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Doubt and Knowing You’re A Christian

March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Doubt

"Doubt" By Shahram Sharif

Recently I received the following questions from a member of our church.  I thought the question and my response might be helpful to some others.

I feel like I’m struggling.  How do you know that Jesus has come into your heart even though you say the words?  Shouldn’t you feel something or am I just looking for the wrong signs?

These are great questions.  Here are a couple of thoughts.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, talked about a “witness of the Spirit” which was an experience of the Holy Spirit “witnessing” to our spirit that we are children of God.  Here’s a link to a sermon of his on this topic.  The sermon is actually in two parts so here’s a link to the second sermon. He personally sought this witness of the Spirit his entire life, but interestingly enough while he sought it and preached about it, he rarely ever felt it himself!

Wesley wrote in code language to his brother Charles and this code was only recently broken.  An interesting letter came to light that he wrote Charles at the height of his ministry when he was being very successful at helping hundreds if not thousands of people become Christians and join small groups of other Christians.  Here is the relevant part:

In one of my last [letters] I was saying I do not feel the wrath of God abiding on me; nor can I believe it does. And yet (this is the mystery) I do not love God. I never did. Therefore I never believed in the Christian sense of the word. Therefore I am only an honest heathen, a proselyte of the Temple, one of the [those that fear God]. And yet to be so employed of God! And so hedged in that I can neither get forward nor backward! Surely there never was such an instance before, from the beginning of the world! If I ever have had that faith, it would not be so strange. But I never had any other [evidence] of the eternal or invisible world than I have now; and that is none at all, unless such as faintly shines from reason’s glimmering ray. I have no direct witness, I do not say that I am a child of God, but of anything invisible or eternal. If I have any fear, it is not that of falling into hell but of falling into nothing.

Wow!  Here’s a guy who preaches about knowing in your heart that you’re a child of God, and he’s struggling with this himself.  Actually, I appreciate very deeply his honesty with his brother.

So here’s what I’d say: some people experience something “in their heart” when they are a Christian, but other people don’t experience anything.  They just make a commitment to follow Jesus and stick with it.  I tend to be more like the later.  Sometimes I know something special inside of me, but most of the time I don’t.  Most of the time I just keep on keeping on.

Another big person in history was Martin Luther.  He was the founder of the Lutheran Church and the beginner of the Protestant Reformation.  He was first a monk and then a pastor.  He had doubts all the time and when he had doubts or when others told him about their doubts, he told them to remember their baptism.  If you want to know if you’re a Christian, remember your baptism and know that you were baptized into Christ Jesus.  The only thing left is to live like it (and we have the help of the Holy Spirit to do that whether we feel the Spirit or not).

I hope these thoughts are helpful.  In a nutshell, you’re not experiencing anything unusual.  You’re participating in the church.  Maybe a next step would be to get to know some others in our church more fully.  I suspect they have similar experiences too.  The best way to do that is to join a small group.

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Rob Bell – Love Wins

March 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Love WinsSo if you haven’t been on the planet lately, you may have missed the storm of controversy over Rob Bell’s newest book, Love Wins.  Nothing controversial there, but the subtitle goes a little further: A Book about Heaven and Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.   Now that’s one heck of a subtitle!

OK, so there’s really nothing all that controversial in the subtitle because it makes no claims except the claim that this issue is going to be explored.  The big firestorm began with the promo video:

The video suggests that Bell’s book is going to claim a kind of universalism, the belief that no one goes to hell but everyone goes to heaven.  (Side note: This American Life did a fascinating story on another mega-church pastor who decided he didn’t believe in hell: The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of Hell, and with it everything he’d worked for over his entire life.)  Lots of discussion began even before the book came out.  Finally the book hit the shelves, and we could all read what Bell really believed.  While I haven’t had the time to read it myself (I hope to at some point), I have kept up a little bit with some of the reaction.  Here are a couple of noteworthy responses:

1. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, presents a classic conservative evangelical response to Bell’s ideas in this relatively short press release.  While I don’t agree with everything Mohler says about the Bible and Christianity, he is an important enough figure in today’s American Christian landscape that he can’t be ignored.

2. Martin Bashir of MSNBC presents a pretty pointed Q&A session with Bell and attempts to nail him down a little more than Bell prefers to be nailed down.  I found this video even made me squirm!  In the end I appreciated Bashir’s straightforward persistent approach.

3. Good Morning America: Bell receives a much warmer reception on Good Morning America.

The Great DivorceIf you’re looking for a helpful book or resource to dive into this question of who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, I’d suggest two books.  The first is the book that my Agnostic Pub Group just finished reading: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis.  Lewis presents a somewhat more palatable view of hell where those in hell have chosen to be there because they can’t bear the reality of heaven.  (By the way, this group continues its reading on the 1st and 3rd Thursdays at Old Chicago Pizza in Okemos at 7PM with noted atheist Phillip Pullman’s newest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.  The group includes atheists, agnostics, Christians, and every shade in between.  Come join us for some good brew and good discussion.)

The second book I’d recommend is a book edited by my theology professor while I was at Wheaton, Tim Phillips, and Dennis Okholm titled, Four Views of Salvation in a Pluralistic World.  The book includes four different authors who believe in four different ideas about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.  Each is given a chapter to present their view and following that chapter is a response from each of the other three.  The original author then writes a response to the responses.  The book is a little dense at times and also repetitive (you hear what one author believes in his chapter, his response to the other three responses, and his three responses to the other three chapters), but well worth the time to better understand the issue at hand.

If you’re wondering where I fall in the spectrum of this book, I personally like Clark Pinnock’s “inclusivism.”  He’s perhaps a little left of center without dropping key orthodox beliefs about who God is and who Jesus is.  So what is inclusivism?  You’ll have to read the book to find out (or wait for the sermon series that is building in my mind).

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168 Hours

February 9, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I came across this book, 168 Hours.  I haven’t read it, but the blog has some interesting and helpful tools for time management on it.  John Wesley practiced a kind of time keeping discipline like this.  I think we could all benefit form a similar practice.

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Mixin It Up Small Group Devos – Week 1

January 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mixin It Up

The Sermon on the Mount
Matthew 5:1-12 (NRSV)
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Sermon on the Plain
Luke 6:20-26 (NRSV)
20 Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
22 “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.
23 Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
25 “Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.
26 “Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

During this series, Mixin It Up, we’ll be exploring what it means to make a commitment through our church’s small groups to meet people’s spiritual and physical needs.  The key verses are Matthew 5:3 and Luke 6:20.  But each of these verses is set within a bigger context.  In Matthew the context is often called “The Sermon on the Mount” and in Luke it is often called “The Sermon on the Plain.”  Scholars debate about whether these are two different sermons or the same sermon in which Matthew and Luke emphasized different parts.  Whatever the case may be, the context helps flesh out what it might mean to meet people’s spiritual and physical needs.

In Matthew we see the value of mourning with those who are grieving.  Where are people in our community mourning and how can you join them in that important ministry of grieving?  Likewise, Matthew tells us how valuable the meek are.  What does it mean to be meek?  What is the opposite of meek?  Who are the meek in our community?  How can we join them in this great inheritance of the earth?  What about those who have a deep hunger for righteousness and purity of heart?  Are those characteristics present in you?  How can ministering to people’s spiritual needs help develop in you that kind of hunger?  Matthew ends with a focus on peacemakers and those persecuted by their faith.  Where is peacemaking needed in our community and who is being persecuted for their righteousness?

Luke takes a different tact.  He is focused on the very concrete.  The poor.  The hungry.  The weeping.  The hated, excluded, and defamed believers.  Who are the poor in our community?  Who are the hungry?  Who is weeping?  How can you befriend them?  How can you be blessed by their friendship?  Have you ever experienced hatred, exclusion or defamation for being a follower of Jesus?  Luke takes this blessing a step further with his woes.  They are the opposite of those who are blessed.  How can the blessed poor, hungry, weeping, and hated help those who are rich, happy, and popular?  We won’t ever know what kind of blessings are available from those in deep physical need unless we befriend them and their neediness shows us our own neediness.  Over the next several weeks, watch for opportunities as a small group not just to meet needs, but to be blessed by the friendship of those who you serve.  Friendship is a two-way street blessing.

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Christianity at work: What will my coworkers think?

December 18, 2010 By

MSUSeveral months ago a research group from Michigan State University contacted SCC (among many other churches) about participating in a piece of research being done on how Christians share and/or talk about their faith in the workplace.  I wasn’t really sure what they were getting at in this project, but we participated because it sounded interesting.  The graduate student who first contacted us just sent me a summary of the results of their research.  I asked if I could post them on my blog, and he said I could.  So here they are.  What do you think?  Comment below…

Christianity at work: What will my coworkers think?

Purpose

With increased diversity in the workforce, HR managers have been faced with concerns, complaints, and policy decisions related to religion in the workplace.  This study examined whether strategies surrounding disclosure of one’s identity as a Christian operate similarly to those uncovered in research on identity management of other invisible identities, such as sexual orientation.  The study of working adults found that revealing strategies related to positive outcomes and concealing strategies related to negative outcomes.

Background

  • U.S. researchers have demonstrated that Christians feel others’ depict their beliefs in an inaccurate and negative light. Popular discourse in the U.S. has stereotyped Christians as ignorant, close-minded or judgmental in light of recent media coverage on abortion and gay-rights. As a result, Christianity may be a stigmatized identity.
  • In anticipation of becoming targets of prejudice, individuals with stigmatized identities can choose to either disclose or hide their identity.
  • We examined two specific strategies by which Christians manage their religious identities at work: 1) Concealing their identity by constructing a false identity (e.g., denying one’s involvement in religious activities) or avoiding the issue of one’s identity (e.g., dodging the issue of religion in a conversation); 2) Revealing their identity if a coworker asks them in conversation or advocating by creating opportunities to reveal their religious identity to their coworkers.
  • We related these identity management strategies to job-related (job satisfaction, turnover intentions) and psychological outcomes (well-being, self-esteem).

Summary of Results

  • Revealing one’s Christian identity resulted in positive outcomes: higher job satisfaction, lower turnover intentions, and higher well-being and self-esteem.
  • Concealing one’s Christian identity resulted in negative outcomes: lower job satisfaction, higher turnover intentions, and lower well-being and self-esteem.
  • Affirming one’s identity has positive benefits for both the individuals revealing their identity and their organization. Concealing an identity appears to be costly and is a less desirable identity management strategy.
  • It is thus in organizations’ best interests to promote environments in which members of stigmatized groups can feel safe to reveal and affirm their identity.  Managers should try to foster environments in which employees feel they can disclose their religion. By not allowing expression of religion or having a general atmosphere of intolerance towards religious expression, managers can actually contribute toward poor identity management strategies that might negatively impact their employees and organizations.
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Kiva Founder Jessica Jackley

October 31, 2010 By

Kiva is a really interesting way to build friendships with the poor.  I like that the emphasis here isn’t just on a one-time gift, but on an ongoing relationship.  I found it interesting that Jessica Jackley begins with a story about Sunday school and Jesus.  She is both inspired by Jesus and a little frustrated because Jesus says the poor will always be with us.  What Jesus says is an interesting conundrum for Christians, although I wonder if its not taken out of context.  The original verse is in Mark 14:7 which says, “You will always have the poor among you, and you can help them whenever you want to. But you will not always have me.”  As I do a quick search on Google I see that this is a verse that many people seem to wrestle with.  Does Jesus think we shouldn’t help the poor?  The bigger story that this verse falls in is the woman who anoints Jesus feet with oil.  The religious leaders are upset that the money wasn’t used for the poor.  Jesus response is verse seven.  I think the big picture here is that for a Christian there is a time to celebrate and to celebrate big.  These times have more to do not so much with the things we tend to celebrate in our culture, but the really important stuff that is life-changing.  I think particularly about baptism or the anniversary of marriage vows.  These things have a kind of sacred nature about them, and Christians need not blush at spending big to celebrate these moments.  I’ve written more about celebration in relation to simplicity here.  Taking this verse out of context and applying it to some kind of policy on poverty would be a grave mistake.  Jesus certainly was interested in helping break down the systems that keep people in poverty and I suspect he would be very interested in what Jessica Jackley and Kiva are up to. And then loan someone $25!

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Can Women Be Pastors?

October 27, 2010 By

Recently, Alexis, a teenager in my church asked me this question.  I thought it might be a question that others are thinking about too.  So here’s Alexis’ question and my answer.

Hey Pastor Tom,
So lately I have been looking into the whole idea of women not being pastors.  I have read both sides of the argument, and am still forming my own opinions about the matter, but I was wondering what you thought about it? I know it is something [some local churches] are against, women being pastors, but that doesn’t mean a woman can’t be part of the church in large part.  Mark Driscoll looks at it the same way. I also read things from numerous pastors that disagreed with the idea of women not being pastors.

Hey Alexis,
Awesome question.  You’ve always got such great questions.  I love them.  Keep thinking and asking questions, even hard ones to answer.

I’ve got a short answer and a long answer.  The short answer is that there is disagreement in the body of Christ about this issue, but I think that women should certainly be pastors if God calls them to be a pastor.  The longer answer is explaining why I believe this.  Here’s some of the reasons I believe that women can certainly be pastors.

Examples in the Bible
There are several examples of women being church leaders and teachers of men in the Bible.  Take Priscilla and Aquilla, traveling evangelists/pastors.  Interestingly the woman is listed before the man rather the other way around.  This husband/wife team come across Apollos who is preaching incorrectly and Luke tells us that “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately” (Acts 18:26, NRSV).  Then there’s Junia.  Paul says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was” (Romans 16:7, NRSV).  Notice that Paul says they were both prominent among the apostles.  It is likely that they were both apostles.  That’s a woman apostle!  Then there’s Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.  Mark tells us that when they came to visit Jesus’ tomb, it was empty and an angel says to them, “But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you” (Mark 16:7, NRSV).  The angel tells these three women to go and tell the good news to the men.  They are sometimes referred to as the “apostles to the apostles” (“apostle” means “one who is sent”).  I could go on and on, but these three examples give you a taste of women being leaders/pastors/teachers in the Bible.

God’s Original Plan for Men and Women
God’s original plan in Genesis for men and women was one of equality.  Eve was called a “helper” for Adam.  “Helper” doesn’t mean that she’s of a lower rank than Adam.  How do we know this?  Because God is often called “helper” too!  Is God lower than the one God is helping?  No way.  So what about what God tells Eve when she eats the apple?  God says, “Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16, NRSV).  This is usually called “The Curse” and that’s exactly what it is.  It’s not a commandment about how things ought to be, but it’s a curse in the sense that it describes how things are now messed up.  Consider the “curse” that Adam gets: “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life” (Genesis 3:17, NRSV).  Somehow those who think that women should serve their husband because of the curse don’t seem to have any problem with men using farm tools to make their curse of “toil” in the ground any easier.  God intended for men and women to be equal.  Our sin has caused a hierarchy.   We’re not redeemed by Jesus to live into this hierarchy but to reclaim what we were created for: equality.

Counter Examples in the Bible
Of course for every example I bring up in the Bible will be met with some counter examples.  Let’s take just one: “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says” (1 Corinthians 14:34, NRSV).  The question here as always is: Is this command of Paul’s specific to the church and the culture he’s talking to or should it be taken generally for everyone?  I tend to think verses like this are more about respect and education and are specific to the situation Paul was originally talking to.  I was teaching a group of teenage guys one time.  There were three guys in the back who just kept chatting the whole time I was talking.  It drove me crazy.  I felt like shouting out, “And teenage boys shall remain silent while I am teaching!  They are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate because the Bible says teenagers should respect their elders!”  Now if I said that, would I mean that all teenage guys in every place and in every time should remain silent and subordinate always?  No!  What I meant was that the guys I was talking to should be respectful and so should everyone else.

Modern Examples
There are a lot of different ways to approach the Bible.  I approach the Bible through what is often called the “Wesleyan Quadrilateral.”  That’s a big word but it simply means a set of four tools that John Wesley used to help us discern God’s will.  The first and most important is the Bible, but the Bible always has to be interpreted.  Anyone who tells you they just believe what the Bible says isn’t being fully honest with either you or themselves.  We all bring interpretation to the Bible.  The other three tools for interpreting are history (what have Christians said over the years), reason (what is the logical conclusion of our interpretations), and experience (what Christians have experienced throughout both history and our current world).  While history has not always been kind to women pastors, there are several examples of women preaching and teaching throughout history.  Reason is what I’m doing in this entire answer.  Then there’s experience.  Perhaps the most important example of experience you and I are both familiar with is Barb Flory.  She planted this entire church!  She had amazing gifts that God used to be the pastor of this church.  God used her gifts in amazing ways to bring many people to know Jesus and follow him.  When all four of these line up, there’s a pretty good chance that we know what God wants.

More Resources
Just in case I haven’t given you enough to chew on, here’s some other stuff that might be helpful:

  • Christians for Biblical Equality website (especially check out their free articles page!).
  • Duke Socratic Club’s No Male or Female event audio download – This is a “debate” group I was part of at Duke.  We had Ben Witherington and Amy Jill Levine come and “debate” this issue, but it wasn’t much of debate because they ended up agreeing!  There’s some other stuff on this website you might like.  It is all kinda academic, but Alexis, I think you’ve got a kind of academic mind!
  • Slaves, Women and Homosexuals by William Webb – This book is more advanced reading, but in it Webb puts together a proposal for understanding what in the Bible should be understood as applicable to all people in all times (“transcultural”) and what should be understood to be just for a specific people and time (“cultural”).

Alexis, I wonder if part of your question isn’t about searching a bit for your own call.  What is God calling you to do and be?  You’re right that if you or any woman is called to be a pastor, some churches won’t recognize or accept that call, but our church isn’t one of them.  I thank God for that because if it was any other way, we wouldn’t even be a church!

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Article on “New Monasticism”

September 7, 2010 By

Sarah was interviewed recently by Interpreter Magazine about our experience living in Isaiah House, a “New Monastic Community.”  It’s a great article about our experience there.  Check it out here.

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Good to Great…umm….

September 7, 2010 By

Call & ResponseI recently read and reviewed Jim Collins’ “classic” book, Good to Great.  I found it wanting in several ways.  So I thought I’d take a pot shot at this giant on Call and Response.  What was I thinking?  Yikes!  I hope he doesn’t read it.  Here’s a link.  Enjoy!

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Playing the Message or The medium isn’t (quite) the message

July 27, 2010 By

InvictusHave you seen the  movie Invictus?  I haven’t yet (it’s in my queue), but I have read the book it was based on: Playing the Enemy.  It’s the story of how Nelson Mandela used rugby, a sport that had been a symbol of racism and apartheid,  to become a symbol of national racial unity.  It’s quite the book and I highly recommend it.  You’ll have to tell me about the movie.  Anyway…

The book’s portrayal of Mandela’s leadership inspired me to reconsider a basic maxim I picked up in seminary: “the medium is the  message.”  What this maxim means is that the medium through which a message is communicated isn’t neutral.  It has its own message that tints (at a minimum) and changes (at a maximum) the message that is being communicated through it.

An example of the relationship between message and medium is the difference between the Nirvana version of Smells Like Teen Spirit and the Paul Anka version of Smells Like Teen Spirit.  Did Anka change the message of the lyrics when he sang it big-band style?  Absolutely!  The first time I heard the two songs played side by side, the group I was with (made up primarily of Gen-Xers who cut their musical teeth on Kurt Cobain) was up in arms.  How could Anka do such a thing!  What sacrilege!  He’s totally messed up the song!  They intuitively recognized that the medium of grunge was part of the message of the lyrics and that the medium of brass instruments (and actually being able to understand the lyrics) changed what the song  meant.

So stands the maxim: the medium is the message.  But can the message that a medium carries ever change?  I think Mandela shows that it can.  That’s what I deal with in The medium isn’t (quite) the message.  This little blog article on Call and Response is my attempt to poke at least a couple of holes in this maxim.  Check it out and add a comment.  Feel free to disagree.

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