Wheaton College Hastert Center?

I'm not a frequent letter-to-the-editor author (in fact, I think this is the first one I've ever written). Yet in the recently published alumni quarterly from my alma mater, something caught my eye. And it stuck with me for a few weeks. Eventually, during one the many extended drives to my job site, a response began to formulate in my mind. For whatever reason, as I was laying in bed the morning after my bout with Shea's bug, I felt compelled to write it out and send it in. I imagine the chances of it being published are fairly slim, and being published really wasn't my motivation for writing it in the first place. I think I did it more for myself... for my own clarity as I wrestle with my initial emotions & evolving perspectives and to sort out why I felt the way I did. So I'll share it here as fodder for thought...

Hastert Center Prudent Decision?

As a recent alumnus I count my time at Wheaton an incredibly valuable season in my life. Yet, upon the arrival of the winter 2008 issue, I was struck by the disappointing contrast displayed on page 5. The College’s recent unveiling of the J. Dennis Hastert Center for Economics, Government, and Public Policy subtly promotes to the public a controversial political tone, which does not represent the richness of Wheaton’s heritage or the range of worldviews that currently comprise the college community.

Far from being an attack on Hastert as an individual or on partisan politics in general, my disappointment rises from the ideals that are indirectly advocated by this center’s title: political stature and empire power. Much of my pride in Wheaton as an institution lies in numerous individuals whose progressive actions have humbly shaped the college and the world over the past century and a half: Blanchard & Burr for their abolitionist activism, Elliot & Saint for their radical love, Graham for his tireless voice of a new creation, etc. I fear that the creation of this new center under Hastert’s name undermines the focus of our counter-cultural history in favor of celebrity and endowment.

The issues surrounding government and economics have an ever-important place in a Wheaton education. Yet, in a world where empires are marked by compromise, I hope that wrestling with the interaction between politics and Christ’s teachings is elevated above the status of public office.

Christo et Regno Ejus.

I did my best to be concise and to the point (which is definitely not a strength of mine:-), and hopefully my point comes across.

The concept of a private, Christian educational institution is a difficult one. There is a constant rub between the pursuit of excellence and the humble ways of Christ (my sophomore dorm-floor buddy, Ariah, has written about his struggle with this dichotomy). I went through varying degrees of spiritual crises myself during my time there (some that I am still working through and expect to for the rest of my life). Yet, what I enjoyed about the College was how the community generally welcomed the questioning... that we were frequently directed to prod and inspect our surroundings... to grapple with the things being presented to us, etc. And it's in that spirit that I wrote this editorial piece.

Wheaton's alumni community is peppered with radical lives and powerful minds that embodied sincere efforts to engage the world... the people I speak of were not predisposed to building the empire of a nation, but instead were/are overwhelmed with a compulsion to subvert the status quo and build the Kingdom of God in a multitude of ways. Accordingly, I worry when it appears that the College leadership has embraced political positioning for the added benefit of a bolstered financial endowment.

The irony in all of this to me is that the school's President Litfin (a man whom I respect) writes his closing column in the same issue about the task of a Christian scholar:

"The Christian's intellectual task is, they believe, incomplete until we look along our subject matter, asking in what ways what we're seeing relates to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is essentially what it means to think Christianly about a subject, and it extends into every course, across every discipline, throughout the entire curriculum."

I guess I'm just not convinced that this level of analysis is displayed in the establishment of this new center.

Anywho, as if this post wasn't long enough already, I want to also point those who are interested to a recent article written by Andrew Sullivan at Time.com, My Problem with Christianism (HT: Zach Lind). I won't go into too much detail, but suffice it to say that it articulates many of my current sentiments very well. I'll close with this excerpt...

"I dissent from the political pollution of sincere, personal faith. I dissent most strongly from the attempt to argue that one party represents God and that the other doesn't. I dissent from having my faith co-opted and wielded by people whose politics I do not share and whose intolerance I abhor. The word Christian belongs to no political party. It's time the quiet majority of believers took it back."

I'm Back!

Welp... sorry for the hiatus here folks. After a session of fun-with-the-stomach-flu with Shea a couple weekends ago and general life craziness lately, blogging's been put on the back-burner. But here's a quick update to prove that I'm still alive:

- I've still got that silly "population" post coming... I'll get right to it! (later) :-)

- I'm excited to tell y'all more about Studio L when the time is right... so sooner than later.

- I'm looking forward to having a Man's Weekend (Meekend?) in LA pretty soon with my old college buddies (pictures [maybe video?] to come post-Meekend...)

- I mentioned that I plan to do a series on non-violence, and that's still in the works. But as an intro to these matters, I'm participating in a conversation with Jake (my wife's childhood-friend's husband near Rochester, New York... whew, what a title!) on his recently established blog, Faith in Freedom. He began his thoughts with this post, and expanded with his take on war, to which I have just responded. Hop over there and check it out if you're interested, and add to the discussion (constructively) if you'd like.

**photo credit - War by Gadjo Dilo

Emerging Desert has launched...

Per my buddy, Jacob's, initiation, we've been tossing around the idea of launching a Phoenix Emergent Village cohort for a few months. Well, it's now official, and we want any of you that happen to be in the Phoenix area to feel welcome to check it out and join the conversation (and those of you not in AZ, join us online):

http://EmergingDesert.blogspot.com

Back and Forth!?!? Father, Save Us!!

Oh man, ahahaha, I'm still chuckling about THIS VOICEMAIL that I learned about on Jonny Baker's site. Oh please go listen to it... all the way through (the "remix" at the end is priceless).

Now that's funny stuff... and fairly depressing, as well. God save the Church from ourselves...

Serve God, Save the Planet (Part II)

My lovely wife recently finished this book and wrote out her resulting thoughts, and this reminded me that I never wrote the Part II of my review that would logically follow my Part I (uh, duh). So, in contrast to Part I which was mostly transcribed statistics, I’m going to throw out some more intangible thoughts that I’ve been rolling around as a result of this book lately.

Just to clarify, I never want to come across as claiming to be an expert in these matters. That’s certainly not the case (which is a notion that you should feel comfortable applying to pretty much anything I write about on this blog!:-). While I often enjoy getting into the science and tedious details of some of these complicated issues, I’m very certain that I’m only getting a glimpse of the larger realities, and thus I feel most comfortable simply talking about these matters from my perspective as a regular guy with a family in America who’s trying to pursue Jesus.

And it’s at this level of interaction where the author, J. Matthew Sleeth, connected with me. I don’t think everything he writes in this book is gold-plated truth or wisdom. But the framework that he proposes ideas within is what resonated with me. Instead of touting from a soapbox about how the sky is falling and that there’s a toasty place in hell for all of us who are contributing to the problems, Sleeth speaks plainly to our humanity... to the systemic mindsets that are manifested in problems of our physical world. Let me give you an example:

“The content mind is one of the greatest obstacles to a rich spiritual life. The content mind is a proud mind. It has nothing to learn; it has an answer to everything and no more questions to ask” (62).

The motivation of the book is not to persuade readers to be “treehuggers.” Rather, Sleeth is challenging all of us to strive for a proper sense-of-self... to view our actions within a global reality... to live radically and counter-culturally because this is what Jesus incited his followers to do. And when this is done, it just may end up looking treehugger-y... and it can be transforming & divinely beautiful.

While I’ve read some reviews from other folks who felt that Sleeth comes across as judgmental and preachy, I didn’t get that sense. While he does speak about some very specific lifestyle issues (e.g., electricity use, parenting, food, Sabbath observance, consumerism, etc.), I never perceived his statements as black-and-white declarations. I just took them as really challenging observations/propositions on his part. The fact that I felt stung a few times points only to my personal conviction, not a superiority complex of Sleeth. And that’s because, above all, he speaks to the condition of our hearts:

“It is not our possessions or our homes that will keep us out of heaven, but our unwillingness to set them aside in service of the Lord” (142).

So, yes, I highly recommend the book because it really stirs up some motivation to actually make some changes in my lifestyle (rather than just stirring up a bunch of head-nods and thoughtful “hmmms…”)

Hmmm.

Enough on that.

(I was now going to transition to talking about a film I recently viewed, but this is long enough... so come back in a couple days and I’ll post my film thoughts then. Thanks for reading!)

*Photo Credit: Forestgladesiwander

Pray for Peace.

My heart and mind are heavy for the Middle East right now. If you're the praying type, please talk to God about the Middle East Peace Conference being held in Maryland this week. More than a dozen Arab countries will have delegates present for the dialogue aimed at ending the seven year impasse between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. Some are skeptical about any progress that can come from this kick-off meeting, but I’m floundering to find any alternative to latch onto for hope in this region.

To help bring some perspective to one aspect of this cripplingly complex situation, I want to pass on some words to you from the "inside." My friend Philip, an Egyptian-German who was my suitemate in the dorm during our freshman year at Wheaton, maintains a blog titled Tabula Gaza. Over the past couple years, Phil has been residing in the heart of the Gaza Strip in an effort to reach out to the Palestinian people who are suffering and often misrepresented by popular media outlets. Since returning to Cairo for graduate school, Phil’s most recent post is a letter that he received from a friend back in Gaza, which describes the current state of affairs. While I encourage you to read the entire letter, I’m going to present the final paragraph here:

"It's hard to not feel like we're in a large concentration camp as I see Gaza's empty streets, and the hopeless feeling in the air…and just the gloominess that has covered Gaza. I think most people feel abandoned as we are literally locked up in this small, concentrated space and we don't know what the world plans for us, or what to expect next. It's hard to imagine what being in Gaza does to someone's will until you've come here. You no longer feel alive, in fact, you're not living; you're just killing time until some sort of change happens. Sadly, Gaza has become desensitized to the rest of the world, as it feels like the international community has turned a blind eye to the reality that is Gaza, and as long as Israel is allowing some food in and hasn't completely cut off electricity or gas... and as long as we are kept alive, no one will ask about us.

But just because we are breathing, that doesn't mean we're alive."

God wants us to ache for this woman and her people because this is not what He intended for His creation. (For another glimpse of this woman’s bloody reality, read this story.) It doesn't matter where you come down on these issues politically... the current state of this region of the world is something that we are obligated to grieve as human beings… as children of God. In America, where uncensored information about the rest of the globe is so readily available to us, I have a hard time stomaching the fact that our dominant culture is far more interested in the cover of Us Weekly or Sports Illustrated than in having a basic understanding of what’s happening outside of our insulated lifestyle (especially within the Church). How can we expect to learn to be a voice for the voiceless if we don’t even care to learn about their plight, be it outside America or within?

Just as I did not choose to be born in Denver, Colorado, USA, these children of Gaza pictured here do not choose to wake each morning in fear of Israeli raids and airstrikes. And they still have no say in the matter.
----

Tara and I watched the film A Mighty Heart this afternoon, which details the events surrounding the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan and how his pregnant widow, Mariane, coped with the aftermath. It’s a difficult and raw movie, yet it does an artful job of portraying the powerful subtleties inherent not only to Pearl’s story, but to the regional strife in general. The simple lesson that this movie drives home for me is that it is quite nearly impossible for violence to solve anything. This is a lesson I have repeatedly encountered from various mediums over the past year, and one that has really challenged my instincts (I plan to flesh this out in coming posts).

So, to bring this back to my original intent, please seek out peace... pray for reconciliation… long for warring tribes to embrace humility and healing. Kingdom come…

Degrees of Separation (Thorns). [Part 2]

Okay, just to recap the main points from last time:-)
- The advanced world around us (particularly in the U.S.) confronts us with a deluge of distractions from God... oftentimes in unassuming areas of our lifestyle.
- A key temptation is to separate our faith from our lifestyle... to justify certain aspects of how we live (or to glaze over particular social issues) as unrelated to what we believe about who Jesus was and the movement he came to enact on this earth.

Let's jump to some excerpts of one of Jesus's parables (that I'm sure many of you have heard) as recorded in Matthew 13:

"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop - a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear."

I want to pull out some ideas from the italicized section above regarding the thorns. Let's hear how Jesus later explained this particular section of the parable:

"The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful."

Also hear how Eugene Peterson adapts the same passage in his interpretation, The Message:

"The seed cast in the weeds is the person who hears the kingdom news, but weeds of worry and illusions about getting more and wanting everything under the sun strangle what was heard, and nothing comes of it."

This is where I conclude degrees of separation = thorns.

Thorns that separate... temporal worries... deceptive "wealth"... wanting more and more... chokes it... precludes fruit. What are these thorns? Fashion trends? Houses? Cars? Electronics? Debt? Church buildings/financial-"needs"? Television? A Job? Career goals? Food? Obviously none of these inherently strangle-out what God is trying to do with those who believe in Him. But I do know that various combinations of this list act as degrees of separation for many people around me... especially myself. And this isn't the kind of situation where we realize what's happening and say, "Hmm... yeah, that's not too good. I should get around to making some changes at some point." If we are who we say we are (follower of Jesus), and we're about what he's about (building the Kingdom), then these separating thorns are severely important to identify and address.

Now, I don't really know exactly where I come down on the whole "once-saved-always-saved" debate, but I find myself leaning towards there being a much more dynamic reality at play than simply saying the proper prayer to shore up your eternal destiny. I guess what I'm resistant to is this view's lulling sense of security that often creates complacency and impotence in its adherents.

Life is to be lived, not won. People are to be unconditionally loved, not converted. The kingdom Jesus spoke of is not simply an enchanted afterlife that we get our ticket for now, but rather it is intended to be brought forth within our world today, our city, our neighborhood, our home by humble action. humble. action.

This takes me to a few final thoughts on degrees of separation = pride.

The common thread in all of this is an adjustment of how we perceive ourselves. I would argue that at the core of building the Kingdom is the minimization of self. The deception of wealth pumps pride into our veins: I need this, I deserve that, I want this, I'm unhappy without that. As we hack away at the gaps between God and ourselves we begin to see how little we really do need (by our cultural standards), and it also bears a genuine mind of gratitude for the essential things that God does provide for us: health for my little girl, shelter for my family, lack of violent war in our streets, etc.

Don Miller gave a fantastic talk at Mars Hill last week titled Story. (I highly recommend giving it a listen). The key takeaway for me is that our lives are all stories being written in real-time. And stories where the main character is primarily driven by self-service, by shallow goals, and by near-sightedness are boring. They don't draw interest to the character's personality and they lack value.

Degrees of separation make our stories boring. They feed our bloated sense of self, and they distract us from what would make for a wildly interesting journey: one charged with challenge, action, devotion, uncertainty, & faith; lined with selfless love. And this is a lesson that I'm trying to learn so that I can pass it on to the next generation.

*Image credit: Flightsaber

Degrees of Separation (Thorns). [Part 1]

And we're baaaaack. (sorry folks, I'll try to be a bit more regular at the blogging here... maybe somebody makes metamucil wafers for blogging, hmm:)


True to form, I've got more swirling around in my hat-rack than I know how to articulate, so I'm going to try my best to flesh out a concept that I've been grappling with over the past weeks (and, as it turns out, my entire life! duh duh duuuuh): degrees of separation.

>>Somewhat Unnecessary Disclaimer: Chances are that if you're reading this, then you know me personally. If you know me personally AND you know that I have a blog, then the chances are fairly high that you are in one of the following categories: a) a Christian; b) at one time were a "believer" and/or are currently investigating spiritual elements. [If you do not fall into either category a) or b), then you should leave. JOKE! Please stay and bear with me. Hopefully these ideas apply generally to the human experience...]

So, degrees of separation. A number of messages and written words that I've been exposed to recently (mostly from Rob Bell and Matthew Sleeth) have planted a new perspective within me. The more I roll it around, the more I realize the breadth and depth of the concept. At face value, it's very simple and logical... yet when I choose to take my personal life down the rabbit hole, I'm confronted with a mosaic of mirrors and pathways.

Here's the simple version:

The world (and more specifically, culture) in which we live can subtly impose degrees of separation between God and ourselves.

Simple enough. Most of us can probably jive with that at some level. Yet it's the personal application that opens things up for me...

In the "God is Green" series that Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan recently walked through, Rob offered the thought that so much of our "advanced" lifestyle, while admittedly adding "comfort," has simultaneously pumped degrees of separation into our day-to-day. For instance, so many of us feel distant from God's natural creation, yet we go from our garage to our car to the office to our car to the garage (or better yet, if you live in suburban Phoenix, it seems everywhere you look is fully comprised of something manmade or manipulated landscape). We aren't even compelled to think about the origins of our food because it's always right there in the supermarket (nevermind if that particular fruit's in season right now or the distance it traveled to get there). Our beef comes butchered and ground, and our chicken breast comes cleaned and skinless in a shrink-wrapped bag. Our water comes out of a faucet with the turn of a little knob. We get as much electricity as our appliances desire from those plugs in the wall. Our trash disappears in seconds when that truck swings by. Our gasoline always comes out of those filling-stations if we give them enough money.

Point being, as advanced as all of this is, one might argue that these conveniences have profoundly distanced us from God. If we want to actually learn about the implications of our beef's origins, or what kind of power plant shoots electricity to our house, or where our trash goes after it has "disappeared," then we've got to intentionally seek out, read, probe, investigate... or in other words, we have to chop through the degrees of separation. And I am increasingly convinced that to passionately pursue God in the U.S. necessitates an awareness of these separating elements. Notice I say awareness rather than avoidance. I'm not advocating that we all start our own farms while living off of the grid and jogging everywhere we need to be. But I also wouldn't rule any of that out either;-) In my mind, it's the awareness that sets up change... that pricks our heart in a Godward manner. As Rob said in one of his sermons, "Removing degrees of separation brings us closer to God."

We all have our specific situations where radical, counter-cultural changes may be opened up to us... and a willingness to enact these changes in our lives is what I'm advocating. The prevalent temptation that we face is to mold our faith to our lifestyle, rather than our lifestyle to our faith. Maybe this sounds sort of fundamentalist... or hippy...

Anywho, this is getting long, so I'm going to make this a two-part post. In the next installment, I'm going to bounce another notch deeper into the rabbit hole and offer some more personal insights into this concept, as well as expand on these thoughts:

degrees of separation = pride

degrees of separation = thorns