Who did I think I was?

Okay, two rules:

1) This will be short,

B) this will be the beginning of more regular postage.

Promise.

Sitting at IHOP a couple of days ago and I found myself reading and meditating deeply upon Romans 8. I decided then and there, in true keeping with the ‘anything goes’ espirit de summer, to pay no attention to amount ingested, how “far I got” from my starting place at Romans 8:1, or to even be conscious of “how many verses I read this morning”.

That triggered the realization in me that there is a lot packed into our Scriptures.

Why rush?

When I taught at the School-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named, there was an, ahem, very ardent Republican lady with whom I occasionally crossed paths. We would always share good banter, never anything serious or heavy (at least to me; I’m sure I wasted valuable real estate on her “God Please Open These Sinners’ Eyes” list).

Well, all in good fun (I think…), this lady one time told me that she and I were one day soon going to sit down and talk politics, Bible-to-Bible, and hammer out which position, hers (ardent GOP) or mine (not-ardent-for-either), was “more Biblical”.

The reason this exchange stuck in my mind is that, almost immediately, I realized that I don’t know my Bible well enough to make that argument on one side or the other.

I didn’t then and I don’t now.

Nor do I think I ever shall.

I hope I’m never that convinced of my own grasp of God’s Word, as well, I really do hold that if we have even a moderately high view of Scripture, as we go through life we’ll invariably be confronted with our own shortsightedness with regard to it. We’ll grow, change, and even laugh at what we used to believe they said about God.

So back to the Maison des Pancackes.

I’m reading Romans 8 and all I can do as I go is ask the inspired writ as I go, “what does this mean?” and “why?” or even “why not?”.

Alongside. Every. Verse.

Just yesterday I returned to church after about a five-week uhhh, sabbatical from there.

The question I asked myself almost as soon as I got done talking to Ryan was, “what in the world was I doing, thinking I knew God, the Bible, and His world well enough to imagine I was getting the whole picture doing Christianity by myself?

Who did I think I was?

As most who know me well are aware, I’m sort of a student of church history and what those who’ve had the same Book and Savior as us have done with It. The more I study and think deeply upon just what we are to do with this “Jesus Thing,” I stand ever more convinced of the need for deep and profound humility before God, our tradition, and the Scriptures.

The Spirit of God, alongside the Scriptures, has been at work in God’s people for some two millennia now-and we haven’t exhausted the meaning or power of Holy Writ just yet.

I’m not sure I should alter Augustine this way, but he famously said that “When you’ve found yourself a god you understand, you have built yourself an idol.”

I wonder if it’s okay to say something similar about the Scriptures?

I know I err more often than not on the side of epistemic impotence, but I really did shudder at my friend’s presumption of knowing the whole of Scripture that well, and it made me wonder if she had not in fact erred on the side of building herself blueprints for an idol.

May the Scriptures never conform… to anything.

Not a song, political platform, doctrinal presupposition, or anything else.

May they define, not deviate.

May they always shape, mold and polish.

And may they always inspire thanks to our holy God.

Of monsoons, American idolatry and Interstate 70

Politics are a big interest of mine, yet I have been very deliberate to clutter this area with only things that are either of concern even for the Christian who isn’t into politics or those that would hold deeper intellectual cachet than the usual partisan tripe.

Well, take a look here.

It appears that Focus on the Family, aka the ministry political outreach group of Dr. James Dobson, have encouraged their supporters to “pray for torrential rainstorms” for the night of Obama’s speech tomorrow night (as it is to be held outdoors, at Denver’s Invesco Field at Mile High).

In their defense, Focus have come out and said that proclamation was intended to be “mildly amusing”.

The joke was lost on me.

Wanna know why?

Because vast swaths of Americans no doubt hold that God really does work that way with His creation, i.e., the only way poor old God would be able to get something done would be through the weather… as commanded by the fervent prayers from more of one group of people against another. (Think of it as a kid playing his aloof grandparents off one another to get around being grounded.)

In this sort of scheme, God becomes our Hit Man, Mob Guy, Messenger Boy, or Biggest Endorsement the Galaxy Has to Offer to Whomever Courts Him Best.

That also makes Him an idol.

Allow me to lay my cards on the table here openly and honestly.

Attempted humor or not, I find these guys’ sentiments vile, theologically bollicksed and despicable.

The God of whom they supposedly speak is a) not at our whims and b) smart enough to reveal Himself in ways that no phalanx of political hacks can pat themselves on the back for provoking.

Demographers and other people-qualified-to-speak-on-such-things say that the younger generation of thinking evangelicals (the age group of pretty much everyone that reads this blog, I’m pretty sure) are turning away from the GOP in droves and are growing to repudiate them entirely.

May I present to you Exhibit A.

Obama and the Black Hole Son

As sleep began to gain the upper hand last night, my mind was carried aloft by that classic party-stopper, “how can a Christian vote for someone who is pro-abortion?” As has more than once in my world proven the case, this is an issue with which we Christian folk think and communicate with an incredible amount of zeal. And not without reason!

If you made it past the word “abortion,” allow me to posit a wider, perhaps more refined way of thinking about not only politics, but our entire world.

I dredged up Col. 1:15-17 for you so you wouldn’t have to look it up:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together

We sell God’s creation short when we settle for simple explanations of God’s role in the issues of our day, ones that easily surrender to talk of where God isn’t or even can’t be.

As you think about that, let me toss this your way: what if one were to say, based on the famous passage in Leviticus 18, that the entire Bible is about human sexuality and right relations betwixt the genders? Or that the entire Bill of Rights was about the importance of the Third Amendment, which can be used as a check on the power of the federal government’s ability to interfere in citizens’ private affairs and property? Would not either of those perspectives do extraordinary violence to the content, the history, the origins, the authors, etc. associated with those works?

Both of those situations above (which, if you’ll allow your mind just the barest liberty, you’ll no doubt see scenarios in which people would argue those perspectives very well) are what I would call an “adventure in missing the point”.¹

As we discuss “the point” as Christians, we find ourselves in an interesting quandry. Revisit the wideness of the language used above in Colossians: phrases like “all things,” “all creation” and that list comprised of “heavenly things…” to “… earthly authorities.” Surely you won’t object to my saying that Paul meant this list to be exhaustive!

So then, what is “the point”?

Guess what: no answer here.

Here’s what I will tell you though. If in fact all of this high and exalted language of Christ is true, if indeed he is in, before, transcendent and in the midst of “all things,” then such a figure as our exalted Savior in all his transcendent glory should be as frequent an informer as possible to the world of the Christian. In the very midst of the realities of the dirty and the pure, the complex and the simple, the amenable and the lamentable alike, we should seek out and apply that depth, majesty and wisdom.

So then, when we presume to have the “Christian perspective” on something, or to speak “as a representative of Christianity,” let’s make sure we’re taking into account the majesty, the awesomeness, and “all-ness” of Christ. Let’s make sure we aren’t settling for something that isn’t real.

Let’s err on the side of humility.

I don’t know about you, but I’m just not smart enough, holy enough, wise enough, or familiar enough with the Scriptures to say with confidence which candidate, and for what reasons, God is “for” or “against”.

If what Colossians says of Him is true, then I’ll bet He’s got a way to make one vote count for both anyway.

1 I actually first heard this phrase as the title of a McLaren book; haven’t read it.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

So, it happened again. Just as I was starting to think that particular sport’s season had passed, I got ambushed by a parent today at work about… wait for it… my Obama sticker.

Now I’ve grown well accustomed to this by now, having been regularly fragged, accosted and prodded over it. I rehearse my arguments in my head during traffic jams and have talked through most of it with friends and roommates. I’m about halfway through his second book, and am as impressed as ever with him.

I heard something today though that I thought was worth your time, however.

SCENE: Dixon Mr. Parnell is running along, minding his own business (well, actually that of the 12 or so 7th grade boys under his care at the Lower School), when an older patron whom he’d never seen prior tosses out something to the effect of, ’so, you gonna tell me how you can support someone so liberal?’.

Pleasant enough of an introduction, right?

So we do our little dance, me quite obviously a bit more practiced when it came to talking with folks with whom I disagreed. I volleyed all her questions right back to her, respectfully, honestly, and with even a pinch or two of humility. But just like that nurse asking you those interminable questions when you give blood, I could tell that her ears and mind were programmed to only spin awake when she heard very specific answers to very specific questions.

Well, I wasn’t giving them, as I just don’t do simple answers anymore when it comes to talking politics.

I couldn’t give her a soundbite for the abortion question, besides to acknowledge how impressed I was with Obama as a political figure, yet that the abortion issue too haunted me.

I couldn’t give her a soundbite for the ”what about his pastor’s comments?” question, besides to acknowledge (just as Obama has) how reprehensible some of the things he said were.

I was able, however, to laugh as she and her fellow interlocutor asked me how I was okay with “his dealings with Muslims and his Islamic background”. I’ve done enough homework to where at least I don’t have to punt on that one. (She promised to get me The Email that would enlighten me.)  

The part I thought was worth sharing with you, though, came like this. The woman began assailing me over Obama’s so-called lack of governing experience. Now just last week I finished an excellent biography of John F. Kennedy. He dealt with those exact same charges with characteristic aplomb, saying that there was “no school for learning how to be President, either”. I related this to her, but she seemed unimpressed.

Our conversation continued for a bit longer, and after a while I made another Kennedy allusion of some sort.

Our dialogue finished there, with her saying, “Yeah, but Kennedy was as liberal as Osama!”

As a sometime student of Islamic extremism, I chortled aloud at that and felt entirely justified in doing so-there is a place for discussion, and there is a place for dialogue, especially during political season at a Christian school. When unbridled, proud ignorance creeps into one of these conversations, I’m cool with shooing it aside for what it is. (Remember, I spend my days with 7th and 8th graders.)

I tried to tell her that bin Laden was as far on her side of what she’d recognize as “conservative” as they came, and about the time my mind really geared up for that particular discussion, she ended things by saying, ”well, I’ve got to run, but we’ll talk about this again, and I’m praying for you!“.

I smiled, we parted ways, and the scene was done.

I’m sure you’ve noticed before how much simpler the world is when you’ve only got two colors: black and white. And I’m sure you can understand the comfort you find in there being only two labels within which you can organize that world: “liberal” or “conservative”. And I’m sure you can realize how much more faithful God is to follow the script you write if you protect it from all but two or three themes.

Stop me if you’ve heard any of this before.   

The things I carry

or, All that you can’t leave behind.

I used to know my Bible a lot better.

Probably a function of my obsessiveness, or legalism, or just general mental disturbedness, but I knew my Bible, chapter and verse, like a freak. (I still remember my college roommate joking early in our acquaintance that I knew the entire New Testament, cover to cover and verse to verse. That wasn’t as much a joke as I think he thought!)

I’ve noticed recently more of that inner voice saying, ‘that’s Biblical, but I just don’t know where…’.

That’s a little disturbing.

But maybe, to turn things around, it shouldn’t be.

Very early in my seminary career I started wrapping my mind around a shift, of sorts, in nomenclature as concerned Christians interacting with their world. Dear Dr. Krieder forever rocked my socks by describing certain musicians (knowing him, they were probably U2) not as “Christian musicians” but as “Christians who do music”.

That has proven no small distinction. Stick with me and I’ll show you why.

It seems that the final, highest goal in formal Christian education (it certainly is at the school where I teach) is that teachers teach from a fundamental Christian worldview. This is a pretty tough thing to think through, but it basically boils down to this: your Christian faith should so inform your perspective on the world and how you interact with it that it just sort of comes out, and lives in, the way you handle ideas. Think of your fundamental Christian perspectives (keep your finger right here; you’re gonna want to come back to this page) functioning sort of like glasses, or contacts, or even the very corneas of your eyes, so much that you can’t consciously separate it from how you process new information on your world. And then, because of that, distinctly Christian “fingerprints” are all over everything you do.

Put even simpler: your Christian faith isn’t something you have to just “turn on” or “turn off” or “revisit,” and how developed your faith is one way or the other shows up in everything about your life.

Hence my spin on forgetting Bible verses.

I think that perhaps some progress I’ve made in my maturity as a Christian could be found in that. Now of course, I’m not trying to say that there never is and never was any value in memorizing Scripture… But the whole point of our time together is to wonder this: which is of more value, learning more Scripture by rote and being able to adroitly unfurl it from the depths of your intellectual satchel, or being so changed by it that it lives inside you and nourishes you even unconsciously because you’ve already digested it so well?

So then, all that said, take a look at the things I carry:

Art and beauty: All things done well and excellently are things the Scriptures encourage us to harvest for clues about God that will encourage us further toward a life of grateful reflection upon Him. Because I am a Christian I understand this world as a place where God’s handiwork is on display anywhere I look and thus I appreciate beauty far more deeply. This is a scriptural idea, so attested that some list of Bible verses plucked from context defeats that very point.

Dignity of human life: I take great offense, because I am a Christian, at any devaluing of human lives or people made in the image of God due to their station in life. The poor, a janitor, a prostitute or a some greedy old tycoon are all of equal worth in the eyes of God to that of even His Son. This is a scriptural idea, so attested that some list of Bible verses plucked from context defeats that very point.

Lordship of Christ: Because I am a Christian, I believe that He is in control-regardless of human machinations otherwise, my own weak faith, or hostility toward my our values. This is a scriptural idea, so attested that some list of Bible verses plucked from context defeats that very point.

Truth: Since I am a Christian, I believe that all truth is God’s truth and that anything I can find that I know to be true should be a cherished nugget pointing me back toward Him. I am not quick to stamp things as “true,” but once I realize such a sighting, I rejoice. This is a scriptural idea, so attested that some list of Bible verses plucked from context defeats that very point.

I’m not really sure which Dixon I’d prefer to have in my crew, the one writing today or the one with the biggest, thickest Bible keychain.

Actually, I think I do know now.

If we can’t say that we’ve wisened as the calendar pages have ticked onward, I’m not sure we should want to be around ourselves. (I feel like that too is a scriptural idea, by the way.)

Yup, you got me there, I said it: sometimes forgetting Bible verses is a good thing.

Maybe that is because if they really are what we say of them, then in fact they truly are… all that we can’t leave behind.

Why I am not a Christian

I knew it was inevitable, but sure enough today it happened.

I was publicly accosted about my Barack Obama bumper sticker.

I handled myself well, didn’t say anything rude or trite. Don’t feel like I came off as smug, arrogant, or anything else the encyclopedias say about the species of people-who-don’t-vote-Republican.

As I walked in to the Pizza Inn where I did lunch I noticed that my eventual interlocutor had a Huckabee sticker on her car right next to a sticker promoting the very school where I teach.

The exchange went something like this, as I was getting in my car and she had just gotten in hers:

Mom: “Are you really an Obama person?”

Dixon: “Yes ma’am, I am.”

M: “Ohhh,” (worried tone in her voice, as if I’d just gotten a payday advance or taken up smoking) “have you really looked into his policies? I mean, he’s pro-abortion, he’s pro-gay marriage, his tax plan is really anti-family. Are you a Christian?”

D: “Yes ma’am, I am.”

M: (look on her face of bumfuzzlement not dissimilar to that of a newlywed confronted with a sleepwalking spouse) “Well, as a Christian person I don’t really see how you can be. Have you looked into what he’s proposing? I really think you should.”

D: “Yes ma’am, I have and I will.”

M: “Ooookaaaay” (with tone in her voice like that of a doctor who knows the clock’s tickin’ for you, and sympathizes, but can offer you only hope in God’s mercy).

Of course, there was more. As she was talking, my mind jumped straight to ‘wait till I tell my roommate about this!’, so I about all I remember are the highlights. I wasn’t shaken up by it at all, and in hindsight here are a few of the things I’ll say next time we meet:

“Yes ma’am, I am a Christian, and in fact, I teach at the very school you send your kids. Please don’t have me fired!”

“Yes ma’am, well Senator Obama is anti-Iraq War, and that’s pro-life enough for me.”

“Yes ma’am, I’m voting for Obama and yes ma’am, it’s just like you think: I hate babies, embrace terror and think ‘progress’ should be enshrined, deified and permanently capitalized.”

About halfway home it formulated in my mind that who’s gonna get your vote depends on who your pope is. It’s easy for me to vote for a politician who may not be my sort of Christian, or might not even be a Christian at all, because I’m not voting for pope; I’m voting for the head of my “this world” government.

I’m not voting for a pastor.

I’m not voting for any officer of the seminary I attend.

I’m not voting for the head of the elder board.

Jesus’ lordship over my life and our world is safe, regardless of who old Screwface may or may not slide in there on us.

I’m increasingly noticing in my life that all victories, or even tasks you want completed, are functions of your expectations going in. My president is someone whose character, job performance, and virtue I’ll judge not by a religious rubric (just like my mayor or the police chief) but on governmental, secular, corporate/political terms. Out-of-place religious baggage removed then, it is far easier to think clearheaded about who will do the best job legislating, avoiding wars, and smiling most broadly when the “Star Spangled Banner” is played.

Since I’m voting for Obama, and not a Republican, I’m guessing that’s why I am not a Christian to this lady.

All jokes aside-aren’t you glad God’s not really like that?