31 August 2007

Book Review: Pagan Christianity

The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices
An explosive treatment of the history of church traditions

syn • cre • tism [sing-kri-tiz-uh m]
-noun
  1. the attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion.
If you've ever wondered why we Christians do what we do for church every Sunday morning, then this is the book for you. I'm not talking about the theological reason(s) that we do what we do. I'm talking about the traditions, the methods, the practices.

Why do we "dress up" for church? Why is there a sermon every week? Why are their pews, pulpits, church buildings, choirs, and seminaries? Where did all these things originate?

The unofficial title of this book could have been,
The Book No Pastor or Priest Wants You to Read, partly because it challenges just about every facet of what we've come to know church to be, but not to be overlooked is the chapter entitled, "The Pastor: Thief of Every-Member Functioning." Frank Viola makes a bold proposal: That most of what we Christians do in our churches has no root in the New Testament, but rather has been borrowed or adapted from pagan culture long after the 1st century church was established.

If you really consider Viola's claims, it makes sense. The persecuted followers of Jesus, establishing a movement that met in house-churches and catacombs, surely didn't just think up the idea of a pulpit or a steeple... or even a building to meet in for that matter. It wasn't until Constantine mainstreamed Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire did the practices we're familiar with begin to take shape.

One of the reasons I would recommend this book is that it's scholarly without the magniloquence of a text book, and it offers a fair assessment of church history - corroborated by some of the most extensive footnoting I've ever seen. Viola clearly did his homework on this, and has done the body of Christ a huge service by providing a truthful glimpse at things we've come to consider "sacred" or "holy," that are only considered as such because man dared call his own concepts "ordained by God," when there is no such biblical evidence.

Personally, I don't think Viola is condemning all of our practices in and of themselves, but more presenting a challenge to those Christians who are content with status quo "churchianity," as he puts it. And ultimately I think he's calling us to look at what the church has become as a result of some of our practices. In essences, his claim is that the model that we've embraced and accepted as the
biblical church model has actually yielded some pretty unbiblical looking results. A refreshing aspect to Pagan Christianity is that Viola doesn't stop with exposing the truth about the church and it's potential flaws, but offers biblical alternatives to how we can participate in a powerful movement as the body of believers.

Reading
Pagan Christianity will help equip you with the knowledge necessary to recognize potential religious manipulation and deception. But more than anything, it will remind you that nothing other than Christ should be at the center of your individual and body life - not religious institutions, traditions, programs, clergy, or formulas. Christ alone must be preeminent.

Pagan Christianity is the third book in a five book series on radical church reform that examines the modern church, church-planting, apostolic ministry, and spiritual training for Christian service.






Taliban free all Korean hostages

The last seven South Korean hostages held by the Taleban in Afghanistan have been handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
They were released in two groups, within the space of a few hours, late on Thursday.
On Wednesday, 12 of their fellow Christian charity workers were released after a six-week ordeal.


The Taleban seized the group of 23 last month as they traveled by bus on the main highway from Kandahar to Kabul.
Two male hostages were subsequently killed.

Again... I don't know what else to say other than praise the Lord!

More on this story here.

29 August 2007

A Typical Day in the West End...

Yesterday began as a relatively typical day in the West End of Glasgow. Not that my girls are usually sick, but I awoke to a couple of sick girls in our flat. Jasheen was struggling with a sinus infection and Gabrielle wasn't herself. I decided to stay home for the morning and lend a helping hand.

I took Gabrielle to Yorkhill Children's Hospital in the afternoon to see an orthopedic doctor to discuss her in-toe (pigeon toes) to discover if it's more serious than we think and can explain her incessant attraction to the ground - she falls a lot... she's almost two. All is fine with her legs... turns out, two-year-olds fall quite often and about 90% of in-toeing corrects itself as leg-strength increases.

While we were out I decided to stop by the local post office to pick up a package that they weren't able to deliver initially. On our way we crossed paths with my friend, Charlie, who manages the local Starbucks. We stopped to chat for a bit and we lingered as Charlie dotes on my girls and I tend to like that. A little further up the road we ran into my friend Nigel from the gym. We chatted about his work (doctor) and his dying car, and promised to hook up for a chat soon.

Once we arrived at the PO I realized why they were unable to deliver the box - we were home, mind you, but we've discovered that when packages are large, the postmen don't even bother bringing them with them. They just slide a slip through your mail slot that says, "Sorry we were unable to deliver your package - No Answer." We received a large box of clothes from a dear supporter who has kept my daughters dressed to impressed since Gabrielle was born. I had the tandem stroller and a massive box to trek about a half-mile home. Behind me in line was Sally. Sally is a sweet woman we know from the park. She has a couple of dogs that love Cole and they romp about in the park together regularly. Sally observed my struggle and caught up with me at the cross-walk and said, "Give me the box. I'll walk it home with you." I responded, "How about you push the pram, and I'll carry the box." She agreed.

I silently thanked God for providing help at this point and thought how wonderful it was to have Sally cross my path for this very occasion. Typical. God hadn't brought Sally across my path... He'd brought me across hers. She proceeded to share with me (fighting tears and anger) that the government was forcing her 17-year-old son to move out of her flat. He suffers from a mild case of autism and living with her increases his stress levels (according to counselors) and he needed to live on his own - with a disability at 17!!!! In short, she shared that they can't find a place that will approve him as a tennent, he's unable to stay with her and is temporarily staying with his aunt (Sally's sister) where he is subjected to pornography on television and his days have become nights and vice versa. If they're unable to find suitable accommodations for him he will soon be homeless... apparently that's more appropriate to the government than living with his mother. She described every single angle she'd worked, to no avail. She loves him dearly and can't bare the thought of him being homeless - a very common condition for many in Glasgow.

"It sounds to me like you've made every logical, legal and practical effort to sort this out," I said to her. "Perhaps the only thing to do now is pray."

"I've tried that," she said. "I don't think God hears me."

"He hears you, Sally." She started to cry.

"I think God has a plan for me," she said, "but I just don't know what it could be. Why is He not answering my prayer?"

I briefly explained to her my understanding of God's plans versus our plans and how despite their differences at times, He is always working for our good... to bring us closer to Him, not necessarily to sort out our problems.

"Can I pray for you now?" I asked. She really began to cry. "Please," she said through tears. I prayed for her and committed to continue to do so until the next time I see her. "When I see you next, I trust that your report will be better," I closed. I told her that Jasheen and I are available to talk whenever she'd like... and to pray more with her too.

I dropped off the box at home and took the girls to a local coffee shop for some daddy/daughter(s) time and to feed Isabelle - yeah, I'm ambitious and a little stupid. Two girls out with dad at meal time. I got us some drinks and settled into feeding Isabelle when out of the corner of my eye I saw Gabrielle tumble from her perch atop a chair and use her head to break her fall on the coffee table. It's the hardest fall I've seen her take, and everyone in the coffee shop heard it. Panicked, I set Isabelle into the pram and rushed to a screaming Gabrielle. I fully expected to see blood, but to my surprise and relief, there was just a terrible knot over her right eye.

After some consoling and cuddling, Gabrielle calmed down and I continued feeding Isabelle - she ate ALL of her baby rice.

Doctors offices, local friends, a prayer for the faint-hearted and a coffee shop catastrophe... just another day in the life of the West End.

23 August 2007

Secularists, what happened to reason?

I recently participated in the online comment chat roll following the story about the Skate Church (Deeper) in my last blog. I wasn't surprised at the negativity surrounding the
issue of American missionaries operating in Scotland. What got me was the approach taken by the anti-religious, atheist and secularist participants in the chat.

Critical thinking might be to secularism what faith is to devout religious believers. Thinking rationally, questioning assumptions, tolerating differences and rebuffing the black-and-white - these are the cornerstones of the secular world view and a pivotal part of what separates them from religious people.

Why then, when it comes to discussions of religion, do so many secularists abandon critical thinking altogether?

Renowned atheist writer, religion scholar and Georgetown professor, Jacques Berlinerblau, recently put it, "Can an atheist or agnostic commentator discuss any aspect of religion for more than 30 seconds without referring to religious people as imbeciles, extremists, mental deficients, fascists, enemies of the common good... conjure men (or) irrationalists?"

My recent experience would have to reveal that no, they're incapable of such a feat. A common thread throughout the discussion was to send these manipulative yank, do-gooders back to the colonies.

One such comment stated: "Watch out for Evangelicals. They're extremely simplistic and very emotional... they're against same-sex marriage, abortion and thinking." The American missionaries were referred to as "ignorant charlatans, a plague, eejits/idiots, deluded superstitious fools, morons, pestilential priests," among other such descriptors.

For a group of thinkers that pride themselves on rational thought and civil discourse, this behavior is inconsistent and unbecoming of a school of thought that emphasizes rational complex thinking - and has little to offer its practitioners when it comes to the value of an open mind. And trust me when I say that this comment roll was not populated by the denizens of ignorance. References or quotes from the likes of Karl Marx, Daniel Dennett, Albert Einstein and John Knox were included. In fact, one guy even got into a dispute with me because I challenged his claim that Daniel Dennett (prominent American philosopher at Tufts University) developed the concept of (the) skyhook... when everyone knows that it was Kareem Abdul-Jabaar's indefensible basketball shot. :)

But sadly, this is how this conversation (and others) tend to go when secularists take up the conversation of religion. The tendency has, perhaps, reached an all-time low with the appearance of best-selling book, Christopher Hitchens', God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

My point is not to demonize secularists or atheists. There is enough of that already. According to a USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted last February, fewer people would vote for a well-qualified atheist for president (45%) than an African-American (94%), a Jew (92%), a woman (88%), a Hispanic (87%), a Mormon (72%), a thrice-married person (67%) or a homosexual (55%).

It would be unfair and unreasonable to equate secularism with immorality or insufficient patriotism. Though secularists would do well to listen to Berlinerblau, one of the few atheist voices calling for secular engagement with religious believers and more rigorous understanding of their religions/beliefs.

True, many religious people behave in foolish and obnoxious ways, and some do cause harm in the name of their belief system. But stereotyping and generalizing on either side is not going to fulfill a productive agenda for anyone - for Christians, it's not going to reflect the love of Jesus; and for secularists, it's not going to challenge unthinking idealists to examine what's truly behind their faith.

It's not my place or authority to hold secularists to their own ideologies any more than it is their place to hold me to a biblical standard, but is it too much to ask that we simply engage one another with a bit of passion AND civility? Although it defines itself in opposition to religion, surely secularism is capable of understanding that religion is more than simply irrational indulgence and supernatural fantasy.

Secularists put their "faith" not in God, but in the sound aptitude of the human mind. It's disappointing when they discard their defining faculties and resort to thoughtless name-calling and brutish intolerance. It's a shame to see them throw out their greatest tool.

12 August 2007

Skate Church Makes the Front Page

Several months ago I was in Tinderbox, a local coffee place near our flat, and I met Dave Reasbeck. He overheard my American accent and decided to engage by asking what I was drinking. It was a Vanilla Icebox and they're awesome! I began telling him what I was doing in Glasgow and Dave responded very enthusiastically. "I'm a missionary too, dude!!!"

Dave has been here in Scotland for the last seven months, and he only just left this morning to return to the States to work out his visa situation so he can stay in the UK indefinitely. Dave is a semi-pro skateboarder who has been working alongside Bob Hill, a missionary-pastor ministering in Scotland for the past 13 years. Together they share the teaching times at Deeper, a skate church planted to reach Scotland's youth culture.

But as I said, I met Dave a few months ago and we hit it off almost instantly. We began meeting together pretty regularly once, sometimes twice a week. Much of our time is spent discussing the Bible, a book we're reading together (Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola), or ministry. But I think the thing we love to talk most about is the shape and shaping of the future church. Not church in the sense of a building or model, but the bride itself... the body of Christ. We can chat for hours about our love for those that don't yet have a relationship with Jesus; how we feel most fulfilled and most utilized when submersed in the culture around us, looking to bring Jesus into every encounter we have.

The Lord has really been blessing Dave's ministry. It's not uncommon for 120 young people to show up on a Thursday night to skate the largest indoor skate park in Britain and hear stories about a guy called Jesus. The real reason for this post, though, is to mention that The Scotsman, a Scottish newspaper (obviously) ran a Sunday Edition front page story on Bob, Dave and Deeper. Just thought there might be some interest in a story about one of the young guys I'm hanging with, discipling, coaching, etc.

That's Bob Hill in the center of the picture (above), and Dave is behind him "bustin' some fat air."

Picture of me and Dave at Kelvingrove skate park. Gabrielle in foreground.

Incidentally, our first meeting at Tinderbox was a significant encounter for Dave that made an impact that has stayed with him to this very day. The only thing he orders there is the Vanilla Icebox.

7 August 2007

Isabelle is 20 Weeks

Isabelle Sophia turned 20 weeks old on Sunday - wow, five months! She continues to be our angel baby. She is so full of joy and peace. Like her sister, she is a routine child, but that may be the only similarity they share. Never does she wake from a nap without a smile. She is always so happy to see us standing over her cot.

She is getting stronger and more aware of her surroundings every day. She is grabbing things and studying her hands a lot. She loves to kick and punch when she gets excited, and she also loves when we help her stand. We can leave her on her mat or in her rocker for extended periods with scarcely a sound from her. Although she loves engaging us, she is very content entertaining herself.

It's hard to describe in words, but holding her is like holding love. Even when I pick her up to take her to her mother for a feed, I don't want to give her up. The other day she received the third and final round of her infant immunization shots. The following day she struggled to keep milk down and she ran a fever, but even then she was pleasant. Many babies become irritable and difficult to console when running a fever, but all it takes with Isabelle is holding her.

We praise God daily for both of our girls. They are healthy, bright, beautiful and full of joy. We are also grateful to those of you that keep them and us lifted in prayer.

Blessings and Thanks!