Dangerous Calling

My review of Dangerous Calling by Paul David Trip in the January print edition of Christianity Today has now been posted on their website.

There is a disheartening rite of passage every young pastor faces. And though it was almost 10 years ago, I remember my own moment clearly. “Have you heard?” asked my senior pastor when I arrived at the church office that morning. I hadn’t. So he proceeded to tell me about the well-known pastor whose moral failure had made the morning headlines. I remember two things about that moment: my pastor’s grief and my inability to focus the remainder of the day. Though neither of us had met the man or been greatly influenced by his ministry, this pastor’s public shame still felt deeply personal.

“Have you heard?” As the years have passed I’ve come to dread that question, yet it—and the sad stories behind it—is frustratingly common. The hushed conversations between pastors at these moments reflect an unsettling worry: that in our discredited colleagues, we see possible reflections of ourselves. We too have known temptation. We too inhabit a church culture that can seem to hinder our own discipleship by elevating ministry production over spiritual fruit.

Read the rest on the Christianity Today site.

My 5 Favorite Books of 2012

During the year I collect a list of the books I read and then, in a completely unscientific process, choose the five I most highly recommend to you.  This year I read 27 books – a pittance compared to some of your lists, but still enough to make choosing five a small challenge.  Previous years’ lists can be found here: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.  What about you?  What books did you read in 2012 that you can recommend to us?

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The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson (2011).

I don’t read enough fiction – and this book is historical non-fiction – but the The Warmth of Other Suns was the narrative I most enjoyed this year.  Wilkerson is masterful at taking the bits of history to tell a story that is so important to the demographic and cultural texture of America today.  Important, yes- but the history told in these pages is regularly overlooked.  By showcasing three individuals who made the trip north or west from the Jim Crow South, Wilkerson brings into focus the massive migration of African Americans that has shaped the country we know today.  Our church is situated in a neighborhood with deep ties to the stories in this book so I found it especially interesting. (One of the three characters the author follows is Ida Mae Brandon Gladney who moves from Mississippi to the South Side of Chicago.)  Ultimately though, The Warmth of Other Suns is an American story, one told exceedingly well by Wilkerson.

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The Meaning of the City, Jaques Ellul (1970).

Jacques Ellul has been a footnote author for me over the past decade: an author who is regularly cited in appreciated books. Regularly enough that at some point the footnote must be traced back to the original source.  Ellul was a French sociologist, philosopher, and professor of law who is known for his writings on technology, among many other topics.  He was also a Christian whose theological work – in my cursory observation – is either seen as increasingly relevant in our technological age or anachronistic.  I lean toward the former.  In this book Ellul gives us his Biblical reading of the city: its origins, symbolism, role in redemptive history, and location for Christian witness today.  Some see Ellul as a pessimist whose view of the city leaves no room for positive change or reform.  I suppose there is some truth to this but I read him differently.  The vision found in The Meaning of the City is one that allows Christians to bear witness to Christ regardless of perceived reform.  For the growing number of young, Evangelical-ish Christians who see the city as the place to change the world (for God), Ellul provides a necessary corrective.  We witness to Christ in the city because of God’s love for the city and we continue to do so whether or not things turn out as we hope because, ultimately, we are simply called to bear witness.  The One with the power to change operates outside our time and plans and one day His heavenly city will replace all that continues to plague the residents of earthly cities.

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Desiring the Kingdom, James K. A. Smith (2009).

I recommended this book more than any other this year.  Desiring the Kingdom is the first book of a planned three-part series and the second book is the only book I’ve ever pre-ordered.  James K. A. Smith is a professor of philosophy and theology at Calvin College and, as the book reveals, an astute observer of American cultural practices and artifacts.  The book opens with a description of a typical American mall from the perspective of an alien who believes this massive edifice and those coming and going from its doors must form some sort of religious center.  Smith shows how humans are primarily desiring beings.  We do what we love rather than what we think or even believe.  Others have made this point and Smith’s important contribution is in showing how these desires are formed within us.  Liturgy is an important concept in this formation and the author shows the cultural liturgies that compete with those observed by congregations.  These are liturgies with radically different ends, liturgies that aim to form distinct desires among their practitioners.  For a long time I’ve thought about the occasional dissonance between a congregation’s spoken theology and the accepted practices (liturgies) that hinder the implementation of this theology and Smith has given me additional tools to think carefully about this unfortunate tendency.  There are questions I have after reading this book – Is a congregation’s liturgy limited to a worship service? – that I hope Smith will address in the next two books.  But those questions are mostly evidence of just how convincing I find Smith’s thesis and how helpful.

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Life Itself, Roger Ebert (2011).

I read a few different memoirs this year and Roger Ebert’s was by far the most enjoyable.  I remember watching Siskel and Ebert’s movie reviews during high school- I didn’t watch very many movie’s then but was still fascinated by these two witty critics who made a living… watching movies?  (Check out this great oral history  about that unlikely show.)  In more recent years I’ve begun to appreciate the world of film more and Ebert has been one of the writers who has pointed me to the many great options beyond the megaplex.  Life Itself is worth reading for so many reasons: Ebert’s descriptions of journalism in a bygone era; his reflections on religion as an atheist married to a Christian woman he adores; the many, many stories of the women and men who make movies, each told without a trace of the cynicism or celebrity worship we’ve come to expect from such stories.  But what makes this book truly fantastic – why I’ll read it again – is Ebert’s writing.  These pages contain more than interesting remembrances of a more than interesting life.  It’s the words and sentences Ebert selects and crafts that make this book  a page-turner even to those who care little for the films with which the author will forever be identified.

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The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander (2010).

I said more about this book on the blog than any other this year. My friend Richard and I blogged our way through the book and it was gratifying to hear of others who were reading along.  Briefly, author Michelle Alexander makes evident the hard-to-grasp and harder-to-believe systems, policies, and narratives that have led to the mass incarceration (and huge racial disparities) that has become common in America.  The statistics Alexander provides will make you angry- and that’s the point to some extent.  The America beloved by so many and the one experienced by those portrayed in The New Jim Crow are two different Americas.  What will it take for those who’ve been privileged to know the supposed best of this country to see through that privilege to the appalling injustice on the other side?  Alexander’s book has been that catalyst for many already and, I hope, for many more.

We Sinners

I’ve been a pastor for about a decade and there have been plenty of surprises along the way- aspects of my job I hadn’t associated with the pastorate.  Most of these I’m now accustomed too but one continues to catch me off guard: pastoring those who are leaving the Faith.  Having grown up in a believing family I’ve known for most of my life that people leave Christianity though I imagined these departures taking place quietly and quickly.  We spoke of those who had “fallen away” from belief as one disappears over a cliff.  In fact, as I continue to learn, leaving one’s faith is less of a fall than it is a slow, laborious trek during which the destination is rarely visible or certain.

Hanna Pylväinen’s debut novel, We Sinners, captures what I imagine to be the experience of so many leavers (and returners).  Borrowing heavily from her own experience growing up in a large family that belonged to a fundamentalist sect of Finnish Lutheranism, Pylväinen repeatedly finds the right sentence to describe the crises of faith inherent to religious households.  The story advances over eleven chapters, each told in the voice of a different family member.  While the theology and experience of Rovaniemi family differs wildly from my own, the author still managed to evoke great sympathy and memory through this family of believers and doubters.

The corner of Christianity I inhabit can seem obsessed with leavers.  We track statistics and know pollsters by name.  Books are written to tell us what it all means and we try to envision a future where more people identify their religion as “none.”  What this entire industry misses – and what Pylväinen gets – is that discussing the goings and comings of faith with data and demography is neither interesting nor especially helpful.  It is the stories that matter, the unfolding narratives of people who claim and are claimed by their belief, unbelief, and oftentimes both simultaneously.  We Sinners beautifully and painfully reveals the pulse behind much lifeless so-called analysis.

Most readers will not directly relate to the large family or isolationist tendencies of the Rovaniemi’s church.  But the resonance is there, felt through the characters’ doubts and hopes, their moments of shame and forgiveness.  In this way Pylväinen’s novel is for believers and doubters, the leavers and those who remain.  Most impressively, it’s a story that eschews the obtuse categories of religious pollsters and acknowledges the more complicated and interesting experiences of real people whose faith – or lack thereof -  cannot be so easily categorized.

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I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

The Welcoming Congregation

I’ve written another book review for the Englewood Review of Books.

“You’re going to preach an entire sermon series about hospitality?”  This was a friend’s confused response as I was sharing about my preaching plans.  She conceded that hospitality might merit some discussion but couldn’t imagine that the topic warranted more than one sermon.  Her perception, I imagine, is shared among many American Christians.  In the secular realm hospitality is an industry; in our churches the word is associated with ushers, greeters, and those staffing the welcome booth in the lobby.  How much can actually be said abut hospitality?

In The Welcoming Congregation: Roots and Fruits of Christian Hospitality Henry G. Brinton shows that there is plenty to be said about this often overlooked Christian practice.  Brinton is the pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church and The Welcoming Congregation is the result of his travels visiting different hospitable Christian communities around the world: the Iona Community in Scotland, Saddleback Church in California, Reconciliation Parish in Germany, and the Washington National Cathedral in Washington DC.  Divided into two sections – roots and fruits – Brinton attempts to show both the practices of hospitality and the results of those practices among what he calls “welcoming churches.”  The author writes from a mainline church background and means for his book to be a very practical guide for churches interested in the “moderate religious middle.”  Each chapter concludes with a series of discussion questions, an action plan for local congregations, and a suggested preaching topic.  The Welcoming Church succeeds as a succinct, accessible, and creative guide to any church that is interested in reclaiming the priority of hospitality.

Central to Brinton’s understanding of what it means to be a welcoming congregation is the familiar line from Isaiah 56:7.  Through the prophet the Lord declares that, “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”  Drawing from this and a handful of additional Biblical passages the author envisions congregations that welcome everyone.  But this is not easy.  He writes, “Most of us have a natural fear of strangers, and we are reminded every day of the political, racial, cultural, sexual, and economic distinctions that so often divide us.  We know that we are most comfortable with people who look and act like ourselves, and that it is easiest to build community among groups of like minded-individuals.”  For Brinton, hospitality must have roots deep enough to sustain non-homogenous communities within an increasingly divided culture.

Read the rest at the Englewood Review of Books site.

A Faith Not Worth Fighting For

In recent days we’ve learned about President Obama’s role in deciding which terrorist suspects are selected for the “kill list.”  Inclusion on this list all but guarantees the subject will be the target of a supposedly secret and increasingly common drone strike.  While the story seems dramatic from every angle, from the president’s intimate involvement to the technology that makes possible remote control warfare, the response has mostly been hand wringing about how the story was originally leaked.  The issues under consideration aren’t the so-called kill list and new technologies that allow for its implementation but rather the fact that these things are now public.

If this seems backwards it shouldn’t be surprising.  Ours is a nation that cares about immediate outcomes.  Presidential involvement with targeted drone killings is a non-issue as long as it works.  This commitment to metrics and measurable results is wide-ranging: my public school teacher friends lament that curriculum is increasingly limited to whatever leads to higher standardized test scores.

American churches have long breathed this pragmatic air, measuring success through numbers like attendance, membership, budgets, campuses, and so on.  We often ask the same question as our fellow-Americans: What works?

The best thing about A Faith Not Worth Fighting For is how little the contributors care about this question.  This collection of essays “addressing commonly asked questions about Christian nonviolence” covers a range of concerns while sharing a common disinterest in theological pragmatism.  In his chapter Greg Boyd makes this especially clear.  He writes, “What sets the kingdom pacifist apart, I will argue, is that his or her primary motivation for embracing nonviolence is not ethical, political, or in any way utilitarian.  It is rather rooted in the Lordship of Christ and the transforming experience of the Holy Spirit.”

Elsewhere contributors refer to nonviolence as confessional or, as Stephen Long identifies it, christological pacifism.

The pacifism that has haunted and always will haunt the Christian Church…assumes that we have seen and heard God’s purposes for creation in Jesus.  The pacifism I cannot discredit, and have not yet been able to deny, is the pacifism that claims that we are called through our baptisms to participate in the life of Christ and bear witness to the world as God has borne witness to us.  It asks us, what happened to us at our baptisms into the life and death of Christ?

This non-pragmatic approach will frustrate some readers.  While the contributors don’t shy away from the common and challenging questions commonly put to pacifists - What would you do if someone were attacking a loved one?  What about Hitler?  What about war and violence in the Old Testament – they do not show how the nonviolence leads to preferred outcomes.  Instead the essays work to show how, regardless of the situation, Biblical reference, or theological question, nonviolence is always the most faithful response to our life in Christ.  In this regard a book that promises answers winds up posing one consistent question: What if nonviolence is inseparable from faith in Christ?

Editors Tripp York and Justin Bronson Barringer have identified the right questions for this sort of book and pulled together thoughtful contributors.  Given the subject it’s not surprising that Stanley Hauerwas and John Howard Yoder are referenced throughout.  Neither is it surprising that the contributors share similar starting points and to their credit they are gracious with their theological sparring partners.  As Shane Claiborne quips in the afterword, “Our critics are not bad people…they are just wrong.  And hopefully they think the same of us.”

There are two things that could have made this very good book better.  First, I wish some of the essays were edited for more accessibility.  Many of the chapters can easily be read and digested by a wide audience but a few seem directed towards a smaller, academic crowd.  Second, I hoped for more engagement with the practice of nonviolence that comes from African American churches.  In these historic churches we have the witness of people who rejected the pragmatic course for a faith that required great risk and sacrifice, even as they hoped and prayed that their actions would lead to change.  It seems to me that any discussion about nonviolence within the American church must make significant room for the testimonies of these saints.

This book deserves a wide audience and I’m grateful to the editors and contributors for it.  I’ll come back to these essays again as I grapple with the violence in our nation, our city and within my own heart.

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I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.