A colleague of mine at Eternity Bible College recently a discipleship guid which includes the topic of God’s heart for all cultures. The words are powerful…
Our Father has a heart for all ethnicities. He desires a multi-ethnic family. The gospel has the power to not only save people but also break down barriers that divided people for generations (Eph. 2:11-22). Yet churches remain to be one of the only places in our culture where segregation is still visible outside of prisons and bars. Jesus reached across racial lines and did not let culture norms dictate his ministry. Our faith, not our ethnicity, unites us.
Our Father has a heart for people of all ages and social classes. The old are not outdated and the young are not too simple. The rich are not too wealthy and the poor are not too destitute. The trendy are not too cool and the common folk are not too socially awkward.
His eyes blur lines that our culture creates. When believers isolate themselves to people just like themselves, the gospel is misrepresented. On the other hand, when respect and love is shown to fellow family members, the gospel is beautified (Tit. 2:1-10). This is when the gospel becomes attractive to the watching world.
“For two generations theology has ‘gone around’ Bultmann rather than through him. This evasion has led either to scholarly retreats into the false securities of the old historicism or to circling the wagons of Christian traditionalism. In this brilliant book worthy of its subject, a voice from the youngest theological generation now presents a fresh understanding of Bultmann’s daring missional program. David Congdon urges the church to look outward and forward by interpreting the news of Jesus Christ on the shifting frontiers of an emerging world.” —James F. Kay
Sorry friends… you have been eclipsed by the other relationships in our life.
An eclipse of friendship. That is what author, theologian, and gay Christian Wesley Hill says has happened to friendship in our modern era. “Friendship is the freest, the least constrained, the least fixed and determined, of all human loves.” (xiii) You can never stop being a parent. You can never stop being the offspring of your parent. You can divorce your spouse, but you will always be an ex. But friendship is entirely voluntary and un-coerced. Some would even say that it is the least necessary relationship. The fact that friendship has been eclipsed completely by other relationships poses a problem for those in the church who are gay but have decided to live a life of celibacy because they desire to be faithful to scripture and the historic teachings of the church. Other people have a place to find meaningful, permanent, deep relationships, but with the devaluing of friendship celibate gay Christians miss out on the depth of love many others can experience. The main point of this book is to aid in the recovery of deeper spiritual friendship. It is supposed to apply to all sorts of Christians, not just the celibate-gay Christians addressed in the subtitle of the book.
Hill begins by describing why he thinks friendship is a relatively weak bond in our western cultures. He then goes on to argue that friendship can, and should, be understood (at times) as a vowed and committed relationship, much like a marriage or kinship bond. Having argued for this, he takes a look at what Scripture has to say about friendship. Having spent the first three chapters focusing on the cultural background of friendship, he then turns to the lived experience of friendship. He covers erotic bonds and friendships, what it means to cultivate friendships, and he offers some concrete ways to strengthen friendships in the church.
There is a lot to appreciate about this book – especially his discussion of Scripture and his suggestions for how we might strengthen friendships in the church. I also really appreciated his cultural study of friendships across time. But most of all – I appreciated his candidness when it came to describing his own struggles as a celibate-gay Christian. People need to hear about how Christians who have same sex attractions and desire deep, permanent relationships will feel knowing that they don’t have the possibility of marriage – the relationship which society today says is the ultimate expression of love. Now it should be noted – though Hill doesn’t do this – that its not only those who have same sex attractions that find themselves desiring deeper more permanent relationships. Other believers who choose to be celibate – or find themselves living a life of celibacy without choosing celibacy – will find themselves desiring these same things as well. Also, I can appreciate how he “de-sexualizes” meaningful friendships. How often have we heard that a guy and girl can’t really be friends without ulterior motives. As a society we are quick to sexualize most things, friendship included.
Nevertheless, I have some questions about some of what Hill has to say. For instance, he advocates for some sort of vow or commitment in friendships – similar to marriage. But what happens when one of these people get married? Should this relationship change, even just a little? Now imagine that a guy and a girl make this sort of de-sexualized friendship vow. What if the guy gets married to another girl. Now he has two permanent vows to two women. How will his wife feel about this? Or – looking at his discussion of these friendship vows in friendships where one person has a same sex attraction and the other does not. What should happen if one friend begins to fall in love with the other? This is not unreasonable, for love often occurs as we begin to share our hearts with one another (a very reasonable thing for a friendship). Is it healthy to keep diving deeper into this friendship if it become harder and harder for one friend not to be attracted to the other? There are no easy answers to these questions, but this book forces us to ask them, and at the very least begin to address them.
Overall this book is complicated. Not because it’s a “hard” read – rather because Wesley presents a vision of Christian friendship that will certainly seem foreign to us. Almost undoubtedly, you will experience some amount of internal tension while reading this book – regardless of where you stand on these issues. This book is challenging – it will challenge you regardless of what you think you know about love, friendship, and celibacy. Reading this book will force you to ask some questions you might have never thought of. This book will certainly act as a conversation starter for many thinking through these sort of tough issues.
Creation care or environmentalism is a hot topic among evangelical Christians (the fact that it is saddens me, honestly, whether we should care for God’s creation or not should not even be a question). Nevertheless, many Christians tend to err on one side or another: either they overemphasize the care of creation over and above human beings or they fall on the opposite side – completely neglecting the importance of proactively caring for God’s creation.
Douglas Moo – in his book Encountering Romans – explains the logic behind these two sides and shows us that Paul (yes the apostle) gives us a way forward:
Paul would steer something of a middle course between two extremes often found in current attitudes about environmental issues. At the one extreme are those who make nature equal in importance to human beings. Edward Abbey, one of the most famous of the radical environmentalists, once claimed that he would rather kill a human being than a snake. Indeed, powerful voices in our culture suggest that we have no reason to think that the human species is more important than any other. Paul, however, reflects in these verses the biblical perspective that human beings, and they only, were created in God’s image. We have a right, based on Scripture, to give precedence to human beings.
Sadly, however, this legitimate biblical insight is used by some Christians to justify the other extreme: dismissing or downplaying concern for nature. God’s charge to our human parents to “subdue” the earth (Gn 1:28) is taken to mean that we have the right to use the world of nature in any way we choose. The upshot is that some Christians teach that human needs and wants take precedence over the good of the natural world. We have a right, they argue, to exploit nature for our own good—defined quite broadly to include a high standard of living, with its demand for cheap energy and the comforts of big cars, big houses, and easy access to wilderness. But such an attitude stands in basic tension with the biblical emphasis, reflected here by Paul, that nature was created by God and has value in its own right. Our attitude toward nature should not be one of exploitation but of stewardship. Paul, I am convinced, was a lot “greener” than many Christians have recognized.
Moo, D. J. (2002). Encountering the Book of Romans: A Theological Survey (p. 139). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Supersize Me is a documentary that follows director Morgan Spurlock on a 30-day journey during which he only eats at McDonalds. The documentary portrays the horrific effects that an all-McDonalds diet has on Spurlock’s physical and psychological well-being and explores the idea that fast food is highly to blame for America’s health problems. In essence, Supersize Me challenges Americans to open their eyes to see the destructive nature of fast food. In Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus, C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison make a similar challenge. They invite American Christians to open their eyes to see the destructive nature of “fast church.” When the church embraces “fast church” the results are similar to when people eat fast food; they become lethargic and sick. Sadly, though, the church has developed a taste for “fast church.” According to Smith and Pattison, the church needs to change its “diet” and begin to embrace a slower way of doing church…..
You can read the rest of my review of Slow Church in the Journal Themelios.
Perennial Virant (the other restaurant of Vie’s Paul Virant) is a new American restaurant located across the street from Chicago’s Lincoln Park at the base of the Hotel Lincoln.
Virant’s distinctives at Vie are replicated in this Lincoln Park area restaurant. It prides itself in being a farm-to-table type restaurant, meaning that you get the freshest ingredients every time . He and his team makes use of pickles, jams, or preserves appear in most dishes. This gives each dish a distinctive taste, all depending on what the pickling/preserving process was like. The meals have been described elsewhere as being “unfussy” and “straightforward” or even “simple.” To some these latter descriptions would downgrade their opinion of the restaurant, but this shouldn’t be the case. By keeping things simple Virant lets the flavors of each ingredient really pop. Though the dishes are simple they are still quite interesting and original.
The service was great – though the host seemed a bit baffled when we walked through the hotel side of the entrance and also when we said we didn’t have a reservation. They sat us pretty quickly, even though it was a Friday night. Our waiter was excellent, he was very knowledgeable and explained the menu and the dishes we chose in a detailed manner.
My wife and I ordered:
Pan Seared Arctic Char: grape aigre-doux, fermented carrots, beet puree, marinated golden beats, champagne vanilla vinnegrette.
You can really pick out the flavors of each ingredient (except for the jalapenos, I couldn’t taste those.)
We also ordered several cocktails – one tequila based cocktail which tasted very much like apple pie. And another called a “surly bear” which was reminiscent of an old fashioned.
Overall the experience was fantastic. The ambiance was casual but trendy. The service was friendly and the food was of top-notch quality.
I’m off to Chicago! I will be presenting my paper: Bad Books and The Glorious Trinity: Jonathan Edwards on the Sexual Holiness of the Church at the 2015 Midwest Regional Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. I’m excited to go to a city I have never been to and to present some important theological and practical findings out of Jonathan Edwards’s trinitarian theology.
The conference’s theme is pretty interesting: The Sexual Holiness of the Church. There will be plenty of presentations on sexual ethics, same sex attraction, and pornography – all from a theological perspective. I hope to add my two cents by taking a look at how Jonathan Edwards handled a sexual scandal in his church back in the day.
If you are interested in what will be presented click here.
(P.S. I will be blogging about the conference and about the Chicago food scene when I get back!)
kinship bond. Having argued for this, he takes a look at what Scripture has to say about friendship. Having spent the first three chapters focusing on the cultural background of friendship, he then turns to the lived experience of friendship. He covers erotic bonds and friendships, what it means to cultivate friendships, and he offers some concrete ways to strengthen friendships in the church.
CWoznicki Think Out Loud 