a modern thing. Israel had a long history of having really bad kings who oppressed the poor, sacrificed their children and worshipped other gods, and then good kings who repented and sought to follow God and reform all that the bad kings had done. The psalm doesn’t say to put our trust in the good kings but not the bad ones. It tells us to not put our trust in either of them.

Why? Because they can’t compare to God. They can’t bring salvation. And God is our King. Their political platforms and promises and plans can’t compare with God’s. While human leaders may have some good plans, they are not all God’s plans.

In the American system, we see this. Because there are two parties, we feel we must choose between goods and evils, and then argue that our choice is, somehow, God’s choice. The truth is that while it is important for us to vote, no vote is clean. Both sides have problems.

No matter who is in power, we’ve got to be consistent with our critique of the empire, of capitalism, of oppressive systems that serve only those in power on both sides. People in power (princes) will always be about staying in power, but God’s platform is not about power. God’s platform is always about the powerless.

Let’s look at it.

God executes justice for the oppressed

God gives food to the hungry

The Lord sets the prisoners free

The Lord opens the eyes of the blind

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down

The Lord watches over the sojourner

He takes care of the widow and the orphan

This is a list of the most vulnerable in our society, those who are the most dependent on others for survival and help. Completely at the mercy of the systems. These are the ones who are often victimized rather than saved by those in power.

Who are the oppressed?

If it wasn’t clear to us before George Floyd, our black and brown brothers and sisters have been under the boot of oppression since this country was founded. While some progress has been made, we are not that far from the failed efforts at reconstruction of the South following the Civil War.

The light is being shone upon unjust systems that continually crush the poor. What we call our ‘justice system’ is actually unjust in that it is biased toward people with power, with money, and when you look at the sentencing in the “war on drugs,” biased against African-Americans. The injustice of that system includes outrageous court debt and bail systems that victimize the poor, and keep them under the oppression of debt all their days.

He lifts up those who are bowed down. What bows you down? What bends you over because of the weight you carry with you all day long? Debt. Fear. Anxiety and depression. Trauma. Mental illness. All these things weigh us down. And we see here that God is about protecting and lifting up these vulnerable, pressed down people who live in the Struggle.

The psalmist goes on to say, in verse 9, that the Lord watches over the stranger/sojourner. Who are the sojourners? The Hebrew word is also translated as foreigner or alien. It couldn’t be more clear that it is talking about refugees and immigrants, people who are often called “illegal aliens.”

Because the foreigner would be at a natural disadvantage through not being a citizen, and vulnerable to exploitation and deportation, he becomes one of the favorites of God’s laws that gives special protection to the weak and helpless.

In Leviticus, as God is setting up laws for the establishment of the nation of Israel, God declares: "And if a foreigner comes to live with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The foreigner that lives among you shall be to you as the home-born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were a foreigner in the land of Egypt" (Lev. 19:33).

In other words, the foreigner among us shall be treated as a natural-born citizen!

Verse 9 continues to highlight those vulnerable who are close to God’s heart. “He upholds the widow and the fatherless.” God has a special fondness for orphans and widows simply because they are among the most vulnerable among us. In a time when provision and protection for a family were connected to a husband and a father, being without made you especially vulnerable to oppression and set up for exploitation, because you would do anything to survive - sex trafficking and slavery. From the beginning, God called His people to take care of them.

Isaiah 1:17 “Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

Psalm 82:3 “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.”

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

We see this in the ministry of Jesus. In Luke 7:11-15, we see Jesus raise a man from death back to life. We are told that this man is the only son of his mother, who is a widow. This means that this woman is without a husband to provide and protect, and her only son, who would have taken care of her, is now gone, as well. She is left exposed and vulnerable by his death.

Jesus’ miracle of raising anyone to life is astounding – life triumphs over death! Yet here we see the compassionate heart of God that is throughout the scriptures, caring for the widow and the vulnerable.

God loves everyone with a love beyond our comprehension, but we see throughout the bible – from the laws put in place, to the challenges of the prophets to the life and ministry of Jesus that God has a priority for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable; those from the Struggle who live with their backs against the wall.

This is the heart of God, and what followers of Jesus are called to be about. This is God’s platform. This is why we do not put our trust in princes, but our hope is in the Lord our God.

Nietzsche's 'Eternal Return' for Christians - John Ottens

A couple years ago, the night before my wedding, my best man and I chatted about theology and philosophy late into the evening, making the most of the opportunity since we see each other in person so infrequently these days.

 

There was a thought I shared with him that night which I don’t think I’ve discussed with him or anyone else, before or since. I was reminded of it this morning as I was doing a bit of reading. I’m sure the idea isn’t original to me, although in my years of studying and reading theology I can’t remember seeing it articulated in quite this way.

 

As you may have guessed from the title, I was led to this thought by trying to consider Nietzsche’s “eternal return of the same” from the standpoint of Christian faith. Part of Nietzsche’s point in that doctrine is that if every moment of your life were to repeat itself interminably, then you’d better find a way to make sure you can be proud of every moment. Is there anything comparable in the Christian imagination? I realized that there might be.

 

God is present with us in every moment of our lives, but unlike us, God doesn’t enter into those moments and then instantaneously pass through them into something else. Unlike us, God has for eternity been in every moment of our lives along with us, and will never leave those moments. That’s what it means for God to be eternal.

 

The consequence is that every time we do something good, noble, virtuous, brave, generous, beautiful, God gets to enjoy that moment with us forever. It also means that when we do something cowardly, vicious, evil, depraved, hurtful, self-centred, ugly, God is forced to witness those moments and feel them intimately, endlessly. So then here’s the really shocking thing:

 

We have the power to create the heavens and hells from which God can never escape. Indeed, we have already done so, countless times. And God has willingly handed that power over to us from before the beginning of time.

 

___

John Ottens has a Master’s degree in Theological Studies, and is a stay-at-home dad. Find him online at johnottens.ca.

Exit Polls, Evangelicalism & White Supremacy - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey response to Robert P. Jones, "What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism," Broadview 11-12-20.

Exit polls suggest a legacy of white supremacy is still dividing the country.

Beyond tragic, this means four-fifths of American white evangelical Christians subscribe to “heresy” (an opinion, doctrine, or practice contrary to the truth–Merriam-Webster). And this not limited to America! And many religious white non-evangelicals (Catholics, mainline Protestants, other faith members, etc.) also are 'heretics' in this way!

“Heresy” means in Greek (amongst variants) “a self-chosen opinion” (Strong’s). And if chosen, as with all opinions, it can be unchosen. This is what metanoia entails: “change of mind, repentance” (Strong’s).

Please see the author’s book highlighted below. Please see too my book review of Kristin Kobes du Maz’: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.

CLICK HERE to continue reading Wayne's article

"The Prophets Have Spoken"? Florian Berndt

Introduction

As I’ve been reading different responses to the presidential elections in the US, I’ve been deeply saddened by the reactions and behavior that is being espoused by some of those who claim to be leaders in the church. This writing is therefore not so much meant as a political statement, but as my concern about the blatant attempts to hijack people’s personal conscience via “pseudo-prophetic manipulation”.[1] Also, I love and believe in the practice of the gifts of the Holy Spirit – including prophecy – and have been helping people to tune into our Abba’s voice for many years myself. Hence, this is not a dismissal of the prophetic in itself, but a critique of certain practices that have led to the increasing corruption of a gift and ministry that was meant to build up the body of Christ.

The Backstory

During the 2016 presidential election in the USA, several young people I mentored in the prophetic approached me in distress because they had been sent video’s by ministers that claimed that not supporting Donald J. Trump in his way to the White House would remove the blessing of God from their life – none of these kids had ever experienced anything like this before, and most weren’t even American, so that they could not even have voted in that election anyway.  It took a significant amount of pastoral care to help some of them through this, as they often were not even able to admit their confusion for fear of being ridiculed by their peers for even considering such a narrative. These kids had just started to trust in their own ability to listen to Abba’s heart for themselves, just to be confused by these strange voices, and I am sorry to say, these are not isolated incidents.

Now from what I gather, numerous popular voices in the “apostolic/prophetic movement” in the US have stated that they clearly “have heard from God” that Donald J. Trump will “triumph” in the 2020 election – even “in a landslide”. As we all know by now, these predictions have been proven false. Even in the unlikely event, that the supreme courts turn the win over to the Trump administration, the claims still don’t match up.  As a result, several of the followers of these predictions are beginning to confess their disillusionment on social media, as the cognitive dissonance is being on full display and alleged visions and positive confessions spiral down into desperate attempts to somehow explain away the obvious, namely that the emperor has no clothes – all the while attempting to keep the religious machinery going by telling everyone to stay calm, pray harder, believe more, and fast longer for the desired outcome. “The prophets have spoken, stay the course” has become the mantra for many who have put their trust in these predictions. 

“Pseudo-prophetic Manipulation”

To be clear, “the prophets" didn't predict anything concerning the outcome of the American election. In fact, as in every other election, there have been voices that made opposing predictions as well, not to mention the numerous faithful ones that refuse to engage in political roulette.[2] What did happen though, is that a group of spokesmen for a certain movement, with a certain theological outlook - mostly from the US, and mostly loosely connected to each other - made aforementioned predictions, and several people jumped on board. In fact, everyone who has followed these movements for a longer period of time will recognize this as a pattern. It is usually either a more experienced player in the game or an over-zealous newcomer that will step out and make the first prediction concerning a certain outcome, and if it appears that his proclamation contains some factual truth, other’s will quickly follow and thus create the illusion of consensus via confirmation bias, no matter if the details match or not. Everyone who has studied the history of prophetic movements can testify to this, and to claim that "the prophets have spoken” - in the attempt to prevent followers to jump ship - when the predictions don’t match reality reveals the subtle elitism that has crept into these circles, that have all too often have become echo chambers for ideologies that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter how much they are clothed in “Christian” terminology.

CLICK HERE to download the full PDF of The Prophets Have Spoken?

[1] This phrase was originally coined by my dear friend Mercy Aiken in a post on social media. It perfectly describes the dynamics I seek to address.

[2] E. g. Ron Cantor, a Messianic leader in Israel, claims he “twice heard from God” that Joe Biden would win because of the church’s idolization of Donald J. Trump. Apparently, he himself would have hoped for another term of the Trump administration. Ron Cantor, “What I felt God told me about the election in September,” Messiah’s Mandate, (accessed November 2020) https://messiahsmandate.org/what-i-felt-god-told-me-about-the-election-in-september/.

 

Our Refiner's Fire - my foreword to Steve Stewart's "The Beatitudes for a Time of Crisis" - by Brad Jersak

“The Divine Life”

My full immersion into the Beatitudes as a daily practice began on the hiking trails of the North Cascades, where my mentor Ron Dart led me “up on a mountain,
me down, opened his mouth and taught me, saying” (Matt. 5:1-2),

The Divine Life is for those who die to the demands of the ego. Such people will inhabit the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Divine Life is for those who have lived through tragedy and suffering. Such people will be comforted at a deep level.

The Divine Life is for those who bring their passions under
control for goodness. It is such people that will inherit the earth.

The Divine Life is for those who hunger and thirst for justice. Such people will be fed to the full.

The Divine Life is offered to those who are gracious and merciful. Such people will be treated in a merciful and gracious manner.

The Divine Life is offered to those whose Home is clean on the Inside. Such people will know the very presence of God and see His face.

The Divine Life is offered to those who are Makers and Creators of Peace. Such people will be called the children of God.

The Divine Life is known by those who are persecuted for
seeking Justice. Such people will know what it means to live in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The Divine Life is known by those who are mistreated and
misunderstood in their passion for justice. They will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. The prophets were treated this way in the past.

—Matthew 5:3-12

Ron’s translation of the Beatitudes gripped me from the start. I saw in Christ’s ‘words-made-fresh’ how the death and resurrection of Christ were transposed into the daily life of Christian discipleship. The ‘blessedness’ (Gk. makarios) Jesus describes is itself an ascent (by descent) into the ‘divine life’ (theosis) found on the Way of the Cross (kenosis). The irony of the Beatitudes (and the whole Sermon on the Mount) is that we become most human through self-emptying meekness that actually bankrupts the ego.

Christ overturns every grandiose notion of greatness—divine or human—revealing that the Jesus Way into God’s kingdom is a path marked by humility, meekness and peace. It is the counterintuitive Way for those whom the apostle Peter calls “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). A bold statement to be sure—a privilege afforded all those responding to the Lord’s “Follow me.”

The Refiner’s Fire

So it was that I began to pray the Beatitudes daily, inhaling and exhaling alternating lines, modulating between the cruciform blessings and the resurrection outcomes intrinsic to each Beatitude. Over years, my prayer was that in God’s mercy, the repetition would internalize Jesus’ words—driving them deeper than mere behavior modification, finding their way into my character, and bringing about the transformation (lit. transfiguration) Paul describes in 2 Cor. 3:18.

Whatever self-awareness I do have tells me I’ve barely begun that ascent. But what I have noticed is that the Beatitudes sharpen anyone’s discernment if they’re willing to let Christ install these verses in their hearts. Here’s what I mean:

The Psalmist says that the word of the Lord is pure, like silver refined in the furnace seven times (Ps. 12:6). Can you imagine having that level of discernment? What if every alleged ‘word from God’ you heard, whether directly or through the mouth of God’s self-proclaimed spokespersons, were to pass through the Refiner’s fire (Mal. 3:3) seven times? What if that fiery furnace were so hot that no false word could survive its purifying flames?

I believe these Beatitudes comprise that furnace to the n^th-degree. By praying them in the Spirit over and over until they become a sort of spiritual respiration within you, I believe the Lord will install these words as an oven in your soul that devours all that cannot pass as God’s word.

I mentioned grandiosity earlier. I can honestly say that most of the prophetic words I received during the charismatic renewal appealed to my fleshly cravings to achieve greatness—and with God’s rubber stamp of approval. My ego loved to hear God say, “Ask me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance” (forgetting that Ps. 2:8 prophesies the kingship of Christ!). I just knew it was my time for a fresh passport to spiritual fame! Meanwhile, I still haven’t perfected the art of kindness to everyone on my own cul-de-sac.

But what if we were to pass my anticipation of glory through the Beatitudes? Blessed are the poor in spirit (sparks ignite and smoke begins to rise). Blessed are those who mourn (crackle, sizzle). Blessed are the meek (phht! Up in smoke!). And without further ado, I am humbled and maybe just a touch more Christlike. Far better that than climbing my own pedestal for impending humiliation (speaking from experience).

So I am very grateful for the little death of self-centeredness and the resurrection life of Jesus in each Beatitude. And I’m glad for this little furnace of discernment that our Lord provided each of his disciples—a shield of protection from self-deceit and delusion.

Steve Stewart & Impact Nations

That said, doesn’t “Impact Nations” sound a little ambitious? It would if Steve’s Stewart’s growing army of world-servants were hoping to make their mark for themselves and in their own way. Instead, what I see is a company of cruciform disciples who’ve given themselves to self-giving love. The Holy Spirit genius of their mission derives from the tears they weep, their hunger and thirst for justice (dikiosune), and their deep commitment to mercy. They are peacemakers who can rightly be called ‘children of God,’ not because they said the right prayer, believed the right creed, or made the right claim. These are ‘children by imitation’ of the Father who is risky in his generosity and indiscriminate in his kindness.

I say this for hermeneutical reasons: First, if you want to understand the Beatitudes, I commend to you the lives of the Stewart clan and their rowdy entourage. And if you want to understand what makes Steve Stewart and company tick, dive into the life of the Beatitudes. But now I pass the baton for that journey to my dear friend, Steve. He’s a good guide up the mountain because his eyes are ever watching the footsteps of our Rabbi. 

 

Let's Stop the Political Blasphemy - Brad Jersak

Election(s) 2020: Four Convictions Upon Reflection
(with a P.S. interview from Brian Zahnd)

I. Vote your conscience.

I did in our recent election. Most people do. That's also a good invitation to reexamine the health of your conscience. Ask honestly where your vote ignored, offended, or violated your conscience. If your conscience comes to complete peace with ANY party's political platform across the board, then it has lost its capacity to discern or distinguish the gospel of the kingdom from the kingdoms of this world. Our politics have effectively disabled the God-given Nathan within. That should alarm us. It signals a call to repent and return, to fast from political idolatry until your baptismal allegiance to the "kingdom not of, like or from this world" is renewed and unconfused.

II. Be loyal to truth.

When we are so invested in our team that we blindly grasp at party propaganda without fact-checking, the fundamental Christian commitment to upholding truth (and therefore justice) is compromised. The second fateful step—wilfully perpetuating misinformation in the pursuit of power ("winning" or sulking if we don't)—is not merely a foray into character assassination. It is an act of moral self-harm. Character suicide. Once we make the third move—confronted with the truth, we respond, "I don't care"—we're now officially lost. What is the supposed "win" when someone displays a manifest desire to be duped? At that point, the pursuit of truth is over and enforcing healthy boundaries is likely the best we can hope to achieve.

III. Let your principles shape your politics.

The previous two points apply to every person, in any party, from any political system, in any nation. They ought to apply especially to Christian believers who risk their souls by entering a voting booth or posting to social media. But the dominance of dubious content and the hateful tone that has climaxed in a cold civil war south of my border has exposed the disease—the idolatry—of partisan amoralism and spectrum ideology that I addressed in A More Christlike Way. 

I rightly worry about the marriage of deep moral convictions and political bias in our attempt to persuade. But to ask, "How can you vote for them when they [insert your greatest moral outrage here]?!" is not out of bounds. Our moral and ethical principles should never be overlooked when wading into the political arena. Indeed, that's half the problem I've addressed in my previous points. It's critical that we know our sense of right from wrong and let that inform our politics and shape how we seek to persuade.               

IV. Let's stop the prophetic blasphemy.

“Any attempt to use the Spirit to leverage political power is blasphemous.” 
—C.E.W. Green

Okay, we get carried away, we get passionate, we slip. It happens. But for Christ's sake (literally), could we at least demand that our 'Christian leaders' cease with the political blasphemy? I am not speaking here metaphorically. Any of us might be guilty of abandoning Christ just by voting. That's not it. No, we have to say this directly and specifically: those who call themselves 'God's prophets' (literally) and then direct their flock to vote for a particular man or party because God says so (literally) are false prophets (literally).

I have watched our broader political idolatry escalate dramatically to overt blasphemy over the course of the last 20 years in certain (not all) wings of the evangelical-charismatic world that was my home.     

Please hear me: men and women of good faith who I love and trust wrestled and reasoned their way to cast their vote for President Donald Trump. Some described it to me as plugging their nose and voting strategically for a conservative Supreme Court. Others were enthusiastic about America's retreat from the world stage. They applauded the death knell of American exceptionalism on his watch. In any case, that is NOT what I'm talking about here.

I am specifically condemning what liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, have fairly called "the cult of Trumpism."¹ It can be defined as abusing the name of Jesus Christ and declaring falsehoods "by the Spirit" to establish Donald Trump as "God's candidate," without regard for truth, facts or observable outcomes. Three examples: 

• Identifying the President as or with the Saviour.
• Declaring a false victory via divine and angelic intervention.
• Demonizing the opposition as cursed opponents of God's will.  

Am I overstating the case? Perhaps you saw these viral debacles?
First, from Paula White, "spiritual advisor to the President":  

 

Or the MAGA prayer warriors on their knees, interceding at the Clark County election offices:

 

I can't in good conscience post the examples I think were far less tasteful. The boiling point here is not who we think should ascend the imperial throne. What I'm addressing is not a partisan political problem at all. This crisis concerns the reverse transfiguration of prominent Christian streams (who think they have the President's ear) into a dangerous sect. Dangerous to democracy, if that matters. Discrediting to Christian conservatives, certainly. But fatal to faith, and that does matter.  

So, yes, please: vote your conscience, be loyal to the truth, let your principles shape your politics. But for the love of Christ, most of all, let's say an emphatic no to political blasphemy and invite estranged and disillusioned friends of Christ back to the Altar. 

P.S. Postcards from Babylon

But it's not as though this took us by surprise. After posting his Feb. 14, 2017 article, "Cyrus Candidate or Charismatic Catastrophe," Brian Zahnd felt compelled to write his warning/rejoinder to politically compromised faith (of any brand) in his book (and forthcoming documentary) Postcards from Babylon. 

The following interview with Brian covers many of the book's themes. It may leave a better aftertaste than the bitter pill I've offered. If we're seeking our national prophets for Christlike clarity, BZ is a far better candidate::

Notes:

1. Cf. among the dozens of articles (and one edited book by 20 psychiatrists), Andrew Sullivan, "With Trump, the Pathology is the Point," The Intelligencer, 05-22-20; Joe Jobanaski, "The Cult of Trumpism," The Recorder 8-7-20; Ali Breland, "Cult Experts Warn the Trumpism Is Starting to Look Awfully Familiar," MotherJones.com 04-04-20; Sean Illing, "Is Trumpism a Cult?" Vox 01-26-20; Bandy Lee (ed.),The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (Thomas Dunne, 2017).  

Jordan Peterson & Proverbs' Lady Wisdom - Ron Dart & Paul VanderKlay

"Only the Suffering God Can Help" - Brian Zahnd

"Only the Suffering God Can Help”
Brian Zahnd

Very early in the development of Christian theology, the doctrine of divine impassibility ascended to an unquestioned status. Commonly understood, divine impassibility asserts that God is not a subject of any passion, including pain and suffering. Throughout long centuries the doctrine of divine impassibility rested undisturbed and rarely visited in the library of Christian thought. But then came the twentieth century when advancements in technology tragically increased the capacity for human suffering. At the same time that our species was making significant advancements in medical science that lessened the suffering of disease, we also learned how to mechanize war and how to subject large portions of human beings to totalitarian control. From the Gatling gun to the hydrogen bomb, from the Third Reich to Pol Pot, the capacity to inflict suffering became exponential. The crematoriums of Auschwitz and the killing fields of Cambodia haunt our memories and torture our imaginations. In the ghastly light of the Holocaust, the language of divine impassibility became untenable. From his cell in the Flossenbürg concentration camp shortly before his execution at the hands of the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer penned these words: “Only the suffering God can help.”

After Auschwitz, the idea of divine impassibility had to be revisited. To be fair to the Greek Church Fathers, their intention was never to suggest that God lacks the capacity to know human suffering. The triune God not only knows the sufferings of Christ, but knows the sufferings of each and every one of us. The question for the ancient theologians was not "does God know suffering?" but "how does God know suffering?" Does God know suffering as the omniscient Creator who transcends time or as a being within time? On the level of academic theology I think the language of divine impassibility still has currency, but on a popular level — and ultimately this is the level that matters — we must find better ways of talking about God and suffering. This is what Bonhoeffer as a theologian and a pastor (and a sufferer!) understood.

What lurks behind all of this is the thorny question of theodicy — the attempt to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable. Christians claim that the God revealed in Jesus Christ is all-loving, all-knowing, and all-powerful, yet the world we live in is full of unjust suffering. We confess that the living God is Love, yet babies get brain cancer and brides die on their wedding day. How do we reconcile this? We can’t ignore the troubling question of the problem of pain for at least a couple of reasons. First of all, we probably have to face the question in our own lives; and secondly, the problem of pain is the most formidable weapon in the arsenal of the angry atheist. I’m convinced that any credible theodicy must eventually involve an appeal to free will. Without authentic freedom, we do not actually exist as authentic beings. In the world of theological determinism, we are essentially just a movie playing in God’s head. To be something other than a figment of God’s imagination we must have some degree of real freedom. But that freedom seems to come at a tragically high price.

The only satisfying theodicy (if there is such a thing) is that human suffering may be the price for authentic being, but God has not exempted Godself from this experience. God does not stand aloof from human suffering, but fully participates in it with us. Through Christ as the “Man of Sorrows” human suffering enters the fellowship of the Trinity. This is not merely the comfort of divine solidarity with human suffering (though it’s that, too). Rather, Christian eschatological hope asserts that suffering is not the end. It is not human pain, but divine love that will have the final say. The Apostle Peter echoes Isaiah when he says, “by his wounds we are healed.” When we bring our wounds to the wounds of Christ, it does not multiply woundedness but begins the healing process. And yet Christian hope for healing in Christ is even more bold. For we confess that in the end death itself will be fully undone. The undoing began on the first Easter and now, amidst our woundedness, we await the day when death is destroyed “so that God may be all in all.” This is our echoing hope.

BZ

This is from my afterword for Echoing Hope by Kurt Willems.

The post “Only the Suffering God Can Help” appeared first on Brian Zahnd.

"We Are All Revenants" - Bradley Jersak

 

Out of chaos, Good News today: the great gift of the Jesus Way is not so much the Church’s ability to survive its own self-inflicted death. Rather, we marvel at how it can continually die and rise again.

In the midst of the storm, Hope today: even in the great darkness of the Church’s imperial aspirations and its corrosive choices to become the idolatrous escort of state power—even after the deep disillusionment of the Great Deconstruction—inexplicably, a Light shines. A Voice from elsewhere speak. A gift of faith that defies reason persists.

Watch for it. Wait for it.

I am reminded of G.K. Chesterton’s prescient words a century ago, describing the Church, not as an all-powerful institution, but as an alternative society that rises Phoenix-like from its own ashes, because against our better judgment, Christ has never abandoned or divorced her:

"What is this incomparable energy which appears first in one walking the earth like a living judgment and this energy which can die with a dying civilization and yet force it to a resurrection from the dead…?”

“There is an answer: it is an answer to say that the energy is truly from outside the world…”

“All other societies die finally and with dignity. We die daily. We are always being born again with almost indecent obstetrics. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there is in historic Christendom a sort of unnatural life: it could be explained as a supernatural life. It could be explained as an awful galvanic life working in what would have been a corpse. For our civilization ought to have died, by all parallels, by all sociological probability, in the Ragnorak of the end of Rome. That is the weird inspiration of our estate: you and I have no business to be here at all. We are all revenants; all living Christians are dead pagans walking about.” ― G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

So, once again, what we called ‘Church’ has, once again, largely imploded—its hypocrisy laid bare, its motives exposed, a victim of the Kool-Aid it served and drank in exchange for the true Vine. Those who fled the sinking ship frequently forget their complicity and continue to imbibe in the same contempt they condemned in their Mother. Selective amnesia, perhaps. The disillusioned may have emerged from a religious nightmare but can’t perceive they’re still twitching through the dream paralysis of ideological possession. Woke? Oh no, my dear.

So whence this hope? Just watch. Just wait…  

“Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them, Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” ― G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Krisin Kobes Du Mez, "Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation" - review by Wayne Northey

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages

This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book.

In an interview with Religion & Politics, the author discusses how she came to its writing:

Yes! Since about 2010, I had been giving talks on evangelicalism and masculinity and had been approached by publishers, but there were two things at that point that made me a little hesitant to dive into a book project. For one, the things that I was uncovering were very depressing. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to live with that for the years that I knew it would take to write a book. For another, I wasn’t sure at first how mainstream it all was. As a Christian myself, I wanted to be careful about shining a bright light on this dark underbelly of American Christianity if it was merely a fringe phenomenon . . . However, just before the [2016] election, things clicked for me. The Access Hollywood tape came out, white evangelical elites continued to defend Trump, his support among white evangelical voters remained strong, and I thought, “Ugh, I think I know what’s going to happen and I think I know why.” That’s when I pulled some of that old research and wrote [a paper] “Donald Trump and Militant Evangelical Masculinity.”

And then the book was published in 2020.

The words “dark underbelly” and “Ugh” hardly begin to express the blatant evil majority American White evangelicalism has embraced during the past 50 years that the author uncovers.

This reviewer was 22 years of age 50 years ago, and had been raised in a (“quintessential fundamentalist”—historian Ernest Sandeen in The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism) sect known as Plymouth or Christian Brethren. Two years later, under the auspices of a mission arm of said group—Literature Crusades (now International Teams)—I embarked with 12 late-teens-and-20-somethings on a two-year evangelistic gig to West Berlin, Germany. That experience was to change the direction of my life ever after.

CLICK HERE to continue reading

For the PDF of the above, click on: Jesus and John Wayne.

Why I Still Pray - Jonathan Foster

If you've found your prayer life unmoored by theological change, first of all, I hope you know how normal you are. Having gone through what you've gone through and considered what you've considered, why wouldn't you question prayer? If you grew up believing God controls but have now experienced enough trauma to realize God doesn't control, I think it’s understandable you’ve lost interest.  

But, secondly, you might be encouraged to know that others have gone through similar kinds of things and found in their letting go of the old and embracing the new that their prayer life underwent a metamorphosis. So, maybe there's still room for prayer. If you think so (and if you don't, it's fine), then perhaps the following will be helpful. I spent some time recently reflecting on why it is I still pray. Here you go. 

1 - I pray because it's what Jesus did.

I find Jesus praying throughout the gospel story multiple times in homes, in synagogues, at dinner parties, in public, in the garden, on the cross, in groups, and alone. There are, at least, a couple of dozen references of him in prayer. Clearly, his life was saturated in and influenced by prayer. Because I find his life compelling, I think it's worth it to emulate his practices. So, I pray.    

2 - I pray because prayer influences me.

Prayer, for me, has turned into a way I increase the interiority of who I am. A larger interiority allows me to "hold things." The theology behind that idea is that the cross isn't the place where everything gets fixed; it's the place where everything is held. Jesus, on the cross, stretches out his hands and embraces all things, both good and bad.  

And as he's holding the whole world (including me) with all its chaos, pain, joy, regret, and potential, I find the strength to hold my "little world" with all its chaos, pain, joy, regret, and potential.

My current belief is that God doesn't exactly know how everything will play out (though I do think he's got some good ideas), which means that my ability to create interiority and align myself with love is really important. If my interiority is small, petty, unforgiving, and scapegoat-driven, then my actions will be small, petty, unforgiving, and scapegoat-driven. 

Obviously, you’ll have to take my word for it. There’s no empirical data I have to back this up, but I have a sense that prayer has helped me. So, I still pray because prayer influences me. 

3 - I pray because, by faith, I believe it influences others. 

I don't pray for God to fix things because I don't think love is controlling, but that doesn't mean I've stopped believing that prayer influences people, situations, or the world. I don't always know how, but by faith, I believe that prayer does something.  

When I speak of faith, I'm not speaking of having faith in Christ, but rather the faith of  Christ. Faith isn't a mental ascent, an affirmation, belief, saying a creed, or an intellectual understanding of God. Those things I just listed aren't unimportant, but a head-faith doesn't always translate into a heart-faith. Love isn't an intellectual thing. Love is a relationship thing. And yes, God is love. 

So, it's a faith of… and on the way… and what we learn on the way is that we are all interrelated. We are, as MLK jr said, in an inescapable network of mutuality. You wouldn't even exist without others. Yes, mom and dad, but also consider how the atoms you're made without came from somewhere else. The blood in your veins is red because of the iron in stars. The water you drink may have come from clouds that soaked up particles of sweat from a raccoon in Utah. Good grief, we're all so interconnected. When reading Rob Bell's latest book, I was reminded that a woman's monthly cycle is influenced by the ongoing faithful rotation of the moon. The moon. Crazy! Females have a connection with a rock floating in space 238,000 miles away!

Put your hand on your arm, or your leg, or over your heart. Think about it. Stars, Atoms, Racoons, Blood, Reproductive cycles, the moon, the universe… you're inside of it, and it's inside of you. 

And don't make me get started with quantum entanglement, which has been telling us for a while now that stuff is connected in ways we can’t even comprehend. Sub-atomic particles can be split up, moved around the world from each other but still communicate. That's interrelated!

Why am I saying this? Because the faith of Christ reminds me of my relationship with everyone and everything in the cosmos. Maybe there's something like a quantum entanglement expression to our prayers. 

Physicist and theologian Ilia Delio says, "If things can affect one another despite distance or space-time coordinates, then nature is a deeply entangled field of energy; the nature of the universe is undivided wholeness." 

Deeply entangled.
Undivided wholeness.

Maybe this is what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he said, "For none of us lives for ourselves alone, & none of us dies for ourselves alone." (Romans 14:7)

So, yes, in light of even a cursory understanding of all this interrelatedness, I'm compelled to say that I believe prayer can influence others. 

4 - Finally, I pray because, well, I think it's likely that something is going on bigger and more significant than me.

Imagine that, something bigger than me. Can it be proven? No, I don't think so. And I suppose I hope it never will be proven. Because a life proved, is a life without risk, and a life without risk is a life without love. 

I think it's likely that the God who is present to us and present to all things is in the middle of all this prayer. "In him," again from the Apostle Paul, "we move, live and have our being." So maybe our prayers open up new possibilities for God and us. (Check out The Adjustment Bureau) If this is true, then indeed something bigger is going on. The point is, fresh, new, previously unavailable opportunities might emerge in and around my prayers. 

Lately, I've been doing a lot of theological reading. Every week it seems I'm uncovering new things I had previously never considered. It's remarkable how true the old adage is: the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. I've never once finished a book and thought, "Oh, wow, there's less out there than I realized." Ha, no, it's always more. 

What's true of theology is true of science, technology, cosmology, and anything else you can think of. There always seems to be more out there, right?

Have you heard about the final words of Steve Jobs? You can catch the full story in a NY Times article written by his sister, but apparently, before taking his last breath, Jobs looked at his sister, then his children, then his partner, Laurene, and then looked over their shoulders and said, "OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW."

I don't know anything about the kind of faith Steve Jobs had, but I sure like those last words. It could be a tiny glimpse into something playing out that's much bigger.

Even after all I've been through, I just think it's more likely than not that something is going on that's bigger and more significant than me. And if that’s true, then it encourages me to pray.

Confidence Concerning Christ: a Progressivist Problem - Richard Murray

Something has been troubling me for some time about Progressive Christianity and its way of expressing its ideas. I recently got some clarity on what is the problem.

Progressives (with some notable exceptions) don’t emphasize (at all) wanting to know, declare, or share the dynamic and supernatural depths of who “was” and “is” Jesus. By “was” and “is”, I mean Jesus’ divine identity revealed through His incarnation, His death, His resurrection, and His current glorification.

Simply put, Progressives don’t want to tell you anything with confidence about Jesus (which often comes across as an artificial humility). Instead, Progressives want to deconstruct YOUR confidence in what YOU have come to believe, feel, think, and know about Jesus. Progressives offer nothing positive to replace it, leaving you only with a mindset of deconstructive doubt and spiritual befuddlement which marginalizes Jesus to the realm of the basically unknowable.   

If you dare share in their hearing what Jesus, Abba, and Spirit mean to you, they will naysay you and challenge your claim as an inaccurate and unknowable view of who “is” Father, Son, and Spirit. They are woefully unable to tell you who Jesus IS, but will quite boldly tell you who Jesus ISN’T. And what He isn’t, Progressives claim, is anything you claim to viscerally or experientially know by and through your OWN spiritual walk and devotional study.

You call Jesus God. Many Progressives will respond YOU are equally God.

You call Jesus supernaturally empowered, an empowerment He has gifted to us as His corporate bride through His Holy Spirit. Many Progressives snicker and say miracles are mere myths because science renders them impossible, and hard science ALWAYS trumps the mythic supernatural.

You call Jesus Savior. Many Progressives snicker and DENY there is anything from which they need to be saved—AT ALL, and it’s silly for you to suggest otherwise.

You call the purpose of Jesus’ heroic acts  — His death on the cross, His descent into Hell, His resurrection from the tomb, and His ascension into Heaven as Jesus’ triumphant way of defeating Death and the fallen Cosmic Powers. Many Progressives will deny there are any fallen angelic Powers and that Death is a wondrous dynamic which we are to embrace.

You call the Atonement Jesus’ way of transfusing His curative energies into healing and inhabiting this fractured creation. Many Progressives deny the creation is fractured and that it is perfect just the way it is, and that it always has been, thus there is no atonement.

Progressives (not all certainly, but far too many) leave us with a Jesus we don’t really need, we don’t really understand, and we can’t really know.

Thanks, but no thanks.

The next time a Progressive seeks to undermine what you have come to know and believe about Jesus, Abba, and Spirit, FIRST ask what they themselves know about Jesus with any measure of confidence. All you likely will hear are crickets. You may hear about all sorts of scientific or new age theories about this or that, but you won’t hear anything about the prompting personal presence, the pulsating power, and the prodigious preeminence of Christ.

Psalm 1 exhorts us never to sit in the seat of the naysayer. So let’s don’t. Let’s instead resolve to focus on the fullness of who Jesus IS and what epic things He has wrought on our behalf.

Memoricide: Conservative & Progressive Amnesia - Ron Dart (with Brad Jersak)

Unwrathing God: Nonviolent Atonement, Eschatology & Practice - Bradley Jersak

Dr. Zhivago: Then & Now - Ron Dart