Watching Christian social media can be very interesting. Especially that of white evangelicals. It can be amazing how very upset that group can get over things. But the more I watch I have realized a few truths. Some are not surprising, but others are very much surprising.

First, most American evangelicals claim to love the American system of laws of liberty. But, they don’t really believe in the personal liberty of the constitution. Instead they believe in a liberty in which their cultural assumptions are the primary cultural reality. We’ll come back to this, but I fully believe that the liberty as expressed in the U.S. Constitution is very different than the liberty found in Christian scripture.

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Second. this group also believes in the myth of scarcity to a frightening degree. From capitalism to the rights of people within the United States, they believe in scarcity of ideas and freedom. This works out in the attitude that if someone enjoys a freedom that the particular Christian group disagrees with that somehow Christian freedom is reduced. A glaring example of this is the constant need to hammer on cultural celebrations. The reactions to Pride month, Juneteenth, non Christian religious holidays, and general freedoms is harsh.

Just because you don’t understand it or agree with something does not make it illegal or wrong in a societal sense. But these reactions are actually funny to me. In addition to acting as if cultural divergence is to be forcefully squashed, they also harp on and on about the evils of the world and the culture of the world. So why act surprised and outraged when the world acts like you claim it to be (at least in your mind). It is an eye rolling moment to see Christians whine about things they don’t understand or agree with being enjoyed by human beings who enjoy the same freedoms that Christian do. Oh, and criticism is not persecution.

The many fears of “sharia law” are ironic. First, no one is trying to implement Sharia in the United States. Second, does anyone remember “blue laws?” Those were essentially Christian versions of Sharia. Stores were not allowed to open on Sundays during traditional Christian worship times, but no other religion was granted that privilege. Part of the decline in church attendance in the United States can be attributed to the church having to compete in the realm of time.

The ultimate irony is what Christian liberty represents. The scriptures are awash with the word liberty. But what is liberty for the Christian? In the letter to the Galatians, liberty is the freedom from legalism, the freedom to love, and the freedom of being a child of God. In Corinthians it is freedom from participating in oppressive systems and freedom from fear of those systems. For Jesus it is the freedom to live an everlasting quality of life without the fear of the systems that harm. It is the freedom to see the marginal as children of God.

Liberty in Christ is the liberty/freedom from fear. Freedom from fear of sin and fear of death. Freedom from the fear of different ideas. It is true liberty as it is freedom from doing everything on our own. Liberty is freedom to not be consumed by that which is not Christ. Liberty (like love, mercy, and grace) is not a scarce resource. Liberty is everlasting in God’s steadfast faithfulness.

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Yes, the liberty promised in the United States Constitution is often at odds with the liberty of Christ. BUT, it is not something to be torn down by Christians. We have liberty to live into the liberty of Christ. Therefore, others have the same liberty to live, worship, or not worship as they please. Our liberty is not threatened by the liberty of the one who does not believe, look, vote, or behave as we do.

Why is this important? Because the church often acts as if the liberty of those outside the church harms the liberty of Christians. Liberty does not shield you from discomfort or from seeing things with which you disagree. When we act that way, we look ridiculous.

How does this potentially harm the church? Well, when we throw fits because people live in their own liberty. Or, we make claims that our liberty is diminished by someone else enjoying liberty. We look like fools, and not in the way Paul would use that word for believers.

A good example is the attitude of white Christians toward celebrations like Juneteenth. The criticism is often something, something - division. Sure, if you believe that celebrating the end of slavery in the United States is divisive. What if we instead took a moment as Christians and reminded people that Christians stood for abolition against Christians who defended slavery? We can celebrate as one.

But let’s look at something way more controversial. In the U.S., June is Pride Month for our LGBTQ+ citizens. Whatever you think about Pride in this context, our country’s freedom allows people to celebrate. There are some very good pastoral responses by those who minister in spaces where Pride is celebrated. But there is also a very good pastoral response in general; if you do not want to celebrate something you do not agree with, then don’t celebrate. When Christians try to disallow others freedom, we appear to be hypocritical. Freedom for me but not for you in other words.

My state has claimed June as “Nuclear Family Month” with the claim that the nuclear family is the bedrock of American society. The problem with that claim is that the nuclear family is actually one of the phenomenons of the industrial revolution which began the erosion of many things nostalgic to those looking back. The extended family was the picture of stability prior to the ripping apart of generational togetherness into small units.

Politicians are also now taking extreme positions based upon their Christian assumptions. A candidate for governor in my state is arguing that he can outlaw Islam in the state because of a phrase in the state constitution speaking of the freedom to worship “Almighty God” as one wishes. I love the dismissal of the First Amendment of the United States which would take precedence anyway, but just think of the arrogance and hatred that causes one to refuse people to worship as they wish.

The worst part of all of this is the fact that we cannot even engage with anyone who disagrees with us without yelling at one another. Do we really love the tenets of the liberty accorded in the United States, or do we want a theocratic version of America. Christian Nationalists argue for the latter. The former is a much more generous reality. In the end, the point should be that your freedom never endangers my freedom in a context where freedom is not scarce or afforded only a privileged few.

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I have not seen the movie Project Hail Mary yet. But I have read the book and I have a few thoughts about the theology of humanity within the story. Yes, this is not an explicit purpose of Project Hail Mary but preveniently, we might take the deeper truth with grace.

If you have not seen or read the story here’s a quick and very light summary. The earth’s sun is dying because of a parasitic, biological “swarm” named Astrophage. Scientists and others are gathered to solve this problem ultimately leading to plan to send a crewed space craft to the star system of Tau Ceti to determine why that system is not dying even with the Astrophage present. This is understood to be a one way trip with probes sent back to earth with any solutions. Our protagonist is Ryland Grace, a disgraced scientist who has been teaching biology in high school. Ryland eventually is forced to go on the space craft Hail Mary with two other crew members.

Like any good space movie, Ryalnd awakens from a suspended state and finds the rest of the crew dead. He is determined to continue the mission. In investigation, he realizes he is not alone in the system and eventually another craft comes to him. This we learn in a craft from the star system 40 Eridani. Eventually, Ryland meets “Rocky” from the other ship. Rocky is very different from humanity, but whose own system faces the same threat as earth. He appears to be composed of stone and is arachnoid in appearance. Rocky is very different from Ryland.

Rocky whom we learn has the name best translated as Evaltas and has also lost the rest of his crew experiences the environment differently. communicates differently, breathes different atmosphere, and has a very different world than earth. But he is an incredibly good engineer. Ryland and Rocky work together to find ways to combine their tasks and skills. They find the solution to their shared problem and also determine that they can both return to their worlds. Ryland’s one way mission suddenly becomes a return trip. Ryalnd goes ahead and launches his probes after he and Rocky say goodbye.

But this isn’t the end. Ryland realizes he has a problem with his Astrophage fuel dying. he resolves that and is about to head home when he realizes that Rocky may not be able to resolve his issue. Ryland has a choice to make and he chooses to turn back and head to Rocky’s ship. When he arrives, Rocky’s ship is dead. Rocky is both surprised and elated when Ryland comes for him. But they are friends and of course Ryland would come for his friend.

When Ryland turns around, he has no chance for returning to earth. He must get Rocky onboard and go to Rocky’s planet Erid to save that world. Ryland trusts that earth will be saved by his probes, but Rocky has no other way to save his world. They make it to Erid, btu I won’t spoil the very end.

Now that you have been caught up, we can get to the theology. Humanity, when we are being truly human has a tremendous capacity for compassion and grace. When we see past differences like Ryalnd does with Rocky, we can see a shared “humanity” in each and every person we meet. When we are willing to see someone so very different from us as human, we can treat them as we would want to ne treated.

I believe that human beings can be good even though we often choose to follow evil. This is a deeply theological belief for me. But Brandon, aren’t we depraved? In most of protestant theology, yes. BUT, Wesleyans have a caveat. We have the doctrine of prevenient grace in whcih we have the capacity to do good through the work of the Holy Spirit. Even if we do not believe in God. That grace goes before us and enables us to avoid chaos.

Ironically (if we believe fundamentalists), while I do not see the opening chapters as factual (they have a specific genre), I believe that the truths within Genesis are very true. So, when I consider humanity, I remember that God calls humans very good. True there is the Fall in Genesis chapter three. But, once again I have a question. As my friend Terry likes to ask, “Was Adam’s sin more efficacious than Christ’s acts?” I believe that Christ’s action is far superior to Adam’s sin. I also believe that God is working to make all things new. This began when Jesus ascended and has been an ongoing work of grace in the world.

We once could interact with those who are very different from us. But along the way fear, those who wish to wield power, and our own selfishness has made us think that differences are evil. NT Wright when speaking on Love being greater than certainty states that love is our primary mode of knowing God. “Love means affirming the reality of something outside yourself, delighting in it, and engaging with it relationally, rather than reducing it to a data point.” (Wright) As my friend Daron says “it is better to be rightly related than beingright.” When did we lose that truth? When did trying to vanquish those we have differences with become the default for human beings?

We dehumanize, we cheer dehumanization, we pray for destruction, and we foment hatred wrapped in a wet blanket of holiness. I wish we could drop our selfish ways of looking at others, but we just can’t seem to help ourselves. But I know we are capable of goodness. When a story like Project Hail Mary feels like better news than some of our holiness claims, maybe we need to examine our claims. Can we love our “enemies” as we have been commanded? Or are we too worldly to see enemy as a friend we have not won over yet?

I was recently reading an article about the Supreme Court of the United States and the place of dissent within our legal system. The comments on dissent came within a section about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s background and path into the judiciary. Here is the part about Justice Jackson’s comments on dissent:

Asked finally about her many dissents, Jackson said that she agreed with her colleague Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who ‘said that dissents are really written for a future age, that they lay down a marker for the future.’ ‘Dissents, I think, are one of the most extraordinary aspects of the American legal tradition, because they actually embody one of our core values, the idea of freedom of expression and tolerance of minority views,’ Jackson added. ‘This is something that is integral to who we are as Americans, and we have a practice that allows for that.’ (Scotusblog)

Now I don’t want there to be confusion over where I am going. While I do not believe that the ideas of liberty and law within the United States constitute the same ideas we find of those concepts in scripture, I do believe that the way we interact as human beings can be informed by the way ideas like dissent and tolerance work in places like the legal system. These ideas once existed within denominations and Christian traditions in the U.S. As a friend once mentioned; we have lost the ability to disagree with one another while still loving one another. In other words, we once could disagree in love.

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A few years ago in the Church of the Nazarene (COTN) our Board of General Superintendents (BGS) issues a ruling on what constitutes essential doctrines in terms of ordination vows. The ruling is broad and made almost everything in the Nazarene Manual essential doctrine. Many of the reactions to this ruling were ones that pointed out that the use of Robert’s Rules in meetings is considered essential doctrine based upon this ruling. A very clever essay appeared that discussed a theology of Robert’s Rules. These rulings by the BGS become permanent commentary and direction on the subject they rule on. It is a messy and often contradictory reality but it is what we have.

The suspected purpose of this ruling was to aid in the removal of clergy who dissented on some sections of our Covenant of Christian Character. This covenant is able to be changed easier than our Articles of Faith and it is also culturally informed by what the characteristics of holiness entail. This ruling was used to remove clergy in regional “trials.” One member of clergy was removed for disagreement with a paragraph in another BGS ruling that forbid any blessings (not officiating) of same-sex marriages. The two words “I disagree” were the ones that led to dismissal. The little reporting from the proceedings highlight the words I disagree as the primary problem with the essay. It was also determined that by writing an essay that was published constituted teaching in the context of teaching against doctrines of the COTN. There was no proof publicly provided that showed that this former member of clergy taught against our doctrines. In fact, testimony showed that he taught our doctrines even in disagreement.

I do not want to rehash much of what happened in the past. But it helps to add valuable context to my understanding of how dissent is handled within the COTN and other evangelical denominations. You may dissent and even teach that dissent when it comes from a fundamentalist direction, but anything coming from what is called “progressive” may land you outside the denomination. This is a credibility gap we just accept. But why? Why do we allow dissent over our article of faith on scripture, but not dissent over Christian character?

Here’s where things get interesting. Within the BGS Ruling on human sexuality that led to the removal of the member of clergy mentioned above there is a section on ordination which was designed for clarity within our official statement on human sexuality. Here is the wording:

Further, in the case of an individual with same-sex attraction, the
primary focus of the individual’s life should be on their new creation
in Christ, and not on their sexual identity. The driving force for the
response to the call to ministry should not be a social or political
statement. The individual must commit to a life of celibacy and sexual
purity, affirming the Church of the Nazarene’s doctrine on human
sexuality. (BGS 22-May-2019)

What this paragraph ultimately sets as doctrine is that human beings who are attracted to the same sex are able to experience entire sanctification and still be same-sex attracted. This makes the COTN what is called side-B in discussions of human sexuality and matters of the Christian life. In other words you may identify as gay or queer as long as your primary identity (like all Christians) is seen in Christ. But you must remain celibate within side-B.

There are many members of clergy in the COTN who not only dissent from that paragraph but teach variations of dissent. The most popular is that one “cannot call yourself gay and Christian.” Or they argue against side-b theology taking positions closer to the idea that human attraction is sinful if that attraction is not toward the opposite sex. There are all sort of weird contradictions that arise out of that argument. The group the Holiness Partnership makes opposition to side-B theology a part of their arguments. They teach that you cannot identify as gay and feature speakers who claim that side-B churches teach false doctrine. That is in clear disagreement with the BGS ruling.

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Another idea within the covenants that often meet with dissent which is stated publicly and taught is the idea of social justice. We call our people to work for more equitable societies, to resist systems that harm, and reject religious bigotry. I have been hot with vitriolic comments when I speak about working for equitable societies. In fact, many clergy will say that we don’t believe in equity, we believe in equality. But the word in our covenant is equity.

We also have clergy who dissent from the ordination of women. I mentioned that in a recent essay. Experience shows that these men are usually able to go on teaching their dissent without any action toward education or reconciliation with our doctrines. The COTN has never wavered form its commitment to the ordination of women and men so it is hard to understand how men go through our process of ordination and come out believing women cannot lead.

But the clue to how those men arrive at certain positions comes from a dissent that you bump into a lot. That is with Article IV of the COTN articles of faith. That os our article of scripture which rejects textual inerrancy (without error) by embracing soteriological inerrancy. This is about the ability of inspired scripture to fulfill its purpose of revealing God and how humanity can have relationship with God.

But many of the clergy in the COTN reject our view of scripture. They teach and claim that textual inerrancy is required for the Bible to be authoritative. Some even claim that our position is based in sinful thought. We have multiple sources explaining our doctrine, yet many reject it and dissent. The book ARTWork of God I have mentioned in the past is a public example. It would not have been a big deal until the COTN magazine Holiness Today featured the author of that book in a podcast which was then shared by the USA/Canada COTN social media accounts. There are churches that have contrary language to Article IV on their websites. One in my district has the statement:

We believe that the scriptures were written under the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We believe that both the Old and New Testaments reveal to us the will of God and are without error in all that they affirm.

That’s textual inerrancy, not soteriological inerrancy.

Another Article of Faith in which we have dissent is baptism. The COTN stands in the Methodist and Anglican tradition of baptizing infants. Our doctrine is that this is baptism and has been a part of our denomination for its entire history. But dissent on this is so popular that our committee was asked to consider new language to remove infant baptism. The committee rejected that request under deeply doctrinal and scriptural reasons. The point is that we either believe baptism to be a sacrament of God’s doing or we make it an ordinance of our doing.

It is Pentecost this Sunday. The birthday of the Church. When we read the story of the Church from Pentecost in, we see a community growing and also struggling to understand what it is to be the Church. There is dissent that permeates but does not divide. Peter keeps going back and forth, but the unity remained and the Church grew and no one threw Peter or Paul out when they disagreed.

Dissent can be a healthy and natural part of the Christian experience within denominations. But this requires trust and love for one another. Most dissent in our past was healthy and clergy did not teach their dissent as doctrine or even speak of their dissent outside of clergy spaces. Now, dissent is crushed if it leans one way, but ignored or even encouraged if it leans another. Many clergy feel afraid to even acknowledge doctrinal positions that other Christians have when discussing our beliefs, yet some are literally teaching ideas contrary to our essential doctrines.

Dissent for me but not for thee in other words.

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Trials is in quotes because a friend of mine receive a charge of conduct unbecoming for misunderstanding that a district action was not a trial.

Phyllis Tickle was a layperson, but she understood the trajectory of Christianity better than many clergy when she wrote The Great Emergence. It is too bad we do not have her voice today as we see the very thing she prophesied coming to pass. The Church is in the throes of a type of new birth much like the Reformation and the changes which happen about every five hundred years. As we experience these growth pangs many in the church feel fear. Rather than seek to understand what God is up to in the world, the instinct is to hide, retreat to a past that never was, or simply give up.

The Emergence of Narrowing

I call this phenomenon the Great Narrowing. Rather than see the experience of God’s mercy as ever widening, there is a move to forget the lessons of scripture about God and try to narrow the mercy of God and the very definition of the Church. Fundamentalism is a well known example of this move by Christians. But the Great Narrowing is even more insidious. I don’t blame those whose experience is lacking in believing that the narrowing is a thing to be desired. But, for those who know better, I feel an immense sadness.

In the Lord of the Rings the wizard Gandalf goes to the leader of his order Saruman seeking to discuss and determine how to address the coming evil. Gandalf rightly assumes that Saruman would be ready to meet the challenge which Gandalf recognized. Instead, Gandalf realizes too late that Saruman has already given himself over to Sauron’s desire to make the world in his image. Saruman believes this is inevitable and the only way to survive is to work within the narrowing control of Middle Earth. Saruman should know better, but the lure of power seduces him well.

Of course this analogy is not perfect, but I often feel Gandalf’s grief at Saruman’s choice when engaging with those who engage in narrowing. Especially those who should know better. But I also cannot completely blame them for the choices they make. Change can be frightening. Growth can be scary. But growth is the move of disciples. A disciple has never arrived. Even a mature disciple can still learn and grow. If we learn anything from sacred scripture, it is the fact that growth is the way of discipleship and God is constantly working with creation for growth. Cultures, nations, and people all change. It is the inevitable roll of history that change comes for us all. Not in a fated way, but in surprisingly subtle or spectacular ways both.

We waste so much time fighting the wrong battles. Or worse, creating false battles to keep from growing. Manufactured outrage, parroted talking points, and sheer arrogance in the face of ignorance is writ large in the Church today. We somehow think we need some great crisis looming rather than a reach toward the move of God. It is just so predictably sad the way things are going. I’ll warn you that I am going to be both general and specific here and I may even trod across your toes. But, know that this comes from a desire for Christians to be a people of faithful hope rather than a people of fear. You may even accuse me of being a pot stirrer. But better a pot stirrer than the frog getting boiled alive because I cannot face the truth.

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The Narrowing Groups

I find two approaches to our current state from those who wish to narrow the Christian faith into neat little boxes. The first is those who know better, but want to retain a sense of control. They are the most frustrating. But they also remind me of the disciples throughout the Gospel of Mark who repeat the same missing the point over and over. Take some time to read the Gospel of Mark and watch for the repeated pattern. Jesus teaches, the disciples don’t get it, Jesus performs a miracle often involving an “outsider” and there’s an aha moment. But in the next scene, the disciples become clueless again and the cycle repeats. The writer of Mark had a point and it was wake up believers and see what God is doing. “Quit being clueless.”

The second group is frustrating in a very different way. They are so very confidently wrong about things. This group is an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect*. As sad as the first group is, this group hurts more. Rather than showing a willingness to learn, this group confidently makes bold claims about subjects they usually have a definite ignorance of. I’ll be clear, this group is not stupid, but their lack of knowledge is dangerous. They are easy to spot because they repeat claims made by those they think are informed (often just as ignorant, but they sound good). Those claims are usually easy to expose as lacking, but the confidence is so strong that any evidence to the contrary is dismissed as obviously wrong.

The way both merge is in their desire to narrow things like faith to make it easier to hold. Of course the thing about faith is that it is not an easy thing to narrow. Faith is not about belief, precepts, or easily reproduced knowledge. No faith, is so much more and it is expansive like all things related to the divine. This expansive nature is why I really like my friend Aaron’s definition of faith as “risk with direction.”(Simmons) Possibility and embrace rather than dry and static facts.

Recently I was in two different online conversations in which the narrowing phenomenon was present. One was a private group of Nazarene clergy, the other a public post that was an example of missing the point and trying to narrow Christianity itself. I acknowledge that my closeness to these examples may make me an unreliable narrator, but I hope to explain this as a way to show there are better ways. After all, growth is what we should be about.

The Rejection of Held Doctrine

I’ll start with the clergy discussion. I shared a Substack article by Jill Waltz about how the Church of the Nazarene (COTN) is an egalitarian denomination (we always have been). I’ll link that article below. But amongst the responses to the article a male ordained Elder entered the thread and chastised us.

Throughout this entire article and comment section, I noticed that not once did anyone truly seek to examine what Scripture says in its proper context. There was little effort to search the Word of God for truth. Instead, the focus seemed to be primarily on defending “our theology” as a denomination. That should concern us.

As expected, fellow clergy responded with surprise and concern. The COTN has a well documented doctrine of ordination and our belief that women and men are called to lead is a part of that. We support that with scripture and it has always been the case in our over 100 year existence. In fact, this was one doctrine that inited me in to the COTN. This is who we are, yet here’s an ordained elder who was examined by a local District, went through our process of ordination and education and yet believes we are wrong.

To be clear, this member of clergy who leads a church was given the scriptures he demanded yet he still believes us to be wrong. How does someone with that strong of disagreement receive ordination? Beats me. I wish I had an answer, but I suspect we really don’t care about many of our essentials as long as you have sexuality down. It is sad and infuriating that clergy are allowed to disagree with this and, as he demonstrated, our view of scripture without consequences or teachable moments. But he also showed that incredibly arrogance of being unable to be taught. This is why messages from our leaders on being who we are feel empty. We don’t appear to care to actually make sure we are who we claim to be. Credibility gaps become our definition.

There are ways to officially deal with these disagreements, but they are soul-sucking and start at the district level where the problem may have originated. I obviously have no answer for how to handle this, but the idea that we are in defiance of scripture on women’s ordination is a creeping disease infecting many of our male clergy as they teach this contrary doctrine. This was not the first interaction like this in the current month for example.

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The Tyranny of the Ignorant

The second example is more public, but has a mix of both those who should know better and those whose ignorance is on display. Look, I don’t think I have all knowledge or even a competent knowledge about many things, but I understand how to engage ideas in context and in a spirit of honesty and respect. Unfortunately, those who wish to narrow Christianity appear to be unwilling or unable to do the same.

I’ll summarize the post in question. Father Richard Rohr who is a Roman Catholic mystic is described in the post as a false teacher and his teaching is ascribed all sort of claims that are false if you engage Rohr’s work directly rather than through the lens of those who miss his points. Words like heresy get thrown around. But, the Roman Catholic Church has not labelled Rohr as false. He is a priest and orthodox. The real issue here is that so many American Evangelicals define Christianity by their narrow and often recent beliefs historically.

Rather than engage Rohr honestly, they repeat claims by people like Mike Winger, Alisa Childers, Allie Beth Stuckey, etc. All influencers who often present arguments so easy to refute it is shocking that people believe what they say. But they are influencers for a reason. they sound good, cite sources, and appear to be honestly engaging. The problem is that citing sources means nothing if those citations are misrepresented. Dunning-Kruger helps explain this. I’ll trust the source’s definition over an online influencer any day.

But here are the archetypes within that conversation.

The pastor who shared it originally who knows better based on his background, education, and experience. But I suspect he has made the calculation that sharing this to spark outrage will increase his standing amongst the others who want to narrow things. I also cant get over the fact that people still fear the emergent church which hasn’t been a thing for over a decade. Fighting yesterday’s perceived problems tomorrow.

Then you have the fellow clergy who trust the original to tell them the truth. They are followers and their fear has been stoked by the original material. If told the truth about Rohr they won’t believe it. Evidence presented is rejected and in some cases they just don’t understand the evidence. They are why I bother to comment at all. Maybe some will take the time to learn the truth. They may still not like Rohr, but hopefully they can understand that Christianity is not defined by a particular denomination, movement, or pastor.

The most frustrating is the minister in training who appears unable to learn. This is usually the one who is most frustrating. The COTN, like many Methodist children has a path for ministers to learn about ministry, doctrines, polity, and other things through a non degree course of study. This is helpful for those who have degrees in something other than religion, cannot afford traditional schools, or came from another tradition. I went through the course of study to satisfy requirements not met by my Bible degree at a Church of Christ liberal arts university for example.

The course of study can be a tremendous opportunity to learn and grow. But like any study, it is only as good as the participants willingness to learn. In our discussion above a minister in training entered and very confidently spoke of how poor the materials in the course of study are because he disagrees with the doctrines as presented. The arrogant ignorance of thinking when the study conflicts with your thinking then the study must be wrong is astounding. This should be a red flag for licensing in the COTN, but I suspect it isn’t even a consideration if we consider the ordained elder in the first example who rejects our doctrine of humanity.

Even more frustrating is the pastor who should know better cheering on the idea that we should purge the study of any books whose content contains writing by those who have left our denomination willingly or unwillingly. Yes, let’s repeat the stupidity of the Southern Baptist Church purge of solid doctrine because of who wrote it. You see it is not enough that people leave, we must erase all remembrances of them from the record like Pharaoh of old. Sound doctrine does not cease being sound doctrine simply because of who wrote or of their subsequent actions.

Is There Hope???

I am afraid that the efforts of those who want to narrow us are working in the COTN. Just look at the conversations above. But I see evidence in ideas shared from our denominational USA/Canada Region and in our flagship magazine like the promotion of a self-published book (ArtWork) that not only disagrees with our doctrine of scripture but also utilizes pseudo science deemed junk by groups like Answers in Genesis and Creation.com (groups that would be sympathetic to the argument given). When you start seeing blatant refutation of our doctrines, you know the issue runs deep. It may be too late for us (I pray and hope not). But it is not too late for Christianity itself. As much as those who wish to narrow exert effort, the Church is much larger and wider than they imagine. I believe that if the gates of Hell cannot prevail, then the wideness of God’s mercy can also withstand the attempts by human beings to narrow the Church.

God’s grace, love, and mercy are always moving and widening. We either embrace them or get run over by the tide. The Church is in the birth pangs of our next rebirth, maybe we just need to hang on and see what God is up to.

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Dunning-Kruger effect, in psychology, a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general.

Simmons, Aaron, PhD. Camping with Kierkegaard

The two seasons of Daredevil: Born Again reach deeply into the psyche of those we call heroes and villains. Season One brought us baptisms of violence that created the rebirth of Daredevil and of Kingpin. Season Two digs into the inevitable descent of Mayor Fisk into running New York City as the crime boss, Kingpin. But, as with much of the Marvel Defenders story lines, there is no true good/bad divide in Daredevil: Born Again. The boundary between hero and villain is quite permeable and our heroes often acknowledge their own evil acts.

Amid the fan service of characters such as The Punisher and Jessica Jones making appearances, the story this season has been relevant. So relevant that many complained that Disney was going overboard. Much like Andor, people saw real life reflected in fiction. Mayor Fisk’s Anti Vigilante Task Force (AVTF) feels familiar. Their tactics, secrecy, and mandate from on high reflect the experience many Americans have of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol. But rather than think on the reality of why these fictional stories seem familiar, the complaints came. Conviction often does that to people.

Disney is not leaning into a narrative. No, the fact is that authoritarianism looks much the same regardless of location, universe, or timeline. Those who wield authoritarian power use any means necessary to hold that power. The law is not a barrier to holding power for those who have no regard for law. So Mayor Fisk looks like any authoritarian holder of power and believes he is not only above the law, but the sole authority on what constitutes law.

The tragic twist is that Fisk truly loves New York City and his tactics, while misguided, are ultimately his way of showing love. Matt Murdoch/Daredevil also loves the city. But he believes in a different way of living. One that embraces freedom, but punishes those who harm others. The two are entwined in an epic struggle over what constitutes safety for the city.

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The season builds toward a confrontation. First in the courtroom where Murdoch sacrifices his secret by revealing he is Daredevil so that he can use the legal system to defeat Fisk. It is a selfless act of love for it is also the only way to save the woman he loves. His revelation disarms Fisk’s threats and leads to the fall of Fisk as the city turns against the once popular mayor.

But no Daredevil story ends this easily. No, Kingpin rises to his fullness and chooses to meet the people of the city coming for him full on. While Daredevil and Jessica Jones meet Fisk’s AVTF. We get the ultimate long hall fight shot that Daredevil is known for. Only this time it is two shots. Daredevil and his allies fighting through the gauntlet of AVTF agents while Fisk rampages through regular people seeking his downfall.

Blood, violence, death, and destruction ensue with Fisk ultimately meeting an overwhelming force. But Daredevil stops the crowd from killing Fisk. There is no need to use the tool of violence. It is the climactic scene in which Daredevil and Kingpin come face to face with the reality that the struggle is over for them both. Kingpin’s grief has been carrying his rage and it is all he thinks he has left.

Daredevil implores Kingpin to take a deal offered to leave the city freely. But that is too much for Kingpin.

This is your so-called retribution? It means nothing to me.
What about grace?
No, no, no, no. You are not allowed to offer that to me!
...
We have the opportunity to give [the city] peace. That’s grace.

It is this moment when the fullness of Daredevil’s faith is on display. Grace. That’s the only answer to counter the violence. He knows that grace is the only answer because anything else will only continue the death and lack of peace. It is a second sacrifice. The giving over of retribution for peace.

When that scene hit and Daredevil asked “what about grace?” I was hit hard. This was the true climax. Retribution is no way to bring peace. Hatred cannot be defeated with violence or retributive action. Only grace and the peace that comes through grace can end hatred. It is a kenotic act for a city the two antagonists love dearly. It is the only way to save the city and themselves.

I kept wondering how different our world would be if we started giving one another a little grace. It takes a hefty dose of humility and a willingness to truly love in order to extend grace. It takes just as mush to reach out and graso that grace and allow it to envelop us in merciful peace. Is it easy? Not at all, but it is oh so worth it.

What about grace?

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Video games have always had a story to tell. Even if that story is as simple as avoid the obstacles or “eat” the little dots. But even some early games told more complex stories. One of the earliest examples is the game Zork which was completely text based, but complex, funny, and told a story. Zork even had a “morality” program that would strike you dead for taking certain immoral actions. One of my personal favorites is Grand Theft Auto IV because your actions have consequences in the game world.

The stories in video games can be complex and contain social or cultural
commentary. Such is the case with the game The Last of Us. Matthew Distefano delves into this commentary in his new book Saints, Sinners, and Clickers. My only experience with The Last of Us is the HBO television series because the game system I had when The Last of Us came out was an Xbox while The Last of Us is a Sony Playstation exclusive. But after reading Distefano’s book I wish I had played the games.

Early on Distefano comments on the reality of the game as apocalyptic fiction with no firm answers.

This reality forces me to ask: Why do we choose to play a game like this? Simple. Because, even though video games tend to transport us to a whole new world, some of the best represent real life. They represent the human experience.

He’s right about the fact that great games tend to represent the reaility of the human experience in all its messy and complicated reality. Apocalyptic literature is best when it is understood as “storytelling to use the end of the world, not to predict the future, but to hold a mirror to the present.” Because it is that mirror which can illuminate the truths we often do not wish to see. Especially when that mirror exposes our biases and the horrors we visit upon the world.

While The Last of Us does not have any mention of God or of rescue from the horror of mycelial “zombies” it does hold a mirror up to love. It is in love that Distefano connects the game world to our own. He faces the reality of human love and does not turn away. Love can be both healing and cataclismic. Distefano captures the full spectrum in his book. Even when considering choice, he is aware of the contradictions we all experience.

Nothing in life comes tabula rasa, and deep down, we know human beings are quite complicated. Every “choice” we make seems tied to a thousand invisible strings—trauma, love, fear, mimesis, survival, and so on. Freedom, then, if it exists at all, cannot simply be the ability to choose randomly (the way a cow “chooses” which patch of grass to chew6), but the ability to choose the good. The problem, most notably, is that the good is itself almost always muddy, hidden, or veiled in grief, trauma, and other baggage.

I can’t help but see hope even in hopelessness throughout the story of The Last of Us. Maybe it is the rumblimg optimism of Distefano in the face of fear and contradiction that gives me hope. But I agree with is assessment.

But whatever labels one puts on it, the idea is that true divinity is found in the God who doesn’t abandon the world—though it sometimes appears that way—but binds it together, cell by cell, root by root. In this sense, love itself is ecological. It spreads, roots, clings, regenerates, and in a world as dark as The Last of Us, constantly adapts.

The “God who doesn’t abandon the world—though it sometimes appears that way—but binds it together, cell by cell, root by root.” Distefano may not be Wesleyan, but this Wesleyan recognizes the God we claim to follow. It is in that I believe we find truth and hope. Distefano gets to a powerful realization from the game story.

The Last of Us shows us that love and loss cannot be disentangled, that to live is to lose, and that to lose is sometimes the only way we rediscover love again.

Love and loss can never truly be disentangled becuase when we love, we will inevitably experience loss. Rather than something to be avoided in fear, that reality makes our love burn brighter.

Get a copy of the book and experience a world of hope amidst pain and struggle. Even in the tragedies we will find love. I promise you’ll find truth in this book even if you know nothing about video games. mainly because human stories are universal stories for our species.

Writing theology is a ambitious task in and of itself. But embarking on a systematic theology is daunting, but that is just what Dr. Thomas Jay Oord is doing. His A Systematic Theology of Love is a planned multi-volume work. Volume One is currently available and its subtitle hints at the contents: God and Creation. Most systematic theologies currently available are within the Reformed or Calvinist tradition. In fact, one of the best selling systematic theologies is Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology is the top seller in systematic theologies. This may be partly because it is the default for Southern Baptists who are currently the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Worldwide, things are different, but you get the picture. Of course, popularity does not indicate the value of a work. This is especially true in theological works. Something can be very popular, but also very bad. Thinking in terms of Wesleyan-Holiness theologies, systematic works are few and far between. I believe this is partly due to the nature of Wesleyan theology being seen as practical and Holiness theology as primarily revivalist in nature. But these are stereotypes and stereotypes have a way of falling apart upon close examination.

Oord’s Systematic THeology of Love builds upon Wesleyan-Holiness, Open and Relational, and Process theological work. I can see the foundation of Dr. Mildred Bangs Wynkoop’s book A Theology of Love, H. Ray Dunning’s Grace, Faith, and Holiness: A Weslyean Systematic Theology, and other works within Oord’s own theological heritage. Of course, this work expands and goes beyond those earlier works, but you may be able to take the person out of a particular Wesleyan-Holiness denomination, but you cannot take the Wesleyan-Holiness theology out of the person.

It is important that Oord begins with God and Creation, because those are the building blocks of a solid and faithful systematic theology. But volume one also deals with the definition of love which Oord honed in Pluriform Love. Oord also takes a tact very different from many theologians by using the humility we all so desperately need by saying that “I could be wrong about all of this, of course.” (Oord) In a world in which being right is often seen as the attitude we should hold, Oord’s admission is key to understanding the spirit in which his systematic theology is born.

From and Open and Relational view, starting with God is key to understanding both the open and relational aspects of who we claim God to be. Oord’s previous works on love, amipotence,* and the nature of God as uncontrolling love features throughout. But Oord builds upon those ideas to form them into a systematic investigation into God. From the who, to the place of mystery, Oord weaves a cogent argument for who he claims God to be. I firmly believe that Oord is expressing the logical progression of Wesleyan and Holiness theologies of God within his discussion of God. Contrary to critics, the God revealed in Oord’s work sounds very much like the image we are given in the Christian scriptures.

The second building block of volume one is Creation. Oord’s discussions center upon God as always creating which I find compelling. But Oord also shows the flaws with ideas like creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). Scripture does not support the idea of creatio ex nihilo if wee read closely. Oord points out that creatio ex nihilo was originally a gnostic creation. God could not start with a corrupted thing like matter after all. Oord’s direction also embraces recent advances in science and our understanding of the universe. While I am partial to the idea of multiverse, Oord describes what I term a sequential-verse. God is always creating and that even means creating out of the death of universe upon universe.

Additionally, Oord explains that God invites us to participate in creation. This is where an Open and Relational theology truly comes into its own. We are invited to participate and work in creation. I see this as the ultimate and over arching tending of the garden. The very thing humans are first invited to do with God was tend a garden in the Genesis accounts of creation. Oord sums up concerns with creation in this way:

Science can’t, on its own, answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing. But theology also can’t answer this question alone.105 The most plausible doctrines of creation, therefore, integrate insights from science, theology, and metaphysics. Or as Alfred North Whitehead put it, “You can’t shelter theology from science, or science from theology; nor can you shelter either of them from metaphysics, or metaphysics from either of them. There is no short cut to truth.” (Oord)

Rather than try and create conflict with science, or worse twist science to prove a theological assumption, Oord embraces science while understanding its limits. He also understands the limits of theology within his humble take on possibly being wrong. For me, any time a theologian writes or says out loud the truth that we could be getting this wrong, I tend to listen more carefully. Those theologians who know they could be wrong are ones worth listening to because they approach theology with that truth.

Oord’s A Systematic Theology of Love belongs in any serious theologian’s library. Especially if you disagree with the conclusions. Because what if you are wrong?

Disclosure

I am a supporter of Tom’s work on his systematic theology and have been able to read early work and give feedback as he wrote. While I received a complementary copy of teh book, I also purchased a copy.

After each trope, there is a wondering. After seduction we get a wondering of how the other half die:

Words are weapons
Sharper than knives
Makes you wonder
How the other half die
Other half die

After pride we have the wonder of living:

Look at them go
Look at them kick
Makes you wonder
How the other half live

Do you see the two sides of the same thing present in the lyrics? We are seeing each from the other view. How does the other half live through the evil without consequence? How do the others die? Words are weapons. A friend with an M.D. and I have a chat one time in which I was asking if words actually caused pain to younger generations. I was trying to understand the reaction to words that seemed much more visceral than my Gen-X context. He mentioned that yes, he believed that words could cause actual physical pain. He went on to say that our generation was desensitized to the pain and that was sad. In other words, the capacity to cause pain with words was lost on us unless we paid attention. That hit hard as someone who loves a good snarky comment or biting satire. Those are valid, but I began to unsderstand that they are only good when used to punch up so to speak.

The chorus is catchy as it just repeats the theme of the song. But the sexy dance rock drives the lyrics so well.

Devil inside
The devil inside
Every single one of us
The devil inside
Devil inside
Devil inside

I believe it is vitally important for us to remember that we all have the capacity to do evil - even the entirely sanctified. Our free agency of choice is still present. But I believe we must also believe that those we look up to or follow are capable of evil. I wish more white American Christians could believe themselves, their leaders, and their political heroes capable of evil. The world might be in a better spot if we could see past the logs in our eyes. This brings me to the systemic lyrics.

Here come the world
With the look in its eye
Future uncertain
But certainly slight

Look at the faces
Listen to the bells
It’s hard to believe
We need a place called hell
A place called hell

That last line has stuck with me since I first heard it. “It’s hard to believe we need a place called hell.” That was in the late eighties when we still had the looming threat of nuclear war. What a quaint time. Now we face existential threats on an ongoing and ridiculously absurd rate just from our own governments making stupid choices. Of course, the systems are only as good as the people we choose to lead them. I think white evangelical Christians have been horrendous at choosing because we allowed politicians to tell us what we believe. Just look at how many Roman Catholics don’t understand that the Popes are always speaking from straight up doctrinal and theological clarity within their tradition. If only we had as much courage. Instead we keep bringing hell on earth for people.

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It is not just in grand existential terms. But also in small and seemingly insignificant choices that we bring hell. In my own denomination, the fundamentalists have lost patience with hounding fellow clergy who reject fundamentalism and embrace our actual doctrines that they have chosen a new method of attack. When those you oppose refuse to cooperate and teach contradictory doctrine, attack the places they teach sound doctrine. Guilt by association may be a logical fallacy, but who doesn’t love a good logical fallacy. Of course the irony is that often the fundamentalists are literally teaching against our essential doctrines as they claim the venues of teaching somehow rub off on the teachers.

In other words, they think it is that which comes from the outside which defiles. Dr. Richard Beck refers to this as the disgust response in his book Unclean. But is also a response we see in scripture. In the Gospel of Mark chapter seven Jesus is asked by the Pharisees and teachers of the law why his disciples don’t perform a ceremonial washing of hands before meals. This was scandalous to the religious leaders. Jesus replies in his usual way, but says something incredibly important. He explains to the crowds that it is not what comes from outside that defiles because it is taken in through the mouth rather than the heart. He also says those things that come from the outside end up in the sewer - you probably get the point. Jesus then says it is that which comes from inside that can defile. INXS hits that point with Devil Inside.

I’m gonna get in some theological weeds for a moment. Whatever you may think of the idea of evil, it is problematic to try and personify evil. Scripture uses the terminology of The Accuser (The Satan) and other phrases, but never personifies that the same way that Trinitarian personhood is used. Brian Zahnd likes to say The Satan in a sub person as a theological understanding. I agree because when we setup a dualistic understanding of God versus evil, we place too much power in the idea of evil. That’s how we get to ideas like “the Devil made me do it.” Our own guilt is shifted in the blame of evil on outside forces. What’s always funny to me is how selective that concern can be. When we choose evil, we are responsible. Yes, there are places we find ourselves in that we sometimes feel compelled to make certain decisions, but they are still our decisions. Trauma response may also push us toward unhealthy choices, but their is no Devil pushing us independent of our own minds and hearts.

A takeaway here is that if we are teaching “sound doctrine” in an open venue that may not stand for that doctrine, the unsoundness is not going to rub off on the speaker. That is an external concern. It is also a silly concern. The principle of “the appearance of things” rules too many accusations and fallacies. Here’s how Jesus describes it:

He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7: 18-23 NRSVue)

I always find it interesting that deceit, slander, pride, and folly get listed with sins like murder. I mean technically using certain logical fallacies can slander and deceive. Here’s a subtextual comment. It is much easier to slander with fallacious claims than to do the hard work of understanding. It is also sin to use deceit to cause people to believe falsehoods. IYKYK

We all may have a devil inside, but the implication is that we also have goodness in us. Genesis is pretty clear on that count and New Creation is a fulfillment of the promises of relational holiness. The fact that we Wesleyan-Holiness folk keep reaching for the lies rather than shouting about our hope of prevenient grace is sad. We can sing INXS’ Shine Like it Does rather than Devil Inside.

This is the story
Since time began
There will come a day
When we will know

Shine like it does
Into every heart
Shine like it does
And if you’re looking
You will find it

Sounds a bit like prevenient grace and that is Good News.

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(In the spirit of different points of view, here is one from my friend Bob)

Forget what you’ve heard. Set your biases aside and just listen. I recently tuned into a podcast featuring Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. He reaches millions online and leads one of the largest churches in the country. The podcast is found here:

There’s no denying that Joel draws plenty of criticism—most of it aimed at his theology, which, to be fair, I also find somewhat shallow. But that’s not the angle I want to take here. It’s an easy critique, and frankly, not the most interesting one.

Instead, I want to approach this from a different perspective. Maybe it’s time we cut Joel a little slack, and here’s why.

Whether you admire Joel Osteen or question his theology, one fact stands on its own — the man chose to stop collecting a salary and fund his life through the marketplace instead. According to the interview, he’s a best-selling author, and his books regularly appear on the New York Times best-seller list. He doesn’t need a church salary. Joel has been very open about his income. In a world where trust in religious leaders continues to decline, a pastor who doesn’t need the church’s resources is refreshing. Whatever you think about Joel, at least know that he’s not taking money from the offering plate; he’s working to create content that millions of people pay a fair amount to access. I have no problem with that, only respect.

Does Joel Osteen live a lavish lifestyle? You be the judge. By many accounts, he keeps things relatively modest in the day-to-day. He drives himself to Lakewood Church in a twelve-year-old Audi sedan—hardly the image of excess. There are no yachts, sprawling car collections, or private jets attached to his name, and the Osteens have been known to fly commercial. And flying commercial has not been without its challenges!

His wife, Victoria Osteen, did have a widely publicized dispute with a flight attendant years ago that led to a lawsuit. The claim was that she became verbally aggressive, but the jury ultimately ruled in Victoria’s favor. Situations like that can arise in the close quarters of commercial travel.

Joel and Victoria do live in a large Houston home on a couple of acres within a private, gated community. Given their income from book sales and investments, that level of living isn’t especially surprising. In fact, many people in a similar position would likely make the same choice—for privacy, security, and the well-being of their family. I get it, this comes with the territory. There are a lot of crazy people who would be knocking on your door at 2 AM. So, no judgment there.

Joel’s temperament is another reason we should give him a break. Joel is as cool as a cucumber, both in and out of the pulpit. How do I know? Secondhand, but credible knowledge. A former boss of mine met Joel Osteen in 2014 when I was working for a black car service in Phoenix. Joel and his family were in town for Super Bowl XLIX, and while I was hoping to get the assignment, my boss took that one.

He ended up spending a couple of hours with the Osteens, navigating the chaos of Super Bowl traffic while shuttling them around the city. Despite the delays and congestion, there were no outbursts, no frustration, not even a stray complaint. They were calm, composed, and genuinely pleasant—model passengers. Cooperative, respectful, and generous tippers. What more could you ask for?

Joel has a reputation for maintaining that kind of composure. He doesn’t crack under pressure—no meltdowns, no tantrums, and no drama. Some might say he’s too laid back, though it’s hard to see that as a flaw. Better yet, it is a fruit of the spirit (Gal. 5: 22-23).

Joel Osteen is deeply committed to fidelity in marriage. He and Victoria Osteen have been married for nearly four decades, which places them in rare company. Many of Joel’s peers in the mega-church leadership community have been remarried or have withstood affair accusations. Over the years, there hasn’t been any credible evidence of infidelity or scandal attached to their relationship.

Joel has also consistently empowered his wife, elevating her as co-pastor of Lakewood Church and frequently ministering alongside her. The enduring visibility of their public ministry together speaks volumes. Sometimes the most compelling theology is lived rather than argued. In that sense, Joel’s long-standing marriage to Victoria bears witness to the God they love and serve.

Speaking of Joel’s theology, let’s take a closer look. While many people evaluate him as if he were a pastor or trained theologian, I do not. He has no formal theological education or pastoral training, nor does he present himself as a serious voice in doctrinal matters. There’s little evidence of careful exegesis, sacramental depth, or engagement with historic Christian tradition. For those reasons, I don’t place him in the category of a pastoral leader. He often gets tagged with other prosperity preachers, but he’s nothing like a Kenneth Copeland or Benny Hinn when it comes to the theological fallacies they spew.

So what is he? More accurately, he functions as a motivational speaker, life coach, and Christian counselor. I’ve often described him as the best big brother I never had. He’s consistently encouraging, positive, and non-judgmental. Qualities I’d love to have in a big brother. Suffice it to say, these qualities resonate with millions, and understandably so; the world could use more people like Joel, not less.

Expecting him to meet the standards of a pastor feels misplaced. While he prays and delivers sermons, he does so without the grounding typically associated with pastoral ministry. Are his sermons really sermons in the traditional sense? I don’t think so. That said, his influence doesn’t strike me as particularly harmful. His theological positions are relatively easy to challenge, and he doesn’t seem interested in defending them. In fact, he has no history of being defensive of his content. He delivers it and lets people digest it for themselves. If he represents a theological concern, it’s not a major one.

Several years ago, I reached out to a pastor who was battling deep discouragement and depression. Call it heresy if you want, but I prescribed a steady diet of Joel Osteen—not to refine his theology, but to restore his hope in ministry. Sometimes what we need most isn’t a sharper doctrine, but someone who believes in us and, with a genuine smile, reminds us that things are going to be okay. That’s where Joel excels. He’s the smiley face preacher for a reason.

If I’m worn down and struggling, I’d rather hear from someone who can lift my spirits than from an ivory tower theologian. The most effective encouragers are often those with a simple, grounded faith, and Joel embodies that. He doesn’t complicate things or demand intellectual heavy lifting. He’s straightforward and approachable, and he’s built an audience around lifting people up rather than weighing them down. Many of our churches could benefit from this approach. People need to feel it is possible to have the weight lifted. Does your ministry give people a lift or a letdown?

One more thing—I genuinely admire Joel Osteen’s commitment to a healthy lifestyle. He’s known for eating well and staying consistent with his workouts, and it shows. For a man in his 60s, his physique and appearance are impressive. Some people claim he’s been treated with Botox, but I’m not sure about that. Joel has never admitted it. Not a big deal anyway. I’m more curious how he maintains that perfect helmet of hair. One heck of a hair spray brand that’s for sure.

Let’s be honest, religious people don’t always model great habits when it comes to physical health. The track record among many ministers is, frankly, pretty poor, and the example can be discouraging. But Joel breaks that mold. He’s built a home gym, stays active, and plays tennis regularly with his son. A few years back, a photojournalist captured a shirtless beach photo of Joel on vacation in Hawaii, and the dude was ripped!

That kind of discipline is rare, especially in ministry contexts. At 56, I know how much work it takes to stay healthy, and in that regard, Joel is genuinely motivating. I work out, eat healthy, and it takes a lot of effort!

You can criticize Joel Osteen for his theology, his lifestyle, or his role at a megachurch—and some of those critiques may be fair. Joel himself likely wouldn’t push back; he’d probably just shrug it off with a smile and keep moving forward. But before going too far down that road, it’s worth pausing for a moment of self-reflection. Are you doing even a fraction of what he does to encourage, uplift, and help others? And when you think about it, is theological perfection a prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of Heaven? If it is, we might all be in trouble!

I recently read the new book Apple: The First 50 Years by David Pogue. Stick with me if you are here for faith or theology. The book is a fascinating and glorious trip through the history of one of the most influential and profitable companies in the wold. Pogue got access to history. people, and artifacts encompassing the entirety of Apple’s history to the present. I remember the wonder of seeing and using an Apple II and of the moment when computers became more than a curiosity when I sat down in front of a Macintosh for the first time. Our first family computer was a Commodore SX64 (an ostensibly portable C64), but my first personally purchased computer was a Macintosh and I have owned Macs since 1990. I even had Macs during the dark days of head scratching models and the constant obituaries of the company.

Apple has always been a company that focused upon making technology usable for everyone. Their innovation was not always in being first to do something, but in making that something “insanely great.” Many times Apple leapfrogged competitors by choosing to remove features that relied on old technology to introduce a better way of using that technology. One of the very first instances of this was the original iMac that excluded a floppy drive. Apple was right, floppies had their day and by the late 1990’s it was time to move on. I wonder what the critics from them would think of modern MacBooks that rely solely on solid state memory.

While the quantum leaps of the first decade of the twenty first century are no longer the norm, Apple still finds ways to innovate and do things differently. And that brings me to a personal story involving Apple, vision casting, and the frustration of thinking in the past. I will use a personal story to explain this and show how easily we can get trapped into thinking that strategies and behavior will not change. Apple has also done things that people claimed would fail. The Apple Store idea was panned by most, but it is incredibly successful to this day.

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In 2010 when the iPad was first announced, I was I.T. Director for a regional non-profit. One of my responsibilities was peering into the unknown and seeing where we might be in the future. What tools, applications, and technologies would support and enhance our mission was something always on my mind. I spent time with the various departments and types of work in our organization so I would understand pain points, how systems worked, and how people used the tools we had. That was also a way to understand what tools we may need in the near and even distant future.

One innovation was standardizing on the iPhone for employees because we could take advantage of the breadth of applications and communication tools present in iOS. We also had PDAs and rugged devices for specialized work, but the promise of the iPhone was less friction and more connectivity. That could be a good and bad thing of course, but communication was enhanced with that decision. The early data plans Apple convinced AT&T to go with also saved us money by allowing for unlimited access to the network at a mice price.

Back to the iPad. When I watched the unveiling, I immediately saw the potential of the iPad for business and creation. My technology committee was made up of volunteers who led technology and consulting in many areas. The chair of the committee brought a new iPad to a meeting and I began talking about the potential. But like a wet smelly blanket over my enthusiasm, they said that the iPad was only a consumption device. They went on the say that the iPad was basically a toy and reading and web browsing were neat, but it would not be a tool. I was discouraged, but I did get some encouragement from others on the committee who could see the potential rather than assumed limitations. In fact, I work for a company owned by one who encouraged me back then.

I did not let that interaction stop me from thinking. It drove me instead. I was certain the iPad could improve on the current laptops used by our teammates who visited other agencies for inspections and presentations. So I bought an iPad with a cellular plan and put it in the hands of one of the team. I asked him to use it as much as possible and make notes about his experience. It was my small little “skunkworks” and it immediately showed promise. I won’t bore you with all the details, but all day battery life, the ability to get to information quickly, and even using the screen as a flashlight in a pinch were instant hits. Now I had to tell my boss that we had done this. He did not believe it was a great idea before I showed the experience data.

I then started work on a system to enable the iPad to capture the data we needed and get that data into our system. At the time, we had to collect the data and then re-key it into our system. My solution wasn’t perfect but we managed to find a tool that would allow us to create forms that would dump data into an ingestible format for our main operations system. Now I just needed to get funding. I worked with our grants team and sent a proposal for a technology grant to purchase several iPads and pay for the first year of data service and the third party form tool. The minute we deployed the iPads, the team reported higher satisfaction with their work and mentioned how it freed them up to do the relational part of their jobs. The iPad became a tool that improved work and the impression of how the work supported the mission of the organization.

I had taken a position at another non-profit when the annual technology meeting for my then former non-profit’s national organization happened. But the manager of the team used my presentation plan to show others like our organization what we were doing and it was one of the most popular sessions. Several others adopted a similar set of tools. All centered on a product I was told was simply a toy.

Sometimes, I feel like churches fall into the same mindset as that technology committee chair. We get so blinded by the way things have been done or successful strategies from the past that we keep trying to use them and we don’t see the potential for different ways of doing things. I’m not arguing for doctrinal innovation, but I am saying that the ways we present and engage our faith can be innovative and creative. What worked in the past may no longer be relevant. When we keep looking back we risk becoming frozen in time. When we reject actions because “we’ve never done it that way” we may just miss seeing the way others are drawn to faith. True, faith is not like technology, but the principles of vision and creativity work regardless. These are the things I think on when reading books like Andrew Root’s Evangelism in an Age of Despair or Ryan Burge’s The Vanishing Church. We are doomed to repeat failure if we keep going back to what may have worked ten or twenty years ago.

Maybe we need more dreamers. Or maybe we just need people o do as Apple dared us in the late 1990’s to “Think Different.”

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I’ve figured out the prosperity gospel. I recently suffered through a nearly 3-hour podcast featuring famed prosperity preacher Kenneth Copeland. The podcast is available here:

Copeland repeatedly called the Bible a book of covenants. Certainly, there are two major divisions in scripture, the Old Covenant and the New. There are other covenants, such as the Noachian, the Abrahamic, and the Davidic. Blessings and curses bind these covenants; the terms are outlined and recorded in scripture, especially in books like Genesis and Deuteronomy. In the Old Testament manner of thinking, God always keeps God’s part of the covenant, and if the faithful hold up their end of the bargain, they can expect God to deliver prescribed blessings.

Copeland’s idea of covenant follows strict Old Testament guidelines. He fails to account for developments in the New Testament. He doesn’t have a concept of progressive revelation. And yet his approach also resembles modern-day legal understandings of bilateral contracts. He reads Old Testament accounts through the lens of a legal transaction. In other words, if the faithful do their part, God is obligated by agreement to do God’s, which of course leads to a transactional relationship. A transactional view of God is essentially a “What’s in it for me” approach, where individuals view their relationship with God as a legal or economic exchange—good actions or faith are rewarded with blessings, while disobedience leads to punishment. Bing! The light went on. I get it now.

Copeland elevates the Bible to a troubling degree (see the video), speaking of it almost as if it were a fourth member of the Trinity—placed alongside Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In this framework, Scripture is treated as possessing a kind of creative power, where its promises obligate God to act on covenant terms. The dynamic resembles a courtroom exchange: presenting Scripture verses as legal evidence, building a case, and pressing for a favorable ruling. By quoting Scripture and fulfilling the outlined covenant responsibilities—tithing, sowing, faithfulness—believers are led into prosperity. In essence, this is the core logic of the prosperity gospel.

I’m very glad to be a part of a tradition that is discovering the story of scripture. The Bible is a book of transformation, not a ledger of transactions aimed at delivering material blessings. The “What ’s-in-it-for-me” approach of transactional faith is antithetical to the way of life displayed by Christ in the Bible, where obedience and self-denial may lead to the abandonment and divestment of earthly attachments. Scripture is meant to form us, drawing us into a living relationship that results in an unbreakable union with God. The idea of a covenant is better understood as a sacred partnership with God and not a contract. The “blood oath” is bound by love, loyalty, and shared destiny. Jesus fulfills the idea of “blood oath” in rescuing and redeeming humanity, thus forming the pillars of the new covenant, a new relational reality.

Copeland’s impoverished view of God and misguided understanding of Scripture leave much to be desired. Millions have been led astray by these teachings. If you have pastored for very long, you have no doubt run into some version of the prosperity gospel. Copeland continues the tradition of those who have gone before him. His mentor, Evangelist Oral Roberts (now deceased), became famous for his “die-or-donate” claim in 1987. Roberts claimed the Lord was going to call him home to heaven if he did not raise 8 million dollars. In this covenant God made with Roberts, he either raised the money or the Lord would call him home. The widely publicized episode revealed a view of God who makes covenants that must be kept, or dire consequences will prevail, even death.

Once again, we learn that one’s view of God shapes how one lives and operates in the realm of faith. If ever there was a time to deliver the “good news” of the gospel, it is now. Holiness is good news. The dark psychology of the prosperity gospel is not good news. In the New Covenant of grace, we embrace a God of love who renews the mind and transforms the heart. Thanks be to God, we have something much deeper than a legal transaction strictly enforced by a covenant agreement. We serve a God who embraces us and enters our lives.

If you would like to explore how one’s view of God determines the nature of their relationships, check out my book, Putting a New Face on God: How you see God shapes your life, available on Amazon.

There’s been a lot of metaphorical ink spilled within Western Christian circles over our decline. I truly believe most of those concerns miss the point. This is mostly due to the fact that we cannot seem to understand the world has changed. But, we are also our own worst roadblocks to the wonders of God. The constant differences between our claims about who we worship and what the Christian life entails versus how we conduct ourselves in public, speak about those we are trying to reach, and whine about a culture that never really existed is striking. We may as well be running around trying to convince people about the existence of Bigfoot or The Loch Ness Monster than a God who loves.

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The gulf between what we claim and what we actually do is often so large that I wonder if we even believe the former. What is it about hate, anger, and fear that seduce us into embracing them rather than love, peace, and kindness? Newsflash, whatever it is we are afraid of, it isn’t contagious. I keep thinking about the Gospel of Mark when I hear Christians worry about imagined fears. Twice in that Gospel Jesus mentions that only things from within can defile us. That things on the outside cannot defile us. Even if we are influenced, it is because we are already open to the outside influence. Maybe we are not as attuned to Jesus as we claim.

I recently attended an event in which myself and several other pastors heard from and engaged with Dr. Richard Beck. In his discussions of joy and hospitality I felt something tickling the back of my mind. In his book The Shape of Joy, Dr. Beck argues that joy cannot come from within us; it is only something that comes from without. In the context of Jesus’ claims, that means that the joy of others cannot cause us harm. Dr. Beck also talked about the difference between the way we think of things making us unclean and the way Jesus made things clean as a “holy contagion.” Christians say that true joy is found in Jesus. For us Wesleyan-Holiness folk prevenient grace allows for the joy we encounter in the world when others might reject that joy. All joy comes from God, but it is not exclusive to Christians in other words.

Yet, we act like we are arbiters of joy. We even police the ways that people experience joy. Too many times we appear to be a people of holy sourness rather than holy joy. Beyond that simple attitude, I continue to wonder at our language and behavior because it often has no likeness to the way Jesus spoke or acted. In fact, we too often act like pharisees demanding purity of thought and deed beyond that which is illuminated in scripture. How in the world do we expect people to be drawn to our message when so much of that message is about how horrible they are for existing? I’m not even talking about the grand Calvinism/Arminianism divide, but simply calling those who disagree with us evil. demonic, satanic, and using the language of dismissal.

Is it any wonder Christians are thought of as hateful? We literally use the language of hate and we very vocally support others who speak this way. In our drive to be not like the world, we have instead wrapped the ways of the world within Christian imagery. Ironically, we end up defiling the things of God by embedding the things of Old Creation within supposed Christian thought. We are walking and talking contradictions. We are incarnate credibility gaps. All the talk of multiplication and growth doesn’t matter if lives are not being changed.

Even though decline is slowing it is leveling out at about one convert to six people leaving the faith. (Pew) There was much rejoicing in my own denomination when the numbers showed a slight uptick in attendance last year. But, the underlying numbers still show a steady decline in members. That points to more spectators than participants. But I also wonder about attendance. We try to create algorithms to measure online attendance, but those numbers may be inflated. So maybe we did not really see an increase in attendance.

Are we making disciples? Attendance doesn’t tell us that. Discipleship is transformed lives living like Jesus. That’s hard to measure. So many of the people within churches are discipled more by influencers and politicians than pastors and teachers and it shows. Add to that is our own penchant for throwing up roadblocks. We spend so much energy trying to prove God exists that we have failed to show who the God we believe exists truly is. We demand sacrifice not mercy while God is continuing to demand mercy not sacrifice. Like I said, we may as well be trying to convince people that cryptids like Bigfoot or Nessie exist.

American white evangelicals have an unwritten list of things you must add on to Christianity to be a TrueChristian™. These include embracing Republican politics without question, supporting violence when it is being perpetrated by those they support, and believing some fairy tales. This may be controversial, but ideas like the Rapture and pseudo science are not a part of scripture. Rapture is a fairy tale told by those for whom power is ascendant rather than love. It is a grand conspiracy of epic proportions and completely misses the true meaning of Revelation in scripture. But is really makes for good drama and captures the imagination. Rapture theology is the theology of violence writ large. Violence that misses the point of the cross.

The Gospel is not about God’s violence, but humanity’s violence. The cross is the fire God promises to use after the Flood. In light of the fact that the Flood does not accomplish the removal of humanity’s love of violence, God shows us the end result of our violence in the death of the incarnate logos. We make Jesus bleed, that act is not God’s act. That’s the real scandal here. But wow do we keep missing the point of fire and of the cross.

We harm our own claims when we insist upon a literal reading of obviously poetic liturgy in passages like Genesis chapter one. And we harm our faith when we insist that God brings violence. We continue to layer roadblock upon roadblock. Is it any wonder we are not people who attract those who could be transformed by an encounter with New Creation? We keep trying to sell Old Creation.

Come to think of it, I understand this better. Many Christians are taught a conspiratorial and cryptid like version of faith. No wonder our claims ring as hollow as the fiction of cryptids. Bigfoot and other stories are fun and interesting, but they are only stories. If we want to show who God is, maybe we need to start living like people who believe in God rather than being a people of cryptids.

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https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/decline-of-christianity-in-the-us-has-slowed-may-have-leveled-off/

I’ve been thinking about Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings this weekend. He is the true “hero” of the story of course, but there’s something else I believe about Sam. Aside from Tom Bombadil, the wizards, and a few elves such as Galadriel, Sam is one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth. But Sam is a hobbit. True, but I think that is part of Tolkien’s genius and the point. The louder and more visible beings are not typically the most powerful in Tolkien’s world. If we pay close attention, it is the singers, storytellers, and the gardeners who have real power.

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This is a concept that works in the “real world” as well. I remember being in a room many years ago in which the company I worked for was discussing an agreement with a startup. The two primary partners of the other company were presenting their business plan as well as the outline of their tech. One partner spoke more than the other. He also mentioned their capital raised. After the presentation was over and the partners left the room for our team to discuss, our president/owner asked the team who we believed to be the money and idea guy of the two partners we had just heard from. Most of our team mentioned the louder partner. But I mentioned that the other partner appeared to be more calm and silent throughout. I assumed he was observing our team like we were them. The president revealed that I had guessed correctly. The quieter partner was both the money guy and the one most responsible for the tech.

It is often in the silence that we see true strength. The same idea exists in C.S. Lewis’ deep magic in Narnia. True power does not need to announce itself. True power exists in moments of silent pondering, friendship, and love. Sam embodies all of these. He ponders even though he doubts his own wisdom. Sam is a true friend who is willing to sacrifice his own desires to help his friend. Sam loves deeply. He loves the Shire, his garden, his people the Hobbits, and his friend Frodo Baggins. In that love we find the source of Sam’s tremendous power. There is nothing that can penetrate and destroy Sam’s love. Not even his own doubts about himself can hold back his love.

Even in what Sam believed to be the darkest hour he steps into his power by bearing the weight of the One Ring. Sam believes his friend to have been killed by the Shelob so he is determined to continue Frodo’s quest.

And then he bent his own neck and put the chain upon it, and at once his head was bowed to the ground with the weight of the Ring, as if a great stone had been strung on him. But slowly, as if the weight became less, or new strength grew in him, he raised his head, and then with a great effort got to his feet and found that he could walk and bear his burden. (LOTR)

Sam’s strength grew in him. Or we might say, Sam recognized his strength. Even Sam’s temptation from the ring is to become the best gardener of all. There is a foreshadow here in that Sam is the one who is able to remake the Shire into a place of goodness. A nod to new creation possibly? But Sam learns that Frodo is alive and he risks himself to save his friend so they can continue the quest together. It is Sam’s love for Frodo that holds his anger toward Gollum/Smeagol and ultimately allows Sam to treat Smeagol with mercy. That strength of being able to hold mercy is the only thing that saves Middle Earth in the end. Without mercy, the entire quest would have failed, because Frodo failed in the last moment. But mercy, which is only possible in great strength, saves the day.

Sam’s quiet power is deceptive. This is Sauron’s greatest weakness because he cannot fathom power held in mercy. The great battles in The Lord of the Rings are only distractions that allow the merciful to carry the One Ring to its destruction. Tolkien knew the horror and evil of war. So his own mythology creates a solution in which violence is ineffective. Tolkien sees mercy and love as antidotes to violence. Only the great power of mercy is able to save the world. That should be a familiar strain to Christians, but I feel we too often trust in the powers of this world to take care of evil. The problem with that is we introduce additional evil in that act.

I was reminded of this idea when teaching a Sunday School class based upon Tim Gaines’ book Walking the Theological Life. We were looking at the story of Mary the mother of Jesus and her revolutionary pondering. We too often listen to the noise. This line from Tim’s book struck me: “This, I suspect, carries a common temptation for theologians. In a world where the loudest voices seem to set the categories and the agendas, there will likely be a stirring among those who care about the world to use our voices, as we rightly should. It is at this point that theologians need to remember to use their voices as theologians.” (Gaines) Theologians should use our voices as theologians, not influencers or powers. Our talk should be about new creation and how we come to understand who God is rather than constantly trying to be louder than the other voices. Yes, that is hard.

This is where the idea of quiet strength. Of strength through the quiet and the pondering comes into play. It is the way of Samwise Gamgee. It is the way of Mary, theotokos (mother of God), it is the way of discipleship.

Pondering in silence will allow us to center God’s activity rather than our own. It opens the space for us to be theologians, precisely because the thing we will say flows from what we are seeing in the activity of God. This is what distinguishes theologians from other activists and social workers; our work is the overflow from the arena where we have seen God’s distinctive work intersect the world’s deepest needs. Being able to see that and then to sing will often require silence. (Gaines)

God’s presence working in the world is our invitation to join in that work. We do this because of our experience with the one whose power and holiness are only present in love. We cannot engage in creation if we are shouting. No, quiet strength requires mercy to hear. It is really hard to hear if we are shouting. Quiet power recognizes the possibility of mercy rather than the folly of violence. God wants us to join in the work of quiet mercy. But do we wish to join?

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GAINES, TIMOTHY. WALKING THE THEOLOGICAL LIFE Discovering Method for Theology in the Lives of Biblical Characters. INTERVARSITY PRESS, 2024.

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of the Rings. Illustrated edition. Houghton Mifflin, 2021.

There’s a fascinating phenomenon ongoing in white evangelical influencer culture. They appear to be getting talking points from a common source that is politically connected. It is hard to miss if you pay attention to several of the influencers. There are exact soundbites, edited clips. and arguments they are making within their very narrow and fundamentalist understanding of Christianity. It is infuriating more than sad, because those voices are discipling so many people who do not have the knowledge to understand how bad the disinformation being spread is. But this is really a tale as old as time. The people of God are often led around by the ignorant, the attention seeking, the influence seeking, and the wolves. Ironically, many who accuse others of being wolves sure look a lot like wolves when you look closely. Wolves are a metaphor for those who sneak and deceive to gain trust and then destroy just to be clear.

Here’s what the wolves have been up to:

First there were claims that Democrats are satanic, demonic, and evil. But that’s been going a round for a while. Of course, their reasons are usually a mishmash of contradictions. But, they usually involve positions in opposition to current Republican and administration policies. Opposing wanton violence overreach, and overly violent tactics is somehow demonic. That’s a bit of a head scratcher. I do understand the inclination to assume that Democratic abortion policy is demonic, but it may help to understand that abortion rates typically go down during Democratic administrations. In fact abortion rates were plummeting overall until 2016.

But now, they have turned their sites on James Telarico, a senatorial candidate from Texas. Once again, there are soundbites, edited clips, and wild claims. I would accuse the influencers of lying, but I suspect they are being given these materials since they are exactly the same across all influencers. One claim is about Telarico’s position on immigration. The video they share and comment upon is highly misleading. If they took the time to see the whole comment, they would not be able to make their claims. The video they all share has Telarico saying that he believes immigration policy “should be like a front porch with a welcome mat...” The clip stops and the influencers go on and on about how evil this thinking is. Let that sit for a moment. But it gets worse. If you are at all familiar with southern religious rhetorical cadence you notice the pitch in Telarico’s voice and expect a second comment to come after “mat.” There is more to that comment. It is spoken in a homiletic cadence expecting an “and.” That’s what happens. The actual quote is “like a front porch with a welcome mat, and a lock on the door.” That really changes the idea behind the quote and exposes the disinformation spread by Christian influencers. Why? James Telarico scares the Republicans who attempt to claim that Christians must be Republican.

Now that last part is obviously false. No human political party or system is “Christian” in reality. Christians can vote and participate within all sort of systems, but none of them are explicitly Christian or have a monopoly on Christian thought. I have seen the influencers claim Telarico is a heretic, not a real Christian, using Jesus as a mascot, and demonic. I see irony, because the influencers are acting like wolves, using Jesus as a mascot, and sometimes promote ancient heresy like Gnosticism. Honestly, James Telarico is just a candidate we don’t see very often - the white mainline Protestant Christian Democratic candidate. Christians are not rare in the Democratic party, but there are fewer white mainline Christians than in the past. Mainline Protestant Christians are not heretics. They are not evangelicals, but evangelical does not define orthodoxy. Telarico is a seminary student and current Texas State Representative. He’s a Presbyterian and currently pursuing a Masters in Divinity at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian (USA) affiliated school. Not heretics, not demons, but the are Presbyterians.

Telarico sounds like a Christian in the mainline tradition. But he also is within the stream of prophetic voices like Isaiah and Jeremiah who continually call the people of God back to their calling. The idea that God desires mercy, not sacrifice. The tradition that calls upon us to let go of the idols of self and empire and have hearts broken open for holiness. What Tim Gaines calls becoming undone in like Isaiah.

I am ruined!” is not something we expect someone to say when something good is taking place. It is, however, the only thing Isaiah can seem to say when he is encountered by God. “Being undone” is how some translations put this destabilizing exclamation. It is a phrase that can be read in different ways with a different tone each time our eyes fall on it. On one pass, it may be Isaiah lamenting. On another it may be a breakthrough of discovery. Often, in the theological life, both are happening at the same time. There is virtue to be found here, because the undoneness of a person is a signpost of theological virtue. (Walking)

The attacks against Telarico are similar to the attacks that come when Christians who desire power encounter Christians who desire mercy. Those who want power tend to act with disdain toward those who desire mercy. People have completely gone overboard because James Telarico said that God is non-binary. But that is correct. You may not liek the terms he uses, but God is neither male nor female. God is spirit, not flesh. Yes, Jesus was distinctly male, but the First Person of the Trinity is neither. If we go back to Genesis, we can see that male and female both reflect the image of God. Therefore God is non-binary. I guess if you are a dualist, God could be a binary with Satan as the opposite, but that’s heresy.

There is a fair bit of irony in the way the influencers are going after James Telarico considering their unfettered support of the current U.S. administration. So much so that they are contradicting their own statements day to day based upon administration messaging. Who is the wolf now? That is the danger of placing trust in empire or human beings - those tend to not be Christian at the core.

Of course the main point here is that Christians can be involved in politics in all sort of systems and parties. When we start claiming Christians cannot be or vote certain ways, we put ourselves in a place that is not for us. The Church catholic (universal) prays, fasts, and seeks guidance from God when determining orthodoxy and heresy. The great ecumenical creeds are outgrowths of this careful and measured response. Modern evangelicals are just a small piece of the grand story of God and so they do not speak for Christianity in general, nor do they define historic Christianity. Another great irony is that fundamentalist evangelicals share more in common with liberal theology than they want to believe. They do reject some historic credal ideas. They also tend to create a dualistic Gnosticism which labels the physical world as evil and the spiritual world as good.

A little acceptance that we might be wrong and a tremendous dose of humility would really help us avoid the current crisis. But those are hard and require work. They also don’t play well in this current marketplace of outrage. It is is far easier to demonize those with whom you disagree. Calling human beings who are simply expressing a difference in political opinion and middle of the road Christian thought exposes the lack of any real thinking or argument. It is schoolyard bully tactics and it is wearing incredibly thin.

This also exposes how incredibly ignorant of historic and orthodox Christianity most influencers are. You can disagree with interpretations, but unless they are actual heresy, you cannot label disagreement as heresy, demonic, or satanic. The latest rumblings place liberation theology and the traditional American Black Church outside orthodoxy. This has led to truly racist language and proposed policies from pastors and politicians. Clergy in my denomination have freely used the language of religious bigotry even though that is forbidden in our now essential doctrines of our covenants.

The bigotry is not a fringe thing either. It is weaving its way into mainstream evangelical speech and thought. But when you see God as an angry dude (usually white) you tend to see the actions of angry dudes as godly rather than ungodly. The Church is more of a mycelial* network of love and mercy spreading throughout the world in constant connection and relationship. But too many see the Church as a martial organization moving in conquering action throughout the world. The former leads to life in peaceful and connected love, the latter to hatred and death.

We Christians claim that human beings are made in the image of God, maybe we should start acting like we actually believe that.

• fungal networks like mushrooms, etc.

Gaines Timothy. Walking The Theological Life: Discovering Method for Theology in the Lives of Biblical Characters. IVP, 2024.

A major issue with religious fundamentalism is that it reduces faith and the experience of faith. This reduction creates propositional ideology that is often at odds with the very religion that fundamentalism claims to be protecting. Sure, it usually sounds like a good idea. “If we can just make sure that everyone believes these things then we’ll keep the faith.” Or even a listicle style thought. “10 Tricks to Stay Faithful, Number 7 Will Blow Your Mind.” It’s absurd to reduce religion to propositions. But it is oh so popular. There has been a streak of fundamentalist thought within the Church of the Nazarene (COTN) for a very long time. The majority tend to keep it at bay, but we are in the midst of a resurgence of fundamentalism driven by fear and a misunderstanding of what is happening to Christianity in the United States. There are sectarian groups and clergy within the COTN, but they have been mainly on the fringe. They form partnerships, bring resolutions, and tut tut at the “progressives.” Back in 2012, the COTN published an excellent book to explain who were are historically as Wesleyans and how that is counter to fundamentalism. That book is entitled Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Are Not Fundamentalists. It’s an excellent book that walks through our traditional understanding of scripture and how our understanding of it and God are counter to fundamentalism’s reductions.

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Which is why it is strange to see our flagship denominational magazine, Holiness Today feature a board member of a sectarian group and his fundamentalist vision of scripture. From the two clips of a video they have shown, I can get a pretty good idea of where we are going. It sounds very much like the book The ARTwork of God: Accurate, Reliable, and True: Embracing the Bible Through the Eyes of Jesus which sounds good, but the authors are actually making an argument for complete textual inerrancy and a certain literal reading of the Hebrew scriptures. I heartily agree that we should not go walking around in the Old Testament without Jesus (as Brian Zahnd says). But that doesn’t mean we can see Jesus in all things or that Jesus’ words make scripture something it is not. I reviewed ARTWork and I will link that below, but I find a grand irony in the fact that an ordained Elder in the COTN wrote a book that argues against our Article of Faith of scripture. Yes, he tries to get around that with a word game of making all of scripture relevant for salvation.

The first video shared has a member of clergy make the suggestion that we not use “stories” to describe the early books of the Bible, but instead use accounts. (He puts air quotes around stories). His argument is that the word story makes people think of fairy tales, myths, or made up things. That’s true and it is also true that story and account are two very different things. But story is so much more than an account. Story does carry myth, meaning, invitation, and truth. An account has to stick to the facts and squeezes truth into a fact box. Truth doesn’t fit in those. The funny thing is that in the second video teaser shared, we get a theological turn known as Christophany in which we look at pre-incarnation manifestations of God in the Hebrew scriptures as prefigures, or literal appearances of Jesus. These usually stick to physical manifestations and traditionally Christophanies are not recognized in Genesis 1-3. I don’t know for sure as the whole video is not out until March 1st, but the second teaser implies that this idea is carried throughout the Hebrew scriptures.

Christophanies, when extended beyond the traditional assumption of physical manifestation, are easily turned into eisegesis. It is easy to place Jesus where he does not appear when you start playing loose with the interpretive idea of Christophany. A key to understanding the idea of Jesus in the creations stories specifically is to understand that when the Gospel of John opens with “In the beginning was the Word (Logos)” it is a new interpretation of the cosmology of creation. Like much of the New Testament use of Hebrew scripture, the Gospels reinterpret scriptures in light of Jesus. Hebrews 1 is a good way to see why.

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Hebrews 1:1-4 NRSVue)

There is a bit of irony in saying we should use the word account and then start sticking Jesus in everywhere. You see story is the idea when we expand the words of scripture and see a theological truth not present explicitly. This is a form of progressive revelation. We look back to earlier texts with the eyes of knowing Jesus. The deep truth is that God has never not been like Jesus. Therefore, we need to read texts before Jesus in light of the life of Jesus.

The Problem with reduction

But the larger problem is the reasoning behind the premise of using the term account. I believe it assumes that people are too stupid to understand what we mean when we say story in light of scripture. Reducing scripture to accounts, reduces the truth and the grandness of God’s relationship with creation. If we are going to use account, then how do we deal with the two different accounts of creation in Genesis. If they are only accounts, then we need to deal with the different accounts of order and method. But of we see them as origination stories we can see the truths without bogging ourselves down in the weeds of factual arguments. What of we see the stories as part of the larger ongoing story of God. What if we look back at the story of the man and the woman and see ourselves as part of the story of God working in creation. This is an invitation to see that we are in the story and become willing participants when we trust God.

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Thinking we need to use words like account comes from the fear that people won’t understand the depth and weight of the word story. The people in the pews, in Sunday School classrooms, and in small groups are not dumb. They can grasp the idea of story and what it means to tell the story of God and God’s people. One of our failures of discipleship is not challenging people with the harder ideas of scripture and faith. Because story is powerful - way more powerful than account. Stories take us beyond the facts of something into the who and the why. Those are much better things to learn. An illustration from the Lord of the Rings might be helpful here. Sam Gamgee is realizing that he and Frodo are part of a larger story that has been ongoing for millennia.

‘Yes, that’s so,’ said Sam. ‘And we shouldn’t be here at all, if we’d known more about it before we started. But I suppose it’s often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that’s not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn’t. And if they had, we shouldn’t know, because they’d have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren’t always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?’ ‘I wonder,’ said Frodo. ‘But I don’t know. And that’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to.’ (LOTR)

We are part of a larger story. We look back to Genesis for the who and the why knowing that the how is not important. When we challenge ourselves and those we pastor to enter into this story, we experience a flourishing in grace. That doesn’t mean that we are always OK. But it does mean that we see purpose in our lives as part of the grand story of God. We are invited again and again to see the move of God among us. The God who draws and woos us into relational holiness also invites us to tell our own stories. Communities, nations, churches are defined by the stories they tell. When we tell our stories, we live out the truth of those stories. I can tell you an account of my wife, but that doesn’t tell you who she is or what she means to me. Why would we limit God to accounts?

When we reduce the grand stories of God to accounts, we stick a rusty and dull knife through the heart of living scripture. We turn the purpose of scripture into a dusty old list of accounts rather than a living God-breathed invitation to join the story of God. I don’t get it. Our shared Wesleyan-Holiness tradition has so much to offer a broken and hurting world. When we lop off our historical understanding of scripture and try to jam it into a fundamentalist box, we become something we are not. The Southern Baptist Convention is a cautionary tale, not a blueprint for success. Accounts don’t transform, but stories transcend into invitation to transformation. Stories allow us to enter into them and experience their truth anew each time we hear or tell them.

Insisting on making the grand stories of scripture into accounts blinds us to the possibility of entering stories. It also excludes reason and history. If we are speaking of creation specifically, Eric Vail has an excellent comment on science and faith in the Wesleyan Theology Series Book Creation:

Whether the sciences are speaking about the unfolding of the universe over billions of years or the unfolding of life on Earth, the biblical imagination about creation’s unfolding is valid. God’s activity is necessary for any of it to be possible, God has purposes for creation’s function, and every component has an active role to play. Biblical theology can comfortably dialogue with theories of the big bang, quantum mechanics, and evolutionary biology.

The limitations put upon the imagination of scripture through the shackles of fundamentalism is both sad and not needed. Orthodoxy is not reduced to the absurdity of propositional facts. No, orthodoxy is the shared invitation to know God, to truly enter into the Story of God. When we reduce, we show a mistrust of the Holy Spirit and of God’s move in the world. We need to be telling more stories, not fewer. We need to engage the imagination of generations yearning for beauty and truth in a violent and demanding world. We need to set scripture free to transform our hearts.

To paraphrase Kendrick Lamar:

The audience not dumb
Shape the stories how you want, hey, Andy, they’re not slow

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* They typically label normal Wesleyan-Holiness folk as progressive because of the official understanding of scripture in the COTN and for believing in a concern for social justice codified in our Manual

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Lord Of The Rings (pp. 711-712)

Vail Eric. Creation. 1st ed. The Foundry Publishing

It is bad enough that the Christian influencers and Christians who seek power are calling empathy sin. But now, John Piper has decided that lament is bad. John Piper is a patriarchal, Reformed pastor whom you may have heard of. His Desiring God podcast and Ask Pastor John are very popular. His view of God is one that is skewed in my opinion. Of course, he believes the Wesleyan-Holiness view of God to be wrong. But Piper’s view of God is of an all-controlling, capricious, and thin-skinned god. Piper often takes positions which make God out to be a monster. He has told women that they should stay in abusive marriages because women must submit to men in all circumstances. Piper has even said that he believes women should not serve in any leadership position whether religious or societal. It is Piper’s view of God that leads him to question the very idea of lament.

Rick Pidcock writes about this in a Baptist News Global article by summarizing Piper’s comments in a February 12, 2026 episode of Ask Pastor John.

• It is never right, it is always sin, to feel or think or say critical things about God and God’s ways.

• It may be right to feel or think or express perplexity at God’s ways and to seek help from God to understand as much as possible -- to cry out for it.

• It may be right to feel or think or express how painful God’s ways are in your life and to seek God’s help to understand and endure.

• The sin of having critical feelings or critical thoughts of God is not made worse by the sin of expressing those words to God aloud.

• God disapproves of being criticized because it dishonors God, but God forgives those who repent and trust Christ.

You can probably see some problems with Piper’s claims here if you spend any time in The Psalms or Prophets of Hebrew scripture. Questioning God is a theme in those. Criticism of God is part of the human experience of God. But for Piper, God’s honor must be maintained at all cost. Piper’s god is a thin-skinned man who punishes based upon slights to his honor. That is not the God of the Bible, nor is it the God revealed in Jesus. But Piper’s view of God is popular. It is why so many believe that the relatively recent atonement theory of penal substitution is so popular. Piper’s thinking is embraced by many apologists and influencers. Many of whom have no theological training and don’t truly understand the concepts they argue about. Thus the idea that empathy is sin.

The path from empathy being sin to having an issue with lament is not a far trip. But empathy and lament are not only not sin, they are critical parts of the experience of God throughout time. The rejection of lament is a move by those who hold power, who have privilege, and who demand obedience above all else. This is a central thought in the excellent book The Back Side of the Cross by Diane Leclerc and Brent Peterson. They flip the ideas of Piper’s atonement on their head by asking us to consider the sinned against, not just the sinner. Contrary to the sadistic god Piper describes, God is able to absorb our criticism and outcries and reflect it back as love.

Leclerc and Peterson define lament for us. “A lament is a stirring cry, where God is asked to be a better God, indeed, where God is held accountable. Most laments have three groups present: the speaker, God, and the enemy.” (Back Side) I suspect you see Piper’s problem with lament. It is a concept where we might accuse God. Lament is an action we should be willing to enter into - especially with the abused and the forgotten. Piper believes God only desires praise and that anything less than total praise is rejected by God. I really don’t believe the God revealed in scripture is that narcissistic. That leads Piper to say that God’s honor demands our total submission to whatever comes our way. But this is not good news to the hurting. “If Christians fail to follow the model of the Psalter and only offer expressions of praise without any space for lament, such praise can become hollow and ring false in the ears of the abused.” (ibid)

Any rejection of lament should ring hollow in our own ears and lives. I am tempted to use the image of a dominatrix for Piper’s god, but that would be false because Piper believes God to be male through and through. How a holy other God can be either male or female is a mystery. Scripture says that both make up the image of God. But that idea leads to women having equality and Piper ain’t having that. One of the end results of Piper’s theology is harm. “Spiritual abuse can happen when spiritual truths or biblical texts are used to do harm or to manipulate people into dysfunctional thoughts or behaviors.” (ibid) Why are there so many scandals for prominent pastors? Because many hold to the idea that they speak for a God who demands obedience to the ministers of God (if they are male of course).

The logical conclusion of Piper’s view is that God forces harm upon people. Let me be clear, Piper is wrong and I believe his view of God leads to sinful behavior in leaders. But I also see the way that Piper’s view sounds to the abused, hurting, or vulnerable. Leclerc and Peterson help here. “A crucial, but often overlooked outcome of a Christian masochistic view is that a position of demanded submission and acquiescence of one’s suffering as God’s will make resistance to suffering inappropriate and thus impossible to express. The sexual connotation here stands as a vivid analogy, as God forces suffering upon us.” (ibid)

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Piper’s view creates a masochistic religion. The god in any masochistic religion is a sadist by nature. Apologies if you really like John Piper, but he is selling a sadistic god. The fact that so many come to believe in the God portrayed by Piper causes me to lament. The very season of Lent is one in which we make decisions that lead us into solidarity with the hurting, the outcast, and the powerless. Piper wants a God who strikes with anger and gives Piper the authority to wield power over others. Within Piper’s world, women and others who report abuse are sinners who are experiencing the discipline of God as evidenced by their circumstances. The person whose body is being attacked by cancer is under the rebuke of God. Why? Because that view of God means God just does such things for mysterious reasons or that God does such things because you are bad.

Paul the apostle used a slang word for such doctrine - σκύβαλον (skubalon). Most translations use words like dung or garbage. But many scholars believe the modern equivalent would be bullsh*t. Piper’s theology is not good news - it is skubula. It belongs on a dung heap, but his views are popular because they allow for human beings to act like that version of God. Demanding submission and total obedience to capricious ideology.

The truth is that God is a God of empathy. God not only can handle lament. God welcomes lament. We should be a people willing to lament the harm done in the name of God and the harm that happens to our fellow human beings just because. That harm is not brought by God. Here I come to a common theme in my writing. God is a God who is with us. Truly with us and wants relationship, not obedience. God wants our hearts full of love that pours out into the world on others. God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

That’s the good news. God wants us to know who God is. As Christians observe Lent, we think on Jesus’ time in the wilderness. A time when Jesus was offered the power of this world, the power to do as he wished, the power to control. But when offered the world, Jesus said that was not the desire of God.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. (Lk 4:16-20 NRSV)

God is not a sadist.

Leclerc, Diane, and Brent Peterson. Back Side of the Cross: An Atonement Theology for the Abused and Abandoned. Cascade Books, 2022.

https://baptistnews.com/article/forget-empathy-the-new-war-is-on-lament/

Ash Wednesday reminds us of our finitude. But it also reminds us of hope. This year I am reminded of a friend who is no longer among us because of cancer. Our friend’s last Ash Wednesday service was in 2023. As I write this, I’m remembering that Ash Wednesday service. We had learned that our friend’s treatment options had run out and that the journey to healing was changing. There are moments as a pastor which become anchors in your ministry. They shape you in ways you may not realize. I still remember the first wedding I officiated as a young man. I also remember my friend’s dad asking me if I gave honorarium refunds several years later when that marriage failed. (He was being funny). But that Ash Wednesday service still hits because it reminded me of how fragile human beings are. But it also reminds me of our tremendous capacity for living in spite of that fragility.

In the moment our friend came forward for the imposition of ashes, my heart caught a bit. As I spoke the phrase “from dust you came, to dust you shall return” and imposed ashes upon her forehead, the weight of those words weighed upon my heart. For in that moment those words were all too real. They were not a theoretical or far off idea. Those words were present in that moment and the weight of them hung in the air over the next several months as cancer’s destruction became inevitable. But that weight is not the totality of the story.

Cancer and other illnesses are a reality. They are often inexplicable in arbitrary ways. My father’s own death from cancer felt fresh when we first heard the diagnoses of our friend. The staff and spouses of staff who were able converged on our church building to pray. My wife and I are the only staff left from that moment, but it reminds me of the ways in which we are there in one another’s pain. When we are in those moments we are reflecting the image of God. None of us had any idea what the next five years would reveal, but we had optimism and sadness.

Over those years, our friend was an incredible encourager for my ministry. She had a knack for recognizing the things we all did well and highlighting those. She also managed to sing, play piano, and participate in the things she loved so well that she feared people would think she was faking being sick. But people knew. We had several close calls where health would fail, but rebound over the last few years. But in every moment our friend carried the beauty of God’s grace and love. She never wavered in her faithfulness.

From dust you came and to dust you shall return. God scoops up that dust. God gets down in the dust, the mud, the very muck of life. God is in the ashes left by pain, disease, and violence. God does not bring those by any means. But God is there with us in every moment. God is a God of empathy and the way God shows God’s empathy is through the person we emulate during Lent.

If, then, there is any comfort in Christ, any consolation from love, any partnership in the Spirit, any tender affection and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross.
Therefore God exalted him even more highly
and gave him the name that is above every other name,
so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:1-11 NRSVue)

God is in the ashes, because God knows what it means to be human. That’s empathy. The kenotic picture in the Philippians passage is a picture of empathy. Of walking in our “sandals.” When I imposed ashes upon our friend’s forehead her last Ash Wednesday, I could do that without irony because I understood God was present in the ashes. God was present in her pain and God was sitting with her in that pain. God empathized in that pain and God empathizes with us in our pain, joy, fear, and simply being human.

Being present in suffering. Being present in pain. These are acts of empathy and of grace. God’s being of love may not be able to single handedly solve our pain in this world. But I know that God knows our pain deeply. A God who knows our pain would never inflict that pain. The God revealed in Jesus is not a pain bringer, but a pain bearer. God understands our finitude.

Trigger warning: abuse, self-harm, and pain

There is a lot of darkness in our world. But that is not the default even though many believe that to be the case. To claim that darkness is the default, the way things are, or the way things must be is to accept fate as a reality. Existentially, fate is anti-human. Why? Because human beings have true agency - darkness is not our base setting. If we were to reboot humanity, we would not all wake up wishing to do evil. Yes, many Christians believe in total depravity. But Christians can mean different things by the word depravity. For Wesleyans, we believe that prevenient grace allows human beings to respond to God, but also allows us to do good even apart from knowing God. It is how we can see truth in places that truth may not have been meant originally. But prevenient grace is also that which prevents the chaos of darkness from taking root.

Dr. Diane Leclerc explains another way tot look at what we call depravity as deprivity.

Through the Fall, we are deprived of our primary relationship with God, and our other relationships are consequently distorted; but the capacity for love, and the hope of renewal remains. Prevenient grace enables this capacity to be actualized, and opens our senses to God. Since prevenient grace is given to all, humanity “without God” is a “logical abstraction.”

We are deprived, but prevenient grace enables us to love and opens our senses to God. This is a picture of beauty shining a light into dark places. Human beings can love even when they do not know God. If we can love, then we can see and make beauty as well. When I was thinking of ways to show beauty that reaches into darkness, I remembered a viral video of an America’s Got Talent (AGT) audition from 2021. In the video a young woman who used the name Nightbirde, told her story of cancer and sang an original song titled “It’s OK.” Here’s that audition for you to watch. The song is simply beautiful. But the story and the hope in spite of illness is breathtaking.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay
If you’re lost
We’re all a little lost and it’s alright

Boom. The sheer optimism of being able to say two percent is not zero percent. Just wow. When that audition went viral, a blog post by Nightbirde also went viral. In that blog post, Nightbirde spoke of her feelings of being sick. How she related to God - including anger. It was a psalm of hurt and hope.

“Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there--even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true.

If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.” Jane Marczewski (Nightbirde)

You see, Nightbirde understood that God is there on the bathroom floor; in our pain, and in the midst of darkness. One mistake I believe the white evangelical church makes is to look for God in places of power and influence. To look for God in politicians, the wealthy, and the popular. Maybe we need to look a little lower. But lower doesn’t make us look respectable or pay the bills. But it is definitely where the prophets told Israel to look for God. For then God was among the poor, the outcast, the powerless. Jesus cane into the world as a baby in a place and to a people with no power. His ministry was centered in the poor, the widows, the powerless, and the outcasts. Jesus brought hope to people for whom hope was a distant promise.

Sadly Nightbirde had to drop out of AGT and the cancer finally overcame her optimism in 2022. But the beauty Nightbirde sang and spoke about goes on. I will return to her story in a moment, but I wanted to talk about the ways that darkness can become too much.

Light Shines in the Darkness

Even great beauty can succumb to darkness if we let it. One of greatest impressionist painters (one of my favorite painters) is Vincent Van Gogh. He used color, and beauty to tell a story of inner pain. Van Gogh painted beauty in the midst of his own darkness. That darkness eventually won and he took his own life. The BBC science fiction show Doctor Who has an excellent episode entitled “Vincent and the Doctor.” The Doctor and his companion Amy meet Van Gogh and the Doctor decides to take Vincent into the future to see what he came to mean to many. Here is the clip of that scene in which Vincent sees the way he is remembered.

The Doctor knows that this will not change the outcome of Van Gogh’s darkness, but he tries. He wanted to shine a light of hope in the darkness of a tortured mind. When we look for God on the bathroom floor we have the opportunity to shine light into dark places. The church would be much better off telling the stories of goodness rather than stories of power. Stories of a God who is present in every moment - even in the moments of deep and overwhelming darkness. We need to be a people proclaiming a God for whom there is no place God is not. But that takes courage and a hope of light. Sadly, we too often reach for the power rather than the light.

The Darkness is Real

There is real darkness and evil in the world. Human beings make the decision to do evil. Fear of that darkness can cause us to make bad decisions ourselves. Politicians and others promise peace and safety if only you will support them. There are those who promise the same for a price of only $XXX.XX. But their peace is fleeting and their safety is only present if you support them. The wealthy and the powerful do what they want, to whom they want, and typically do not face consequences.

One darkness is sexual assault and trafficking. The Epstein files are only the latest evidence of the way that the powerful engage in harm to the powerless. The victims of the Epstein class were ignored and vilified. They continue that from the powerful. Recently the Attorney General of the United States refused to look at the victims during a congressional hearing. The AG chose to talk about the Dow Jones Average and defend the decision to not prosecute. Just one reminder that money trumps people for the powerful. Survivors of sexual violence and abuse can be triggered by the repeated justification for supporting those refusing to release or prosecute.

Hope in the Darkness

But there is hope. If we look in the right places. God is there on the metaphorical bathroom floor. God is there with the improperly detained immigrant. God is there with the human beings whose humanity is diminished by the words of the powerful. God is present in the moments of beauty that inspire. Back to Nightbirde, whose performance on AGT inspired others. Like the Doctor attempting to show Van Gogh hope, Nightbirde shone light into a youth choir in South Africa. The Mzansi Youth Choir heard Nightborde perform and it led to them recording the song “It’s OK.” They took this to AGT themselves shortly after Nightbirde passed away from her cancer. Their perfomance left Simon Cowell as speechless as Nightbirde did when she told Cowell that “you can’t wait until life isn’t hard anymore before you decide to be happy.”

We may never know the impact we can have on the world by simply sharing beauty in the darkness. The light shines into darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. Humanity needs beauty so badly. I hope the church can be a beacon of beauty rather than an apologist for darkness.

Leclerc, Diane. Discovering Christian Holiness: The Heart of Wesleyan-Holiness Theology (p. 217).

With artificial intelligence everywhere, pastoral leaders have instant access to vast amounts of knowledge that previously required hours, even days, to uncover. You can have AI research a sermon topic, draft a lesson plan, diagnose a problem, and perform many other tasks modern ministry requires. Information is no longer scarce and the way information is accessed by a pastoral leader is changing.

Consider books: an expansive library was once the prized possession of vocational pastors. Not any longer. Why labor through a book when that information can be at your fingertips in seconds? With over three decades in ministry, I have books stored in four different locations in my home. What do I do with them? Yet this is the moment we find ourselves in. Information comes to us differently. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my books!

This massive shift in how we receive information raises important questions: What kind of intelligence really matters? How is the role of pastoral leader significant in the age of AI?

While AI can quickly collect and share information, it cannot weigh it with wisdom. That’s where you come into the picture. The discerning heart of a pastor is irreplaceable. Reliable sources of information never go out of style and it is your spiritual insight that gives it meaning. A Pastoral leader must help people recognize what is true, what is harmful, and what brings life. Most importantly, a pastoral leader helps people connect their heads and hearts. We can deliver valuable knowledge and information, but if it isn’t internalized, we’ve failed in our role as pastors.

AI can help solve complex problems and even assist with strategy, but it can never replace a missional calling. Pastoral leadership is rooted in a call to service, and that calling is sacred and unique to who you are as a person. AI can only reproduce what already exists; it cannot blaze new trails, create a new wineskin, or pioneer new frontiers in ministry; that work belongs to you.

Ten years ago, I launched a ministry to reach a specific group of young men with no playbook, no borrowed wisdom, and no ready-made strategy. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I had many failures along the way. My soul was burdened for young men and I found myself working out a strategy in the midst of actually doing the ministry. In ministry, strategy and soul must move together. And that is something AI can never do.

AI can assist you in writing sermons, but it cannot breathe life into those sermons. I am not currently serving in a preaching role, so I listen to many sermons. I’m beginning to hear sermons that are written with AI assistance. I’m not entirely opposed to this idea, because it can help with precision, wording, and phrasing. But overuse of AI can push authenticity into the margins. When I listen to a sermon, I want to know I am hearing a prophetic voice, not a machine. The preaching moment is intended to bring dry bones to life. Transmitting information doesn’t change hearts; heartfelt messages, bathed in prayer and anointed by the Holy Spirit, do. When I listen to a sermon, I find myself refreshed by hearing words that flow from a perfect heart, not perfect prose produced by AI. I bet I’m not alone.

Many experts predict job losses will accompany the adoption of AI in the new economy. Don’t worry, pastor, your job will never be in jeopardy. Your role as a pastor, priest, and prophet is needed more than ever. People are still hungry for real wisdom, the kind that connects the head to the heart. There will always be a need for pastoral leaders who have gained real knowledge through their own successes and failures, ups and downs, through formal education and the school of hard knocks. And in a world increasingly saturated with artificial intelligence, it’s time we step up and deliver the kind of spiritual wisdom and intelligence that can only come from gutting it out in the trenches of ministry, loving those who are unlovable, and leading people out of darkness. That timeless spiritual wisdom is the real commodity in the age of AI.

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Where is God? That’s a question we often ask when things get dark or when we see horror, injustice, and evil. Some shy from this question, but it is an excellent one. The Hebrew scriptures are full of this question. Where is God? Will God save us? The prophets attempted to answer the question by saying that God was with the outcast, the oppressed, the poor, those crushed by the powers of the world.

The answer can seem complex or even end up being an appeal to mystery. But, what if the answer is simple? What if the answer is God is with the hurting and the marginalized? But what about making the world better? What about bringing about New Creation? Paul tells us the truth. The Church is the Body of Christ. That means that the Church is an incarnate body reflecting God in the world. The Church should be doing the work of New Creation. But we fail miserably because we so badly want power. We want to control culture, force people to live like us, or simply get rid of people not like us.

This reality is part of what Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was speaking about in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. He was writing to white clergy in churches that should be speaking out, but were afraid to rock the boat. They were afraid to be seen as allies with the out group of that time. The intended audience was not the racist clergy arguing that African-Americans were sub-human or had no souls. No, the audience was those who knew racism and unjust laws were wrong but stayed silent. This was a reminder that the Church was to be part of those bringing the solution and prophetically calling the government to live up to the promise of liberty and freedom.

I don’t think I’m special, but I do have lived experience that informs my thinking and my recognition of evil. The Church can hear and see if we wish to. If we dare to embrace empathy. After all, the one we claim to be disciples of is the ultimate example of empathy. The word we see use for this is kenosis self-emptying. My friend Dr. Tom Oord used the phrase essential kenosis many years ago to describe God’s nature. That phrase has been refined into the concept of God as Amipotent. A God of power in uncontrolling love. In God’s amipotence, we are invited to participate in creating. We are invited to participate in the act of New Creation. Making the world a better place.

I learned both empathy and that I had a vastly different experience than human beings of color when my family moved to a rural neighborhood which was then outside Clarksville, TN. (the neighborhood is in Clarksville now). The first I heard of something different was my parents talking about the realtor trying to steer them away from the old farmhouse and land they liked. He mentioned property values in hushed tones. The reason, you see, is that except for walking horse farms a couple miles down our gravel road, we would be the only white family in the neighborhood.

I received an education in dissonance. This was the late 1970s and southern schools taught a skewed history. The experiences I learned about in the neighborhood were very different. I learned of segregation. I learned of inequality in education and how the color of skin determined where you were and were not allowed to go. I heard stories of lynchings from elderly men. But I also heard stories of liberation and hope. Then there was the music. Gospel sung with a guitar on an old dusty porch. Jazz, early hip hop, and stories of struggle and hope. The schools finally caught up, but not with the gritty reality of the lived experiences of those who experienced hatred as government policy.

In that context, I was not surprised by the racist meme the president of the United States shared*. I was also not surprised by the defense given by Christian influencers like Allie Beth Stuckey, Alisa Childers, Frank Turek, and others. I am surprised by the continued silence from Christian leaders. Some are speaking, but even a clearly evil and racist things doesn’t qualm the fears of the loss of something - what that something is other than money and power I don’t know. We are so quick to name things as evil, but when faced with evil within, we shy away. There is an uncomfortable something swimming under the surface. Some large church pastors and leaders are beginning to tell us to speak of the positive and beautiful. Things they accused many of us of being “progressive” or “liberal” for desiring. They want us to just get along now that their world is being shaken by reality. But it’s hard to stomach that concern. They promoted those whose voices are divisive and even hateful.

The stories of others is more personal than mine. My experience is of the stories handed to me, but I know those who experienced this in that same time period. Felicia Murrel speaks of this reality in her book &: The Rstorative Power of Love in an Either/Or World. This is about the 1970s and early 80’s - the same time frame in which I was hearing stories of oppression, others were still living it.

In the small rural North Carolina town of my youth, Blacks lived on one side of the tracks and whites on the other. The grocery stores, diners, convenience store, post office, schools, and gas stations were across the tracks, on the white side of town. On our side of the tracks, only a small store my great-uncle owned, the candy lady’s home, and three predominantly Black churches were easily accessible to us. Even in the late seventies and on into the early eighties, we stepped off the sidewalk when white people walked past, turning our gaze downward or to the side, never making direct eye contact. We paused our movement to let them enter establishments first, and on the rare occasion that we got to eat at Jones’s (the local café), we called in our food order and then crossed the railroad tracks to the café’s back door, where we gave our money to the one Black worker and retrieved our greasy hamburgers and hot dogs in a small paper sack. Nothing about this life seemed abnormal. This was our story. (Murrel)

It is Black History Month in the United States. The ongoing reality of racism in personal and systemic forms is a reason why we need such a month. My own experience reminds me that history excludes the voices of many people. The reality of the harm done by the Church being explicit or implicit in racist attitudes still haunts us. The power of political figures to shape the language and attitudes of Christians is stunning. Especially when so many warned of such a thing happening. It was just supposed to be liberals who sent armed agents into the streets to enforce behavior and compliance.

We can learn from people who have had different experiences, especially when those experiences expose our own complicity in harmful systems. Dr. James Cone saw hope in the cross.

African Americans embraced the story of Jesus, the crucified Christ, whose death they claimed paradoxically gave them life, just as God resurrected him in the life of the earliest Christian community. While the lynching tree symbolized white power and “black death,” the cross symbolized divine power and “black life”—God overcoming the power of sin and death.

The power of sin and death is Old Creation power. God has overcome that through the kenotic act of self sacrifice on the cross of human violence. That’s New Creation power.

Where is God? God is there in every moment. But if we want to see our world transformed, we are part of God’s solution. Carrying hope, mercy, and love into a dark and violent world. Speaking prophetic truth into the harm done by the powerful - especially if we gave them that power. We can see God in the faces of the outcast, the immigrant, the person who does not look, worship, or vote like us. Light shines on the darkness and the darkness cannot hide. If we refuse to be the light, the darkness threatens to overcome. There will always be those who steadfastly refuse to give into the dark. Maybe that can be us in this moment.

*I know of the explanations, but which do we believe. The administration made so many claims yesterday, it could make your head spin. But the constant claim from the president is that only he and his top advisor hold the keys to his social media accounts.

Cone, James H.. The Cross and the Lynching Tree (p. 41). Kindle Edition.

Murrell, Felicia. And: The Restorative Power of Love in an Either/Or World (pp. 22-23). Kindle Edition.