IrContent

“In truth to will one thing, then, can only mean to will the Good, because every other object is not a unity; and the will that only wills that object, therefore, must become double-minded.”
- Kierkegaard

James had some pretty strong words for the double-minded. Our problem today, as all generations probably, is that we want God plus (insert the thing that “if I just had it I’d be happy”). So we order our lives around striving for that “one last thing.” Of course this is a lie – there is always one more thing. When John D. Rockefeller was asked how much money he needed to be satisfied his reply was right on the mark: “Just a little bit more.” Moreover, the idea that we can actually achieve this elusive end makes us into slaves. We should be the most leisurely society in history with our technological achievements, yet we work 50-60 hour weeks. How is it that Grandma had no modern conveniences yet always had time for her kids?

Peter Kreeft has a book titled Making Choices. It is a basic intro to ethical decision making. His chapter on simplicity is worth the price of the whole book. In it he argues that we cannot have a simple heart with a complex life. And while we cannot attain perfect simplicity externally – in our physical lives - we can get closer. He says that a simple life helps one achieve simplicity of heart the same way that kneeling may help the soul achieve humility, or the lifting of hands help connect a worshipper to the Spirit. To attain simplicity of heart we need simplicity of lifestyle.There are benefits to a life of simplicity. It leads to virtue instead of the compromise that comes from complexity, for we can make easier choices when our ultimate goal is clear. It gives us freedom from entanglement that comes from attachments. Simplicity brings us more power because our energy is concentrated rather than diffused by complexity. Simplicity increases satisfaction, for we can appreciate our things without worry over, or expended energy on, their upkeep. My father-in-law once said that possessions were a burden. As a new homeowner I can tell you this is true! Sometmies I wonder if I own a home or if my home owns me. Simplicity also builds character. We require time, silence, contemplation, and solitude to bring us depth rather than the superficiality that comes from the soul being spread too thin. Finally, simplicity increases faith:

A simple heart has simple faith: it takes God at His word.
A simple heart has simple hope: it believes God’s promises.
A simple heart has simple love: it obeys God’s commands.

To this end I will summarize some thoughts on acting according to a philosophy of simplicity (some are mine, some are Kreeft’s, some are Kierkegaard’s – I’ll let you figure out which is which). In Simplicity II I will list some of the practical choices we face every day and how the philosophy of simplicity can help us make them.

“Father in Heaven! What is a man without You! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know You! What is all his striving, could it even encompass the world, but a half-finished work if he does not know You: You the One, who is one thing and who is all! May You give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may You grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions, collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, You Who give both the beginning and the completion, may You early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may You give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. And although the separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day . . .in this time of repentance may You give us the courage once again to will one thing. . . . bind up anew that which sin has separated, that in our grief we might atone for lost time, that in our anxiety we might bring to completion that which lies before us. . . . Give us victory in the day of need so that what neither our burning wish nor our determined resolution may attain to, may it be granted unto us in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing.”
- Kierkegaard

The other day I was feeling a bit melancholy as I pondered the possibility of going and witnessing to some kids in my neighborhood. The little hellions were clearly in need, but as I thought about it I realized that in my current mood I was probably not the best representative of Christianity. Why would a gang of young, rebellious, slap-happy teens want to listen to some adult talk to them about the need for transcendence in an evil world?I think a lot of Christians believe that the only way to witness is to crank up one’s happiness and present a joyful, skipping-through-the-park approach to the Christian life so that the unbeliever will “want what they have.” As I thought about this I realized that I didn’t picture true spirituality this way. I didn’t think of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or Calvin as being “undignified for the Lord“. Most of my spiritual mentors were not bouncing off the walls 100% of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a ton of laughs and crazy exploits with my Christian brothers and sisters, but eventually the seriousness of this life catches up.

I also realize that some people just seem wired for “joy” (using the secular definition, not the Bible’s cf. Mt. 5:11; Acts 5:41; Rom. 5:2-3; James 1:2; etc.). These folks never seemed very realistic to me, and would have irritated me when I was not a Christian. But I know that if I really grasped what was in store and what I have been saved from I’d probably be bouncy all the time too. This does not mean, however, that jubilance is the mark of Christian spirituality - nor does it mean that the absence of an energetic “on fire” lifestyle indicates the opposite. A good friend of mine in college was rarely “peppy” yet she proved to be one of the biggest influences on my Christian life as well as others. Christ’s love was evident in her walk with God, but so was His lament over a lost world that many Christians seem to want to embrace with gusto.

I will close with a quote that another friend of mine shared the following during his sermon on spirituality. I don’t usualy like reading quotes, but I think these words are well chosen and are a needed antidote to the cheerleading messages so common today (the author was addressing a specific group, but his words are appropriate for the subject at hand):

“When the Holy Spirit comes to sinful men, He initially brings sorrow, but in [many circles] there is only the boast of rapid transport to joy and peace. Any religious experiences which bring immediate rejoicing and uninterrupted cheerfulness are not to be trusted. There is much more to spirituality than a lifting of the spirits, an entering into the exuberant life, and an extending of one’s succession of thrilling experiences. Yet, in many of the popular [churches], you will look in vain for anything else. . . . No one who has God’s spirit can walk through our world without deep groanings of sorrow and distress. When the stench of immorality fills his nostrils, the Spirit-filled man cannot be happy, happy, happy, all the day. . . . If the Spirit were to come powerfully [today] it would not be to make men clap their hands for joy but to make them smite their breasts in sorrow.” (Walter J. Chantry, Signs of the Apostles (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1973), 99-101.

A big part of what prompted me to start this Blog (besides the inherent fame and fortune that comes with it) was my recent struggle with my thoughts about the local church. I left California and moved to the Bible Belt for seminary, and in doing so I also left my favorite church of all time (Calvary Chapel) behind. I quickly found myself in what I was told was a typical loosely-denominational church full of typical loosely-denominational churchgoers. The sermons were OK I guess, so was the worship. The overall service was not to my taste, however, and I eventually just sat in the back and read.Then I was asked to be part of an exciting new church plant that would focus on theology and apologetics. It was great for awhile, but even this experience began to stale. First, I grew tired of the “mixed worship” (basically the service was a blend of hymns and contemporary music - there is a reason music stations do not do this, much less single bands!). And despite the church’s excellent game plan for messages (which was exactly what this pop-Christian laden community needed), I began to find them hard to get into as well. As a seminary grad I just did not need more (basic) information on evolution or the resurrection.

I had begun to entertain thoughts of church shopping when some friends, also founding members, decided to leave and were strongly chastised for doing so. This was mostly due to their reasons (they were not getting much out of the worship service and were not getting opportunities to serve in the capacity that they wished). This brought up a lot of questions regarding one’s relationship to the local church. Why, I wondered, continue going to a church service that was not ministering to one’s personal needs? Simply put: is it OK to leave a local church if one is not getting what one wants out of the service?

At first this seemed to smack of the whiny, “it’s all about me” attitude that I was so aggravated by. Yet there it was, coming out of my mouth. Then, in a discussion about this situation, a good friend of mine made a simple yet profound observation. “You know,” he said, “God doesn’t get anything out of church so maybe it really is all about us.” He was referring to the doctrines of immutability and transcendence (i.e. God does not change, and He is unaffected by our actions). God wills our worship in order for us to change - not Him. It is to our benefit, not His, that the church service takes place. Therefore, if a church service is not delivering its intended results in one’s life there seems to be no reason to continue attending.

A friend of mine who shared my thoughts on the subject and I decided we’d start a home Bible study with some like-minded friends so we could get what we wanted from church (more straight Bible teaching and good worship mostly). This has been fun, and we all still go to church, but for some time I have been wondering if what we were doing should become church for us. Apparently my thoughts on the matter are not mine alone. George Barna, the famous Christian statistician, was written up in Christianity Today recently for his book Revolution where he celebrates the latest American trend of leaving the local church for “mini-ministries” such as house churches and small group Bible studies.

Is this a legitimate move? The New Testament gives pretty clear guidelines for the “church service” (see “Churching the Unchurched?” post), and, to be honest, none of them seem to require the modern institutional concept. The “gathering together” does not seem to presuppose very much “traditional” structure. Further, a group like mine is not suffering from the “what this verse means to me is . . .” syndrome. We are all seminary trained Bible students.

So what would be wrong with skipping the “church service” to simply “gather together”? I do not think that the problem is with the desire for results tailored to one’s personal needs (provided they are legitimate functions of the church). However, issues with one’s church should be addressed and solved if possible (perhaps often by the person(s) who raised them), not simply used as excuses for a “personal church” that is structured around one’s own idiosyncrasies instead of someone else’s.

I suppose that if it were the case that enough individuals shared a common goal and had the necessary cadre of spiritual gifts so as not to be deficient as a body, then there would be no problem in starting their own gathering and leaving their local church. But then of course they’d just be making a new one.

I was in a coffee shop some time ago and the lady working there was new. We talked for a bit and discovered that we were both Christians. After she found out that I was a teacher and worked at a seminary she started monologuing about how she was “just a simple believer,” and how her faith was “of the heart,” blah blah blah. In other words, I thought, you’re a believer but you’re willfully ignorant of anything but your own feelings - gee, how pious! What is it about lack of thought that so many Christians seem to not only accept, but celebrate???

The other day a buddy of mine was in a conversation with a (Christian) person who claimed that he could not live without sports on TV. My friend said that he wouldn’t miss TV because he’d rather read and learn than sit and watch sports. The other guy replied that he did not care much for deep thinking and that it was just a matter of opinion which activity was better. My friend gave a sweet retort that I cannot now remember word for word, but it was something to the effect of: “No, it’s not OK to be like that - that was not what you were created to do.”I think Christians should consider that last statement. Is it OK to be stupid (willfully ignorant)? I do not think so. (Yes - someone can get saved and remain saved, and go to heaven without learning anything but the gospel. So please, no whiny responses about “legalism” or whatever.) But is it the case that after salvation God does not expect any more from our minds? No, it isn’t. For the sake of brevity I offer only two general arguments to support this conclusion.

1. From Special Revelation (Biblical): Jesus said we are to love God with all our mind (Mt. 22:36-40) and subsequent believers (pretty much all of them up until the so-called Enlightenment) did just that. Hebrews 5-6 points out the perils of dullness after salvation. Nowhere in Scripture is stupidity rewarded, and wisdom is consistently held up as one of the most important things believers should seek after (see Prov. 4:7 and do a word search on the term to see about a million more!).

2. From Natural Revelation (Philosophical): Aristotle liked to classify things. A lot. To do so helps us to discover the good. A simple thought experiment will show how this works: We instinctively know the difference between a “good” shoe and a “good” knife. We also know that what makes a knife good is not what makes a shoe good! But we use the same term to describe them both. Why? Because the purpose of a knife is to cut, while the purpose of a shoe is to comfort and protect one’s foot. Different purposes make for different “goodnesses” (it’s my Blog, I can make up words if I want to!). So how do we discover a thing’s purpose? Aristotle’s method was to discover a thing’s purpose by what it did best. A knife is the best kind of thing for certain types of cutting. Therefore, to the degree that a knife can cut, it is good! What about mankind? Well, vegetables are distinguished from minerals because they have life - they grow, multiply, take in nutrition, etc. But so do animals. Animals are separated from vegetables because they can move, feel, and think (to some extent). But so do humans. Humans are divided from (mere) animals because we are rational (and therefore moral). Therefore, a good human is one who thinks (and acts) well.

God created humans in His image - with rationality as our primary difference from all other earthly things. In imitating God, therefore, stupidity is not OK. In fact, it might be considered inhuman - for when humans do nothing more than follow their feelings or desires are they not said to be acting like animals? (As a side note, it is interesting to hear homosexuals argue from the actions of animals that what they practice is “natural” - I guess that all depends on what a thing’s nature really is!).

Yes, our faith is to be “childlike” (Mt. 18:2-4). But childlike faith is not ignorant faith - it is trusting faith. Trust is an act of the will, not the just the intellect. Therefore faith will always have an element of the will. Faith is more than intellectual assent, but it is not less. True spirituality will not exclude rationality . . . Nor will it excuse irrationality.

There seem to be a lot of folks who glide through a life of sin and never really have to face up to it. Some people who “get saved” continue in a life of lukewarm mediocrity afterwards. Then there are those who truly repent and then suffer for it. What the heck? Why does God allow this evil state of affairs? This is not just a modern problem either - Asaph asked basically the same thing in Psalm 73. As I was pondering this the other night I thought of some of the books I have read about mountain climbing and I think I might have stumbled upon something worth discussion. First, some history . . . Mount Everest stands over 29,000 feet above sea level – about the cruising altitude of a jet airliner. The oxygen level at this altitude is so low that if someone were taken directly from sea level to the top without acclimatizing they would die in minutes. But even the lower elevations are merciless. Climbing on Everest has been described as climbing the stairs of the Empire State building all day every day for a week while breathing through a stir straw (and with a couple tires slung on your back!). If that weren’t bad enough, the temperature can get to 100 degrees below zero with 100mph winds that scream like a freight train across the ice - yet the inside of one’s mouth can sunburn from reflection off the snow. At the higher camps one rarely eats or sleeps. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that it took 31 years and 13 deaths before the first climbers managed to reach the summit. Since that first success in 1953 about 1,200 people have made it to the top. About 200 have died trying, and about 120 frozen bodies now litter its slopes. Yet despite all this, over 10,000 men and women have tried to climb Everest with 100’s of more are being added every year. These hopefuls are now paying around $65,000 each - just for a shot at spending a few minutes on top of a big rock.

What are these people thinking? Why would want to do this to themsleves? A common response is, “If you have to ask, you won’t understand.” George Mallory’s proverbial answer was even simpler: “Because it’s there.” (And so is Mallory – his body was finally discovered in 1999). What is it about climbing that inspires people to risk safety, soundness, and security (the very things normal people spend most of their lives pursuing)? It can’t be fame (most people could not name any mountain climber nor cite any climbing records). It can’t be money (few get rich climbing mountains). No, it is something else – and the danger seems to make it even more enticing.

Now for a little thought experiment. Imagine a person who is in love with the mountains. After years of climbing he finally gets a shot at the highest point on earth. He saves up three year’s wages. He trains his body harshly, submitting it to extreme levels of discomfort and pain just to make it a little bit stronger than it was the day before. He makes the trip, spending a month climbing up and down between camps, pushing a little further each day until he is in position for the summit bid. He is never comfortable and hasn’t slept or eaten much in the last 24 hours. He has lost nearly 40 pounds since beginning the assent. His mind is addled from lack of oxygen. On summit day he gets up at 3am, climbs for 10 hours straight, and finally takes the last grueling step – there is nowhere else to climb. He has made it to the top of the world.

Now imagine a second person. He likes the mountains, somewhat (at least they are better than the burning desert). He prefers watching TV or playing video games all day. Then out of the blue he gets an offer to take a helicopter trip to the summit of Mount Everest (I know you can’t really do this, but work with me here!). Having nothing better to do he takes the trip, is dropped off on the summit, takes a look around, and then flies away.

Now here is the interesting thing: both people stood on the summit. Both saw the same view. But who do you think had the greater experience? The climber of course. All that pain and striving made reaching the goal all the sweeter. Without it, the experience would have been virtually unremarkable.*

I think that perhaps it is the same with life. Bravery, endurance, trustworthiness – these things are celebrated features of good character. Yet without fear how could there be bravery? Without pain how could there be endurance? Without lies how could we value truth? We all know people who have glided through life without having their character molded by hardship – how often do they turn out to be heroic? Heroism requires imperfection.

Therefore I think that at least part of the answer to the question of suffering and evil in this life might include the fact that everyone (whether in heaven or hell) will get exactly what their character deserves (one’s destination is determined by one’s response to Christ, but one’s experience of that destination is determined by what one does in this life – see Rev. 20:12-15).

This life is both the testing and training ground for eternity (“What we do in life echoes in eternity,” as Maximus said in the movie Gladiator). Those in heaven who “just got by” are (like the helicopter guy) not going to have the same amount of joy as those who were willing to suffer for it (like the climber). Yes, they will both be in heaven and they will both have maximum joy – but those who strived harder will have more (both might have “overflowing cups,” but that does not mean their cups are the same size). Likewise, the one in hell who enjoyed a life of sin will suffer more than the virtuous pagan when that enjoyment is gone.

From a total perspective, this stage of life is just a blip when compared to the endlessness of the afterlife. The joys and sufferings of this life are therefore also blips – but they are important blips that make us who we are and who we will be forever once death seals our fate. Don’t get me wrong – I hate suffering. If God gave me the choice of whether or not to suffer every day I’d probably never choose suffering. If I had the power to end the suffering of others I would probably do it. But maybe I wouldn’t - not if I had total perspective and knew the results. If all suffering in this life ended I think we would all, ironically, suffer for it – only that loss would last forever.

*For an even less impressive (but more attainable) experience of Everest’s summit, have a look a this.

The mushy-gushy gospel is what my friend Larry calls the “life enhancement” gospel of today. You’ve heard it before, a popular version begins: “God has a WONDERFUL plan for your life! But you don’t have it because of sin.” Hmmm. I don’t recall any promises like this in Scripture. Jesus promised abundant life (He did not exclude the bad parts here), but He promised more than once to expect suffering (see Mt. 10:22; Mk 10:37-39; Lk 6:22; Jn. 16:33; Acts 5:41, 14:22; Romans 5:3-5, 8:13-17; 2 Cor. 12:7-10; Phil.1:29, 3:8; 1 Thes. 3:3; 2 Tim. 1:8, 2:3, 3:12, Heb. 5:8, James 1:2-4,12, 1 Peter 1:6-7, 2:20-21, 4:12-19, Rev. 1:9). Pretty much all the really good stuff comes after this life - but by then it is too late, so that can’t be what the mushy-gushy gospel is talking about. The idea behind the mushy-gushy gospel is to be positive - forget that hellfire and brimstone stuff, it’s too negative and people won’t listen. So we offer life enhancement to them instead. Two things immediately come to my mind though: (1) If even one of the above Bible verses are true then what happens when they pan out in the life of a “believer” who was told that the gospel was about avoiding suffering? (2) What sense does it make to tell someone that God is love and He’ll send you to Hell if you don’t love Him back. That’s a pretty tough pill to swallow. In trying to make the gospel more palatable to people who just cannot tolerate negativity we have either eviscerated it or made God into a divine stalker who threatens those who won’t love Him back.

So then we have people who, afraid of offending someone with the truth, create interesting new strategies for sharing the gospel without actually saying anything. Imagine, if you will, the following:

You’re sitting on the beach enjoying a hot summer’s day. You’ve got an ice cold non-alcoholic beverage in one hand and a copy of Left Behind part 32 in the other. You’re basically in paradise. As you look upon the people playing in the ocean you notice something that makes your heart stop - a shark fin. No one in the water sees this. Do you:

• A. Tell the people there is a shark coming and help them get out of the water.
• B. Pray that the people will see the shark before it is too late and leave the water on their own.
• C. Hope that the lifeguard will save everyone (since it’s really his job, not yours).
• D. Try to show by your example how great it is on shore and hope that the people playing in the water will be so interested that they will come out and join you.
• E. Befriend individuals in the water one by one until you have “gained the right” to gently inform each of them that there is a shark in the water.
• F. Don’t mention the shark because it might put the people off. Instead try to convince the people that by playing in the water they are really missing out on the best life possible and that only by coming to shore can they be truly happy.
• G. Wear a sandwich board with messages of doom and walk around screaming like a madman that all swimmers will suffer shark attacks for their careless playing in the water.

I hope all of you picked ‘A’. “Duh,” right? Then why do we often pick B-G when it comes to the “spiritual shark” of sin and eternal death? Why do we think we can offer people a more desirable life (on earth) than the world can (when it’s often not).? Why do we think that we can just be so darned positive that people will gravitate to us in amazement and ask how we got to be so? Or why do we think that our love and friendship with them will be seen as being any better than the world’s (when it’s often not)? More importantly: Why do we think the gospel is a message of life enhancement in the first place?

The gospel as presented in Scripture is not about some sappy relationship, not about “finding our purpose”, not about some mystical experience . . . It’s about avoiding judgment and Hell. Yes, Jesus loves us. Yes, Jesus is our friend (although the biblical definition is not “buddy” - Jn. 15:15). Yes, we can have a relationship with God. But all these are the effects of being saved - not salvation itself. Jesus does not offer us a better life here on earth. Jesus is not our boy/girlfriend. Instead, the gospel says that we are all sinners and that God’s wrath is upon us, but we can repent - turn to God for mercy through Jesus (1 Cor. 15:1-5).

The term “salvation” might be our first clue in this whole mess - salvation from what? From loneliness? From boredom? From a life that is less than the American dream? No. It is salvation from the wrath of God - eternity in Hell as punishment for disobedience. The gospel makes little sense apart from this fact. Hell seems pretty obscene if it is the penalty for merely “missing out on all that God has for you.”

When I was perched on the edge of salvation my life was great. I had lots of friends, girls dug me, I was smart and did well in school, I didn’t do drugs or smoke, I had great relationships with my parents . . . What did I need from Jesus? Then I had people telling me about all the horrible things they did before Christ saved them. Well, that’s fine - if they needed Christ just to be a decent person then I was happy that they found a solution to their weakness. But I was doing just as well (or better) than they were without Jesus!

What got to me was the simple (and undeniable) fact that I was not following God’s will and He was not going to let me get away with it. It took nothing but a heads up to show me the problem, and believe me I was grateful for the solution! True, it took some apologists to convince me that the gospel message was the true solution, but it would have made little sense without awareness of the problem (which was obvious). Telling people how wonderful a solution is makes no sense if they don’t know there’s a problem in the first place (and screaming the solution without the problem only makes it worse!).

So the next time you prepare to share, please start where Jesus and the apostles started - with the problem, not some pie-in-the-sky fairy tale that is not a promised part of the salvation package (2 Tim. 2). People will (rightfully) reject what they don’t think they need. Or, if they accept the mushy-gushy gospel in order to get the promised benefits, then what will happen when the benefits do not materialize or life gets even worse? They’ll probably become one of the thousands who say, “I tried Christianity and it didn’t work for me.”

We dare not blame these people for rejecting a false gospel, and we had better repent if it is a false gospel that we have given them.

Since the days of revivalist meetings many churches seem to think that their purpose is to provide a place for Christians to bring unbelievers to get saved. Thus, many Christians now go to church every Sunday only to hear another “relevant” (read: gushy-mushy) gospel presentation and never really grow beyond that. This idea has been formalized by the “seeker-sensitive” movement. Popularized by Willow Creek and the Purpose Driven Life crowd, seeker churches are devoted to getting unchurched people into church services. Rick Warren, one of the movement’s leaders, says that “the unchurched hang-ups determine our strategy.” (Excuse me? Did he just say that he uses unbelievers to determine how he will conduct church meetings?!?) Perhaps the seeker churches are more dedicated to collecting converts and growing in attendance than to growing disciples – for discipleship only begins with conversion, and these folks are rarely taken beyond that initial experience. But is the purpose of the church meeting to get people to hear the gospel? Many people seem to think so, but I do not see this in the Bible. Early church gatherings were described in Acts as being a time for Christians to “devot[e] themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). Within this fourfold division there were several elements: singing (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16), discipline (Matt. 18:17), Scripture reading ( 1 Tim. 4:13), collection of funds for ministry (1 Cor. 16:1-4), and the exercise of spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:26-29).

Now, does any of this sound attractive to unbelievers? Does any of this sound like it was being done for unbelievers? Could that be why the commands in the Bible regarding the gathering of the saints never have to do with making unbelievers comfortable? True, unbelievers may happen to come in - and that’s fine (1 Cor. 14:23) - but that hardly implies that the gathering was in any way to be tailored for, or oriented toward, them.

Think of it this way. Imagine that a group of outdoor enthusiasts started a club. The purpose of the group was to get together outside to hike, climb, bike, boat – whatever. Gathering allowed them to share experiences and make one another better outdoor-type people. Now, naturally this group might think that indoor-types would be a lot better off if they became outdoor-types. But would it make sense for this group to begin meeting inside stuffy office buildings to watch TV and play board games in order to make the outdoor lifestyle more attractive to indoor-types? Of course not! In fact it would fly in the face of the whole purpose of the gatherings. But isn’t this what Christians do when “they gather together” in such a way as to attract non-Christians?

Don’t misunderstand, I’m not saying that contemporary models of doing church are bad – I am not confusing models with messages (although the message is often just as much a problem for seeker churches). Methods are not the issue. It is the philosophy of using these methods to make church more attractive to unbelievers that I object to since the purpose of church meetings seems to have nothing to do with unbelievers (other than equipping believers to better reach them). To do so actually seems to entail a contradiction - for if the church meeting is a meeting of the church (a group of believers gathering together for one another), then it cannot, by definition, also be a gathering of (much less for) non-believers.

Christians can meet non-Christians anywhere. There is nothing special about meeting them in a church building. The gathering of believers is for our benefit, not the world’s. The wholesale changeover from a worship / equipping service to an outreach service betrays an unbiblical view of the purpose of the church meeting. I think the biggest problem is that we, the church, simply do not want to do what we are called to do. We’re so busy looking for God’s “leading” that we feel free to ignore what He has already commanded. We rely on “the church” (meeting) to do what we (the church) are supposed to do, instead of demanding that the church meetings equip us to do it. Outreach events are fine - evangelism and missions are part of the duties of the church (meaning us – Christians). But it is this church, not the church service, that is called to make disciples.

U2 frontman Bono is apparently becoming one of the new spokespersons for pop-Christianity. This is not really his fault as he has made it quite clear that he does not wish to be associated with established Christianity. He is often quite inflammatory (to say the least) towards “organized religion”, and any church that does not get behind his political or social agendas is pretty much useless to him (a good summary can be found here).

Relevant Magazine’s Tara Cobble recently had the audacity to criticize the up-and-coming cussing pope of pop-Christianity when she saw his “ministry” firsthand:

About five songs into their set, Bono stopped the show and strapped on a headband with writing on it. . . . “COEXIST” . . . The “C” in “coexist” was the Islamic crescent moon, the “X” was the Star of David, and the “T” was the cross of Christ. Bono pointed at the symbols on his headband—first to the cross, then to the star, then to the crescent moon—and he began to repeat, “Jesus, Jew, Mohammed—all true. Jesus, Jew, Mohammed—all true.” He repeated the words like a mantra, and some people even began to repeat it with him. . . . In just a few seconds, I went from agreeing with him about Christ-like “coexistence” to being creeped out by the ungodly, untrue thing he was saying. . . . As I looked around, I saw all the people standing and chanting with him—it was disgusting and beautiful all at once. Unity can be so enticing.

OK, so Bono is obviously pretty confused / ignorant regarding religion, and certainly not the best role model for the Church. “Duhhh,” right? Unfortunately, while it really is this simple, it’s apparently not simple enough for many Christians. Now I realize that Bono has occasionally said some good “Christian” things - but does this mean churches should be offering free tickets to U2 concerts in order to increase attendance? Or playing U2’s music during Communion services? The next thing you know someone will be using U2’s lyrics for sermons! (Oops - too late).

Look, I’m all for using good things even if they are “secular” (a topic for another post). We should be plundering hell’s storehouse and taking back the good that it has corrupted. But we should not sacrifice true revelation for temporary relevancy. Many Christians can’t seem to tell the difference.

The title “IrContent” (pronounced “er-kun-tent”) was chosen for two reasons: (1) to use the massively underrated prefix “ir” in a new and exciting way, and (2) to express synonymously the ideas of discontent or malcontent without the social stigmas attached to such terms.

The subtitle “The Long Dark Blog of the Soul” was inspired by the titles of writings by 16th century Spanish mystic St. John of the Cross and 20th century British nihilist Douglas Adams. The title of the former’s work, Dark Night of the Soul, describes a period of suffering, emptiness, or confusion in one’s spiritual life which is the beginning of the transition from the beginner’s comfortable feelings and familiar concepts of God to true union with God.

These two concepts more-or-less describe the present stage in my spiritual journey. I am trying to discover what Christian “spirituality” should really look like. My ir-satisfaction with pop-Christianity is becoming somewhat obsessive, and I am just not sure what to do about it. So I figured I might as well pour out my brain here and see what comes of it.

Well, this is certainly a pretty melodramatic way to begin a BLOG! But if you have read this far without becoming disenchanted (or “ir-enchanted” as the case may be) then simply know that this BLOG will probably have a lot to do with my musings on things spiritual (as opposed more philosophically, theologically, or apologetically oriented articles such as those accessible through my links).

Thanks for visiting!