September 3, 2010
The Real Threat of Pagan Christianity
Attempts to control God with our behaviors, prayers, and theology reveals how pagan the church can be.
This year I have begun making the transition from student to teacher by teaching an introductory course on World Religions at a local college (while I’m still taking doctoral classes myself). We’re a couple weeks into our journey, and earlier this week we talked about indigenous (“pagan”) religions. One aspect of pagan religions that strikes me is that the relationships between the adherents and their gods is most often manipulative. When the gods are happy, the rains come, the crops grow, people have babies, people stay healthy. When the gods are unhappy, the land is blighted by drought, famine, barrenness, and disease. In order to set things right, the people have to make sacrifices, perform rituals, or repeat incantations to appease the gods. The system is set up to control the power of the deities. (Forgive me: this is an oversimplification, but we don’t have a lot of space.)
Biblical Christianity is essentially the opposite: the relationship between God and humans is not based on rites, rituals, and incantations; it is not a religion of manipulation. Instead, the relationship between God and God’s people is based on covenant and, first and foremost, on God’s gracious desire to love us in Christ.
That’s easy to say. But I’m ashamed to say that I catch myself from time to time beginning to think about my personal relationship with God in pagan terms.
Continue reading "The Real Threat of Pagan Christianity"
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at September 3, 2010 | Comments (7)
September 1, 2010
The Dangerous Pursuit of "Cool"
Why are evangelical pastors relentlessly seeking to be cultural insiders?
At various times in my evangelical youth group upbringing, I remember looking at youth pastors or church leaders and feeling either endeared (by how nerdy and yet believable they were) or repulsed (by how phony their attempts to be “culturally relevant” often seemed). Looking back, it’s very clear to me that the teachers and leaders I most respected and learned from were not the ones who were trying to be “cool,” but rather the ones who were honest about who they were and willing to learn about who I was.
But I don’t begrudge any youth pastor for trying to be cool. We all try to be cool. We all want to be insiders rather than outsiders. We want to be “in the know” rather than “out of the loop.” It’s a natural human tendency, as basic as our drive to want love or to conquer something. And because the temptation is so constant, it’s easy to take this pursuit-of-cool mindset for granted and not see it for the negative, does-more-harm-than-good endeavor that it often is.
Continue reading "The Dangerous Pursuit of "Cool""
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at September 1, 2010 | Comments (19)
August 30, 2010
Mono-Ethnic Ministries and Multi-Ethnic Churches (Part 2)
Evangelize mono-ethnic groups, but plant multi-ethnic churches.
Tom Steers, founder and co-director of Asian American Ministries for The Navigators, recently wrote a guest opinion column for Christianity Today (July 7, 2010). The column is entitled, "Needed: More Monocultural Ministries". Mark DeYmaz, founding pastor of Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, and a leader in the multi-ethnic church movement, has written a response to Steers' article. Read part one of DeYmaz's rebuttal.
In arguing for more monocultural ministries, Tom Steers reveals the all-too-common misunderstanding of generations past committed to the Homogeneous Unit Principle as a pragmatic tool for local church planting, growth, and development. It is long-past time to recognize, however, that there is a significant difference between the need for evangelism focused on specific ethnic groups (more is needed, I agree) and the New Testament’s expectation that following salvation believers are to walk, work, and worship God together as one - in and through the local church - for the sake of the gospel.
Monocultural evangelism then? Absolutely. More monocultural churches? I say, absolutely not. What we really need is more multiethnic churches that understand and practice the HUP in their own context by providing for evangelism and basic discipleship of first generation internationals for precisely the reason the Steers suggests.
Steers believes monocultural churches avoid the problem of unrealistically expecting that “each of these groups assimilate to one another or to multiethnic congregations—at the same time they are trying to assimilate into U.S. culture.” This problem, by the way, is not always rooted in one’s ethnicity; personality is also a factor that plays a role in how soon or slowly 1.0s (a common name for first-generation immigrants) desire to engage the greater body. In fact I address this very thing in my latest book, Ethnic Blends: Mixing Diversity Into Your Local Church. In promoting a model I call, “Graduated Inclusion,” multi-ethnic churches can and will apply the HUP strictly for the purpose of evangelism and initial discipleship while simultaneously providing for the needs of 1.5s, 2.0s and beyond, all from within one local church.
Continue reading "Mono-Ethnic Ministries and Multi-Ethnic Churches (Part 2)"
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at August 30, 2010 | Comments (0)
August 26, 2010
Ur Video: Dever & Wallis on Justice and the Gospel (Part 4)
What's the relationship between justice and justification?
Being justified by Christ leads a person to engage acts of justice. And the Christian witness of justice leads more people to be justified. But Wallis and Dever continue to disagree about whether justice is an "implication" of the gospel or "integral" to it.
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at August 26, 2010 | Comments (9)
August 25, 2010
Mono-Ethnic Ministries and Multi-Ethnic Churches (Part 1)
A multi-ethnic church leader responds to the call for more homogeneous churches.
Tom Steers, founder and co-director of Asian American Ministries for The Navigators, recently wrote a guest opinion column for Christianity Today (July 7, 2010). The column is entitled, "Needed: More Monocultural Ministries".
In the opinion piece ("not necessarily representing the opinion of the publication," as CT makes clear in the footer), Steers argues that a multicultural society demands more monocultural ministries. In so doing, however, he does not clearly state what he means by use of the term, “ministry.” Consequently, I believe he a) confuses evangelism with local church development, b) wrongly exegetes Scripture in attempting to support his claim, and otherwise c) speaks from assumption in stating what advocates of the multi-ethnic church truly believe. With this in mind, the following blog entry respectfully, but critically, challenges Steers' thinking.
Steers writes:
“Some argue that since we are an increasingly multicultural society, our churches should become more multicultural. There is a certain logic to that. As long as there are people who want to be culturally and socially multicultural, or multiethnic, there also must be structures for them. Such ministries are crucial for healing America's racial and ethnic wounds. They potentially model the unbiased oneness that Jesus prayed for in John 17.”
Theologically informed “advocates” of the multi-ethnic church however (at least, none that I know) are not suggesting, as the author states, “since we are an increasingly multicultural society, (that) our churches should become more multicultural.”
Continue reading "Mono-Ethnic Ministries and Multi-Ethnic Churches (Part 1)"
Posted by UrL Scaramanga at August 25, 2010 | Comments (2)
