Tax day has come and gone for 2013, but that doesn’t mean the IRS isn’t still up to some hilarious mischief. It seems they might, just might, have spent a wee bit too much time scrutinizing certain conservative groups who sought non-profit status. Of course it had nothing to do with politics, did it? Franklin Graham says the IRS came with guns a-blazin’ for his Samaritan’s Purse charity. And of course he didn’t use that for personal gain or advantage, did he? (Do you ever get the idea Franklin would push aside little old ladies to get a few seconds in front of a TV camera?)

It is a bit disturbing to learn that the IRS asked at least one conservative group to detail the contents of their prayers. Am I the only one who thinks that is just a bit creepy?

Meanwhile, Pope Francis has decried our culture of money. I think he really does mean for the Catholic Church to take care of the poor. Did I mention I really, really like what this pope is saying? Good thing the IRS doesn’t have a branch office at the Vatican. When was the last time you heard a sermon about how the love of money is the root of all evil? Discuss. Right now.

Jonathan Merritt suggests that Mark Driscoll just might be the new Pat Robertson. Oh goodie. As if we really need another Pat Robertson. What is wrong with the one we have now? Well, other than the fact that he just okayed adultery for men. Sigh. Did I mention that I really, really, really like Pope Francis? No? Well, I do.

Finally, in celebration of George Lucas’s birthday this last week, I thought it might be interesting to look at this article comparing Star Trek with Star Wars. Which one are you? Or is it possible to be a Trekkie as well as a Wookie? Which is a greater power, The Force or Mr. Spock’s mind-melding abilities?

Others who celebrated the anniversary of their birth this last week include Irving Berlin; Salvador Dali; Foster Brooks; Phil Silvers; Eric Burden; Butch Trucks; Katherine Hepburn; Steve Winwood; Kix Brooks; George Karl; Joe Louis; Mary Wells; Stevie Wonder; Jack Bruce; David Byrne; Brian Eno; Henry Fonda; George Brett; Dennis Hopper; and Taj Mahal.

Remember David Bowie’s Space Oddity, the story of an astronaut named Major Tom? Here is a killer version sung by … a real live astronaut. While orbiting the earth in the International Space Station. Which is better, Bowie’s or Chris Hadfield’s? Enjoy. That’s an order.

The other day I was thinking that it would make a good discussion topic here at Internet Monk if we examined a “soterian” Gospel presentation (the link will take you to Scot McKnight’s post defining and critiquing this kind of Gospel) and then threw out a few questions, such as:

• Does the N.T. ever show anyone “sharing the Gospel” in a way that is comparable to this?

• Does the N.T. ever encourage Christians to “share the Gospel” in a manner that is comparable to this?

• What, if anything, is missing from this “Gospel” presentation?

• Is there anything misleading about this “Gospel” presentation?

• What do you affirm about this “Gospel” presentation?

Whenever I have a discussion like this, I recall something D.L. Moody once said when someone criticized him for the way he engaged in personal evangelism. He said, “Well, I like the way I share the Gospel better than the way you don’t.”

In other words, if you have problems with this way of “sharing the Gospel,” what would you suggest that we who are called to proclaim the Gospel should say in its place?

¹² When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. ¹³ Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. ¹⁴ Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. ¹⁵ But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. ¹⁶ And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. ¹⁷ For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:12-17, NLT)

For someone who lived 3,000,000 years ago, or 6,000 years ago, or never, Adam sure is stirring up a lot of dust. Of course, that’s what he was made of, if he was made at all.

Scott Lencke, faithful iMonk and pastor in Brussels, Belgium, brought to my attention a recent article dealing with the importance of a “real” Adam. J.R. Daniel Kirk, a professor at Fuller Theologial Seminary, recently wrote with this thesis in mind: To what extent do we need to affirm a historical Adam in order also to affirm the saving dynamics of Paul’s Adam Christology?  It is well worth reading the whole thing here. Kirk writes,

One of the first questions worth confronting is whether this passage allows for various understandings of how Adam might represent humanity. Thus, for example, might there be room here, not for a physical, natural progenitor of all subsequent human beings, but for a person who was chosen by God from a developing or, at any rate, numerically numerous, human race to play the role of representative in obedience and disobedience?

But the question that will clamor for the attention of many is whether such a moment in which sin’s guilt and power are unleashed as the lords of humanity is required at all. There seems to have been death in this world millions of years before human beings came on the scene. Is it possible to affirm the point Paul wishes to make—that God’s grace, righteousness, and life abound to the many because of Christ—without simultaneously affirming the assumptions with which he illustrated these things to be true?

Lencke wrote his own follow-up to Kirk on his blog, and I encourage you to read that as well. Lencke points us past the argument of a historial Adam to the redemptive work of Christ as the focal point of Paul’s Romans passage above.

The other things [Paul] says, especially about sin, the Law, and eschatology, are reinterpretations that grow from the fundamental reality of the Christ event.Recognizing this relieves the pressure that sometimes builds up around a historical Adam……we can now recognize that Adam is not the foundation on which the system of Christian faith and life is built, such that removing him means that the whole edifice comes crashing down. Instead, the Adam of the past is one spire in a large edifice whose foundation is Christ. The gospel need not be compromised if we find ourselves having to part ways with Paul’s assumption that there is a historical Adam, because we share Paul’s fundamental conviction that the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all.

Yet Steven Wedgeworth at The Calvinist International says belief in a real, historical Adam is essential for our faith.

We return to our main question, and we offer this unreserved thesis: The historicity of Adam determines the public nature of our religion. If Adam was a historical individual, then the Bible makes authoritative claims about all of humanity and indeed all of the cosmos. It can, at least in theory, be falsified, and it is thus a legitimate topic of dialectical discourse. It is rational and not a retreat to commitment. If Adam was not a historical individual, and if instead the Genesis account is a sort of mythical story which was employed in order to make a uniquely religious point, then Christianity is necessarily rendered merely metaphorical, expressing truths of the human condition through symbols. The Bible in this case is no longer an authoritative account of human origins, history, and final destiny. It no longer addresses all men in all places and times, but rather expresses one faith-narrative that seeks to convey a meaningful but wholly internal truth.

Put more simply: if Adam is mythical, then so is redemption. While it does not follow that if Adam is mythical, then the historicity of Jesus must also be denied, it doesfollow that if Adam is mythical, then the historicity of Jesus as Second Adam must be denied. And Christianity is founded on Jesus as Second Adam.

So, we have Paul writing that Adam is a symbol of Christ who was yet to come. Does this symbol have to have been real? Does our faith hang in the balance as to whether or not we believe in a historical Adam?

I normally don’t answer my own Difficult Scriptures question, but today I will, and then stand aside to hear your thoughts. To give my answer, I will have to lean heavily on what I learned from Michael Spencer about reading the Bible.

The Scriptures were given us for one reason, and one reason alone: To point us to Jesus. When we try to use the Scriptures to prove other points, we are going outside of the scope of its purpose. The story and symbol of Adam show us “little Adams” to be sinners in need of redemption. Redemption comes in Christ’s death and resurrection. If I focus on whether or not Adam is/was real, I take my eyes away from what God intends me to look at: Jesus. So I guess I’m saying it does not matter to me whether or not Adam was really real. The story of Adam points me to a very real Jesus.

Now, your thoughts?

Welcome to Midweek Monkery, Lutheran edition. I hope you will enjoy a few of the things that have made me laugh as I have started to learn more about the Lutheran community, especially the immigrant Lutheran community in the U.S.

If you are a laughing Lutheran, I’d love to have you chime in today with a few knee-slappers of your own.

* * * 

Top Ten Ole and Lena Jokes
from Trinity Lutheran Church, Frankfort, MI

Ole and Lena are stock characters in folklore of the upper Midwest of the U.S., the outgrowth of the Scandinavian immigrant experience. You can find Ole and Lena jokes all over the internet. Here’s a good list I found on the website of a Lutheran church in Michigan.

1. Ole: Lars, I heard that you saved a man’s life in a restaurant last week.
Lars: Ya, I sure did. I advised him not to eat the Lutefisk.

2. Ole was on an airplane trip. His seat partner was a gorgeous young woman who made Ole’s heart skip a beat. “Where are you going,” asked the young woman. “Minneapolis,” answered Ole. “Same here,” said the gal. I’m going to Minneaplois to meet the man of my dreams… because I read in a magazine that the sexiest, most romantic men in the world are NORWEIGIANS and AMERICAN INDIANS. By the way, what is your name?” Said Ole shyly, “Ole Red Feather.”

3. Ole said that the way to identify a funeral procession in North Dakota is to notice if the combines have their lights on.

4. Ole says Americans are funny: First they put sugar in a glass to make it sveet, a tvist of lemon to make it sour, gin to make it varm dem up, and ice to cool it off. Den dey say, “Here’s to you,” and den dey drink it demselves.”

5. Ole and Lars were visiting France. They went to an Oyster bar where the waitresses were topless. Said Lars to the waitress, “Ve vould like a dozen oysters… and can you bring dem vun at a time?”

6. When Ole and Lena got married and went on their honeymoon. Lena was a bit bashful. As they walked up to the hotel, Lena said, Vhat can ve do so dey von’t know ve’re newlyveds? Answered Ole: YOU carry the luggage.”

7. Lena was visiting with her friend Freda Tofteskov, who explained how her husband Hjalmar had courted her with a rather unusual marriage proposal. Hjalmar told Freda that if she married him, he would either churn 10 pounds of butter, or write her a poem. “I see,” said Lena, “So it looks like you married him for butter or verse.”

8. When Lena tried to give the phone operator her phone number on a long distance call, the operator inquired, “Do you have an area code?” – “”No,” said Lena. “Yust a little sinus trouble.”

9. Ole was filling out a questionnaire. To the question regarding church preference, Ole put down: “Red brick with white trim.”

10. Ole calls up his doctor and says: “Every morning at 5 I have a BM. Fine says the doctor, that’s very healthy… so what seems to be your problem? – “Vell,” said Ole. “I don’t vake up until six.”

“The Herdsmen”
from Life among the Lutherans, by Garrison Keillor

Many of us were introduced to upper Midwest and Lutheran culture through the radio show Prairie Home Companion and the writings of its gifted host, Garrison Keillor. Here is a hilarious excerpt from his book about them.

The Herdsmen were winners in the Church Ushers Competition Thursday night in Houston, Texas. They beat out a Baptist usher team, a Methodist, and were first runners-up to a Jewish team called Parkyercarcass. The Herdsmen came home Friday with the first-runner-up trophy, and it was nothing to people. Nothing. A national award. That’s how Lake Wobegon can be in February. Dark and discouraging. The Herdsmen used to have that great front four of Don, John, Louie, and Boomer back in the seventies. And Boomer, he was an usher’s usher. The man worked a sanctuary on Sunday morning like you wouldn’t believe. With Boomer you didn’t have people filling up the back rows first — he moved ‘em right down front. Boomer was a big man, and he got his nickname from his voice, which would strip wallpaper. He’d been a basketball coach and did some auctioneering and raised six kids, and no matter where they were, they could hear Boomer when he called them for supper.

…[Boomer] was founder of the Herdsmen, and they still work from that 4-3-2 formation, even as other ushers have gone to a zone, and their secret still is quickness and anticipation. You can’t push when you usher — that’s called interference — and you can’t close your hand over someone’s arm — that’s called holding — but those guys could move people. The National Church Acolytes & Assistants Association, the NC-Triple A, sponsored the National Ushers Competition, which was held at the Grand Opera House, which is a tough room to work — big balcony, three aisles, boxes, but that’s where the Herdsmen went for the competition.

They raised money for the trip with a series of fish fries, and when you put on fish fries, you’re going to gain weight, so they had to have their pants let out. They wear blue polyester suits with an H and a sheep embroidered on the pocket. They sat in nine adjoining seats in rows twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-seven, wedged in like marshmallows, and it was a turbulent flight down to Houston, especially on the descent; the plane was shaking hard, and steam or something was coming out of the vents, the wings were flapping, and they could hear the flight attendants in back singing, “I Walk in the Garden Alone,” which was not reassuring. But they landed in Houston, and then they got on a little bus, one of those buses that is a box set on a truck chassis, so the ride is much the same as what animals get en route to the stockyards, and the bus driver rode around lost, and when the Herdsmen arrived they were nauseated and dizzy. It was 1:30 and they were up to compete at two o’clock, so they barely had time to throw on their clothes, and it was a motley crowd. A thousand people and there were a lot of Episcopalians in there, and they always take more time, and a group of blind nuns, the Sisters of Helen Keller, and that slowed things up — old ladies waving white canes and whacking people with them, and some guide dogs growling and barking — and there were 140 members of Lutheran Weightwatchers, and the kids from St. Vitus’s School for children with ADD, kids who come with a fast-forward button — it was like herding fruit bats and water buffalo. And there were only twenty stalls at the Communion rail and six servers, two of them elderly, but the Herdsmen go the job done by dividing people up and putting the elderly into another line, the sippers (who insist on drinking from the cup) in one line, and then three express lanes for dippers — and they set a new national record, one thousand people taking Communion in fifteen minutes, about 1.1 second per communicant. They might’ve won first place, but two judges marked them low on style, which may have been due to indigestion from that bus ride. Both Elmer and Danny cut some cheese during the competition, loud ones, and the smell hung around, and you lose points for that.

* * *

The Herdsmen Should Have Booked with This Airline
“All fares are by free-will offering, and the plane will not land until the budget is met.”

We are a modest people
And we never make a fuss
And it sure would be a better world
If they were all as modest as us.
We do not go for whooping it up
Or a lot of yikkety-yak
When we say hello, we avert our eyes
And we always sit in the back.
We sit in the pew where we always sit,
And we do not shout “Amen!”
And if anyone yells or waves their hands,
They’re not invited back again.

I’m a Lutheran, a Lutheran — it is my belief;
I am a Lutheran guy.
We may have merged with another church
But I’m a Lutheran till I die.

- Garrison Keillor, “Lutheran Song”

The Vatican released information Monday from the 2013 Statistical Yearbook of the Church that challenges the perception many have (particularly in Europe and the U.S.) that the Roman Catholic Church is in a period of decline.

In March, Catholic Voices Comment proclaimed: “Viewed globally the Church experienced  a spectacular growth over the twentieth century which shows little sign of slowing.” In fact, the numbers they cite show that Catholics now make up about 17.5% of the world’s population, and that the church is steadily growing at a pace that is slightly ahead of general population growth. Monday’s statistics further confirm CVC’s points, among which are the following:

• Latin America is now the “heartland” of Catholicism, with more than 40% of the world’s Catholics dwelling in South and Central America. And though it is true that Pentecostalism has made gains, there has been a remarkable increase in seminary enrollment by those wanting to become priests (over 400% in the past 25 years).

• The most dramatic growth has occurred in Africa. There may be close to 200 million Roman Catholics on the continent, and this has been primarily an indigenous phenomenon, since the number of western missionaries has been declining since the 1960′s. Nigeria alone has 20 million Catholics, along with the world’s largest seminary. Africa ended 2010 with 765 more clergy than there were in 2009.

• However, Asia did even better, producing almost 1700 more clergy (priests/deacons) that same year.

In summary: “It’s clear that the popular narrative of Catholic decline isn’t supported by the facts: the global story of modern Catholicism is one of growth. Insofar as there’s any truth to it at all, that truth is increasingly out of date.”

The 1970′s-early 2000′s were certainly a low period, especially in Western Europe and the United States — and perhaps the dominant narrative of decline is due to the fact that these locations are where the media has the most influence. Since then, however, the situation has gradually stabilized, and in the past five years there has been a marked turnaround. Statistics from the U.S. and U.K. in particular suggest that the decline actually bottomed out in 2005.

A piece in the Guardian (England) observed that the Catholic Church and other denominations there are not, in fact, in desperate straits, as many imagine them to be:

It’s time to believe that the church in this country is no longer in decline. The latest statistics coming from various denominations are clearly showing stability in church attendance and even signs of growth. This news may come as a surprise to many people who believe that the church is a dying institution.

Another account of the Vatican statistics from Religious News Service summarizes the good news:

According to Vatican data, the Catholic population worldwide surpassed 1.2 billion in 2011.

But while growth in the Americas and Europe mirrored the growth of the general population, Catholic growth in Africa and Asia was almost double the regions’ population growth.

The world’s 413,418 priests at the end of 2011 showed a slight increase from the previous year, continuing a trend of slow growth that began in 2000 after decades of decline.

A rapid increase in vocations in Africa and Asia — to the tune of more than 3,000 new priests in a year — balanced the shrinking ranks of the priesthood in Europe. In the Americas, the number of priests remained stable.

Of course, the Church faces many serious challenges, but perhaps we are actually witnessing a season of renewal in global Catholicism.

From BioLogos:

What do today’s pastors think about science?   What views do they hold on creation and evolution and how strongly do they hold them?   How do origins issues impact their ministries?

These were just a few of the questions that motivated us at BioLogos to commission a survey of pastors on origins.  In 2012, the Barna Group conducted 743 telephone interviews with pastors from across the US, from churches big and small, and from all Christian denominations.  This comprehensive, in-depth survey provides a fascinating analysis of views held by clergy today.

Here are the seven points of summary BioLogos gave from the information gleaned from this survey. Click the link above or below to read the detailed annotations.

• Pastors hold a diversity of views on origins (the chart above shows the breakdown).
• Most pastors think science and faith questions are important.
• Clergy think disagreements on science and faith harm our witness (but for different reasons).
• Pastors aren’t avoiding science.
• However, they are concerned about evolution for biblical reasons.
• The majority of clergy accept parts of scripture as symbolic.
• Clergy are concerned that changing their views on origins might compromise their ministry.

* * *

I encourage you to read the entire report, “A Survey of Clergy and Their Views on Origins,” and then return here for discussion on what you think this survey reveals.

It is graduation season. Our youngest son got his degree from North Park University in Chicago on Saturday and we enjoyed the ceremony. Our immediate celebration was postponed because we had a limited number of tickets to the ceremony and had to deal with car problems, but the family is gathering next weekend to raise our glasses, catch up with each other, laugh, feast, and mark a milestone.

Congratulations to all of you who are rejoicing together over similar achievements this spring.

I’ve been reading some of the most thoughtful, inspiring theology from the pen of Peter Rollins. As usual, I am a bit late to the party when it comes to Rollins’s work, but I am finding his 2006 book, How (Not) to Speak of God, jaw-droppingly good. Before I finish it and attempt a review, here is a passage for you to chew on.

Hence revelation ought not to be thought of either as that which makes God known or as that which leaves God unknown, but rather as the overpowering light that renders God known as unknown. This is not dissimilar to a baby being held by her mother — the baby does not understand the mother but rather experiences being known by the mother. In contrast, revelation is often treated as if it can be deciphered into a dogmatic system rather than embraced as the site where the impenetrable secret of God transforms us. In the former, revelation is rendered into an eloquent doctrine, while in the latter, revelation is that which transforms. We are like an infant in the arms of God, unable to grasp but being transformed by the grasp. Revelation can thus be described as bringing to light the secret of God in such a way that it remains secret. God is thus the secret who remains concealed in the sharing. We can thus not speak of a hidden side of God and a manifest side, for we must acknowledge that the manifest side of God is also hidden.

After writing about God’s providential care for us yesterday, another aspect of the situation became clear to me last night. If we had not been trapped in traffic, crawling along for an hour on I-65 in central Indiana, it’s possible that the air conditioner part that failed might not have burned out until we had made it to Chicago. Then we would have been stuck in the city rather than in the place where we were cared for so well by a friend.

The threads of Providence that bring to pass the events in the world are wondrously woven together.

I’ve been gathering gear for my summer interim role at our church:

• My first alb and cincture
• A High Celtic Cross pendant
• Four new clergy shirts (gray and blue) for church office and visit days on Fridays
• A ceremonial binder for leading worship
• Three CD’s with the liturgies from the ELW hymnal so I can become more familiar with them
• A commentary on the lectionary texts for the season

This part is certainly fun, and I’m grateful for some additional resources that came in that enabled me to purchase a few things. The anticipation is building, and I’m eager to get back to leading worship and preaching every week!

I’m considering taking a day at Gethsemani or St. Meinrad’s before the summer begins. Any of you planning retreats in the near future? What are your favorite places to get away for prayer and contemplation?

Mother’s Day was yesterday, and I’ve been grateful that the church has grown over the years in understanding that this can be a difficult day for many women. Think of singles who desire to be married and have families and yet find themselves waiting, those who struggle with fertility problems, those who have miscarried, those who have lost children, and those with painful family experiences who find it hard to honor mothers that mistreated or abandoned them. And there are so many other situations and circumstances that make this a hard day for many women.

To them I offer this litany, which I found on James’s blog:

In peace let us pray to the Lord.
Lord have mercy

For all the women of God’s church across the face of the earth, who have loved and nurtured others into the faith.
Lord have mercy

For those who are single mothers and struggle to provide for their family.
Lord have mercy

For the poor and widowed whose child has been taken from them because they couldn’t care for them.
Lord have mercy

For those held captive by abuse who fear for their children and their life.
Lord have mercy

For those who are estranged from their chlidren.
Lord have mercy

For those have suffered the loss of a child either through miscarriage, abortion or the premature death of a child.
Lord have mercy

For those who have lost their own mothers and feel the dull ache of their loss.
Lord have mercy

For those who have never, and may never, have the opportunity to have a child.
Lord have mercy

For strength in joy and hope for all women and confidence in God’s care for them.
Lord have mercy

For . . .(names of women you feel led to pray for)
Lord have mercy

For all those who call on you from their hearts.
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy

Amen.

One staple of evangelical church life is the “testimony.” I recall many, many gatherings when I as a pastor or worship leader would stand before a group and ask, “Who has something they’d like to share tonight? What has God been doing in your life lately?”

We’d encourage people to share insights they had gained in their Bible reading, answers to prayer that they had perceived in recent days, lessons they had learned which helped them grow and make changes in their lives, or occurrences that they attributed to God’s active presence or providence for which they wanted to give thanks.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” we would exclaim, quoting Psalm 107.

Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,
Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary
And gathered from the lands,
From the east and from the west,
From the north and from the south.

- Psalm 107:1-3, NASB

In my view, giving testimony is one of the delightful traditions of evangelicalism. At the same time, it can also be one of its troublesome practices.

Those of us who believe in a living God, a reigning Christ, and an outpoured Spirit have no problem acknowledging that there is divine activity in our world. When we read the New Testament, especially the narrative of the church in the Book of Acts and the more personal sections of the epistles, we meet people who talk about dealing with a God who acts in the midst of his people and in the affairs of life. The Kingdom continues to break into this world, and there are “thin places” where earth and heaven intersect.

Churches in the revivalist tradition make most use of the practice of giving testimony. Evangelicals, especially those who lean toward the pentecostal/charismatic/”third wave” end of the spectrum, are taught from the beginning to try and identify “what God is doing in your life,” and to talk with others about that as a means of “witnessing” to the reality of God’s presence, salvation, and love.

Problems arise, in my opinion, with three aspects of this:

• Interpretation
• Expectation
• Inclusion

We all know that there are various ways to look at any particular incident or experience in life, but those in an evangelical atmosphere tend to grant God the benefit of the doubt when giving credit for anything they consider unusually helpful to their lives. The results vary, and at times, interpretations of divine activity can be, frankly, silly.

The traditional example is the person who has a deadline to meet and prays that God will provide a parking place right in front of the building where he needs to be. And, what do you know? One opens up at just the right place and just the right time! Well, OK. But I wouldn’t tell the part about the eighty year old lady in the car behind you who was hoping that spot might open up for her too.

Another interpretive problem is that, as Martin Luther was wont to say, God is famous for hiding from us. And, even when he does reveal himself, it is often in “hidden” ways that offend human expectations, indeed, in ways which can shake us to the core. A common theme over the years here at Internet Monk is that people have found evangelicalism wanting because it doesn’t always allow room for God to act like this — and therefore, they find little resonance with their own lives and experiences. For many churches, testimony is not about the journey, but only about significant (mostly positive) turning points. We want to hear the “victory” stories and little else.

Mystery, nuance, ambiguity, paradox, and anything which remains stubbornly unresolved — these are not the components of the usual evangelical “word of witness.” Testimony, as often given, can in fact serve to suck the mystery out of life, even while claiming to provide a revelation into the workings of the Almighty.

That leads to the problem of expectations. I’ve been in many meetings where no one had a testimony that day. Awkward. Despite the best efforts of the leader to whip up enthusiasm and get people to turn a magnifying glass on their lives to uncover some trace of recent divine activity, the congregation remained silent.

There is a pressure that builds up in this kind of system, a pressure to perform, to come up with a story, to compare my experience with the experience of others and judge myself and them accordingly. When I can’t or don’t speak a word of testimony, it can lead to a nagging sense of guilt and failure. When others around me are popping up with lots of stories, and I’m drawing blanks, it can lead to deep self-doubt.

Why can’t I be a Christian like that? Why doesn’t God speak to me or answer my prayers like that? What’s wrong with me?

The God to which we testify is rarely “the God of the mundane,” to use Matthew B. Redmond’s excellent phrase. And if that is who he is, it is certainly not very exciting to talk about God in that way. So we rarely do.

Our testimony patterns can easily lead us to have certain expectations of God. I’ve noticed over the years that God seems to act certain ways in one church, while behaving differently in the assembly down the street. One congregation honors answers to prayers and watches for them constantly. And gets them. And speaks of them. Another church emphasizes sharing what people are learning from the Bible, and their testimonies revolve around the illuminating work of the Spirit. Yet another congregation is all about missions and evangelism, and their God is active in their encounters with others. I guess that could signify that God deigns to meet us where we are, but on the other hand, there often seems to be a circle we place around the divine activity, limiting what he does to matters familiar to us. God rarely surprises and shows up in totally unexpected ways (despite our language to the contrary).

Finally, though this point overlaps somewhat with what I’ve already said, the culture of testimony can lead to a problem of inclusion. Simply put, we don’t seem to have room for anyone without a story; that is, a certain kind of story.

Tony Campolo began his book, The Kingdom of God is a Party, with an illustration designed to make the eyebrow-raising point that God is often where we least expect him. He found himself in a cafe in Hawaii in the middle of the night, next to a group of prostitutes. He overheard them saying that the next day would be a birthday for one of them. So, with his usual enthusiasm, Campolo spoke to the cafe staff and they arranged to throw a birthday party for her the next night at 3:30 am. They had a wonderful party and it ended with Campolo saying a prayer for the “working girls.” When the owner leaned over the counter and asked him what church he was from, Campolo said, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning!”

A lot of folks love that story (I know I do), and it probably makes others wince. I have an idea that most evangelical church members would be OK with it — because it was Tony Campolo who had the experience and not one of us or our pastor!

More importantly, with regard to inclusion, we certainly don’t want to hear from the whore herself in church, unless she has gotten all cleaned up and comes to us with a soul-thrilling tale of transformation. Nor does the person with chronic illness or pain who is barely getting by each day have a story we want to hear. Don’t talk to us if you’re gay, especially if you’re wrestling with accepting that this may be who you are, not just what you do.

In short, don’t think that “testimony time” around here looks like the psalms, where we bring the full spectrum of life’s experiences into the sanctuary. We just want the “hallelujah!” parts.

* * *

Having said all of that, I still think there is an important place for the public giving of thanks to God for his loving actions in our lives.

I thought maybe I would tell you a little “God story” today. It happened just this weekend.

Gail and I packed up and headed for Chicago on Friday. Our youngest son was due to graduate from college. The baccalaureate would be held downtown at the impressive Fourth Presbyterian Church on Friday evening, followed by the commencement ceremony Saturday morning at North Park. We’d had some work done on our larger vehicle so it would be ready to take us to enjoy the ceremonies and then retrieve our son’s belongings.

The only glitch on the way was a long back-up on the interstate because of an accident. Or so I thought.

When we pulled into our usual stopping place where we stretch our legs, use the bathroom, and grab a bite to eat before tackling the Chicago traffic, we heard a loud, obnoxious sound coming from under the engine compartment of the car. Being a guy, I had my wife open the hood so I could look under it and pretend like I might be able to figure something out. It was coming from the area where our mechanic had done some work.

We called him immediately and even let him listen over the phone. He posited that it was probably related to the air conditioning, and it was possible that there was a simple temporary fix. That meant I had to find a reliable shop where someone could look at it. Fast. It was about 4:30 pm. I googled local auto repair and found some listings for shops that were approved by the Better Business Bureau. Choosing one that was nearby, I called and the mechanic encouraged me to bring the car in.

It turned out to be just the kind of auto repair shop I like. It was an obviously well-run independent operation, and the mechanic (one of the owners) explained everything carefully and clearly as we bent over the car’s engine. He even printed out a picture of the damaged part and diagrammed what was happening and what someone could do to fix it temporarily so that we could be on our way. Unfortunately, he was closing up shop. However, he did recommend a larger garage down the street that was open until 7:00 pm. He knew the service manager personally and was sure he would take care of us. He called him, explained the problem and asked if he could help us. Soon we were on our way.

The service manager met us, asked for my keys, and then drove the car into a bay and put it on the lift himself. We waited as he examined the problem and determined what he could do. It turned out to be bad news. The part was so damaged it would have to be replaced. He invited us into his office and explained everything, then looked up the parts and said he could do the work the next day. He was very kind and helpful.

We needed to make decisions. Could we make it to the baccalaureate? Should we just stay near here and go into the city the next day for graduation? Or should we keep our original plan, get to the city somehow and stay with family? Either way we would need to rent a car.

The service manager said he would call the car rental company for us, which he did, explaining our situation. They were getting ready to close, so he offered to take us himself in his truck. As we climbed in, we were making small talk and he mentioned that he has family who lives near us. After hearing a few more details, a light dawned on me. I knew this guy! I had met him before. In fact, I had been the hospice chaplain for a member of his family, and he and I had talked at her house several years before. He was a man of strong faith, a leader in his church, and we had discussed some of the spiritual needs in the family.

Here we were, many miles from home, directed to this man by a stranger late on a Friday afternoon, and it turned out to be someone with whom I had had previous dealings! I had helped him with some family needs a few years before. Now he was in a position to help us!

Help us he did. Long story short, we missed the baccalaureate, but made it to Chicago, had a good night’s sleep, and were able to go to the graduation without further incident. Afterwards, we headed toward home, transferred our son’s goods back to our car, settled up at the shop, said good-bye to our helpful friend, and hit the road.

I couldn’t help but think that God had taken care of us. We discovered our car trouble just in time, in a safe place, without incident. We found just the right shop to diagnose the problem. The mechanic directed us to the right garage to fix the problem — and it turned out to be someone I had met personally, a person of faith and kindness, a man who went the extra mile to make sure our needs were met.

I won’t deny that there are other possible explanations as to why this all worked out so well. But I’m here today to say “thank you” to our heavenly Father for his providential guidance and care. Of course, we are also grateful to the ones who exercised neighborly love, showing kindness and hospitality to “strangers” (or so they thought!). We may all have been guided by another Hand.

By the way, the repairs turned out to be fairly costly, but that’s OK.

I guess my need for God’s provision never ends.

And so the story continues…

Evangelical Christians feel they (we?) are becoming a “hated minority” because of their stance on homosexuality. Let me ask this: Could it be that evangelicals are correct in what they are saying, but are very wrong in how they are saying it? Discuss.

Meanwhile, we continue to hear of bias against Christians in the military. Here is a case where Christians protesting against a wrong that doesn’t exist could cause harm. Would it be asking too much for those who are protesting to, perhaps in their spare time, bone up on the facts? Or did I miss something in the Great Commission? “Go and make disciples of all soldiers, whether they want to become disciples of Mine or not … ”

There are things you can and cannot do in Texas. You can come up with blueprints for a print-it-yourself gun that fires very real and very deadly bullets, post these blueprints on line, and see them downloaded more than 100,000 times before you are told you are most likely in violation of federal laws and are advised to remove the blueprints. What you cannot do is lift one finger into the air as a way of celebrating your victory in a relay race at a high school track meet. Someone has some ‘splainin’ to do …

Pope Francis apparently is serious about those who have official functions within the Catholic Church focusing on that business and nothing else. And his definition of “business” is “creating disciples of Jesus.” He says nuns are to become spiritual mothers and not spinsters. Have I mentioned how much I love this pope? Martha, what would it take for you, Chaplain Mike and me to get an audience with Pope Francis? Do you think he might become one of our writers?

We saw the passing this week of Dallas Willard, another man who took seriously Jesus’ call to make disciples. Richard Foster talks of Willard’s influence on his life as a pastor and teacher.

Rick Joyner, self-styled prophet and friend of the Punching Preacher, Todd Bentley, weighs in on the Boston Marathon bombers and who really is to blame. Perhaps we’ve made a mistake in taking Joyner for a preacher. Obviously he should be head of the CIA. (The Good Lord invented duct tape for situations like these … )

The daughter of the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke openly of her struggle with depression and the church’s lack of help to those who struggle with this disease. Oh how right she is. The good news (See? I did manage to work in some good news …) is that, because of two Baptist pastors’ tragedies, there is now movement to begin ministering to those who struggle with mental illness. Please, encourage those in need of help to get help now. And let that help begin with you.

Someone complained there might be some mention of religion at an Arkansas elementary school’s sixth grade graduation ceremony. Dust arose. The ceremony was unceremoniously cancelled. Why, you ask, do they have ceremonies for wee lads and lassies graduating from sixth grade in Arkansas? Well, in most all other states, schooling doesn’t end with sixth grade …

Happy birthday candles were blown out this last week by Audrey Hepburn; Dick Dale; Erin Andrews; Tammy Wynette; John Rhys-Davies; Orson Welles; Bob Seger; Tony Blair; Gary Cooper; Johnny Unitas; Harry S. Truman; Don Rickles; Peter Benchley; Hank Snow; Mike Wallace; Richie Furay; Billy Joel; Philip Bailey; Fred Astaire; and Donovan.

Dick Dale’s Miserlou is certainly worthy of being our bonus video today. It is, after all, the greatest rock and roll instrumental of all time. But there is one Billy Joel tune that ranks in my top-20 songs of all time. A brilliant composition that is performed here in with breathtaking energy and force. Enjoy.

A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master”
by Rachel Held Evans

Thomas Nelson, 2012

* * *

Mother’s Day is coming up on Sunday. What better time to offer a gift to all the women in our community, as we prepare to honor the most special women in our lives? I therefore present to you one of the most thoughtful, engaging, and invigorating books I’ve read in a while — Rachel Held Evans’s, A Year of Biblical Womanhood.

This book narrates a serious search for understanding wrapped in the delightful account of a creative personal experiment. Evans, who is from a southern U.S. evangelical culture with strong ideas about the appropriate roles of women in the home, church, and society, sets out to answer this question:

Could an ancient collection of sacred texts, spanning multiple genres and assembled over thousands of years in cultures very different from our own, really offer a single cohesive formula for how to be a woman?

By means of a year-long “performance art” project, Evans finds some answers to that question. In the end, she appeals to her readers to put nouns above adjectives, people above “principles,” and love above long-held cultural prejudices when we approach the subject of gender roles. In particular, she deconstructs the very idea that there is any such thing as a supra-cultural set of roles known as “biblical womanhood” to which women of faith are to conform.

At the heart of the matter is this tricky word “biblical,” about which she says,

Now, we evangelicals have a nasty habit of throwing the word biblical around like it’s Martin Luther’s middle name. We especially like to stick it in front of other loaded words, like economics, sexuality, politics, and marriage to create the impression that God has definitive opinions about such things, opinions that just so happen to correspond with our own. Despite insistent claims that we don’t “pick and choose” what parts of the Bible we take seriously, using the word biblical prescriptively like this almost always involves selectivity.

After all, technically speaking it is biblical for a woman to be sold by her father (Exodus 21:7), biblical for her to be forced to marry her rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), biblical for her to remain silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), biblical for her to cover her head (1 Corinthians 11:6), and biblical for her to be one of multiple wives (Exodus 21:10).

What then, is “biblical womanhood?” Well, what Rachel Held Evans decided to do was to give it a try. She would attempt to follow as many of the Bible’s teachings regarding women in her daily life as possible, taking up practices from both Old and New Testaments in order to determine if there is such a construct as “biblical womanhood.”

Each month for a year she focused on engaging in practices that reinforced a different virtue the Bible commends for women, from domesticity to valor, from modesty to justice. She read Bible commentaries, seeking out various Christian perspectives on pertinent passages. She spoke with and sometimes developed ongoing relationships with women who were seeking to practice what they held to be “biblical” mandates in their lives — including an Orthodox Jew, Amish and Quaker women, a daughter from a “Quiverfull” family, a woman pastor, even members of a polygamist family. She studied the stories of women in Scripture, and one of the most valuable parts of her book, in my opinion, is a set of devotional summaries of what those women contributed to the Bible’s Story of salvation-history. She includes the voice of her husband Dan throughout the book, citing journal entries he kept that reflect on what they were learning together.

At times, this book is laugh-out-loud funny. There are priceless descriptions of the contortions it requires to keep an Alabama fan exhibiting a “gentle and quiet spirit” during football season. And she writes with lively and self-deprecating wit about the time she literally sat on the roof to symbolize penance for being a “contentious” woman, her valiant attempts, successes, and failures while learning the domestic arts, her adventures camping out in the yard during her monthly period to mark her ritual “impurity,” the effort it takes trying to find good kosher food and wine in her neck of the woods, the experiment of caring for a computerized baby to learn about the demands of motherhood, and her attempts to quiet the noise in her mind and cultivate silence in a Benedictine monastery.

In a later reflection on the process of writing this book, RHE said:

Biblical interpretation is a messy, imperfect, and at times frustrating process. I wrote this book with humor and with love because I think both are needed in the conversation, particularly as it pertains to something as complex and beautiful as womanhood.

I found several parts of the book deeply fascinating.

It is rare, for instance, for anyone discussing the issue of what the Bible says about the family, and men’s and women’s roles, to seriously examine the practice of polygamy. And yet there came a point, relatively early in the year, when RHE had to confront the fact that many of the ancient texts in the Bible “routinely describe women as property” and that the familial cultures portrayed in the Bible long predate our Western constructs of the nuclear family. Those cultures took practices like slavery, concubinage, arranged marriage, bride price, levirate marriage and clan inheritance laws for granted. Women had few “rights,” and laws relating to virginity, sexual misconduct, divorce, etc., were all skewed heavily to give advantage and power to males.

Most Christians and people in general in the Western world have long moved past these kinds of perspectives and practices, though there are religious groups that maintain a commitment to forms of “hard patriarchy,” such as Vision Forum, and RHE discusses some of their viewpoints.

But then she went a step further in her research when she contacted a group called Biblical Families. This is a community of self-described Bible-believing and evangelical Christians who “recognize the Biblical soundness of plural marriage.” A man named Eric, married to two women and having a family with both of them, communicated with her, and Rachel and one of the wives corresponded so that she could learn about their experiences in a polygamous household.

I find it fascinating that the Bible never explicitly condemns the practice of having multiple wives. God’s chosen people, the twelve tribes of Israel, came forth from Jacob and his wives Leah and Rachel. This was the common “biblical” way among all the patriarchs and matriarchs (along with maintaining slaves and concubines). Even in the days of the kingdom, the practice of having multiple wives was common. And, how’s this for “biblical?” — according to 2Samuel 12:8, the prophet Nathan declared to King David that it was God himself who gave the ruler his (multiple) wives.

It is true that, by the time we get to the New Testament, we hear Paul instructing the church in Ephesus that an elder should be “the husband of one wife,” testifying to the fact that the apostles lived in a different culture and time when polygamy was no longer the norm. However, Paul does not base his counsel on any scriptural mandate or universal prescription.

This one small portion of Rachel Held Evans’s book exemplifies a couple of key points made throughout –

• It is a complex interpretive matter to separate out time-bound cultural practices described in the Bible from timeless divine instructions prescribed in its pages.

• Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to realize how much of our own experience and preconceived notions we carry to the Scriptures. This often leads us to see the cultural practices we have come to accept within our religious traditions as valid representatives of what “the Bible teaches.”

Few of us would assert that polygamy is acceptable practice in contemporary society. But why? It would be extremely hard to argue against it using just the Bible. There is more going on here. This suggests that we may be on shaky ground when we try to use the adjective “biblical” to advocate for particular social or cultural practices as though the Bible always has a clear mandate about such matters.

The same could be said about the “household codes” of Greco-Roman society, which form the background of the apostolic exhortations to husbands, wives, and other household members in Ephesians, Colossians, and elsewhere. Though the apostles infused them with Christian content about what it means to love and serve others in one’s household, the codes themselves represented the culture of the day, which presupposed that men had unilateral, military style authority over their wives, children, and slaves. Evans takes this up in her chapter on “Submission,” noting that the apostolic instructions actually end up subverting the hierarchical nature of the household codes, granting dignity in Christ to those without cultural dignity and calling for mutual love and service regardless of one’s position in society. (We wrote about this HERE on this blog in 2011.)

But I don’t want to make it sound like A Year of Biblical Womanhood reads as a didactic study or argument. It is much richer, more personal, creative, and winsome than the debates its subject generates.

How can you not love “hula-hooping with the Amish,” learning why the sex lives of Orthodox Jews may be the steamiest around, or getting lessons on how to sound a shofar?

Who could not be moved by the lessons she learned about the worldwide sufferings of women? – “It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, then men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century,” she learned from reading Kristof and WuDunn. The kind of feminism that Christians can and should get behind is that which embraces “the radical notion that women are people,” a view still not universally acknowledged.

As part of learning that faithful women in Scripture were committed to justice and helping the poor, Rachel received an invitation to travel to Bolivia with World Vision to see for herself some projects for empowering women and improving community conditions there, and she writes about it with a wonder that is exhilarating.

Some of the most poignant words in the book come from Rachel’s husband Dan, such as this reflection near the end of the project:

At its core, our relationship isn’t a hierarchy; it’s a partnership. What kind of person doesn’t want success for their partner? A weak, insecure person. What kind of man doesn’t want success for his wife? A weak, insecure man. I’m not supporting Rachel like a passive piling supports a dock. I’m supporting her like the Saturn V supported Apollo 11. I want her to succeed in her pursuits, and will do everything in my power to make it happen. She wants the same for me.

That sounds eminently “biblical” to me. Those words exemplify the true “one flesh” kind of relationship men and women should have in marriage, the partnership specified in the creation narrative when God makes a “helper corresponding to” Adam (an equal, complementary partner, not a helpmeet — as in an assistant). It’s about two people living in mutual submission to one another, loving and serving as Christ did, each seeking the ultimate benefit, welfare, and flourishing of the other — no matter what “roles” we play and without regard to who “leads” in any given situation.

In the end, Rachel Held Evans concludes that the way to be a “biblical woman” (or man, for that matter), is to let Jesus’ definition be the final guide.

Far too many church leaders have…attempted to define womanhood by a list of rigid roles. But roles are not fixed. They are not static. Roles come and go; they shift and they change. They are relative to our culture and subject to changing circumstances.

A calling, on the other hand, when rooted deep in the soil of one’s soul, transcends roles. And I believe that my calling, as a Christian, is the same as that of any other follower of Jesus. My calling is to love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. Jesus himself said that the rest of Scripture can be rendered down into these two commands. If love was Jesus’ definition of “biblical,” then perhaps it should be mine.

That is ultimately why I love this book.

I love Rachel’s spirit and creativity, her transparency, the gift she has for writing, the vivacity with which she embraces life. These winsome qualities come through on every page of this fine book. I was especially struck by her humility and willingness to stretch herself beyond comfort to learn new lessons, even from those whose views and experiences were vastly different from her own.

But it’s that final note of a “Jesus-shaped” approach to life that I love best. If the pursuit of the “biblical” does not lead us to that, we are nothing.