Faith is a relationship, not a belief...

I love watching "Real Time with Bill Maher." I like it best when it shoots for comedy rather than serious interpretation of political and social issues, but even that can entertain me for a while...and every now and then they talk about religion.

This gets funny because usually there are no "religious experts" at the table talking, so basically when the talk turns to religion you have four people giving opinions about stuff they don't really think about...and sometimes when there is a religious expert on the show, such as the brilliant theologian and activist Cornel West, (Google him, he wrote my favorite book of American philosophy)it gets downright comical as the three others try to tell the religious expert what religion is. (Fortunately they, and West especially, are good sports!)

The problem most critics of religion, and in this case they include Christianity, and often make no distinctions amongst Christians (as if our 2000 years of internecine wars and battles have made us more alike than different), but critics of religion often replace "faith" with "thinking," and that is wrong. The opposite of "faith" is not "thinking," "science," or "reason"; the opposite of faith is lonliness or alienation. In Chrisitanity "faith" is about relationships, not about believing. You can believe anything you want and still have faith in God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. And this is because your relationship to God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit comes from faith, not from what you "believe."

The one trick to getting Christianity is to remember that God doesn't care what you "believe." God cares about your faith--that is, the relationship God establishes with you in creation, the relationship God continues with you in the Spirit, and the relationship God continually remakes with you in Jesus Christ.

So the comics and thinkers on "Real Time" make fun of Christians for what they "believe," but Christians believe all sorts of things, not much differently than anybody else...but attacking what Christians believe does nothing to attack what makes Christianity the most powerful religion in the history of the world: a Christian's faith (relationship) with God, and God's faith (relationship) with Christians. I am not a Christian because I wanted to love and respect gay people, or I wanted to be a faithful husband, or a good father, or someone who cares for creation...I could do any of that without being a Christian--Christianity has no monopoly on morals and ethics--I am a Christian because I have faith that there is a God who loves me, who cares about me, and who wants to see me thrive...just as God desires that for you, and, ...for all of us, even someone like Bill Maher.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Boring church

As a kid I never minded going to church (which was good because my mom and grandmother were both church secretaries, so it's not like it was optional), but I knew all (and I mean all) of my friends thought it was "boring." And I wandered through years of ministry, always working with youth at some point, I heard that statement a lot. Church is boring.

But look at what your general teenager thinks is boring: everything that doesn't immediately relate to them. Church, school, whatever has the potential to be boring because youth are not sure how it fits into their identity...and church suffers because it is never about the kid...church is never about any of us, young or old, church is always about God, and what God does in the world. At some level everyone should be frustrated with going to church. I don't care if you're 7 or 70, at some point if it's not boring, it's probably not about God, and therefore it's probably not church. Boredom in church simply means God's telling you again what you already know, even if you haven't acted upon that knowledge recently.

Christianity is a fairly simple religion: it's about your relationship to God (or for the more progressive amongst my readers--the great mystery), and if you don't care about that relationship it is bound to be boring to be in a place that does nothing but try to encourage that relationship. For years I thought my response to "Church is boring" was to try and make it "EXCITING!" But I was wrong...

The response to "Church is boring" is to ask why you are bored with your relationship to God? Why does hearing about God's love bore you? Why does listening to music that celebrates that love bore you? Why does hearing stories about the love of God bore you? Why does being told you are loved by God bore you?

So if you are at church and it is boring, ask why? Ask it of your pastors why they look so bored? Don't they love God anymore either? Ask it of the kids...the parents...the senior adults...In fact, go be bored by church and then ask yourself why love is not enough for you? I bet from then on you won't have time to be bored anymore.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Hip-Hop, Jesus Christ, and the Church

A few weeks ago I went to my first ever hip-hop concert...I was the oldest guy in the room of about 600 or so...fortunately, the group Atmosphere (made up of at least two guys in the same decade as me)supplied enough energy for all of us, and I got caught up in the music. After 2 hours of solid rapping and bass bombing, interspersed with really great piano and guitar riffs, the lead singer "Slug" shouted us to us: "Thank you for tonight! Since this is a close to church as I'm ever going to get Let's do one more!" (Or something to that effect...by then my ears were fried.)

And yes, that concert was church not only for Slug, but for all of us...and it was a worthy celebration of young people searching for that beat which will become the cornerstone of their lives..."Church" is often were you find such things, and in that sense this concert was "Church." On the following Sunday morning I found myself in a small, Lutheran church next to the University of Nebraska-Omaha where I was almost the YOUNGEST person in the room...and after an hour of robust hymn singing and contemplative prayer, interspersed with a few readings from the Bible and some good thoughts about God, I had another experience of "Church."

Now the concert and the Sunday morning worship were different in many ways, but similar in one important way--both celebrated being alive, and for the people who are part of each event God gets included in that "alive-ness." But there is one big difference...

The folks who worshiped at the altar of Christianity understand that they worship God all the time, not just when they are at the altar or in the church building. Their hour is spent thanking God for all the blessings of the week, imploring God to be more active in their world, or generally learning to live on this crazy globe...so this hour is one hour to specifically celebrate the other 167 hours of the week. The folks at the Lutheran church didn't need that hour of "church" to find meaning, purpose, energy, inspiration, or love in their lives...they already had that thanks to the God they worshiped on that worning. (this is one of the reasons I detest long worship services...if you're truly Christian you're worshiping all the time anyhow, why waste a good Sunday morning??)

But I wonder about the folks at the hip-hop concert? Will they go back to something completely different as their lives as students or bank tellers or paint salesmen (a friend I went with)? How does the church of hip-hop go from week to week, year to year, cradle to grave? I have no doubt God cares and cherishes for the people at the concert as much as God cares and cherishes for the people at the Lutheran congregation I was with...

The Christian faith worships a God who not only incarnates into history, but also uses that very history to transcend time...Jesus Christ is the name of that story,and in that we are always "in church", always "at worship", always in the presence of God no matter where we are: hip-hop concerts, Sunday morning worship, and all the other venues and times of our lives.

May your tables be full, and your conversations be true.

I live in an old world

I live in an old world, and I am old school, and because I am stubborn and well-off enough, I don't often have to change my ways...

For example, I like books...so I will never get an e-reader. But what if books become obsolete? I don't know...maybe I'll start watching TV.

I gave up watching TV in January. Now, I only watch sporting events, and shows that my daughters want me to watch with them. I average about six hours a week--although if Discovery Channel puts on a marathon "Dual Surivial" I will watch them all...love me some Cody and Dave! In March my daughter and I timed how much we watched our new 52 inch screen TV, and for the whole month we used it for 8 hours. I think I am becoming a luddite.

But, as you know, I have a computer, and have had one ever since 1987. I have used so many computers over the years that when I tell my younger friends about them they think I am lying...(anyone else remember dot matrix printers?)I am not opposed to "technology" as such, but I am opposed to anything that does not encourage conversation and/or human interaction. (I don't talk about conection much, because I am not sure connection is what humans are after...interaction seems to best fit my understanding of community and individual autononmy, and how most of us desire to work out that relationship)

So technology--such as computers--works better for me because it encourages interaction with humanity, and TV--most of the time--is way too passive. Now the congregations I live amongst and teach about are much more comfotable with TV than computers...why? Do we have an active God (most of the time) or a passive God? What does God actually do in your world?

One of my favorite (and funniest) experiences teaching was when I was arguing that Jesus did "nothing" during his ministry. He sat around and talked, he ate meals, prayed, and occasionally healed somebody, but to most of us in the industrial western world he did "nothing." One of my students, an African immigrant, went ballastic. He argued for a good 10 minutes on all the stuff Jesus did. He was flabbergasted that I would sugest Jesus did nothing...after his 10 minute scolding of my mistake...one of my other students, an adminstrative pastor of a large Christian congregation, said, "well, I wouldn't hire him (Jesus). He doesn't have much experience in work." To which my African student replied..."that's the problem with American congregations--they would rather work than live with Jesus."

That's so old world...so old school.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.

Ten years later...

Today is the 10th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks by terrorists on the USA and its cultural icons and people...everywhere I look or people I talk to have this on their mind...and this is good...but the question then becomes "How have I changed since 9-11-2001?" What is different about me since then?

I guess, in general, I've become even more liberal than I was then. At some level all the world revolves around trust, and 9-11 proved that you can't trust some people...but I already knew that then, and I still know it...but what are you going to do? You either have to give up on trust and go about verifying everything; or, you trust, but now you realize the stakes in doing so..trust can kill you.

I mean, think of Jesus of Nazareth. One way (and not the only way, mind you) to read about his death is that he trusted people to love God more than anything. As he challenged people to trust in God, people did or did not as they were able, and Jesus lived with whatever consequences that trust brought about for him. So, if someone could trust him to heal a daughter or a disease, he allowed that; if someone could not trust him to behave, especially during a public festival, he lived with those consequences too. In the end, he trusted a Pilate or a Caiphais to do the "right" thing, and he wound up dying because of it...but what was he to do? Give up on trusting people just because he might die? He didn't seem to go down that road...he-apparently--would rather die than not trust someone, even someone who threatened to kill him and then did.

So after 9-11 I pretty much vowed to keep trusting people, even ones who want to kill me. And, I suppose, someday that will kill me. Of course, I don't live in New York City, or work in the Pentagon, or travel to the Middle East--and I can imagine their "trust" issues are much deeper than mine, and I can imagine that my views seem foolish and pollyannish to some, if not many. But I am not convinced anything other than even more trusting is going to work...our problems in life are usually never that we love, but rather that we never love enough. And those that do...are often betrayed by others' inability or refusal to love.

You see about a year ago I got a new friend. And of all the things I remember about her over the past year, I will remember most her face when she told me how her love had been betrayed. My heart literally broke for her, and I doubt I will ever forget her look of fear, confusion, frustration, and anger that such an event creates. I imagine 9-11 is like that for many people...and I hope never to forget that as well.

9-11 betrayed a sacred trust we humans have to each other, and that it was on such a massive and grand scale of destruction and death it is doubtful that the trust will ever be rebuilt in my lifetime...events like this take generations to repair...

But like my new friend, I taught my children over the past 10 years to keep trusting even if the evidence is not there to warrant such trust...and now, 10 years later, those kids are out of the house my wife and I built for them...and unlike their mom and me, they live in worlds where trust often comes at a premium price...but their God-- my God! has promised to love them, trust them forever...what more can we do when we have received such sacred trust? We trust more, I guess.

May your tables be full and your conversations be true.