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On Scripture, Butkus, and the Stanglin Sherd

July 10, 2007 / Allan / 6 Comments

In Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity the author makes a clear distinction between reading Scripture and hearing the Word of God, between information and revelation as it relates to the Bible. We have to understand that most of the Bible was written many generations after the events they describe. Most of Scripture had a long oral existence before it was written. The words in our Bible were taught and preached and sung and prayed in worshipping communities for years and decades before they were ever written down. They were passed from mouth to ear. None of the words were shelved in libraries or displayed on the coffee table. The words resonated from ear to ear down through all the generations of God’s people.

Here’s Peterson on this second angle of maintaining integrity for preachers, and for all of us in our Christian walks:

“Listening and reading are not the same thing. They involve different senses. In listening we use our ears; in reading we use our eyes. We listen to the sound of a voice; we read marks on paper. These differences are significant and have profound consequences. Listening is an interpersonal act; it involves two or more people in fairly close proximity. Reading involves one person with a book written by someone who can be miles away or centuries dead, or both. The listener is required to be attentive to the speaker and is more or less at the speaker’s mercy. For the reader, it is quite different, since the book is at the reader’s mercy. It may be carried around from place to place, opened or shut at whim, read or not read. When I read a book the book does not know if I am paying attention or not; when I listen to a person the person knows very well whether I am paying attention or not. In listening, another initiates the process; when I read I initiate the process. In reading I open the book and attend to the words. I can read by myself; I cannot listen by myself. In listening the speaker is in charge; in reading the reader is in charge.”

Up until just the past 550 years, with the invention of the printing press, reading was always an oral act and a community event. Every act of reading revoiced the written words, the connection with the living voice behind the words was emphatic. But today, when nearly all reading is silent, the connection with the living voice is remote at best, and usually gone altogether.

In the past two years, I’ve taken to reading my Bible out loud. All of it. During my daily Bible reading in the mornings, while I’m studying and preparing for a Bible class or a sermon, whenever I read the Scriptures I read them out loud. Think about it. You and I can have a theological conversation about salvation or the relationship between faith and works or God’s sovereignty versus man’s free will. And in that conversation, you and I will communicate with inflection and stress on certain words and phrases and varying degrees of volume and urgency and passion. We’re talking and listening, communicating right now, in the presence of each other, hearing the living, breathing voice of the other. But if we were to have the exact same conversation with the exact same words via email…..you know. You’ve been there. It’s just not the same. There’s a lot lost between reading and listening. A lot.

Reading the Bible out loud has changed my life. Anybody who talks to me about reading the Word, anyone who asks me how to improve their study life, I always tell them to read the Bible out loud for two weeks, every day, and then get back with me. They’ve all experienced what I experience, the living, breathing Word of God speaking to them. Listening to the Word of God, hearing the Word, in a way they can’t by simply reading.

That’s why, in our assemblies, I’d much rather not put the words of the Scripture being read on the giant screen. I’d much rather have a good reader, one who’s been reading the passage and praying over the passage and meditating on the passage for a few days, read it out loud to our congregation. I’d much rather the church LISTEN to the Word than READ it. As a preacher, isn’t it my job to make sure that the revelation of God, which always involves personal histories and personal responses, isn’t treated as just information, which usually involves impersonal facts and abstract ideas?

Do me a favor. Read your Scriptures out loud for the next two weeks. And then let me know how it changes your daily devotion and your study of the Word. Let me know how it changes the way you listen to God speaking to you. Do it. Find a time and a place where you can be alone and do it. In two weeks I’ll ask you to comment on this blog and share with our readers your experiences. I’m very much looking forward to it.

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Yes, Bevo, #51 is Dick Butkus. Hands down. No debate. THE middle linebacker that defined the Monsters of the Midway in Chicago from 1965-73. Butkus was the Bears’ first-round pick out of Illinois where he was a two-time All-America two-way player (he was actually born in Chicago in 1942) and manned the middle of that tenacious Bears D for 14 seasons. He had the deadliest combination of speed, quickness, instinct, and strength. And he was mean. After eight straight Pro Bowls, his brilliant career was cut short by a knee injury. He’s in the college and pro football halls of fame. And he made a few commercials along the way. Old clips of Butkus pulverizing running backs are beautiful to watch. He showed no mercy. What happened to guys like Butkus? *sigh*

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On my two week trip to Israel back in January, I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time to uncover a tiny piece of history that may prove to be a major link to one of King Solomon’s fortresses in the desert just south of the Dead Sea. We had the privelage of working with the Israel Antiquities Authority at an excavation site in present day Hazevah. For years now Dr. Mark Shipp at Austin Grad and our archaeologist Terrance Christian have been totally convinced that this site, in ancient Tamar, is a 10th Century BC fort that Solomon built. They’ve had tons of circumstantial evidence, not to mention the Old Testament mentions of Solomon building a fort there, but they’ve never been able to officially, by archaelogical standards, date it to the 10th century. And then I uncovered a broken pottery sherd at that fortress level that got everybody pretty excited. It’s a painted piece that they knew at the time was Midianite. They also supposed it was tenth century. I jokingly refered to it as the Stanglin Sherd the rest of the trip. I wondered aloud about just how many accolades I would recieve in archaeological journals and how many speaking engagements I’d have to make at the world’s museums. And then I get this email yesterday from Terrance.

I don’t know if Shipp mentioned it to you or not, but your sherd is actually one of the most important pieces we found this season. It is definitely a type of pottery referred to as Midianite Ware or Qurayya Ware (Qurayya is the site in modern Saudi Arabia where it was produced at). What is so special about your piece though, is that the simple dots in a line motif on it has a direct parallel to some of the pottery found at nearby Khirbet en Nahas (in modern Jordan) — which was recently dated to the 10th century BC. We were hoping to establish some kind of connection/interaction between Hazeva & Kh. en Nahas — and your sherd is a key piece of evidence in establishing the link between the two sites! One of the goals of my current research, and for next year’s excavation, is to try and parse out exactly what was happening at Hazeva in the 10th century in order to understand its relationship to the fortress and copper smelting works at Kh. en Nahas. Shipp, Bowman and I will be visiting Jordan after the tour/dig next year to try and answer some of those questions! See the picture I’ve attached of the parallels to your sherd found at Khirbet en Nahas. If you want to see where Kh. en Nahas is in relationship to Hazeva, use Google Earth. Hazeva is at coordinates 30 degrees 48 minutes 32.11 seconds North by 35 degrees 14 minutes 41.33 seconds East — best viewed around 1900 to 2000 feet elevation. Khirbet en Nahas is at 30 degrees 40 minutes 51.65 seconds North by 35 degrees 26 minutes 10.37 seconds East, also best viewed ca. 1900 feet. You’ll notice the square fortress at both sites right off.

How cool is that?!?

I’m hoping we can get a big group of 40-50 people here at Legacy to take a trip to Israel with Terrance here in about three years. He says he’ll be our tour guide and we can take a similar trip to sight-see and actually work three or four days at a dig or just go to see all the sites without the dig. I can’t wait.

Peace,

Allan

The Angle of Prayer

July 9, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity holds up prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction as the three foundational elements to Christian ministry, specifically for “located preachers.” Without continual daily attention to these three very private acts, the preacher’s ministry is shallow and shadow—of this world, not of Heaven.

On the subject of prayer, Peterson articulates the problem for, not just preachers but, all of us. Busyness. We have too much going on. Too many projects, too many phone calls, too many meetings, too many interruptions, too many school and athletic events, and way too much to do even in our leisure time. It’s endemic to our culture in the United States. As preachers, we live right in the middle of two different sets of demands that seem to cancel each other out: we must respond in love and kindness to the demands of the people around us, demands that “refuse to stay within the confines of regular business hours and always exceed our capacity to meet them all” and at the same time we must respond with reverent prayer to the demands of God for our attention, “to listen to him, to take him seriously in the actual circumstances of this calendar day, at this street address, and not bluff our way through by adopting a professionalized role.”

The only kind of prayer and prayer life that is appropriate as a response to our loving Father is the kind of prayer that is only entered into slowly and deliberately, the kind of prayer that takes time. It’s not prayer-on-the-go or prayer-by-request. It means entering large blocks of quiet time with my God where “wonder and adoration have space to develop.”

Is that even possible for an American preacher today?

It has to be.

You know yourself from teaching and from personal experience that seasons of deep meaningful prayer, communion with your God, sharing and listening and speaking with your Father, are always the times in your life of revival and rejuvenation. Empowerment and encouragement. There is certainly room for those on-the-go prayers. Praying in the truck rolling down Airport Freeway or over your Big Mac at MickeyD’s is honored by God. But without intentional chunks of prayer time each day—set-aside time to bask alone in the presence of the Father—our families and our churches suffer. My wife and my three daughters suffer when I neglect prayer. So does the Legacy Church of Christ.

Prayer acknowledges my faith in God to provide all my needs. It recognizes God as the giver of life. And it’s our demanded response to God. He started the conversation. He’s the one who spoke first. Every single thing we say to God in prayer is our response to his initial speaking in our lives.

For the past two years I’ve been involved in a daily Bible reading schedule that includes a Psalm or two every day. And I find myself praying the Psalms. All the time. Just like God’s people have for all time. The Psalms were the prayer book of Israel; they were the prayer book of Jesus; they are the prayer book of the church. At no time in the Hebrew and Christian centuries (except for maybe ours) have the Psalms not been at the very center of all prayer thought and prayer practice. John Calvin said the Psalms are “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul.” Everything that a person can possibly feel, experience, and say is brought into expression before God in the Psalms.

Read the Psalms. Pray the Psalms. Use the language. Use the word-pictures. Use the thoughts in the Psalms to express yourself to God in prayer.

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It’s very, very quiet in the office today. Lance has a group of middle school students at a camp in Oklahoma City and Jason is on his way to Mississippi on a mission trip with the high schoolers. Suzanne’s on the Mississippi trip, Kipi’s locked in to VBS mode with just 12 days to go, and Bonny’s still putting her office back together after the “Flood of July 2.” After five straight days, the buzz of the fans and the de-humidifiers in the building are gone. And today’s the 4th straight day without any rain at Stanglin Manor. The yards are still soggy. But I got more work done outside Saturday than I’ve done combined since we moved in. Edging the curb and driveway with a weedeater was like digging a trench with a cereal spoon. I battled it for well over an hour. I think it ended in a draw.

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There are 52 days until football season and my #52 is another Steeler from the ’70s, center Mike Webster. He was tough. He played in every single game during his first ten seasons, he started in 150 straight games, and missed only four total in his 16 NFL seasons. He won four Super Bowls with the Steelers and ended his career with the Chiefs.

Getting caught up on the countdown from the weekend will be a little more fun. #53 is not Bob Breunig, although he deserves honorable mention. My #53 is a great two-way star for the OU Sooners during the ’50s, linebacker/center Jerry Tubbs. Tubbs never lost a single football game during his three year career at Oklahoma. His 31 wins were part of that legendary 47-game winning streak and two national titles from 1954-56. He was an All-America at linebacker, he won the Walter Camp Award, and he actually finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1956.

Tubbs was the Chicago Cardinals top pick in the ’57 draft. And he was acquired by the Dallas Cowboys in 1960 during their expansion draft. After he finished playing, Tubbs served as an assistant coach for the Cowboys under Tom Landry for 21 years, an integral part of that run of five Super Bowl appearances in the ’70s. And to top it off, before any of his college and pro success, Tubbs won two Texas State High School Football Championships at Breckenridge.

And #54 is also a long-time Dallas Cowboy, linebacker Chuck Howley. He played three seasons for the Bears before coming to Dallas for draft picks in 1961 and played for Landry for 13 years. He went to six Pro Bowls and two Super Bowls, losing the heartbreaker in the Blunder Bowl on Jim O’Brien’s field goal and winning big the following year over Miami. Howley was named the MVP of Super Bowl VI, the only MVP ever to be named from the losing team. Landry called Howley “the best linebacker I ever saw.” And that’s good enough for me.

Now, to all you Randy White fans, let me present a technicality. I get the “Manster” and Howley both on my list because Randy White wore the #94 in college at Maryland. One of these days I’m going to list all 99 of the best football players ever on this blog and you’ll see White at #94. We were doing the countdown on 990AM one summer and actually had the equipment manager at Maryland, who was there back when White played, custom make a replica Randy White #94 Terrapin jersey for us. We were doing our show live from some pool hall somewhere in North Dallas and had Randy White there with us live and he gave the jersey away in a drawing.

The other Randy White story involves Carrie-Anne. White was signing autographs at some shoe store or something at a mall in Austin. This was back in 1990 or ’91. We didn’t have kids yet. And White actually stopped C-A and asked her if she wanted his autograph. She replied, “No, not really.” And that floored him. He couldn’t believe it. He asked her two or three more times, “Are you sure you don’t want my autograph?” And she just kept saying, “No, not really, no big deal, no thanks.” It was so funny. It has to be the only time in history a Dallas Cowboys Hall of Famer has ever been rejected like that.

Tomorrow’s #51 requires no explanations. It’s a no-brainer. Automatic. Hands-down. No debate.

Peace,

Allan

A Cry to Preachers

July 6, 2007 / Allan / 5 Comments

“American preachers are abandoning their posts, left and right, at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationery and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts and their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s preachers have done for most of twenty centuries.”

This is how Eugene Peterson’s Working the Angles begins. I just finished it last night. What a fantastic book. Here’s the second paragraph:

“A few of us are angry about it. We are angry because we have been deserted. It is bitterly disappointing to enter a room full of people whom you have every reason to expect share the quest and commitments of pastoral work and find within ten minutes they most definitely do not. They talk of image and statistics. They drop names. They discuss influence and status. Matters of God and the soul and Scripture are not grist for their mills. The preachers of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeepers’ concerns—how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money.”

Peterson’s book is a call to preachers to be committed to the three disciplines that shape our relationships with our God and our ministries to him. Those disciplines are prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. A minister of the Word is not a preacher, not a pastor in the purest sense, if his life is not defined by continual conversation with the Father, constant immersion in the Scriptures, and a daily practice of giving spiritual direction to others.

The premise is that, while all three of these “angles” are essential, all three of them are extremely private. Our prayer lives as preachers, our reading of the Word, and our conversations with others are not public knowledge. There’s no hoopla or praise or affirmation from others when we commit to these foundational disciplines. And there’s not really anyone in our churches urging us or demanding us to stick with it.

Again, from Working the Angles:

“Besides being basic, these three acts are quiet. They do not call attention to themselves and so are often not attended to. In the clamorous world of pastoral work nobody yells at us to engage in these acts. It is possible to do pastoral work to the satisfaction of the people who judge our competence and pay our salaries without being either diligent or skilled in them. Since almost never does anyone notice whether we do these things or not, and only occasionally does someone ask that we do them, these three acts of ministry suffer widespread neglect.”

The hard part of this is that, because of where we live and the way we live in America, we’re all dominated by a strong sense of self instead of a strong sense of God. Most of the people in our churches and the people we meet in our communities are very concerned about self. And when we, as preachers, deal with them and their primary concerns of self—directing, counseling, instructing, encouraging, doing tasks for them—they give us high praise in our jobs as preachers. And whether we deal with God or not isn’t really considered.

Here’s the last quote: “It is very difficult to do one thing when most of the people around us are asking us to do something quite different, especially when these people are nice, intelligent, treat us with respect, and pay our salaries.”

(Along those lines—paying our salaries—my great friend Jim Gardner has blogged today about the professional preacher versus the prophet. It’s excellent. “We are not professionals!” You have to read it. It’s called “Professional Pressure.” Click here as soon as you are done with mine. It’s good.)

I’ll spend the first three days of next week discussing these three “angles” from Peterson’s book: prayer, Scripture, and spiritual direction. I think it’ll challenge you in the way you walk in your own Christian life. And maybe it’ll help shape the way you view your preacher and his role in your church and in your life.

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For over four years I played full-court pickup basketball early in the morning three days a week. When we moved to Marble Falls for the two years at Austin Grad, I could only find a game once a week up in Burnet. But for the last year we were there, I didn’t play once. I was doing much more preaching at Marble Falls, I was making monthly trips up here to Legacy, that second year of school demanded much more time and energy than the first year, exit exams, moving plans, on and on it went. I haven’t played in over a year.

Until yesterday. Our Junior High Youth Minister (he’s not in Junior High. He works with our Junior High kids) Lance Parrish plays a weekly game with several of the other area youth ministers and church workers from all over Tarrant County at the gym at Ft. Worth Christian. Super great guys. Very competitive and very friendly. Fairly evenly matched. Exactly what I’ve been looking for.

Except we’re playing inside the gym at Ft. Worth Christian. For a DC boy, that’s kind of weird. I was raised to strongly dislike FWC. We were taught and coached that beating the Cardinals was just about the noblest thing we could ever do in our lives. Just walking into that place yesterday was so very surreal. Because I have been there so many times before. In a different time. Under different circumstances. A completely different world. But it still looked exactly as I remembered it. Everything’s red. The huge cardinal logos on the court and up on the walls and the scoreboard. The red seats where I sat many, many times and cheered on the Chargers in our epic battles with our bitter rivals. I’m certain I yelled some ugly things on occasion toward the Cardinals players and coaches in that very gym. Now, that was a long time ago—well over 20 years ago. But it was still weird.

Everyone I met and played with was very welcoming and I had a great time. I’m looking forward to making it a weekly ritual.

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Super great meeting last night with the Bible class teachers and Ministry Leaders regarding the new Legacy Church website! Thank you to John West who’s spearheading our efforts to better communicate within the church family and in our broader community. John’s not an official part of the staff. But he’s married to it.

I walked into the meeting just a couple of minutes before it started and as I was walking down the aisle Paul Dennis shouted, “If #55 is not Lee Roy Jordan, I’m never reading your blog again!”

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Of course it’s Lee Roy Jordan. Who else could it be, Brian Bosworth?

Jordan actually wore the number 54 at Alabama because he played both ways, as a linebacker and an offensive center. But to me, he’s always going to be the #55 he wore as the Dallas Cowboys middle linebacker for 14 seasons. Jordan was the Cowboys number one pick in 1963 and “quarterbacked” that Doomsday Defense to three Super Bowls. He was there for every play of those difficult transition from “Next Year’s Champions” to “Super Bowl Champions.” Jordan holds the Cowboys team record for most solo tackles in a career at 743. And he was just passed by Darren Woodson three seasons ago for most total career tackles (1,236 solos & assists combined). Jordan’s solo tackles in a game against the Eagles in 1971 is still a team record.

A contract holdout made things personal between Jordan and Tex Schramm, which kept Jordan out of the Ring of Honor until Jerry Wayne bought the team in ’89 and made things right. That was about the only thing, P.R.-wise, Jerry did right in ’89.

Peace,

Allan

Who Needs the Quick-E-Mart? I dooooooooo…..

July 5, 2007 / Allan / 2 Comments

I hope your Fourth was fantastic.

Ours began early and ended late. And, aside from the blowout and flat tire on Loop-820 at 10:30 last night following the fireworks, it was terrific.

Whitney and Valerie went with me early yesterday morning to pick up the old console stereo that was being repaired in Garland. Being that close—Northwest Highway just west of Central Expressway—to one of only eleven 7-11 stores in the country that’s been transformed into a Kwik-E-Mart to help promote The Simpsons movie, I couldn’t resist. We went. We gawked. We took pictures. We laughed. And we purchased a box of Krusty-O’s cereal (they were limiting everyone to just one box each) and a six-pack of Buzz Cola. While I could make the case that The Simpsons, while not really appropriate maybe for children, is the most morally responsible show on network television, I’ll save that for a later day. Maybe after I see the movie.

My parents and my grandmother arrived at the house at about noon for grilled burgers and dogs and some wonderful little jalepeno popper things stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon. Two good meals, lots of visiting and catching up, air hockey, football, baseball, backgammon, bike riding, and another little 30-minute rain shower. Excellent afternoon.

Then it was off to the North Richland Hills fireworks show at Broadway & Avenue 26 with our good friends David & Shanna Byrnes and their 17 kids. (Just 4. Sorry.) More football. Snacks. Great visiting and a fairly decent display of fireworks. I love listening to the kids talk and visit together and comment on what they’re seeing and experiencing all around them. They’re so funny. And innocent. Mostly.

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Only 56 days until football season and today’s #56 is Lawrence Taylor.

I know. I know. I hate it, too.

I wouldn’t have put him in the Hall of Fame based solely on his off-the-field issues. And I would have been completely unapologetic about it. But his on-field performance as a dominating linebacker for the Giants in the ’80s is without question among the best ever, at any position, in any era.

L.T. was the Giants #1 pick out of North Carolina in 1981. And he was in attack mode all the time. I’m not sure the NFL had ever seen that exact combination of strength and speed before or has seen it since. He totally redefined the outside linebacker position and dominated opposing offenses. He was All-Pro his first nine years in the league, All-NFC ten times, made ten Pro Bowls, won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award three times (’81, ’82, and ’86), and made the NFL’s 75’s Anniversary Team. He was a first-ballot Hall of Famer in ’99. But with his continual and admitted drug use on and off the field, before, during, and since his career, it’s a tainted honor at best.

Tomorrow’s #55 is one of whom we can all be proud.

Peace,

Allan

Curious On The 4th

July 4, 2007 / Allan / 0 Comments

Just wondering.

What would happen if, one Sunday morning, I walked down the center aisle at the beginning of a worship service at Legacy carrying a large wooden cross? Would the congregation automatically stand in reverence or in a show of respect? What would happen if I asked the church to place their hands over their hearts and pledge allegiance to the cross and everything it stands for—not just our salvation, but the lifestyle it represents, one of service and sacrifice and death to ourselves and our own desires and impulses? What if I asked all of us to, together, recite a pledge of loyalty to Christ and his church? Would you begin to question my methods?

What if I took that cross, that symbol that represents everything we say we stand for and live for, everything we claim that defines us as a people, and everything we say we would die for, and displayed it all over the worship center, up front, around the walls, and in the foyer, and asked people to show it the respect it deserves? Would you begin to question my motives?

Why do some people complain that the song leader has us stand sometimes for two or three songs in a row in praise to our Heavenly Father and yet those same people will stand at attention for ten minutes or more voluntarily—without even being asked— to honor a flag or a group of veterans or to sing patriotic songs?

Why doesn’t anybody ever spontaneously stand up out of respect for the reading of our God’s Holy Scriptures during a Christian assembly? Why doesn’t the re-telling of the stories of Jesus’ life and ministry and teachings and sacrifice and service and death and burial and resurrection and eternal reign to redeem us and reconcile us to God reduce people to tears like the Star Spangled Banner does?

Why are we more comfortable and accomodating when people around us cry or clap or shout or jump up and down in response to a patriotic image or song than we are when our brothers and sisters in Christ respond similarly to our God’s matchless grace and unfathomable forgiveness in their lives?

What really touches your heart? Where, really, is your loyalty? To what or to whom do you pledge allegiance?

If America and all of its symbols and systems and everything they stand for were actually opposed to Christ and Christianity and deep down worked subtlely but fiercely to undermine Christ and his church and were responsible for driving more Christians away from Christ instead of to him………

Just wondering.

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There are 57 days left until football season and my all-time #57 is NOT a Pittsburgh Steeler! It’s the man Bear Bryant called “the greatest center I ever coached,” longtime Dolphins offensive lineman Dwight Stephenson. Stephenson was Miami’s #2 pick out of Alabama in 1980 and was the Dolphins team captain on two Super Bowl teams with Dan Marino. He played in three AFC title games and five Pro Bowls. But here’s the most amazing stat, especially considering that Marino wasn’t the fastest quarterback in history: every year that Stephenson played, the Dolphins offensive line allowed the fewest sacks in the league. His career was cut short by a blown out knee in ’87. And he ended up coaching the Miami offensive line under Don Shula. Broncos linebacker Tom Jackson receives honorable mention. But Stephenson’s the best to ever wear #57.

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“Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth;
     for I am God, and there is no other.
I have sworn by myself,
The Word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness
     and will not turn back.
That to me every knee will bow, every tongue swear allegiance.”
                                                                                        ~Isaiah 45:22-23

Peace,

Allan

More on Christ & Culture

July 3, 2007 / Allan / 1 Comment

The professors at Austin Grad like to tell the story of one of the old Bible teachers / deans at Austin Presbyterian Seminary. As the story goes—this was several years ago, maybe during the late ’60s-early ’70s—the daily chapel service one morning featured interpretive dance as worship. The entire service was several students and even a teacher or two dancing on the stage to sacred music in a way that was questionable at best, obscene at worst. Immediately following the service, nearly a hundred students gathered in this professor’s classroom for Old Testament study. He just stood at his podium, speechless. And then he bowed his head and uttered this simple prayer: “Lord, forgive us. We don’t know what we’re doing.”

I’ve prayed that during a worship service before. There have been several times in my life when, in the middle of a worship service, I’ve wanted to stand up and scream. “This is shallow! This is banal! This is wrong!”

“This has nothing to do with our Lord or his church! Why are we doing this or saying that or watching this or hearing that? This has nothing to do with salvation or sanctification or love or grace! This is the kind of thing we see or do at Chuck E. Cheese or Wal-Mart!”

“Everybody, quickly, as fast as you can, turn to #770! Let’s sing!”

“Dear Lord and Father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways.

Reclothe us in our rightful minds, in purer lives thy service find.

In deeper reverence, praise.”

You know what I mean?

My great friend Jim Gardner has been reading John MacArthur’s latest, The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception. Jim had this to say on his blog a couple of days ago about that book and its message to our Lord’s church:

Despite the demands of camp, I’ve been able to get through a couple of books I’ve been chomping at the bit to read.

One is The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception by John MacArthur. In the book, MacArthur takes to task the postmodern inclination sweeping Christianity that undermines the existence of absolute truth.

On balance, MacArthur’s book is a must-read, especially for anyone who has found the Emerging Church movement to be the end-all, be-all of the contemporary church.

“A secular writer doing an article on the Emerging Church movement and postmodern Christianity summed up the character of the movement this way: ‘What makes a postmodern ministry so easy to embrace is that it doesn’t demonize youth culture — Marilyn Manson, South Park, or gangsta rap, for example — like traditional fundamentalists. Postmodern congregants aren’t challenged to reject the outside world.’

I’ve noticed the same thing. Whole churches have deliberately immersed themselves in ‘the culture’ — by which they actually mean ‘whatever the world loves at the moment.’ Thus we now have a new breed of trendy churches whose preachers can rattle off references to every popular icon, every trifling meme, every tasteless fashion, and every vapid trend that captures the fickle fancy of the postmodern, secular mind. Worldly preachers seem to go out of their way to put their carnal expertise on display — even in their sermons. In the name of ‘connecting with the culture’ they boast of having seen all the latest programs on MTV; memorized every episode of South Park; learned the lyrics to countless tracks of gangsta rap and heavy metal music; or watched who-knows-how-many R-rated movies. They seem to know every fad from top to bottom, back to front, inside out. They’ve adopted the style and the language of the world — including lavish use of language that used to be deemed inappropriate in polite society, much less in the pulpit. They want to fit right in with the world and they seem to be making themselves quite comfortable there” (140).

Has there been a lot of compromise in the name of “all things to all people”? Certainly and perhaps the gravest consequence is the emergence of the culture’s conversion of the church when it should be reversed. What MacArthur aims to inject into the discussion is a resolve to stand for truth, as revealed in the Word of God, even in the face of a culture that rejects the existence of such truth.

Frankly, I appreciated this book as much as any I’ve read in some time. Based on the little letter of Jude, MacArthur holds nothing back in showing how the fight for truth is as old as the first century. He articulates a return to the reality that absolute truth is revealed in the Word of God and underscores the danger of minimizing or rejecting the truth God has revealed.

“The idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous seems especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age and can’t stand to have authoritative biblical truth applied with precision as a corrective to worldly lifestyles, unholy minds, and ungodly behavior.

But that is not authentic Christianity. Not knowing what you believe (especially on a matter as essential to Christianity as the gospel) is by definition a kind of unbelief. Refusing to acknowledge and defend the revealed truth of God is a particularly stubborn and pernicious kind of unbelief. Advocating ambiguity, exalting uncertainty, or otherwise deliberately clouding the truth is a sinful way of nurturing unbelief” (xi).

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58 more days until football season. And #58 in the countdown is “Count Dracula in Cleats,” another sorry Steeler who tortured the Cowboys during the ’70s. Middle linebacker Jack Lambert. I know, two Steelers on consecutive days—it stinks. But you can’t argue with Lambert. 6’4″, 220 pounds, strong, fast, and very intimidating. He was a vicious tackler. He punished opponents. And he was great against the pass. During his eleven year career in Pittsburgh he was named the NFL Defensive Player of the Year twice, he made nine Pro Bowls, went to six AFC Championship Games, and won Four Super Bowls. The Jack Lambert image I can never get out of my mind is from Super Bowl X. The Cowboys were leading 10-7 almost halfway through the third quarter when Steelers kicker Roy Gerela missed a game-tying field goal from 33 yards out. Cowboys safety Cliff Harris, who had been talking smack all week about Lynn Swann, gleefully patted Gerela on the helmet after the miss. And Lambert went nuts. He body slammed Harris to the ground in a rage and stood over him, sneering with that toothless grin. That’s when the game turned. The Steelers emotional leader had stood up to the Cowboys fiery “Captain Crash” and it was over. Swann made the catches that got him into the Hall of Fame, Lambert made the highlight reel tackles on Robert Newhouse and Roger Staubach that make me queasy, and Pittsburgh scored the next 14 straight points to put the game away.

Tomorrow’s #57 is NOT a Steeler.

Peace,

Allan

The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

Page 493 of 497

On Scripture, Butkus, and the Stanglin Sherd

The Angle of Prayer

A Cry to Preachers

Who Needs the Quick-E-Mart? I dooooooooo…..

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