Sovereignty, Predestination, and the Unscripted Life

Are some predestined to for salvation? Did God fore-ordain and elect some before the beginning of the world? Are some predestined to damnation? Do we have free-will? Is God in control of everything? Are we just robots in some cosmic game? These and other similar questions bubble to the surface in Christian conversations, especially in Reformed circles. Usually the conversations take place in abstract and ethereal ways with many hypothetical cases and dependent hypotheses. Rarely do such questions and conversations ever "get-real."

As a guest speaker last week for a class on the Quarterlife Crisis, I spoke on the topic of "Vocational Crisis." In it, I addressed the American desire and ambition to script out the future of our lives. In fact, such an idea is so ingrained in our culture that one is considered to be irresponsible and foolish not to script out, plan out, and spend an inordinate amount of time stressing about the future. We are told that if we wish to be responsible and successful (a.k.a. "moral" in an American sense), then we must be self-made and script our lives. This involves what clubs, sports, and classes you take school as children, what universities we attend,what corporations one works for during summer and after graduation, when and who one marries, and where and what type of housing one chooses. It's all scripted.

The "scripted life" is one that does not acknowledge a Sovereign God. The scripted life is one where "I" am in control of my life and future. The scripted life is one where God is not needed, where I am the salvation of my own world.

To believe in a Sovereign God, to believe in the predestined existence, is to have an unscripted life. It is a life where I am not in control of my future or destination. It is one where I am not self-made. Instead, I am formed by Another. I am created for Another's good will, pleasure, and purpose. It is a life where "I belong to God." It is the counter-cultural life. A life that is very "un-American." It is a life that exposes the fallacy and illusion that we have control. The unscripted life is the only way we as followers of Jesus Christ can truly be faithful.

Post-Missional?

So I saw an advertisement today for a whole new way of being church that is both post-modern and post-missional! Really? I mean, really? I am certainly someone who has defended the use of the "post-" reality world, but are we really going to talk about being post-missional? Isn't that akin to being post-purposeful or post-worshipful? I guess the "missional" seminars and cookie-programs have run their course, so to sell new seminars and books we had to create a "post-missional" mandate.

And Darkness Was Over The Face of the Deep

Darkness.

Abyss.

Nothingness.

Ignorance.

The unknown shrouded in mystery.

The universe is shrouded in a perpetual darkness. The more we see, the more we don't see. The more we learn and know, the more we realize just how much we are ignorant. We expand farther and farther outward gazing at the cosmos, while examining deeper and deeper discovering every quark or nuance of matter and energy. Each step brings with it a revelation of a much larger world, a whole existence that we are unaware, a reality that is at once close and yet so distant. In the midst of such darkness, God breathed. Revelation occurred. Life emerged. Light broke forth.

What is Government?

Two blog posts in the past month from very different voices (Tony Jones and Travis Gilbert) have me thinking a lot about the nature of government the past few days. Over my life, I have given much thought to the idea of government, what is considered a legitimate government, and how Christians are to respond to government(s).

Americans tend to assume that government refers to the nation-state. Thus, the government is the United States of America or Great Britian or Russia or Iran. We remember that other types of governments used to exist such as the city-state of the ancient world, but for the most part government has come to mean nation-state. We understand that local government do exist, but believe in a hierarchy of government where the city is in a county, and a county in a state/province/district, and a state in a nation.

However, I have always seen government in terms of power. Who is in charge? Who is ruling this place? Because of this, I see many types of government in our lives everyday-- sometimes in cooperation with one another; often in conflict and in competition with one another.

Anyone living in the inner-city knows that there are at least two forms of government: 1) is the local gang or mafia; 2) is the supposedly "legitimate" government of the city in the form of police, judges, and jailors.

When I was a child in school, I knew that several authorities or governments existed when I was at school. One was the principal and teachers. Second was the very powerful peer groups. Third was the bullies on the playground and in the locker room.

Today, I watch and feel the power of corporations on my life. I am governed and ruled by Verizon, AT&T, the electric company, etc. Sometimes these various companies cooperate with the United States government and even with one another. Sometimes they are at odds with the US government and with one another. But these companies often have more power, rule, and control over me than any nation-state or local government.

In addition to all of this is the question of what makes a government legitimate. If my government doesn't recognize your government and I'm theoretically supposed to submit to my government and you are to submit to your government, then what are we to do? I dwell on this because my friend Travis brings up the argument that we are to submit to all earthly authorities except when their authority is in opposition to God. This creates for a very complex situation. First, when will any government not be in opposition to God in some way? Every government is always asking its citizens to do something that opposes the ways of God. Second, how are we to respond when we do feel like we should resist or disobey? Is this an active disobedience that results in some sort of action against the government (perhaps violence)? Or is this a peaceful resistance or non-participation? Something in between?

Finally, if you are a Christian who believes violence can be okay and even God's will for a particular moment, then how do you respond to the revolutionary war, or the civil war here in the United States? One could make the case that Christians should not have rebelled against England because it was the legitimate government. However, at what point did the colonialists become a legitimate government that Christians should submit to? Also, if the colonial powers did become legitimate, were Christians supposed to submit and against the English army and the Christians in that army? Were Christians from England then supposed to submit to their government and kill Americans? (Questions adapted from blog reply to Travis.)

The nature of government is very complex. Even more complex is the Christian's relationship to government. The Bible presents very different voices on this relationship. Jesus seemingly cooperates with government while also using rhetoric that questions the legitimacy of these human governments (essentially asking, "Are they real?"), Paul seems to support submission to government in Romans 13, uses his Romans citizenship in Acts, but also makes trouble with various local governments. Peter tells us to submit to earthly authorities and to honor the king. John's Revelation is a stark contrast that places the kingdoms of this world in sharp opposition with the kingdom of God. Even participation in the economy of Babylon makes one a follower of the beast.

Very complex indeed!

The Truth of God

This is a quote from Debra Dean Murphy in her book Teaching That Transforms: Worship as the Heart of Christian Education (a book I highly recommend and am reading again since two years ago):

The truth of God-- what catechesis seeks to impart-- is not a thing to be grasped but a way of life to be embodied. This way of life-- living true to the cruciform pattern of Jesus' own life-- is a doxological practice, learned over time in the worshipping body gathered regularly for prayer and praise.

Pendulums, Converts, and Robust Faith

Growing up in a fundamentalist, evangelical Baptist congregation in rural Indiana, my congregation had a constant in-flow of "new converts" from liberal, mainline Protestant congregations and from the Roman Catholic Church. These new members would hear the message of individual repentence and the hope of being "saved." Often, these converts were middle-aged adults who had stopped going to church after high school. They would talk very negatively about their past church experiences as dead ritual, as places that produced a lot of guilt, and as places that believed you "work your way to heaven."

As an adult, I have found so many people like myself who grew up in a fundamentalist, evangelical, conservative background who have "converted" to these more liturgical based denominations-- often liberal Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox. We long for a worship that does not depend on me and my experience and what I can get out of church/God. We want a faith that is about the community and world rather than the individual. We long for rituals that will create space for worship, and we want a faith that seeks to do God's will here on Earth just as it is in heaven. These former evangelicals, including myself, often talk negatively about our conservative backgrounds.

In some ways, these two groups represent two seperate faiths. But I always believe they were meant to be one faith that is balanced. Each strand by itself is a fallacy. Together they make up the truth of the Christian faith. God wants to change me, convert me, and save me. God also is greatly concerned with communities, social justice, the ritual of worship. God cannot be bound by ritual and thus speaks openly and newly to us. We cannot just have such a casual relationship either, thus we have orders of worship that story us in the ways and nature of God. I have the hope of being changed because I am part of a greater community. That community as a chance of being renewed and becoming God's kingdom because God has changed me.

Painting Elephants

Check out this video of an elephant painting a precise picture of other elephants! By the way, this is no joke. I've been doing a lot of reading about the intelligence of various animals-- chimps, apes, dolphins, elephants, etc. It is truly amazing what other animals can do.

Just War? Just Peace?

Can war ever be just? This is a question that often is asked in the circles of people I'm around these days. I've struggled with this question for many years. Some days I am a pacifist and other days I'm nuclear annihilation; however, on most days, I find myself in the tension of both. One of the reasons for this is the state of "peace" that so many refer to. "We seek to resolve this dispute peacefully." Really? Oh, you mean you want to solve this dispute with non-violent means. So... weapons are off the table, but other methods that still create emotional and mental violence based on the use of social power are still on the table. Is such a thing peace?

Peace, in our current world, must be defined by the cross. What I mean by this is that peace requires the laying down of one's life to the hands of violence. Thus, a peaceful person is one who takes the violence of others into him-/her-self. It is not the absence of violent methods nor the use of a socially coercive method over a physically coercive method; rather, it is you and me saying, "Kill me instead." "Inflict the pain on me instead." "I will take the punishment. I will be the victim."

Branded 0.2

I have labeled this post 0.2 because I'm still in the Introduction section of the book and this is my second post on it. Turpin makes the following observations on pages 2-3:

Our desires, our self-image, our taste, our leisure activities, our surroundings, our values, our sense of efficacy, and so much more are fundamentally formed by our participation in the system of acquiring and consuming goods.... There is no way to live in the United States and avoid the powerful and relentless formation that the system offers.... Consumption is at the heart of the way that we shape our lives, ever present and ever powerful in both our conceptualization of the world and the institutions we navigate on a daily basis.

Also, about 10 years ago she began working as a youth minister with parents who held significant commitments to urban ministry and a counter-consumerist lifestyle. However, she found that their kids were very committed to pursuing wealth and acquiring "status-granting goods." Here is her response:

I had already come to recognize the strength of consumer formation in my own life, but I had been raised in suburban contexts without the influence of parents or church with strong counter-consumptive commitments. If these young people who did have strong models of counter-consumer commitment all around them still fell under the sway of consumer formation, I wondered if any young people could resist the strong formation of consumer culture.

I find her remarks to be very informative and interesting. I, too, find that teenagers easily fall into the rat race of consumerism. However, I am going to make a move that I often shy away from because it seems to be unhelpful most of the time. Obviously I think it is helpful to do it here in this case. If you take the words consumer (and its related terms from her quotes) and replace them with sin... suddenly it makes a lot of sense theologically. By the way, I often shy away from doing this because people use it as a scape goat, as a way of avoiding the specific issue (in this case our consumerist lifestyles), and as a way of beating people up. But in this case, I think it will help us understand why consumerism is so powerful.

Our desires, our self-image, ... are fundamentally formed by our participation in the system of sin....
There is no way to live... and avoid the powerful and relentless formation that the system [of sin] offers....
Sin is at the heart of the way that we shape our lives, ever present and ever powerful in both our conceptualization of the world and the institutions we navigate on a daily basis.
If these young people who did have strong models of counter-sin commitment all around them still fell under the sway of sin, I wondered if any young people could resist the strong formation of sin culture.

Theologically, this is a given. Humans are under the sway of sin. Even in communities of faith who strive to be models of a way of life that opposes sin, people are still under the sway of sinful formation. This is why conversion is so necessary. This is why every person needs a conversion experience. We can raise our children in a culture of faith-- this is good. But we must alway recognize that even with our best efforts, our children are still formed by a system of sin that infects every institution, every process, every structure, and seemingly our very DNA. In order to resist, individuals must become aware of this captivity and choose to live in opposition to it. We are able to have hope that such freedom is possible because of Jesus Christ. We follow after him, seeking to imitate him, in the hope that such a way, such a life, such a light in the midst of so much darkness, will lead us to a new me, a new us, a new world

Ritual and The Everyday

We live in a ritualized world. To me that seems very basic; however, I do not think we consider this that often. When I walk into a restaurant, I can generally anticipate what will occur. I can do this because of ritual. My world is thrown out of whack when the ritual is not followed. A good example of this is when you call a business and the receptionist picks up and just says, "Hello." Although such a statement would be normal calling a person, we all know that such a remark in a business call would not work-- not just inappropriate, but actually mess up the normal modes of communications. Ritual. It's the stuff life is made of. Every culture (and subculture) creates its own rituals.

Religion and spirituality is about ritual. These rituals distinguish, separate, create, identify, and even destroy (destruction of former friendships, identities, rituals, etc.). In this way, religion creates the sacred, or more accurately names what is sacred and what is mundane or ordinary or profane. Over the past 500 years, much of what western religion deems sacred revolves around what I call moralisms. In other eras (and in other cultures here in the present), religion often revolved around other aspects of life (such as food, crops, government, military, etc.).

What I find most interesting is that in my current privatised, individualised western culture religion and its ritulas can often be relegated to just a section of life rather than a holistic system of everyday existence. In our dualist culture, singing "religious" songs is considered holy or sacred whereas dining together is considered common/mundane. Baptism is considered a spiritual act but a drink with a friend at a coffee shop or pub is considered ordinary, even profane. However, if all of life is a set of rituals perhaps all of life can be sacred. Mowing the lawn might possibly be a "spiritual act" if the proper rituals are assigned to it by a community/culture.

How do we make the ordinary sacred? The usual answers will not suffice: praying over a meal does not make it sacred for the meal itself should be sacred itself-- at least in my opinion. The prayer is another ritual that occurs in the midst of the ritual of the meal. I think that something else must distinguish a sacred meal from a profane meal (probably much more than just one thing). What are these things?

Appreciative Inquiry

I love appreciative inquiry. Some of you may be asking, "what is appreciative inquiry?" It is the act of exploring/discovering the best in ourselves and the world around us usually through a questioning process that affirms past and present potentials and successes. The goal of appreciative inquiry is to find those things that bring life into the systems we interact with.

Even in the worst situations, something good is occurring and should be identified. This does not mean that we ignore the negative or sugar-coat it. Rather by identifying the good, we can leverage the positive in order to create a foundation for change. What we focus on creates our reality. If we are focusing on the negative, then we will continue to reinforce the negative. However, if we choose to focus on the positive, we will continually reinforce the positive over time.

Appreciative inquiry primarily relies on questions because the act of asking a question begins the change process. Questioning often requires a naming/describing process to occur. Finally, a person or system can move confidently into the future when they are able to carry the best parts of their past with them.

I have been exploring appreciative inquiry for a few years now. The Associate Pastor at my church and I have used it in many situations with very positive results. I am now using it as I explore faith and calling with families in my youth ministry. I will keep you updated on this progress. More on appreciative inquiry in the future.

My Latest Article

The Journal of Student Ministries just published another article that I wrote. It is on the subject on creating a linguistic framework for discussing sexuality in a vibrant, robust way that allows theology to be the guiding voice. You can check out my article here: http://www.thejournalofstudentministries.com/articles/eJ226-Spurlock.pdf

Stewarding Our Stories

I have been working with our stewardship team at UPC over the past year. It has been incredible to be included in their journey. They are a very creative and imaginative group of people (yes these are the "finance" people! It's hard to believe). Over the past few years, they have helped our congregation rethink the idea of stewardship-- expanding it far beyond budgets and fund-raising.

They have any expanded it beyond time, talent, and treasure (the now classic Christian definition). Over the past year, our team has articulated two very important ideas regarding stewardship:

1) We must steward our relationships. This can be interpersonal relationships such as connections with co-workers or parents/children. This can be intra-organizational such as the youth ministry's connection to the worship committee. It is also inter-organizational such as our relationship with another church or Christian organization. Finally, it must include the relationship between our church and our neighborhood, our church and the local university, our church and the city, etc. We MUST steward our relationships.

2) We must steward our story(ies). Everyone has a story that is vitally important to identity and vocation. When we encounter someone new, a basic exchange of stories begins (Hi, may name is.... and I work.... and I am married...., etc.). Over time, these stories unfold into something far more complex and interesting. So too, our church has a story. It is these memories of the past that can give us imagination for the present and future. Thus, it is vitally important that the congregation and its leaders tell stories that form the core of the congregation's identity.

Stewardship is so much more than finances. It is about identity and vocation. Who am I and what am I to do? Who are we and what are we doing? Who am I connected to? What webs are we a part of? What new strands/connections do we want to make? This is stewardship!