I was planning on posting a book review today, but I read something last night that I figured I should post. Apparently there is an argument going on in some circles of Christianity about the biblical basis of contextualization. For those of us without theology degrees, that basically means sharing the good news of what God is doing and has done in the world in a way that speaks relevantly to the culture you are in. For example, when missionaries originally went into Africa to share the gospel they brought pipe organs to teach people to worship, European clothes for converts, and only instructed people in English. That is not contextualizing the gospel. On the other hand, someone who learns the language, customs, taboos, idioms, and culture of a group of people in order to more effectively share God’s love with them, contextualizes the gospel of God in the new culture.
Here is a part of a post on Andrew Jones blog. I not a regular reader of his, but this one pulled me over to check out his site.

Context. Does it matter?

When John MacArthur reportedly said a few weeks ago at the Shepherds Conference that “contextualization is a curse” and “the apostles went out with a complete disdain for context”
. . . I said nothing.

When his sidekick Phil Johnson followed it up with “Regarding contextualization, Paul did not adapt his message to the values and beliefs of the culture the Athenians lived in”
. . . I went on pilgrimage to my inner monastery and renewed my vow of silence.

When Phil added a few days ago that Paul used NONE of the strategies of postmodern missional ministry [culture, contextualization, conversation, and charitableness]
. . . I stuck my teenage son’s smelly sock down my throat so that i could not speak and then smeared raspberry jam on my keyboard so that i could not blog.

But when a commenter on Phil’s blog responded with “I never thought that ANYONE would see Paul’s evangelism to the Athenians as “contextualisation”!
. . well . . . I could contain myself no longer. The sock popped from my mouth and nearly knocked my ‘Perspectives’ off the bookshelf, and the raspberry jam magically dissolved, presenting me with a bright and shiny set of keys to tap out some response.

A quick recap:
Phil over at Pyromaniacs has a big post called “Paul on Mars Hill: Part 1″. which is worth reading just to see how people can read the same story and come up with opposite conclusions. His second part “Paul in Athens” got posted today and is consistent with his argument.

But I find his argument hard to swallow.

Phil’s says:
“People who are enthralled with style-driven missional strategies almost always single out this famous account. “Paul blended into the culture,” they say. “He adopted the world view and communications style of his hearers. He observed their religion and listened to their beliefs and learned from them before he tried to teach them. And he didn’t step on their toes by refuting what they believed. Instead, he took their idea of the unknown god, embraced that, and used it as the starting point for his message about Christ. And there you have some of the major elements of postmodern missional ministry: culture, contextualization, conversation, and charitableness.” Phil 1:1 (Phil’s first main point, in the first installment of his series)

Well, its true that I do see the need for some cultural sensitivity to both our own culture and the culture to which we are sent.

When some missionaries went to Africa with complete disdain for contextualization, they brought pipe-organs with them so the natives could worship God properly, without their nuances of culture.
When some missionaries went to North America with complete disdain for contextualization, they took away their native dances and forced the converts to learn English so that they could worship God properly, in the correct language, and without their nuances of culture.

Where is Gary Larson when we need him?

WE WERE BLIND TO OUR COLONIAL ABUSE BECAUSE WE WERE BLIND TO THE IMPACT OF OUR OWN CULTURE ON THE GOSPEL WE CARRIED.

For the rest of the rant go here

Andrew ends with this:

BTW - I have a lot [lot lot lot lot . . . LOT] of respect for both John MacArthur and Phil Johnson. Phil and I almost had a cup of coffee together a month ago in London but we had to put it off for another day. Both are godly men who love God and the Scriptures and I look forward to meeting them in person one day.

Bottom line. I believe that the Apostle Paul listened and conversed and looked for the redemptive analogies that would help him convincingly and prophetically shed light on the good news of Christ. The next generation are finding their own mythologies that will influence how they understand concepts of redemption, salvation, blood sacrifice and other theological concepts. They will need eye openers. They already have stored away a few redemptive analogies from the poets and writers of their own day and will draw on them to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom. Some of those stories are helpful and some will need to be corrected. But we do need to be aware of them.
And thats why you might find me in the cinema watching Harry Potter.

Honestly I can’t even believe there is an argument.
Isn’t LOVE always contextualized in any relationship? Wether in marriage, parenthood, friendship, or even spirituality?

Oh how I wish (hope? pray?) that followers of Jesus would be know by that (How well we love) instead of for what we are against. Isn’t it time I (we) (they) started living that way?
To quote a remarkable man from Grand Rapids, “LOVE WINS!”

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this whole thing.

From the wonders of Israeli archeology to the horrors of American consumerism come:

The Talking Jesus Doll

Warning the above link contains images that may permanently scar your brain and psyche. It all just makes me wonder what Christianity has become. If you’d rather not take the plunge you can just watch the video below, but you miss out on the full effect.

Sorry the audio is off, but I think you’ll get the picture.

From the Jerusalem Post:

A 2,000-year-old date seed discovered at Masada four decades ago may provide new cures to numerous ailments, Israeli scientists say, after making significant advances, against all odds, in producing fruit from the seed.

Having been germinated, astoundingly, by an Israeli team more than three years ago, and kept alive since, the “Judean date” sapling appears likely (but not certain) to yield a now-extinct species of date that was renowned in ancient times as a treatment for heart disease, chest problems, the spitting of blood, weakened memory and other medical conditions, possibly even symptoms of cancer and depression.

The article also states that the seedling is being grown in a secret location because of it’s historical, scientific, and financial value. Unfortunately we have to wait another 3 years before it will bear fruit.

I’m not sure what is crazier, that they are growing a date tree that dates (ha ha, get it) from the time of Jesus, or that it has the potential for medical advancement. Makes you wonder what other parts of creation we have lost that God created to heal us. Also makes you wonder just what else they have dug up from around Israel…..

A few days ago was my daughter’s 11th birthday. This brought a few things to mind: 1. How am I old enough to have an 11 year old daughter? 2. What am I going to do in 2 years when she becomes a teenager, and 3. A conversation I had with her a few days ago that I told myself I should write down and promptly forgot.

The other evening I was prayer with her before bed. She ended her prayer in the typical evangelical fashion “In Jesus Name, Amen” and then asked me, “Dad, why do we say that?” Immediately bells started going off in my head, and although usually I’m pretty dense, this was a “teachable moment” that was hard for even me to miss. I reminded her about the story of Jesus in the gospel of John in which He tells Thomas, “You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” She started to look at me funny, for her something just didn’t add up. We had a great conversation about whether Jesus was talking about some “magic words” that we could tack on to the end of our prayers and Jesus would do it, or if He was talking about something else. We concluded Jesus had to been talking about asking for things that He would desire, that when we ask for things that make Jesus proud (or that bring Jesus’ way of life to our lives) we are really asking for things “in Jesus name”. We had a great conversation and I felt it was time to kiss her goodnight when she giggled and said, “That’s silly, why do we say that when we finish praying?”

I had to agree. It is really silly. So I sat back down and told her about habits and how a lot of times we do things without thinking because that is how we’ve been taught or because it is what everyone else does.I talked with her about how we say “bless you” after people sneeze, not because we really think that a persons spirit leaves them when they sneeze (the original reason), but because we just do it without thinking (and it’s culturally expected). We ended our talk with her giggling about how silly we all are, and about how important it is to really know what Jesus would live like so we can really pray in Jesus name without adding a tag line to our prayers.

It was a beautiful moment that really got me thinking. What other aspects of American Christianity have become just become “something we do” without even thinking about it. If something as important as desiring to pray as Jesus would pray has become as frivolous as saying “bless you” after someone sneezes what else has we lost perspective on? Are there any other areas of following Jesus that should be calling us to revolutionary living that we have allowed to become something else?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL!
I love you! Keep on asking those great questions!

We all have “those” kind of people in our lives. Wether they are friends, family members, or ex’s, there is always that one person who has made bad choice after bad choice to the point that their lives are in ruin. Many times we label them with words like leeches, losers, or just plain toxic, And if “yours” is like “mine”, then you know that when they call you, their life is in a state of crisis, and more often then not they need some kind of help. To be totally honest, I hate answering those phone calls, I dread returning those messages, and I make excuse after excuse to put it off. Yesterday I got one of those calls…

He needed a ride to get some money or he were going to be kick out of his one room studio. It was an emergency. I had things to do, I had to go to work in a few hours, and I really had no desire to again enter into his life and be confronted with all of the chaos and hurt. I really just wanted to say I was too busy to help.

So, at 8:30 in the morning, I drove downtown to pick him up and hear the whole story. He had gone on a drinking binge (again), got in a fight with his girlfriend, and she left, taking what little they had. This caused a downward spiral into a deeper multi-day drinking binge, and now he was broke, lonely, and on the verge of being homeless. I had already resolved not to allow myself to believe his excuses, or to lend any money, but there was something about the way he kept telling me, “I really f-ed this up”, that made me realize that God was already working here.

I wish I could say that in our brief time together in the car he surrendered to the way of Jesus, miraculously was healed of his alcohol addiction, turned his life around, and found a few thousand dollars on the street. Instead, we found a way to get him enough money to pay this months rent (he even offered gas money to me), and we had a few disjointed conversations about God and His love for all people. He gave me the classic line that he was already on his way to hell, but he didn’t understand why bad things happened to the “good” people he knew. He’d given up on God but he didn’t understand why God had given up on others. Amid his ramblings I tried to share that God did care about him, and that He wanted the best for him, to experience real life. It was in the middle of this that he uttered these words that nearly brought me to tears, “I know that, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

Wow, are you serious! Really. I didn’t want to be there. I really didn’t have any hope for him, and would have done anything to avoid being there. And yet, in spite of myself, God allowed his love to be incarnated in me! To this hopeless man, I appeared as the love of God. What an honor.
I dropped him of at his apartment, told him I loved him, and that he would be in my prayers, and that was the end of it. I don’t know what will happen next, I don’t even know how much of his story was true. But I do know that God’s love showed up in my car yesterday, without me even really wanting it to, and it got me thinking. How many other people in my life are searching desperately for the love of God, but no one is showing up to revel it to them? How many of us miss out on chances to be Jesus to others because we’re to busy, or because it is too mess?. And how many people are just waiting to be able to say to us,
“I know that God loves me, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

when it comes to the happiness of little girls!

A few months ago we took a  a whirlwind road trip to take our girls to Disneyland to surprise our friends daughter for her birthday. It was pretty crazy, but seeing their faces light up when they discovered where we were going, and the joy on their faces as we waited in our first line made it all worth it.
We left Sunday evening at around 10:30 p.m. and due to 8 miles of avalanche controls we were diverted to Yerington and Tonapah. An 8 hour trip quickly (actually it was quite slowly) turned into 12 and a half hours. But, by 11:30 am on Monday we were in the park and played till 7. Then an excellent nights sleep at a $45 pricleined hotel and we were back at the park at 10:30. Again we played all day till 8 (the park closed) had a great dinner with our friends and hit the road. We made it back to Carson by 5:45 a.m on Wednesday.

Are we crazy? Completely.

But I would totally do it again. The joy, the surprise, seeing my girls so happy, and being with friends all made it worth wild. I don’t want to overly spiritualize our craziness, but it does help me understand why God consistently pours out blessings on us. I love my girls not because they are perfect, or because they always obey me, or even because they deserve it, but simply because they are mine. It brings me joy to see them happy, to see them make right decisions, and, to see them grow into beautiful women.

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine God feeling the same way? To believe that He takes pleasure in His creation experiencing all that He created them for? For Him to find joy in His relationship with us? I don’t think it is. It might not be completely theologically sound, but I don’t believe that the love of God can ever be put into nice little categories that then behave exactly the way we expect it to.
God’s love is bigger then anything we can understand. It’s extravagant, and unreasonable, and selfless. Because of this it cannot be described by words but must be revealed through experience. It had to lived out in Jesus. And it still has to be lived out through His followers even if it means a crazy trip to Disneyland.

Now if only I could just love others that way….

Wow, this explains a lot. No wonder much of the rest of the world has no respect for America. Make sure you watch it long enough to get to the “break down”. From Japundit.

In our discussions this past weekend we looked at the beginning of Luke 5. In it, there is a very interesting exchange between Jesus and a man suffering from leprosy. It’s only 4 sentences, but to me it speaks volumes about not only about the character and heart of God, but also His desire for His followers.

While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy. When he saw
Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me
clean.” Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And
immediately the leprosy left him.

“I am willing.”

Think about that. The mystery of the incarnation of Jesus is the fact that the all-powerful, all-present, all-everything good God humbles himself and takes on the form of one of His creations, a human. And here, in a dirty, no-named village, this transcendent and holy God reaches into the human condition at its most rejected and connects with it. In Jewish culture, leprosy was a disease which rendered its victims unclean and ostracized from all of society. Lepers were separated from the “clean” and forced to live outside of the community. If a Jew came in contact with a leper and unfortunately touched him/her then he was rendered unclean and would have to go through purification rituals to re-enter Jewish society. Therefore Jews did everything in their power to avoid contact with lepers.
And then there is Jesus. The incarnation of the grace, love, and power of God who not only is willing to interact with the leper, but actually reaches out and touches him! Jesus becomes unclean. God touches a leper. God loves.

“I am willing”

We still have lepers today. They might be made unclean by their race, their economic status, their sexual preference, their political persuasion, or even the way they look, but each of us are faced with “types” of people we really do not want to have any meaningful contact with. It may be because of our ignorance, our fears, or even our past experiences, but we all carry prejudices that cause us to avoid contact with our own unique “lepers”. Who are your lepers? It’s a natural human response. What types of people do you avoid?
And yet Jesus response remains the same.

“I am willing.”

Jesus reaches into to the hurt, the pain, the mess, and the judgmental attitudes of others, and offers healing and love to all people. As His followers are we called to anything different? Am I willing to reach out and touch the un-loveables in my life? Am I ready to trust the way of Jesus and love others in spite of what others may think?

Am I willing? Are you willing? Are we willing?

What would the world be like if we were?

Since one of my resolutions for the New Year was to spend some time reading each day, I expect to finish a few books this year. I figured that this would be a good place to review the books I’m reading as well as hear your thoughts on them. I’m definitely not comfortable as a book critic (in fact I failed that part of English in High School), so please bear with me. I hope these attempts will be of some benefit, but we’ll have to see

UnChristian (What A New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity…And Why It Matters)
By David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons

In the latest study from Barna Research Group, Kinnaman focuses on what 16-29 year olds feel about Christians from both inside and outside the church. I wish I could call the results surprising but they only serve to verify what many of us already feel. Christianity has a major image problem. The people that should have the market cornered on being known for being loving, forgiving, life-giving revolutionaries are in fact best summed up by words like: hypocritical, anti-homosexual, sheltered, judgmental, too political, and too focused on obtaining converts. Only 16% of those surveyed outside of Christianity have a favorable impression of Christians, and 49% have a bad impression of evangelical Christians. Obviously if an entire generation feels this way about Christianity we have seriously failed in representing the real grace-filled gospel of Jesus.
UnChristian is basically two books. Much of the book is spent on discussing the results of the research which while interesting is some times belabored and repetitive. At the end of each chapter various Christian leaders lend their thoughts to the major issues discussed. This is by far the strongest part of the book. The perspectives offered are diverse and insightful and help to reenforce the challenges and opportunities facing Jesus followers who wish to change these perceptions. In my opinion these dialogues speak to the direct issues of the book, and should have made up more of the finished product. I even found a new author to read, Margaret Feinberg. I have no idea who she is, but her insight and wisdom reveal her as someone to be read and respected.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who wonders about the perception problems facing Christianity in the future. It would be especially insightful to those who have not realized the gravity of the challenges facing the church, or who have yet to acknowledge that a serious problem exists. On the other hand readers who either come from these age groups or who have been students of the emerging cultures will find little to surprise them. The research will confirm much, but offers few new insights into how to challenge those perceptions. The book is a fairly quick read, and worth reading if you have the time. The commentaries highlight the opportunities ahead and offer hope to those who wish to repaint the image of Jesus to the world He loves.

In honor of the historic event which took place last night I feel compelled to leave this video. Love the originality and star power of this video

And now a shameless political rant:

While no candidate is perfect, nor do their views perfectly match up with mine, I do have to say Obama is my candidate this year. I have been a life-long Republican until this year. I didn’t vote for president in 04 because I wasn’t satisfied with either candidate, and this year I was completely disenfranchised by the Republican candidates. In a nutshell, while I do believe the sanctity of life is a very important issue, I don’t believe it is narrowed down to just abortion. For me the sanctity of life extends to our position on war, quality of life for all people, and economic and social justice. I am also very concerned with issues that affect our children, that being health care, education, the perception of America by the rest of the world, and our foreign policy and war doctrine. From those standards, the Republicans don’t match up to what I believe is God’s heart for people.
I was attracted to Obama initially just because he spoke of a new type of governing and He inspired hope for change in me. Since them I have found his positions on the war (responsibility getting out of Iraq), health care (optional universal health care), the economy (rolling back unfair tax cuts on those making over $200,000/year and corporations), and immigration (a path to citizenship for all people in a country founded by immigrants) very convincing. Also I believe his message of hope and diplomacy will resonate with and inspire the leaders of other countries. The Bush doctrine has been unsuccessful and I believe we are in a worse position internationally then 8 years ago.

Bottom line, I think Jesus’ ideas about loving people are not exemplified by either party (politics can never be the entire answer), but I want a president that I think best matches up with his way of life. For me Obama is the best option (not to mention he has 2 young daughters that i want him thinking about whenever he makes an important decision). OK, I’m done, I’ll try and keep the politics at a minimum till the Fall.