John H Armstrong

What Should We Make of the New Apostolic Reformation?

The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is a movement within Protestant Christianity that is largely associated with the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. I only paid scant attention to it until recently even though I knew something about it a decade or so before. Like all such renewal movements the NAR has a lot in it that many mainstream Christians would agree with. But there are elements within the NAR that are more controversial and these have increasingly caught my attention.

The basic thesis of the NAR is that God is restoring the lost offices of church governance, namely the offices of prophet and apostle. Even this restoration of the two named offices is not entirely controversial, though various versions of this teaching have floated around in the Pentecostal and charismatic churches for generations. So what got my attention about NAR, especially since I am committed to promoting unity and not calling out various versions of Christian expression, over the past few weeks?

The NAR traces its historical roots to end of the twentieth-century when the name/moniker was first used by my former professor of missions, Dr. C. Peter Wagner. His use of the name, joined with his clear prominence in this movement, has prompted some journalists to perceive him as the de facto founder and leader of NAR. Wagner says, “The second apostolic age began in the year 2001,” when, according to him, the lost offices of "prophet" and "apostle" were restored. Again, this is not my belief but it is not so terribly odd as to be worthy of serious attention given the history of charismatic movements in the United States and beyond. I love Peter Wagner. I found him to be an outstanding teacher who profoundly encouraged me in church planting and missions. I owe him something as a brother and remain thankful for his teaching ministry to me. I also believe he is, like me, a committed Christian brother. But there is a much deeper problem here in terms of the NAR movement.

Whatever we call it there clearly is an emerging Christian movement that aims to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus. And this movement is becoming more of a presence in conservative American politics. These leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this very role. They include a growing network that extends far beyond Wagner’s original NAR movement. If you wish to know more about what I speak about you can listen to an important interview about NAR done in late August here. After this interview appeared Peter Wagner defended the movement in an important article that friends and foes should both read very carefully.  Wagner had earlier defended and explained the movement here. You can read more about NAR by using your computer search engines where you find a whole host of articles, both pro and con. The con articles are, so far as I can tell, generally from the same kind of sources that attack all charismatic movements broadly. This makes them less than genuinely helpful, at least in my view. But more liberal groups have also mercilessly attacked NAR, often revealing their clear bias against all Christian involvement in public life. Another frequent source of attacks on the Christian Right appeared in an August 14 post by Michelle Goldberg. Goldberg, who should be taken seriously as an astute reporter on far-right movements, clearly misses some of the nuance. She also lacks some of the insiders understanding of these decidedly radical initiatives from evangelicals. (Goldberg, whose book on the Christian Right I read carefully, would be much more helpful to all sides if she applied similar logic and passion to the liberal fringe!)

My good friend Greg Metzger, a Catholic observer of all things distinctly Christian (both cultural and missional) has engaged with this movement as intelligently as anyone I personally know. A recent blog of Greg’s provides a rich treasure house of resources and further reflections. I encourage you to read his posts if you want to know about NAR.

I have several good friends who minister within NAR-type contexts. I know them to be excellent brothers. They love Jesus, long for real revival, pursue unity in the church personally and promote real repentance. To say the least, I have no quarrel with any of this. What I am concerned about is that the evangelical mainstream in particular, and the broader Christian media in general, effectively understands the teachings and practices of NAR in coming months. I think it is safe to say that some of this prophetic practice is a bit bizarre and the influence of this on politics is significant enough to warrant our attention. Greg told me last week that he feels we are about to hear a lot more about NAR in the days and weeks to come. He notes that people inside the NAR tend to see all of this as an attack by “the secular paranoid media” on the work of the Holy Spirit. This response only makes things murkier for me. In some instances people involved in NAR act as if Peter Wagner has no right to claim any significance thus his role is unimportant or marginal at best. By distancing themselves from Wagner they seek to protect what they believe makes their claims and ministry unique. Greg believes that the time to engage and refute these teachings is now. I do not have the time to do extensive research on NAR. Perhaps some of you do. Further, I simply do not have a deep interest in this subject since it is not in my mission purpose. But I do sincerely believe we should be aware of the dangerous minefields that this movement has laid down for the current political season.

Caveat emptor!

Overregulation Cuts Across Both Parties: The Real Danger of Xenophobia

Republicans routinely criticize the Obama administration for overregulation. I believe this criticism is just in many instances. It is interesting to see this administration back away from a whole host of regulations in the present recession because they realize (pragmatically) they cannot defend these and be re-elected in this bad economy.

But the Republicans are sometimes guilty of the same problem, just in different ways. Consider the immigration issue. Recently the House Republicans have made noise about trying to counter the costs of their own version of restrictive policies. The House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith has routinely fought what he calls “cheap foreign labor.” One of Smith’s pet political projects is to harass American business into becoming the line of defense in keeping immigration laws in force. The Texas congressman recently introduced what is called the Legal Workforce Act, a bill that would require employees to run the names and Social Security numbers of all new hires through E-Verify, a federal database. Employees can use E-Verify voluntarily at the present but they tend to rely heavily on ID documents to verify the immigration status of their workers.

Smith’s Republican bill has produced a huge business backlash from agricultural producers for good reason. As many as half to three-quarters of the workers who pick America’s fruits and vegetables are undocumented workers. Farmers says Smith’s bill could do great harm to a $300 billion industry.

The case for the farmers is very strong in my view. The Wall Street Journal reports that there are “chronic problems with speed, cost and accuracy that bedevil E-Verify.” The Immigration Law Center has studied this issue and believes that with all the inaccuracies in the database up to 1.3 million U.S. Citizens and legal workers will be mistakenly flagged for problems if E-Verify passes. The Wall Street Journal adds, “Good luck to those who will have to sort out their records at the local Social Security office.”

The greater problem here for farmers is that this bill will scare away workers. This will result in labor shortages and leave un-harvested crops in the fields. We already know that one state, Georgia, implemented E-Verify. The results are clear—11,000 agricultural jobs left the state.

Several weeks ago Smith introduced a new bill that would provide 500,000 temporary visas for workers. California Republican Dan Lungren plans to introduce a bill that would allow guest farm workers. This is a huge step and one I personally hope is pursued.

I am glad some Republicans are waking up to the hard reality about immigration reform but it is still too little and, even now, a bit too late. We should already have an expanded guest-worker program in place if it were not for Republicans who worked so hard against it.

I am convinced that this is one of many consequences of pursuing immigration problems without a comprehensive solution in place. Listening to both parties talk about this heated issue, especially Republicans, is at times hard to handle if you have a conscience at all about people and the multitude of human persons who are tragically caught in this mess. Simple answers will not solve this problem.

One bright light in the recent Republican presidential candidate discussion has come from Governor Rick Perry, a leader who has rather powerfully shown us why a wall will not work on the Mexican border. This is one thing Perry seems to understand quite well—after all he has been the governor of a state where the largest and longest border with Mexico and America exists. I hope political conservatives will listen to Governor Perry and not to leaders like Texas Congressman Lamar Smith. But I am not sure they will since President George W. Bush had a truly wonderful program for total immigration reform but his own party killed it. Conservatives really need to rethink this issue before things get much, much worse. Christians should especially rethink this issue, and as Christians first, not as Americans who fear losing their culture to an outside group. The mission of the church is involved in this national debate and I despair of hearing this stated clearly from most Christian conservatives.

I believe that xenophobia is really at the heart of this problem. Xenophobia has been defined as "an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners/strangers.” It comes from the Greek words xenos, which means "stranger or foreigner" and phobos, which means "fear." Xenophobia will often manifest itself in ways that are very particularly related to the relationships and perceptions held by an in-group towards an out-group. It includes the fear of losing our identity. (In this case as “real” Americans in response to these “illegal” criminals who broke our laws!) Sometimes xenophobia reveals itself in the form of an “uncritical exaltation of another culture" in which a culture is ascribed "an unreal, stereotyped and exotic quality” (Guido Bolaffi. Dictionary of race, ethnicity and culture. SAGE Publications Ltd., 2003. Pp. 332, taken from www.wikipedia.com).

Make no mistake about this—xenophobia still has a major impact upon a great deal of how we think and respond to immigrants in this country, especially if we hold to strongly conservative political views. Christians should lead the way in challenging xenophobia but I’m not holding my breath right now because we would rather defend our nation against these foreigners than include undocumented workers among the people who are within the mission and love that Christ has given to the church.

America the Beautiful or The Star Spangled Banner?

A friend just sent me a link to this story on the web from The Sporting News. (Be sure to read the many comments that follow or you will not understand my reason for posting this story.) The question of what the school plays before a sports event is one of simple choice to my mind. And a pacifist school should be expected to “feel” exactly the way Goshen College does on this issue. But read the replies to this story. Pretty sad stuff. The name calling and harsh rhetorical response is common to our time. Moderation in defense of faith is seen as compromise and hating America. And please do not tell me that many Christians would not respond precisely as these angry people do to this story. The one thing such Americans despise of a pacifist.

This kind of response to pacifism is not new. During World War II pacifists were hated and treated as lovers of Hitler and Nazism. They were a scourge and an offense to God and country. The “religion of the state” has always hated Christian pacifism. The facts of history are actually quite striking here. In the first centuries of Christianity it was far different. Almost every serious scholar agrees that early Christians were pacifists, or at least committed to non-violence in almost every case. The least we can do, even if we are not committed pacifists, is stand against this kind of response that equates God and country so closely.

How Rapture Fever Harms the Church

I grew up on the idea that Christ’s coming again at the end of this age was in two parts. First, he came to take the church away (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18). Second, he came seven years later, after The Great Tribulation, to judge and condemn those who were unbelievers. Any who had believed during The Great Tribulation period were also rescued in this second, Second Coming.

Until I was 20 years old I believed this so ardently that it deeply impacted how I lived. It also impacted many of those around me. I led a gospel team in college and several members of my team dropped out of college because they really believed that Christ was coming very soon to “rapture” the church. (The term rapture comes from a translation of the word in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 where Paul says those who remain will be “caught up” to meet Christ in the air!) I can still remember hearing the famous Hal Lindsey speak on the coming “Great Snatch” when I was a freshman at the University of Alabama. I went out and bought several major books on prophecy and began to study and prepare for the Rapture. I even planned my future based on the idea that Lindsey taught that my generation would see Christ come again.

It wasn’t until I got to Wheaton College in 1970 that I began to doubt all of this. I did a paper on the subject and read George E. Ladd’s book, The Blessed Hope: A Biblical Study of the Second Advent and the Rapture. I was so initially upset by this book that I wanted to throw it in the trash! It shook me up and unsettled a firmly held tenet in my system that I had held since childhood. (My mom ardently believed this and taught it to me even though none of my pastors ever taught it growing up in Southern Baptist churches.) Over the course of that semester I studied, read and thought a great deal about the biblical teaching on this subject. I even attended a home study group to get into it more deeply. By the end of that term my mind was changed. My mother was always disappointed and over time I learned not to bring this up to mom because of my respect and love for her.

Now, more than forty years later, it is quite tempting to mock people who hold this idea about Christ’s return but I must recall that some of the most godly people I’ve ever known believed it. This checks my inclination to make fun of people who believe this teaching.

Having said this I simply cannot abide this teaching in any way. It is just plain wrong. Sometimes it is so wrong that it does great harm in the hands of zealots. We’ve had more than our share of predictions about the end go wrong of late. But even this will not stop those filled with rapture fever from speculating about the days that we live in and the coming of Jesus. Americans are unusually prone to this teaching since they think things are getting worse and worse in “these last days” and they want to live well and then escape before it gets really, really bad.

There are a number of problems with this teaching. For starters everyone should admit that if you hold this view you really do teach that there are “two second comings of Jesus.” He comes again and then again. In fact, when we sang the chorus “Jesus Is Coming Again” at Campus Crusade meetings at Alabama in 1967-69 some of us sang, “Jesus is coming again, and again . . .” Think about this. It is patently ludicrous to draw such a conclusion on the basis of any simple reading of the New Testament. You have to adopt a highly developed and terribly unbiblical system and then look for “two comings” to get two!

Another problem with this teaching is the way it stirs people up to do all kinds of silly things that are often truly harmful to godly Christian living. Rapture fever is dangerous and it harms some Christians. (Yes, there are some pre-tribulation teachers who avoid the wild nonsense but they are honestly quite rare.) I was listening to one of the hosts on the Moody Radio Network last week. She speaks routinely about the rapture as if she is quite sure it has to be near. She was talking about the economy, the president, etc. This teaching impacts everything she says and does. She connects the dots and always seems to get back to the Rapture being near. I can’t listen anymore. I have actually reprogrammed my radio selections so I do not accidentally hit that button. I will listen to two programs on the  Moody Network and go to these two when I am in the car but I will have no more accidental hits. They only irritate me so I best remove the source to drive safely.

An excellent article appeared in the Bloomberg Businessweek on July 28th about the financial profits that are being made by people who teach rapture doctrine. This article asks if the present economic crisis provides a context for the increase of this popular teaching? The answer is affirmed in the positive. Here is one statement that writer Peter Savodnik makes in his Bloomberg report:

This means there are only so many days left to get rich. Strandberg, the proprietor of RaptureReady.com—the most popular Rapture-preparedness website in the world—is part of a new generation of entrepreneurs trying to take advantage of Camping’s absence. Unlike Camping, the new apocalypse establishment is offering an unprecedented array of doomsday-themed literature, podcasts, survival kits, and other goods and services for navigating the end of times.

But the writer goes on to name others who have benefited in a number of ways including Jack Van Impe, Tim LaHaye, et al. Here is one of the most impressive insights that Savodnik provides:

Yet the dirty little secret about the Rapture trade is that it’s run by people who often hope there is no Rapture. The trick is to encourage belief in—and spending on—the Rapture for as long as possible. Camping’s most recent failed prophecy—his fifth—has reaffirmed many Rapture-based entrepreneurs’ conviction that staying vague is the best plan. Terry James, who co-runs RaptureReady.com with Strandberg, recently published his 22nd book on the end of the world. “We don’t set dates,” he says. “That’s one thing that Jesus said. No one knows the hour except the Father.” Left Behind author LaHaye urges his readers to log on to his site to “take your time, browse around, but by all means, get prepared for the coming of the Lord”—whenever that happens.

Next time someone starts talking about the Rapture being soon tell them that you also believe Jesus is coming back – once and for all, not twice. Anyone who reads the New Testament without a special reference Bible or surrounded by a bunch of ill-taught teachers who want to sell them a system that is deeply flawed and totally discredited can plainly see the incredible errors in this idea if they stop buying the emotional appeals.

There is one thing I am certain about here – no one knows the day or the hour of the return of Jesus. Why? He said so.

Singles: Our Fastest Growing Demographic

Demographics involve the statistical characteristics of a population. Demographers gather data that is used in sociology, public policy, and marketing. Commonly examined demographics include gender, race, age, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment, where people live (rural, suburban, city, etc.). What researchers call demographic trends describe changes in demographics within a population over some period of time. We have often hear lot about this kind of study after the national census of 2010. Taking a census is as old as antiquity and still has immense value to a society. We should pay attention, if we are missional, to what is hapenning to people in the larger culture.

There are a number of evident demographic trends that have a considerable impact on our society at the present moment but none may be more significant, for both culture and the church, than the rapid increase in unmarried adults. There are now 59 million unmarried, never-been-married adults in the United States. 

But this is not all. The mortality rate for single men is 250% higher than that of their married peers. And the mortality rate for single women is 50% higher than their married peers. Lifestyle choices regarding sexual expression seem to be one part of this equation but it clearly is not the whole reason. I leave to the experts to explain this data but it is striking for sure. And single men are twice as likely to commit suicide as married men. And 40% of married people say they are happy (that is a shockingly low number frankly) but only 25% of single people describe themselves as happy. You get the feeling from all of this data that the majority of people do not describe themselves as happy!

In addition to this interesting and revealing data we learn that the most recent data says single men drink twice as much as married men and single women are five times more likely to be victims of crime than married women.

Where does the church come into the lives of these single adults? Less than 20% attend church on any regular basis and nearly two-thirds of single adults believe the church has nothing to offer them at all. I will not go into all the reasons why this is true since I’ve done a good bit of this kind of “guess work” over recent years. The question I pose today is simple: What does the church do about the fastest growing demographic in our society and the one least interested in the church?

I suggest the following as starting points for the consideration of churches and Christian leaders:

1. Get to know single adults and listen to them. This will require you to seek them out in your neighborhoods, work place or other places of social interaction. The general principles of friendship apply here as in any context but if you’re married it will present bigger challenges for sure.

2. Recognize that many singles are lonely and starving for human interaction in many cases.

3. Understand that singles cherish their freedom and flexibility deeply. They love to be spontaneous and travel. They like events and dialogue. You may not have the freedom to “hang out” but you can include singles in your life in many creative and positive ways. As a man whose children are grown and married I have more time for singles than ever and invest a good bit of it building relationships with them.

4. Realize that there are many misconceptions about singleness and you very likely hold to several of them. Singles are not single because they are odd or socially maladjusted. Some are single because they’ve seen what marriage meant to their parents and do not want a bad relationship in a marriage. Some are single because they have a desire to see more of the world and to experience more of life before they marry. Some are single because they want to wait until they meet the right person. Others are single because of sexual orientation and personal struggles with sexuality. This is the third rail for much of the church. How do we embrace people, listen to them, encourage them as neighbors and NOT judge their sexual practice as the deal breaker in a friendship? A considerable number of singles now want to live in a relationship, where they are sexually active with one person, without marriage! The list could go on.

5. The biggest misconception about single life, at least among married people in the church, is that married people think “something is wrong with you” if you are in your mid-twenties or older and not yet married! Married church members are socially and emotionally tone deaf when it comes to knowing how to include and love single adults. We think they need and desire “singles groups” so we offer that and believe we’ve done what is best. I question this solution on several fronts. It has a place but it should not be primary. I’ve seen, in the house church movement for example, that single adults can relate to married adults quite well in the same social and spiritual context.

Finally, I wonder what the Christian doctrine of celibacy means in a culture as sexually confused and morally promiscuous as our own. I have heard almost no teaching on celibacy inside the church. Unless you are Catholic, and desire to pursue the priesthood or holy orders and monastic life, celibacy is seen as odd and unacceptable. This is why, it seems to me, celibacy is almost never seriously considered in addressing same-sex attraction. A celibate is weird in a culture gone mad over sexual freedom and pleasure. But celibacy has an ancient and spiritual foundation in Christianity.

John R. W. Stott died a few weeks ago. I have spoken of the great contribution of his life here on several occasions. Most readers may not know that John never married. He believed that his mission would never have been accomplished for the global church had he taken a wife. He never strongly urged others to remain single, precisely because the Bible honors marriage so strongly, but his life was always a quiet witness to the power of singleness lived for the glory of God and Christ’s Kingdom. Personally, I believe some of our greatest Christians leaders in the future could well be single men and women who give themselves totally to others and not to a spouse. The problem we face, however, is that most of the church is not ready to accept this reality yet. Single pastors, male or female, and single leaders in Christian missions are not generally well received. It is, I believe, time to rethink singleness whether we want to or not. The demographics are forcing us to respond if we are missional people.

My Struggle with The GOP’s Hard Stance on Social Services

The Republican Party opposes the continual escalation of government with a passion. (The consistency of this stance is debatable historically but I’m not addressing this matter in this particular post.) How will we stop the ever rising debt that we have created and save our federal government from financial collapse? The answer, if we are honest, is anyone’s guess. Both parties have delayed for so long that the dangers are profoundly real. They will not go away this week or next. One scenario has us bailing out on our debt. Others have towns and cities, even states, going into bankruptcy. What this will do is almost beyond imagination. I personally stand to lose my small pension and be very adversely impacted.

Having said this I cannot agree with the irresponsible way many in the GOP speak about cutting certain social services for the poor. Let me explain.

About 60% of the elderly in nursing care rely on Medicaid to pay for their services. And at the beginning of life about one-third of all births are covered by Medicaid. I have a forthcoming blog, in a few days, about the concerns of a consistent pro-life position. Somehow I cannot grasp how cutting this needed support will help to save lives! To defend pro-life and cut essential services for the poorest Americans seems inconsistent to my mind.

When I listen to some conservatives talk about cutting government spending I wonder if some of them actually know any really poor people. What about those who need help to feed their children and food stamps are a lifeline? And what about special-needs kids who have a divorced mom who cares for them? They could not make it without the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutrition assistance the government provides. These people are our neighbors. A society that allows them to fall into deeper poverty, and their children to not get basic assistance, is one that cares very little about justice or mercy. I personally do not want to live in such a society.

When the GOP talks about cutting government programs I urge you to ask, “How many of these important programs are involved in these cuts?” Yes, the economic reality of the moment is grim. And one in seven Americans is living in poverty. Religious and other charities are in deep trouble and cannot do the whole work that is needed. Food banks report as much as a 50% shortage right now.

In a recent appeal to deal with the present budget crisis Rep. Paul Ryan (R. WI), who is a Catholic, suggested that we cut food stamps by 20%, which some estimate would turn away as many as 450,000 poor women and children from WIC nutrition assistance. The plans offered over the past few weeks by various GOP leaders would also cut as much as $1.5 trillion from Medicaid payments, again based on some reports. The same plans speak strongly about tax-cuts that would include as much as $3 trillion for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

Look, I am well aware that we need real economic stimulus and this means helping business. (I especially want to help small-business, which is till the backbone of our economy!) I am thus opposed to almost all additional taxation, again for reasons that relate to how you can actually improve an economy. I am persuaded that President Obama’s forms of stimulus have done little or nothing to help us recover. But must we solve our current problems by hurting the most needy among us? Listening to some of my most conservative friends this sounds exactly like what they do believe.

The standard conservative line is that government aid programs trap people in a poverty cycle and this will not provide them what they truly need – a good job. On a certain level I agree, if the person can be trained and helped to get a job. But on another level I think we dare not solve the bigger problems that we face by hurting the poor even more in the process. Somehow we must see that this doesn’t serve the best interests of the weakest people in our country.

The church preaches a message of love. Love is caritas, or sacrifice. The question here is simple and complex: How does caritas inform government and social services? Some seem to think that it has nothing to do with it at all. I am not among them even though I am such a strong advocate of the “free market” and deeply oppose socialism as an economic model.

Clearly, we must address the national debt. We have put this off for too long. But I am deeply suspicious of both parties at this point. We had some outstanding ideas offered from a non-partisan committee that both parties rejected months ago. (I wrote about this at the time too.) I do not see either party really serious about the problems we currently face. They both seem intent on winning the next election so they posture accordingly.

My point, however, is that it is wrong to use this present crisis to destroy the public safety nets that are already in place to assist the genuinely poor. Could some wealthier citizens forego new/old tax breaks to help those who have almost nothing? Could we seriously trim the breaks that we afford to many in the upper 2% of our society? At risk moms and children deserve more from those who call themselves Christians, regardless of their party affiliation.

Stephen Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, urges Catholics to write letters to Congress to remind our legislators of three things:

1. Budgets must protect human life and dignity.

2. Needs of the hungry and homeless, those without work or poor, should come first.

3. Government and other institutions have a responsibility to promote the common good of all, especially ordinary workers and families struggling to live in dignity in difficult times.

I find those three appeals a simple basic expression of caritas. Can Christians argue otherwise and not compromise the very nature of what they profess in public?

Why Did the University of Notre Dame Fail It’s Own Christian Standards and Ideals?

Blogging is a rather amazing phenomenon. It has impacted politics, the church and almost everything else in between. When I began to write blogs in April of 2005 I had no idea what I was doing or where this would go. I began blogging because I enjoyed writing and believed I could express my thoughts in this form and thereby help and serve both God and some of his people. My core values were clear: speak the truth in love, always correct my mistakes when they became known to me and encourage people in every way possible to think, grow and change in the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ. For about five years now I have written a blog almost every day of the week.

To this end I soon began to write about a whole panorama of issues and ideas. Now, more than six years later, I write to an audience that includes Protestants, Catholics and Orthodox. I write to non-Christians and I write to people on both sides of issues that divide us; homosexuality, abortion, health care, etc. I generally avoid partisan politics because I have no interest in these debates. I do not think culture is fundamentally altered by politics but politics is an expression of culture, for better and for worse. But I do not avoid big issues that shape culture and life thus there are always political ramifications to things I write about.

Along the way I also decided to write about some of my own personal passions; e.g. college football, baseball, movies, art and literature. This gave a humane color to the tapestry I was painting day-by-day. It allowed friends to see me, warts and all.

As I blog it never ceases to amaze me how the Internet allows people to discover my articles and blogs. Once I wrote a blog about two local persons, both of whom were featured on the front page of our newspaper. I profoundly missed the mark in what I said about one of these two persons and a relative of this brother in another state let me know how I messed this up. I asked for forgiveness and corrected my mistake online. I also made a friend in the process.

Yesterday, I wrote about the football program at Notre Dame University. I was concerned about how the football program was allowed a “free pass” in several recent student related issues that rocked the South Bend campus. I referred to a Northbrook (IL) family that had lost their daughter because of the sexual assault she had suffered because of the actions of a member of the football team at Notre Dame. The subsequent failure of the university to deal with her appeal for help and justice put her life in a state of emotional crisis and resulted in the personal crisis that led to her death. I made reference to a “deal” that had been reached between the Seeberg family, in nearby Northbrook (IL), and the University of Notre Dame. In writing this point in my blog I was wrong. Yesterday, I received a lovely email from Lizzy’s dad, Mr. Tom Seeberg. Here is his appeal to me, which I gladly comply with in today’s post:

I read your blog post this morning (July 20). I want to correct one item that I hope you will change - there has been no deal cut between my family and Notre Dame. In fact, there has been no communication between us and ND since December 2010. I believe the "deal" you are referring to was in my reference in a statement (published in an op-ed in the South Bend Tribune) to the deal ND cut with the Department of Education not having to admit any failure in its policies and procedures.  I have attached a copy of the statement we issued after press inquiries resulting from the ND/DOE announcement on the Friday, just before the July 4th weekend.

Seeberg Family Statement

Notre Dame – DOE Resolution

July 1, 2011

When we read the resolution agreement and related press stories, we saw not words on a page but a face. We saw the face of our Lizzy, a frightened yet profoundly courageous young lady who did everything right when facing a nightmare. Perhaps it will be her legacy that our daughters and granddaughters, our sisters and nieces, may one day soon walk their college campuses with the safety and freedom that they should expect and their loved ones demand.

We are glad to see a professed commitment to change at Notre Dame – changes that may help make pursuing a claim of sexual violence easier for the next woman. Sadly though, the changes announced today do not fully address our concerns about the mishandling of Lizzy’s case. To this day, nearly one year after Lizzy reported being assaulted on the campus of Our Lady’s University, Notre Dame has refused to meet with us or discuss with us the results, if any, of Lizzy's complaint. They also refuse to acknowledge, let alone discuss, the obvious failures and shortcomings of the Notre Dame Security Police Department's efforts to investigate and pursue justice in Lizzy's case.

As respects Notre Dame’s comments on the resolution, sadly, the Notre Dame president and his administration, and the cabal of lawyers and PR flaks who do their bidding, have demonstrated once again that they don't get it--it being their existential obligation to live their mission with grace and integrity instead of protecting their reputation above all else. The spin machine is in full gear at Notre Dame. But the truth will prevail. Notre Dame's lawyers have cut a deal, signing the resolution without an admission of any failure in policy and procedures. However, implicit in the agreement with the DOE is just such an admission. Any truly objective reader of the full, signed statement will come to this obvious conclusion.

Lizzy's case speaks with quiet persistence from every cold and lawyerly sentence of the resolution. Notre Dame is now legally obligated to clean up its house. Regrettably, no person in leadership at Notre Dame is willing to stand tall and say so. But the truth will prevail.

We hope those, like us, who care about Notre Dame, its students, its legacy and its values will demand that the University demonstrates genuine leadership regarding these important issues. What is at stake is nothing less than the University's integrity and the future of the young men and woman lucky enough to call Notre Dame their home. My family and I continue to pray the University can find a path to a just result and tangible improvements that will make life better for the next woman.

Tom Seeberg

Northbrook, IL

I wrote Mr. Seeberg and expressed my concern for his family and my appreciation for his respectful, Christ-centered way of dealing with his pain and the sad treatment his family received from the university. Tom then sent me the following email:

Thank you for your kind thoughts and especially your prayers. Our blessing here is in knowing we have someone close to us who has gone before us and will be waiting for us. We are all here but a short time. It’s not about the time you get here, but what you do with it while you are here to learn Christ's message. We know our Lizzy "got it."

And on that happy note, there are some positive legacy of Lizzy's giving spirit that lives on.  See this link.
http://www.ctkjesuit.org/SeebergMemorialScholarship.htm

 

What an amazing statement of love and faith. I am awed by the Seeberg’s response. It reveals pain, dignity and love. It is a rare model of how good people deal with great tragedy. Pray for the Seeberg family in their grief and their continued response to the way the University of Notre Dame chose to mishandle this tragedy.

Josh Hamilton: An Icon of Grace in a Game of Skill

Texas Rangers superstar outfielder Josh Hamilton has won an MVP award and played in the World Series in the past year. He is just one of the very best players there is in a game that demands skill, perseverance and dedication all wrapped into one athlete. Hamilton is also a serious and thoughtful Christian.

It was not always this way for Josh Hamilton. When he first came up to the Major Leagues he was addicted to drugs and on a course to total destruction. In fact, when I looked for information and photographs of Josh Hamilton I found pictures of his present life and past life, revealing something of the lewd behavior he once engaged in when he lived in spiritual darkness. But then Josh Hamilton genuinely encountered the grace of God in Jesus Christ and became a new creation. Not only did his marriage and personal life dramatically change but his baseball career got new life. One could say that this guy walks and talks “resurrection life” in the power of the Holy Spirit!

Last night Josh Hamilton played in another All Star game. But this was not the big news in his life. All Star games do not matter to Josh as much as people. You see, Josh Hamilton is that rare individual for whom mercy and compassion matter more than awards and money.

The day before the All Star game Hamilton patiently answered questions from the media about a tragic event from last weekend. Playing in his home park in Texas Hamilton did what many players have done for some years now. He heard a fan appealing for him to throw a baseball to him for his little boy. Josh turned and flipped a baseball toward the stands. (This is common in the sport.) The fan, 39-year old firefighter Shannon Stone, was there with his six year old son. When Stone reached for the ball he fell over a railing and plunged 20 feet to a concrete base behind the outfield fence. He was alert enough at first to tell responders to care for his little boy who was all alone. Minutes later Stone was dead. The irony was that Stone himself had responded to many victims of accidents, storms and traumas over the years.

But what about Josh Hamilton? He was devastated. The media has pressed upon him and asked him loads of questions. He has handled it all in a remarkable way. He has spoken about finding the grace to go forward while he also prays for the family and their great loss.

In a recent statement Hamilton spoke about what he will do next. He said, “I haven’t thought it all the way through yet. Obviously, I want it to be personal, face to face. I’d love to know what kind of man Mr. Stone was and just meet his wife and little boy and see where it goes from there.”

Hamilton and his wife have already established a memorial fund and intend to do everything they can to help this family. But Josh understands this is not enough. “Nothing we do can ever bring him back. But the organization can take care of the family and see that everything is going in the right direction.”

Sporting News Today, in the Monday digital edition, noted:

Two nights after Stone’s death, Hamilton hit the game-winning, ninth-inning home run for the Rangers, a release of sorts for a man who recovered from drug addiction and lives with an abundance of Christian faith.

Hamilton added of his baseball heroics: “It helps me handle life and this is life, this tragedy. There’s things that happen that you have no control over and you don’t understand them and you will never understand them until you stand in front of your maker.”

I could wish for this kind of gentle, thoughtful and solid Christian character from many public Christian figures in our modern world but in the world of big-time baseball, where many are Christians and more than a few of these Christians need to mature like everyone else, Josh Hamilton stands out as a serious Christian who has increasingly become iconic in how he lives his faith on a big platform. Here is a window through whom hope shines brightly. May even these tragic events give new life to many. Pray for Josh and his wife as they privately respond to the Stone family.

“This is what God says!”

When it comes to any debate about any issue that is controversial in the church today the strongly positioned conservative response is to say, “This is what God says!” When the Southern Baptist Convention put a new section into its faith statement against women as pastors/ministers this was the way the president of the SBC put it when asked about why they had chosen this path and changed a statement of faith that had never included these kinds of statements in the past.

At the opposite end of the spectrum the more liberal response to questions about the reality and historicity of Jesus is to debunk the witness of the four Gospels as the naive beliefs of first century writers who knew nothing about a credible scientific world view. The Jesus Seminar, an extreme representative of this kind of liberalism, ends up telling us that very little of the record we have about Jesus can be believed by serious and thoughtful readers in the 21st century.

The church seems poised for continuous battle. On the one side are the maximalists who believe every issue and judgment is clearly framed by a word or a text from the Bible. On the other every word and text in the Bible is subject to social science and revision. These minimalists see very little in the history of Israel, for example, that holds up under the weight of their interpretive genius.

How does the ordinary believer make sense of all of this?

1. He rejects the notion that faith and history are enemies or incompatible sources of truth.

2. He recognizes that true faith is always rooted in the Christian gospel first and foremost. The person of Jesus really is what the faith is primarily about. This has always been true and the various religious expressions of the Christian faith desperately need to recover this Jesus-centric perspective.

3. He accepts the framework that there is a body of core beliefs that give the Christian and the church an essential identity, a place to stand, to speak and to witness faithfully to the world. These beliefs are not entirely found in the creeds of the early church but they are primarily there. We must adopt this perspective or there is no hope of us standing before the world of our time and confessing what Christians have always confessed.

4. He does profess with courage and fidelity to know the Truth but never all the truth. There are matters of faith and practice that we can discuss and work on without further fracturing the whole visible church in the process.

5. He realizes that would-be Christians are to be clearly kept in view while we discuss the meaning of the faith and seek to keep the church faithful to its core identity. This is especially true with regard to contentious issues of morality like abortion and same-sex marriage, etc. (For the record, I am pro-life and oppose same-sex practice in the church.)

The Problem with Labels

Christians are divided by many labels. None, at least so far as I can tell, divide us more than conservative and liberal. People on both sides recognize the other as being extreme and want little to do with each other. And once you have a label for a viewpoint, a perspective, then you can be done with having to deal with the messy business of dealing with the person who is “liberal” or “conservative.”

As these two labels are broadly used I accept them, at least to a certain extent. But I have found them increasingly useless in terms of loving and serving others. This does not mean I stopped thinking. Quite the opposite actually. It means I think a great deal about Christian beliefs and practices but I refuse to draw back from a brother or sister I disagree with based on this label. Almost every week I meet someone who so shatters the way I once used these labels that I am required to let my prejudices go if I am to be kind and tenderhearted.

The one thing I am most sure about is that Jesus told us to love. He didn’t say, “Love those who agree with you.” He said, “Love.” Even if the person in question is a “theological” or “personal” enemy you must still love. Love might draw you into a context where you are required to speak truthfully, as you understand it, but you must never speak without love.

The big shift for me goes something like this – I want to believe and teach a Christian faith that is Christian at its core. And I want to believe it in a way that is faithful to biblical teaching and church tradition; i.e. in a way that is genuinely catholic. But, and this is important, I want to believe in a way that keeps me ever open to searching for the truth in areas where I need to better understand both me and the way the faith challenges my ideas and practice.

If I had to use a label for this I suppose I would say I am more “moderate” than the extremes I see all around me. The loudest voices in both church and culture are on the left and the right. A “moderate” is caught in the middle. A “moderate” looks a bit like a wimp, like a person who is “facing both ways.” So I am really not sure I like this label either.

What I know is that God created the world and sent his Son into the world to redeem it. He loves it, all of it. Why? “God is love.” To follow Jesus requires more than anything else a stance of love. This stance can be inquiring and open. It can also be critical and thoughtful. It will be mindful of teaching such as this, in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

¹ This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. ² Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. ³ I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. ⁴ My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. ⁵ Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God (4:1-5, bold text mine).

How does the ordinary Christian make sense of their faith in Jesus while they continue to think and work out the implications of various complex issues and concerns that challenge them in 2011? This is not easy. The simple solution, it seems to me, is to opt for a stance (left or right) and then dig in and show how this is the “biblical view” on this or that. Understand, that I am resolutely committed to the ancient creeds of the Christian church, those creeds that almost all Christians publicly affirm in one way or another.

I see two great dangers for the soul in this labeling and standing on one side or the other in conflict. One is fear! "1 John 4:8 says, “Perfect love expels all fear.” Most of the time I fear that I might have to change my mind about something and this fear keeps me from seriously considering what I ought to think more deeply about.

The other danger is arrogance. We have the tendency to think that we can explain and understand the deep mysteries of God. We then equate these mysteries with our explanations of them. But Paul says our faith is rooted in these “great mysteries” (cf. 1 Timothy 3:9, 16). The greatest is the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus. Even here we can and must confess the faith as Christians in community with the whole church but we cannot explain these mysteries adequately.

I think Paul sums all this up quite well in one of the most famous of all portions of the Scripture (1 Corinthians 13:8-13). He makes it clear that what we know right now we can only know “in part” because right now we “see only as in a mirror.”

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. ¹¹ When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.