post-something

Student Debt is Killing the Church

May 1, 2012 by Tripp Fuller 48 Comments

One Trillion Dollars! U.S. student loans have reached a new high at the same time the economic prospects are reaching a new low for graduates. This isn’t just bad news for the students, their families, and future children – it is a serious problem for the church. Our students who are increasingly graduating with more and more debt will shape the future of the church. It seems that this issue needs to be treated as a justice issue across the country and as a genuine concern for our future risk-taking church leaders. Here are five reasons school debt is threatening the future of the church.

School Debt is Vocational Slavery. When you have a student loan payment of 300 dollars a month a bunch of jobs are off the table. It shouldn’t be a surprise that working for and with ‘the least of these’ are rarely financially lucrative. For example, if you just finished law school and gotta start payments you don’t get to advocate for immigrants or work for environmental justice, you gotta pay the bills.
School Debt Kills Tithing. I know the math is obvious BUT if you are writing a big check every month for your student loans until you are 45 years old that is a bunch of money that previous generations had available to give to the church and its ministries. When fewer and fewer people have money available to give to a church certain people and their needs get priority and internally focused expenditures get priority over externally focused spending.
School Debt Tames Prophets. You can have a conviction, a calling, and a platform but if you don’t have economic security for you and your family you can stay quiet, vague, and distracted from your convictions. In this past year I have received over 20 emails from ministers who said “I wish I was in a situation financially where I could say and work towards X.” X = some social justice issue God says we should care about. What is their main burden? Student loans and health care.
School Debt Destroys Community. If you have to get a job that supports your family and your loans then you are more likely to have your check dictate where you move, when you work, and how long you work. This extra financial burden has led many of my friends to move away from their family and faith communities and take a job they hate at hours that eliminate growing new relationships in a new town. As a church this type of relational oppression is problematic and shouldn’t be accepted as part of the ‘game.’ The saddest part about this is our students are already indentured to the system before they are aware of what they are choosing.
Student Debt Squelches Ecclesial Entrepreneurship. What stops a gifted and called minister from taking the risk and planting a new missional community? Purchasing her own health insurance and having to write student loan checks. When taking the risk of starting a community that connects and serves the generations most impacted by student debt it doesn’t help the church for both the planters and the congregants to be riddled with exorbitant student loans. If you are deciding between a risky entrepreneurial move and jumping through the hoops of your denominational superstructure for a benefit secure job it’s easy to see how student debt could turn the tide away from ecclesial entrepreneurship.

Filed Under: engaging, latest, post-something

Hunger Games and a Better Atonement: TNT E-book Extravaganza

March 30, 2012 by Bo Sanders 4 Comments

One Click to the Homebrewed Hotline!

Two of the podcast’s best friends have published E-books in last month and they are both here for a Theology Nerd Throwdown!

Click To Subscribe in iTunes...this SHOW is going SOLO!!!

First up, Bo chats with Julie Clawson about the book she wrote about the Hunger Games. (you can find her first podcast appearance here)

Then Tripp and Bo skype with the self-appointed Sr. Deacon – the Doctor! – Tony Jones about a Better Atonement. (you can find his most recent visit here)

Join Brian McLaren, Doug Pagitt, Bernice Powell Jackson, Myself, & others as we explore the connection of ecology, incarnation and the interconnectedness of all. April 19-20 in St. Petersburg, Florida for the A Sustainable Faith Conference. Join me the day before for a cigar, brew, convo. on Hell, & a discount for the event. Sunday I will be preaching at the Missio Dei.

Tripp & Bo are really excited about reading Beyond the Spirit of Empire & Tony Jones is digging The Predicament of Belief by Philip Clayton.

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Filed Under: bible stuff, books, emergent, engaging, latest, media, news, podcast, post-something, thinking, TNT Tagged With: atonement, Julie Clawson, Tony Jones

Religion, Atonement, Gender, Theology & Secularism on the Theology Nerd Throwdown

March 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 16 Comments

What is religion? What about theology? Do Christians need to call God a dude? Did Jesus have to die to save us from our sins? These questions and more are tackled in the style of Nerd this week!

Subscribe to the TNT podcast now…the feed will be separate very soon!

On top of the provoking questions we are joined by a special guest, Deacon Dr. Eric Hall, who brings his own unique take on the issues of the week. We start by engaging some recent blog posts and then move to more philosophical matters.

We want you to join the TNT podcast. Comment on the blogs, call in 678-590-BREW, or click the “Send Voice Mail” button on the right side of the homepage and your voice can shape an episode soon.

Subscribe to the TNT podcast now…the feed will be separate very soon!

Here’s the ‘don’t be a dick’ pledge put out by Ben Gleib. Here’s the blogs we talk about…She who is not, Did Jesus need to die to save us from our sins?, I hate religion but love Jesus, What is theology and Secularization – focusing on the work of Heidegger, Charles Taylor (both Secular and Modern Social Imaginaries) and Eberhard Jungel.

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Filed Under: bible stuff, books, conversations, engaging, latest, podcast, post-something, thinking, TNT

Reading the Bible that tricky 3rd way

March 1, 2012 by Bo Sanders 35 Comments

I love reading the Bible. I grew up reading it, I am passionate about studying it, and delight to preach from it whenever I get the chance.

I also recognize that it is getting harder to do in our contemporary context. I am a loud critic of simple dualism (constantly contending with my Evangelical associates) – but even I must concede when there are two main schools of thought that have set themselves up in opposition to each other. I buck the ‘spectrum’ thinking like Liberal v. Conservative (as if those were the only two options) in almost every circumstance. However, when it comes to reading the Bible, it is tough to avoid the set of major trenches that have been dug on either side of this narrow road.

The first group reads the Bible in what is called a ‘straight forward’ way and while they spend a lot of time with the text, there is little acknowledgement of what is going on behind the text. This group reads the Bible primarily devotionally, preaches exegetically and views it as not just instructive but binding for all times and places.

In my interactions with this group, there is little awareness of hermeneutics (in may cases they may have never heard the word before) and even less willingness to engage in scholarship that does anything behind the text.

The second group engages in Historical-Critical methods. They are willing to look at things like redaction (later editing). They don’t harmonize the Gospels into one Gospel. They are willing to acknowledge that Matthew and Luke’s conception, birth and subsequent details do not line up. They understand that while the story of Daniel happens in the 5th century BC – it was not written in the 5th century BC. They joke about Moses writing the 1st five books of Bible (how did he write about his own death?).

Lately I have been engaging books like :

How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel

To Each Its Own Meaning, Revised and Expanded: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application by Stephen R. Haynes

Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages by Jaroslav Pelikan

She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson

Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology by Rosemary Radford Ruether

Over the last 4 years, it has become painfully clear to me that we have a problem when it comes to reading the Bible. Simply stated, those who spend the most time with the Bible know less about it but make greater claims for it than those who do more scholarship on it but may have little faith in it.

I was listening to a seminar on the Historical-Jesus and talking to several friends of mine who do Historical-Criticism, here are 3 sentences that no evangelical I know even have ears to hear:

Paul didn’t even write that letter
Jesus probably didn’t say that sentence
The Bible is wrong about this

I get in trouble for saying much much milder things about the literary device of the virgin birth, the prophetic concern of Revelation which is limited to the first 2 centuries CE, and Jesus being ironic about ‘bringing a sword’. Can you imagine what would happen if I thought that Paul didn’t write the letters that are attributed to him, that Jesus did not utter the red-letter words we have recorded in the gospels or that the Bible was wrong about something? I can’t.

So how does a moderate engage Biblical scholarship without stumbling over Historical-Critical pitfalls and Historical Jesus land-mines? The thing that I hear over and over is

“Just stick with N.T. Wright. He has navigated the gulf for you”

Now, I love N.T. Wright as much as the next emergent evangelical (especially his Everybody series) … but I am as unwilling, on one hand, to forego the best and most comprehensive stuff (like Dom Crossan’s work on Empire) as I am, on the other hand, to subscribe to the inane prerequisites of the Jesus Seminar.

What I would really like to see is a move within the emerging generation that is tenacious about engaging contemporary scholarship while fully embracing the kind of devotional passion that the innerant camp demonstrates – all the while avoiding the fearful and intimidating chokehold that camp utilizes to squelch innovation & thought.

I want the next generation to both find life and direction in the scriptures and also to not have to read the tough parts with their fingers crossed behind their back.

a hopeful moderate – Rev. Bo C. Sanders

For those who do not want to scour the comments to find the links to other resources:
Daniel Kirk’s book “Jesus have I loved but Paul?”
Ben Witherington’s book list

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, post-something, sermon, thinking Tagged With: Bible, Biblical, book, books, Crossan, Daniel, Elizabeth Johnson, empire, evangelicals, gospel, Gospels, Historical Critical, Historical Jesus, NT Wright, revelation, Rosemary Radford Ruether, scholarship

Why I hate religion but love Jesus & the missing ingredient

February 27, 2012 by Bo Sanders 25 Comments

Jeff Bethke has created quite a stir with his YouTube video that begins “Jesus came to abolish religion.” Many video responses have followed (including a Muslim response) and some bloggers have meticulously attacked the logic behind his poem point-by-point. This past week he was in Time magazine.

This whole controversy gets to me at two deep levels:

I used to say those things. Just 4 short years ago I was an evangelical church-planter who regularly contrasted Jesus’ message to ‘religion’.
I am shocked at how dismissive so many educated and/or mainline folks are being to Bethke’s poem.

I have heard many people just brush aside his use of ‘religion’ as ignorant, immature, stupid, uneducated, silly, shallow, un-historic, and false. The thing that I want to yell is

“YOU FOOLS – like it or not, that is how people use the word religion in our culture.”

If you asked A) people under 40 and B) evangelicals to define religion you would get a picture that is almost identical to Bethke’s .

I now hang out with mainline folks and people who read books on theology. They are quick to say

that shows a poor understanding of religion
that is a silly/stupid/shallow definition of religion
that shows little historical perspective on the role that religion has played

Like it or not – this is the definition that many young people are using for religion. When they say (increasingly) that they are spiritual-but-not-religious , this is what they mean.

I am pursuing a PhD in the field of Practical Theology for the very reason that I want to engage how people live out their faith – practice it – in particular communities. The two things that I am willing to concede up front are that

Many North American Christians and most Evangelicals utilize simple dualism (Physical v. Spiritual, Natural v. Supernatural, Temporal v. Eternal, Secular v. Sacred, Old v. New Testament, Law v. Grace). This is how they think.
Religion is conceptualized as the man-made structures that attempt to facilitate, replicate, and falsely imitate the real thing that God does/wants-to-do in the world.

It is popular to say in these circles “Religion is man’s attempt to connect with God. Jesus is God’s attempt to connect with man.” *

I know that there are many good attempts to connect with religious tradition. I have heard many addresses regarding the root of the word religion and how the ‘lig’ is the same as ligament or ‘binding’ and how it is an attempt to bind us together – not to have us bound up in rules! My question is this: Are you willing to engage this dualistic and uniformed populist definition of religion that is in place OR would your rather hold to your enlightened and informed historical perspective and allow a conversation to happen without you because you are above it? **

I know that it can be frustrating to circle back and entertain naive perspectives. But if the alternative is to let the conversation happen without a historically informed perspective, then I think we have no choice but to concede the initial conditions of the dialogue in an attempt to express an informed/educated alternative.

* there are alternatives like “Religion is our attempt to connect with God, Christianity is God’s connecting with us.”
** I have intentionally provided two alternatives to honor the dualistic nature of this mentality.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, media, news, post-something, random, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, Brian McLaren, dualism, evangelical, evangelicals, Hate, I hate religion but love Jesus, Jeff Bethke, jesus, love, religion, Time Magazine, YouTube

She Who Is Not

February 21, 2012 by Bo Sanders 10 Comments

Last week I had a post about language and God talk. It was called Horse Gods and it incorporated C.S. Lewis’ poem “A Footnote on All Prayers”. Part of what came out of that was an exchange with J.W. about pronouns, the Bible, and Inspiration. I wanted to transfer some of that over here (I have edited it for clarity) in order to bring more people in on the conversation.

J.W.: So, what does your god look like? And how is that look any different from Piper’s or Driscoll’s?

Me:

Thanks for asking! Actually there is quite a substantial difference. Let me point out just a couple of things to start:

A) I don’t believe that language about God is univocal (as I have said). SO we begin in humility understanding that all our words, metaphors and concepts are OUR best attempt.
B) I believe that langue (since it is not univocal) functional relationally. When Jesus uses ‘Father’ language, he is talking about the WAY in which relates to a father. Not that God’s ontological being is Father in an exacting and representative way. It is an expressive use of language. That is the nature of language.
C) The way that Scripture is expressed is historic. I believe that the Bible is Inspired by Holy Spirit. That means that Holy Spirit was at work in the authors and ultimately in those who collected and validated the canon. (I confess this by faith). Those authors were historically situated and particularly located. They expressed their thoughts in their best language in their best frameworks. We see that historical locatedness and account for it when we engage their writings.
D) Whether you call it ‘original sin’ (I don’t) or ‘human nature’ or (my favorite) relational brokeness and conflicting biological impulses … humans have a problem. We are not 100% whole. Something is wrong (we don’t even do the good we WANT to do). That means that in every epoch and era there are things in place that are not perfect. Those show up in scripture – since it is a snap shot of its environment. The Bible is fully human (and I believe fully divine in a Process sense) but it is not ABSENT of humanity. It is full of humanity.

So If you take just those 4 things in contrast to Piper and Driscoll, then my God talk is:

in Humility not certainty or pushy
Relational not static or exacting
Historical not trans-historic
Human not un-human

Does that help? SO that is my starting point. From there I diverge wildly from the other two.

J.W.

Well, first of all, thanks for a response.
Second, no offense, but you use an awful lot of words to not say too much. Or, to say the same thing over and over while denying that you are saying one thing, yet actually affirming another. Since I don’t have any real idea what you believe Piper and Driscoll believe, I still don’t know that you are painting a different god or not.
You start out saying that all expressions of God are only a best attempt, but then you claim to believe the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. So, which is it? Our best attempt, or Holy Spirit inspired? See the problem there. It’s either one or the other, can’t be both.
Certainly the Bible is written situationally. God could have inspired men to write it so it only made sense at one point in the entire course of time, or He could have inspired it so that it meant the same thing from beginning to end, from the beginning of time to the end of time. And written so that ordinary people could figure it out with a little help from His Holy Spirit. Which is what I believe. You seem to believe that only post-modern thought with a lot of help from certain philosophers can figure out this whole humility, relation, human thing. Sorry, way too many creeks have flowed over their banks throughout history for me to believe that only recently have we been smart enough to figure this whole mess out.
God (Holy Spirit) inspired the whole Bible. He could have very easily caused His writers to use words that wouldn’t mean anything to their (at the time, current) readers, but would only matter eons later. IF that is what He intended.
Again, you haven’t showed me anything but dichotomies, and nothing of substance that disproves anything Piper et al believe-which I still don’t know what you believe they believe.

Me:

1) I did use a lot of words, but it was to say quite a bit. Unfortunately it was not what you were looking for so you think I didn’t say much. I assure you that I say quite enough in my 300 words to get in a lot of trouble in many circles!

2) You are 100% wrong that “It’s either one or the other, can’t be both.” Inspiration is not the OVERriding of human intent – it is the filling UP and expanding of human intent. Inspiration does not make something inhuman. You are thinking of something else not inspiration. Then you accuse me of dichotomies? Weird. I am talking about a participatory-relational model that transcends either/or thinking. You must be confused.

3) Here is an example of the difference (which you apparently were not able to pick up on): It is equally a valid to call god She as it is to call god He. Because in the end, god is neither. Those are pronouns that stand in for their antecedent but which do not entirely explain god or contain god’s ontological reality. God did not give Christianity a masculine feel. We did. God is God that is beyond our biological categorizations and anatomical classification. God is not defined by those – we simply conceptualize God and these terms and portray those conceptions in our language.

This is the nature of language. It is symbolic – analogical – and metaphorical. That does not mean that we are not saying anything when we talk about God. We are. It does not mean that there is no inspiration. There is. Those are not mutually exclusive.

To quote Elizabeth Johnson in She Who Is :

Words about God are cultural creatures, intwined with the mores and adventures of the faith community that uses them. As cultures shift, so too does the specificity of God-talk.

To call God She is just as accurate and as inaccurate as calling God ‘he’.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, engaging, latest, living, post-something, prayer, thinking Tagged With: Bible, Culture, Elizabeth Johnson, female, feminine, God, jesus, Language, male, masculine, She, univocal

Horse Gods – C.S. Lewis, Xenophanes and John Piper’s blaspheme

February 14, 2012 by Bo Sanders 19 Comments

I spent this past week explaining that saying God has given Christianity a masculine feel is like saying ‘God has given America a Capitalist feel’. It was the point of my post “Bananas, Bullies and the Bible – you can’t start in the middle.”

I never struggle to believe in God. I believe in the deep core of my being. I have faith in my bones. I breath this stuff. I am filled with Holy Spirit and that gives purpose to my day and direction to my life.

I never doubt the reality of the Christian faith … until I listen to a conservative like John Piper or Marc Driscoll talk. Then, it is all too apparent to me that we are (at least partially) projecting our greatest hopes and dreams onto the screen of the heavens. We are outsourcing our fears and evils onto a cosmic bad guy called the devil. We have created a galactic father figure in the sky (paging Dr. Freud).

It is so clear when Piper talks that it makes me want to retreat into the post-liberal work of George Lindbeck!

Xenophanes is famed to have said:

“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen would draw them to look like oxen, and each would make the gods bodies have the same shape as they themselves had.”

It gets boiled down to “If horses had gods – they would look like horses.”

Most days I can stave that off. I can avoid the haunting suspicion and nagging doubt … but what Piper does is create a God in his own image – there is no other way to say it – it is idolatry.

So what? you may ask. Why even bother with it? Because, I believe that there really is a God.

C.S. Lewis wrote a poem one time called “a footnote to all prayers” (it references Pheidias who was a legendary statue maker in the ancient world)

Footnote to All Prayers

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

This is why we must acknowledge what it is we are doing when we pray, when we preach, and when we practice. We are doing the best we can with words, symbols, sounds and images. But if those images are solidified and codified past their point of original artistry, mysticism and metaphor – then it becomes something deadly to the soul and dangerous to the one seeking the real and living God revealed in Christ.

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, engaging, latest, living, news, post-something, sermon, songs, speaking, thinking Tagged With: Bible, book, books, C.S. Lewis, faith, footnote on all prayers, George Lindbeck, God, horses, jesus, John Piper, Marc Driscoll, masculine, masculinity, poem, prayer, Xenophanes

There is no Evangelical Orthodoxy

January 26, 2012 by Bo Sanders 7 Comments

Roger Olson posted an excellent article by Mike Clawson (hubby of Julie Clawson) on his blog last week. It was about the fundamentalist roots of evangelicalism and their contemporary implications. In the comments (and Roger always has tons of comments) Olson reminded everyone of an article he wrote 12 years ago for Christianity Today. I subscribed to CT back then and remembered the article. I went back and found it but what I did not remember was just how contentious things were.

In the article Olson is trying to fight off criticisms from the ultra-reformed, or rabbid-Calvinist wing of the Evangelical camp. Folks like MacArthur, Piper, Driscoll, and Mohler – besides being continuously contentious – are always throwing around words like heresy and orthodoxy at folks like Olson, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren (all former pod guests).

Here is the thing: there is no Evangelical Orthodoxy

I love reading books like Revisioning Evangelical Theology by Stanley Grenz, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage by Donald Dayton, History of Evangelical Theology by Roger Olson. I was part of the the Lussane gathering of young leaders in Malaysia. I was very vocal last summer that Evangelical is not only a political term but has deep theological implications and is inherently and historically theological (I used Bebbington’s 4 indicators) .

But there are two things I think need to be clear:

I got a book called the Evangelical Catechism. It is a compilation of consensus beliefs from 200 leaders, pastors, and thinkers that were surveyed. I like the book – but that is not the same as a catechism! We have no Pope, no ability to call a council, no catechism … so we need to knock it off with the “Orthodox” insistence and throwing around the word “heresy”. LOOK: there actually is an ‘Orthodox’ church and they think that the likes of Driscoll, MacArthur, and Piper (as well as the rest of us) has lost their way! *

1) There is no evangelical catechism and there is no evangelical orthodoxy! I proposed earlier this week that a dynamic conversation is the best we can hope for (I am partial to the Wesleyan quadrilateral). Can we have consensus? Ok. Can we have conversation? Absolutely. Is there a governing body to enforce your brand of ‘orthodoxy’? NO – so knock it off. Get some new words in your vocab. Think of some other ways to say what you want to say and stop pretending like you believe only what the early church believed. It fantasy at best and delusion at worst.

2) You can’t kick me out of the family. We all have siblings that think we are off and even wrong. Some brothers don’t talk to each other for years … but they are still family. That is not what determines if you are a part of a family! It is not how it works. So snuggle up sister! We are in this together, like it or not, we have the same parent, we were birthed through the same water, and we have the same blood. We don’t have to agree on everything – but stop trying to kick me out of the ‘fam’ bro! We are in this for eternity.

Now I know someone will come along and say “I told you its a meaningless term” … but I want to say

Hey Mr. Jones – if you don’t want to be evangelical that is fine. But some of us call this family and it means a lot to us. If you are done with the term, fine. But to us it has deep meaning we still use it as a family name. If you don’t count yourself as a member anymore – that is your call. But stop telling us who are inside the conversation that Evangelical doesn’t mean anything. It does to us.

We may not have a catechism or an actual orthodoxy, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t a living branch on the family tree.

I also shared some thoughts about Christian unity and conformity on a TNT episode.

* I appreciate the real Orthodox and have learned much from them.

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, church history, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, living, post-something, thinking Tagged With: Al Mohler, Bebbington, Bible, book, books, Brian McLaren, calvinism, calvinist, catechism, Christianity Today, Emergent, evangelical, God, jesus, John Piper, Liberal, Marc Driscoll, orthodox, orthodoxy, Rob Bell, Roger Olson, Stanley Grenz, Tony Jones

My Love (hate) Relationship with Tim Tebow

January 13, 2012 by Bo Sanders 12 Comments

I love Tim Tebow – I just hate what his fan do with his success. It is irresponsible and un-Biblical.

I have said before that I respect Tim and that he does not think God helps the Broncos win football games.

Why I love Tim: He works incredibly hard, has an amazing energy, lives out his faith, and serves orphans. This guy is incredible!

Why I hate his success: If you are in the NFL, you are gifted. Every player is extraordinarily talented … and I think that those talents come for God. I would prefer if we said that every player was blessed by God – some acknowledge it and some are quite vocal about.

The assertion that God blesses one player more than another is where I run into the problem: that God is picking and choosing this person over that one – and interfering in this moment but not that one is a view of God that is irresponsible and indefensible.

I will go as far as to say that it is somewhere between superstition and missing the entire point of Jesus’ life and message. This certainly is not a Christian view of God.

Last week Tripp had a blog posted by Rachel Held Evans where he said that God was not omnipotent and that the future is not determined. In the TNT podcast that comes out today, Tripp and I talk about the line of reasoning that some people took in not only their objection to Tripp’s note but came to the defense of an omnipotent conception of God . Some people just came out and said “the book of Job shows that God is omnipotent”. This is a terrifying sentence to hear from a Christian.

There are three things about Job that need to be clear:

It is not a newspaper report. It is a dramatic presentation (broken into distinct acts).
That God rewards those who do right and love God and punishes those who disobey and turn away from God … is exactly what the book of Job is written against. That is against the narrative of Job’s life story at the beginning and against what God says at the end.
Christians believe that Jesus lived a perfect life – and was brutally murdered. I see that as the Death of Job’s God. That old concept of God died on the Cross.

So the BIble doesn’t teach this view of God and the history of the world does not reflect this view. God does not reward those who are faithful and put down those who are evil. The evil prosper and the righteous suffer as much as everyone under that evil.

We have to stop with this superstitious system of rewards and benefits that treats God like God as some sort of cosmic Gum-ball Machine. It is extremely hurtful and insulting. The part that baffles me is how prominent the view is among evangelicals … who make bold claims about being based on the Bible and ‘being Biblical’.

This view of the interfering God who doles out blessing to ‘His’ favorites is a relic of the past that we must outgrow.

This antiquated, superstitious view needs to die on the Cross so that the God revealed in Christ can be resurrected for our time.

Filed Under: bible stuff, church history, conversations, engaging, latest, news, post-something, thinking Tagged With: 3:16, Bible, bless, book, books, Christian, Christianity, evangelical, God, jesus, Job, prayer, Tebow, Tim, Tim Tebow

Femininity, Image, and Identity: the role of youth pastors and movies

January 5, 2012 by Bo Sanders 4 Comments

Hey Julie Clawson ! I could use some help thinking through a couple of things.

For those of you who don’t know her, Julie Clawson is the author of Everyday Justice, a pastor, blogger, Emergent leader and former podcast guest. She is one of the conversation partners at the upcoming Emergent Village Theological Conversation at the end of January. (www.ProcessTheology.org). Her blog is in my top 10.

Background: I love going to the movies. As a student, I usually only go the theatre on Summer break (blockbuster action films + air-conditioning = awesome) and on Winter break (tired brain + Christmas money = fantastic).

Last week I saw two movies and was quite intrigued by a pattern that I noticed during the trailers: women being tough guys. The three trailers were for Underword: Awakening with Kate Beckinsdale, Haywire with Gina Carano (both action films) and The Iron Lady with Meryl Streep playing Margaret Thatcher.

I have read enough feminist literature to know that there is a principle (which Thatcher made famous) that “In a man’s world …” a women often has to out ‘man’ the guys in order to break into the boys club and be taken seriously.

In a system where we have been socially conditioned to see certain behaviors and attributes as ‘leadership’ or ‘strength’ – or in the church as ‘anointing’ – then women must over-do it in order to overcome the intrinsic biases and gain credibility in a system geared to evaluate by masculine expectations. (people point to Joyce Meyer as a Christian example)

This is a real problem.

THEN I was reading your blog this week and you bring up the Lego Ads making their way around Facebook and tie it into both modesty and obesity. As a youth pastor I have read everything from Reviving Ophelia to Queen Bees and Wannabes ,that explains why girls treat each other the way that they do, and I recognize that there are deep underlying issues. Let’s be honest, these deep issues will not be solved by quoting some Bible verses or ‘going back to the way things were in the Bible’.

So here are my questions:

1. What do we do with the karate-chopping drop-kicking gun-shooting heroines of violence on the silver screen these days? On one hand, it is nice to women getting these big-deal leading roles in major films… on the other hand, are they real portrayals of women-ness or is it the bad kind of mimicry - like ‘Girls Gone Wild’ as a picture of sexual liberation or power.

2. Are there any resources that you can point me to for Image and Identity? Your blog post on the Lego issue is really sticking with me.

3. As a youth pastor, how would you suggest I navigate the (rapidly) developing sexuality without repression while steering clear of moral permissiveness? Any thoughts?

Thank you ahead of time.
Any help would be much appreciated.
I sure am glad that I mature sisters in faith as conversation partners.

anxiously awaiting your response -Bo

Filed Under: bible stuff, books, conversations, emergent, engaging, latest, media, post-something, thinking Tagged With: ads, Bible, blog, book, books, Facebook, female, feminine, Femininity, Film, girl, God, identity, image, jesus, Julie Clawson, LEGO, legos, Mean Girls, Movies, Queen Bees, Reviving Ophelia, sex, sexuality, Women, Youth Pastor

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