In other book news, my friend and colleague from Leadership Journal, Brandon O’Brien is close to releasing his first book The Strategically Small Church. I’ve already read an advanced copy and it’s really fantastic. Brandon does a great job of showing how intentionally small congregation may be the ideal instrument to impact our rapidly shifting culture. But he does this without discrediting the role of larger churches. What I especially love about the book is how much research he put into it. There are many, many stories of churches around the country who are leveraging the nimble size to bless the world. These are stories from churches we can relate to… not the celebrated megachurch stories few pastors can identify with. It’s a well written and immensely useful book. Pick it up.

Here’s the Zondervan video about The Divine Commodity:

Click here to watch the video.

Biden is a practicing Catholic, and the ash was part of the Ash Wednesday mass he had attended earlier in the day. While usually associated with Roman Catholic expressions of Christianity, the season of Lent and the symbolic display of ash on the forehead has been gaining acceptance among Protestant and Evangelical Christians as well. My own church has gathered for a “Solemn Assembly” on the Sunday evening before Lent (it wouldn’t seem right to call it Ash Sunday). The service includes reflective readings from Scripture, extensive periods of silence, confession of sins, and receiving ash on the forehead in the form of a cross.

There is often criticism that such symbolism is “too Catholic;” it violates our non-liturgical sensibilities as evangelicals. But what we often fail to see is that ash is a profoundly ancient and biblical symbol, and it predates any schism in the church between Catholics and Protestants.

In Genesis 2, when God created the man he formed him from the dust of the ground. In fact the name Adam comes from the Hebrew word meaning earth or ground. And after Adam’s sin, and the entrance of death into creation, God says to him, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). From this biblical root comes the well-worn funeral prayer, “ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.”

Ashes or dust came to be symbolic of mortality and death. It represents our human frailty and reminds us that no power we possess can help us escape the destiny that awaits us. In the Old Testament ashes were used as a symbol of mourning and repentance. It was a visual, physical acknowledgment of grief over death, sin, and evil. Job repents in dust and ashes (Job 42:6). The king of Nineveh wore sackcloth and sat in ashes when he heard the message of Jonah (Jonah 3:6). And the ashes from animal sacrifices were part of the ritual for the purification of sins (Numbers 19:9; 17).

The prophet Isaiah foresaw a day when the ashes of mourning would be replaced by “beautiful headdresses” and the “oil of gladness.” This passage, found in Isaiah 61, was quoted by Jesus at the very start of his public ministry. He entered a synagogue, opened the scroll, and read from this familiar text:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion-
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning…

After reading Jesus announced, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21).

The symbol of ashes on the forehead is a powerful reminder of our human weakness-both moral and physical. We are creatures of sin, prone to selfishness, greed, and all kinds of injustice. And the ash reminds us of our ultimate fate; we all live under the shadow of death and we cannot escape the grave.

But the ash, and the season of Lent in general, help us celebrate the glorious hope we have in Jesus Christ. The sins of the world have been atoned for though his death on the cross. And the grave has been overcome through his resurrection on the third day. Indeed the ashes of mourning have been replaced by the oil of gladness.

But until all is put to rights and all of creation is renewed by the Creator, it is still good to be reminded of our broken human condition. It is right for us to be reminded of our sin and be humbled by our dusty origins and certain destiny. And while some might misunderstand, mock, or malign Joe Biden for his public display of religion-I wonder how our politics and our world would be different if more in Washington were reminded of these things

In my reading and research of King’s spiritual life, I discovered a remarkable story about his early days leading the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. It recounts King’s late night encounter with God over a cup of coffee. The event changed King’s soul and the course of American history. I incorporated the story into a sermon I preached late last year about Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount to turn the other cheek and love our enemies. (The story about King begins 19:30 into the sermon and weaves through the remainder of the message.)

I hope this message contributes to your understanding of the spiritual foundations of King’s civil rights efforts, as well as your understanding of our calling in Christ.

Eye for an Eye message

What should worship look like? Hymns or choruses? High liturgy or free-flowing? Electric or acoustic? Contemporary or traditional? Energetic or reflective? These questions have caused the fracture of many churches, and the battles fought have left many wounded and disenchanted with ministry. They are also questions which I do not address in my recent book, The Divine Commodity.

Apparently there is an excerpt from the book floating around the web from which people have wrongly concluding that I favor a particular style of worship over another, or that I am somehow anti-contemporary worship and much prefer sedate forms of ecclesiastical gathering and would even go so far as to judge one style as “wrong.” (The very idea that a style can be wrong is funny to begin with. That’s like saying the Spanish language is better at communicating a mother’s love than Italian.)

For those who’ve not read The Divine Commodity, I’d like to clarify my views on worship in two ways. First, I am not anti-attractional church or a militant missional guy either. In fact the concept of “missional versus attractional” doesn’t even occur in my book. Like many in ministry, I recognize that we are both sent on mission and that God has made us to be a light that attracts the attention of a lost and broken world. Our gatherings should also embody both of these elements. After all, what could possibly be more attractive (or attractional) than the beauty of our God, the resurrection of his Son, and the Good News he has announced to the cosmos?

Secondly, I’d like to offer some context to the excerpt that’s already been posted elsewhere. The examples of contemporary “entertainment-driven” worship cited in chapter 4 of The Divine Commodity are followed immediately by this sentence: “To be fair, there is nothing new or innovative about entertainment-driven worship. American Christianity, going back to the 19^th Century revivals of Charles Finney, has employed staged experiences as a tool of spiritual transformation” (page 75).

This statement beings a 500 word segment about the use of music and performance in churches dating back to the 1830s to reach the lost. And I don’t know anyone who would call the worship styles employed by Dwight Moody, Billy Sunday, or Charles Finney “contemporary” as that word is currently understood. They were driven by hymns and other traditional forms. In other words, the chapter is not critiquing contemporary style worship, but rather the widely held assumption that external experiences (whether contemporary or traditional) result in lasting transformation. This belief is just as likely to be found in a Roman Catholic church with a high mass as a contemporary evangelical church with a worship band. Style has nothing to do with it.

Finally, again for the sake of context, here is a longer excerpt from chapter 4 that should explain more fully the issue at hand. Keep in mind, this is not the conclusion of the chapter. It does continue by proposing a means of communing with God in conjunction with corporate worship–namely prayer.

Coming down the mountain

In 1515, Michelangelo completed a sculpture of Moses. The marble figure depicts an old but very muscular Moses seated with the Ten Commandments under his arm and a billowing beard. But tourists are often shocked to see what appear to be horns protruding from Moses’ head. The figure looks more like the Devil than Israel’s deliverer.

The presence of horns on Michelangelo’s Moses can be traced to a mistranslation of the Bible in the 5^th Century. The story from Exodus 34 says that after meeting with the Lord on Mount Sinai, Moses came down the mountain with the Ten Commandments. When the people saw him they were afraid because, “the skin of his face shone.”[i] It seems standing in God’s glory somehow transfigured Moses’ appearance. His face was literally radiant. The Hebrew word refers to a beam or ray of light. But when St. Jerome converted the ancient Scriptures into Latin he mistranslated the word as “horns.” So, when Michelangelo read his Bible he believed the people were frightened by Moses’ appearance because he had grown horns while meeting with God on the mountain.

St. Jerome’s Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, had been used for nearly 1,000 years before Michelangelo’s sculpture was made. The erroneously-horned Moses reminds us that questioning popular assumptions is important. But unfortunately Moses’ experience with God on the mountain is still widely misunderstood, and largely unquestioned, today. We no longer foolishly depict Moses with horns, but our misunderstanding of his mountaintop experience is still embarrassingly displayed every Sunday.

In Exodus 34 we are told that Moses covered his face with a veil so that the people would not be frightened by his appearance. In truth, according to the Apostle Paul in the New Testament, Moses covered himself with a veil so the people couldn’t see that the glory was fading away. Whatever transformation Moses experienced in God’s presence on the mountain was temporary, and the veil hid the transient nature of this glory from the people. His mountaintop experience was genuine, glorious, and full of God’s presence-but it did not bring lasting transformation. This is the critical part of the story we seem to have forgotten.

Moses’ experience is all too common among Christians today. Through the influence of our consumer culture we’ve come to believe that transformation is attained through external experiences. And, as we’ve already seen, many churches have engineered their ministries to manufacture these experiences for crowds of religious consumers. We’ve come to regard our church buildings, with their multi-media theatrical equipment, as mountaintops where God’s glory may be encountered. One pastor, explaining why his church opened another location across town, said “We decided, if you can’t get the people to the mountain, bring the mountain to the people.”

Ascending the mountain every Sunday morning, millions of Christians want to have an experience with God and this is precisely what churches promise. And not disappointed, many leave these experiences with a sense of transformation or inspiration. They feel “pumped up,” “fed,” or “on fire for the Lord.” No doubt many people, like Moses, have authentic experiences of God through these events. Others may simply be carried along by the music, crowd, and energy of the room. Whether a result of God or group, what is beyond question is that many people depart feeling spiritually rejuvenated and capable of taking on life for another six days.

The problem with these external experiences, as Moses discovered, is that the transformation doesn’t last. In a few days time, or maybe as early as lunch on Sunday, the glory begins to fade. The mountaintop experience with God, the event you were certain would change your life forever, turns out to be another fleeting spiritual high. And to hide the lack of genuine transformation we mask the inglorious truth of our lives behind a veil, a façade of Christian piety, until we can ascend the mountain again and be recharged.

This philosophy of spiritual formation through the consumption of external experiences creates worship junkies-Christians who leap from one mountaintop to another, one spiritual high to another, in search of a glory that does not fade. In response, churches and Christian conferences are driven to create ever-grander experiences and more elaborate productions to satisfy expectations. Ironically, these worship spectacles, according to Sally Morgenthaler, are failing to produce real worshippers. She writes:

We are not producing worshippers in this country. Rather we are producing a generation of spectators, religious onlookers lacking, in many cases, any memory of a true encounter with God, deprived of both the tangible sense of God’s presence and the supernatural relationship their inmost spirits crave.

Ministries that focus on manufacturing spiritual experiences, despite their laudable intentions, may actually be retarding spiritual growth by making people experience-dependent. Like caged animals, consumer Christians lose the ability to do what they were designed by God to do-have a vibrant self-generating relationship with Christ. Instead, they become dependent upon their zookeepers for life and nourishment. This captive/captor relationship is unlikely to change as long as both the church member and leader are satisfied with the arrangement. But is this what the Christian life is supposed to be? What about the tangible sense of God’s presence we crave in our inmost spirits that Morgenthaler writes about?

In the New Testament, Jesus and his Apostles do not emphasize external experiences as the means of encountering God. Instead, the focus is upon a mysterious communion with God made possible through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Contrasting the fading glory that Moses experienced on Sinai, the Apostle Paul says that we are being transformed “from one degree of glory to another,” and that this comes from the Spirit. This transformation is not from the outside working in, but from the inside working out. What Jesus spoke of in John 4 has come to pass. We no longer worship the Father on a mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit and truth. To encounter the glory of God no longer require ascending a mountain, but learning to embrace a divine mystery-”Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

When we expect transformation to occur through external experiences we are opting for an inferior model of spiritual formation. As a result, many consumer churches have inadvertently dismissed the new covenant in Christ and returned to the shadows of the old covenant-building temples and climbing mountains to catch glimpses of a fading glory. The reason for this regression is simple-New Testament spirituality, properly understood, is immune to the forces of consumerism. An internal communion with God through the Spirit cannot be packaged, commoditized, and marketed to religious consumers. It cannot be bundled, branded, or put on display to draw a crowd.

We should be careful to not assume worship gatherings are the problem. The early Christians gathered regularly for worship, and the writer of Hebrews even commands his readers to not neglect meeting together as some were in the habit of doing. The problem is not our gatherings, but what we expect from them. If corporate worship is an external display of an internal reality, the glory of Christ that abides within, then these gatherings will not be full of passive spectators. These events will be where Christians gather to show a watching world the continual worship that marks their lives-whether it is celebratory, reflective, or even repentant.

However, if people have no sustainable communion with Christ through his indwelling Spirit, they will come to worship seeking a temporary filling; a transient dose of glory to carry them along. And rather than reflecting the full spectrum of the human-divine relationship as revealed in Scripture (particularly the Psalms), these gatherings will fixate on only one element-the celebratory. Over time as the familiar experience offers a diminishing return, religious consumers will either demand more energy through innovation, or they will shift to another church looking for a “new” experience. They will be drawn by promises of transformation and a genuine encounter with God, but we must ask whether people leave these experiences radiating the unfading glory of the Lord, or merely sprouting the horns of consumerism.

Excerpted from The Divine Commodity (Zondervan 2009)

© Skye Jethani

This comes on the heels of Fox News anchor Brit Hume complaining on Bill O’Reilly’s show that in our culture if “you speak the name Jesus Christ…all hell breaks loose.” (More on Brit Hume below.) But that raises a question: Are Christians in the US persecuted?

Many would like to think we are. Sure, some folks get uncomfortable when Jesus Christ is the subject of public prayers, and public schools have seen lawsuits arise when explicitly Christian content enters the classroom. And let’s not forget the efforts of groups like the ACLU to keep the “wall of separation” between church and state both strong and fortified.

But does all of that add up to persecution?

There is a rather odd desire to seek cultural-victim status within the church. We want to believe we’re persecuted. Maybe its rooted in the generally therapeutic approach to Christianity popular with evangelicals. In the last two generations we’ve seen sin move from being described as “rebellion” or “evil” to becoming “brokenness.” And much of the teaching and preaching popular in evangelical arenas carries the strong vibe of self-help and the implied victim-hood status that often accompanies it.

So it would make sense that we’d seek a cultural self-image for evangelicalism that is equally low. Never mind that evangelical political power was widely credited with determining two recent presidential elections (2000 and 2004). And that George W. Bush was an outspoken Christian. And let’s just ignore the $7 billion evangelical book and merchandise industry that is now so powerful its even swaying Hollywood to make more “family friendly” films with religious themes (Narnia, Passion of the Christ, etc.). And let’s just overlook the fact that the best selling non-fiction book this past decade was Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life.

How can evangelicals simultaneously be at the pinnacle of cultural, political, and economic power and claim victim status? I just don’t understand that. Sure, there are going to be isolated, and in some cases broad, examples of genuine persecution of Christians… most likely by a family or particularly hostile work environment. But the notion that our culture is widely unaccommodating to evangelicals is hard to believe, especially if you are not ignorant of history and the plight of believers in other parts of the world.

The Daily Show just did a bit on this subject. After Fox News’ Brit Hume suggested Tiger Woods abandon Buddhism to embrace Christianity he received a lot of criticism for inserting his personal religious views into an inappropriate forum. Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, and Aasiv Mondvi, who is Muslim, sympathize with the terrible plight of Christians in the US.

But since Barack Obama has taken office and everything is now green (”green economy,” “green jobs,” “green energy,” “green cars,” and “green business”) I’ve started to actually pay attention to the issue of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

I know what the “deniers” on the right think. Rush Limbaugh is fond of saying that humans didn’t create life on earth and therefore we cannot destroy it. He says global warming is a myth concocted by lefty scientists to scare citizens and big business into accepting more socialist governmental policies. That certainly fits his narrative of reality. But his belief that we didn’t create the earth and therefore cannot destroy it can be discredited in two words: nuclear weapons. It is true that we didn’t create life, but humanity has developed the capacity to destroy it.

While I disagree with Rush, I have to admit that I’m a bit suspicious of the Chicken Littles as well. I’m enough of a skeptic to pause when I see fear mongering used to get people to part with their cash or vote for a certain party. The Right successfully uses terrorism as their bogeyman, and it seems the Left uses global warming.

Within the church there is also a split. Some have argued that the green movement is a popularization of New Age philosophy and pantheism. This idea may border on paranoia, but there is some truth to it. As I’ve interacted with atheists / humanists in recent years it’s been amazing to see how much of their purpose and rhetoric is linked to environmental issues. Michael Crichton has employed his training as an anthropologist to show how environmentalism fits the definition of a religion in this insightful video. (More on Crichton in a minute.)

But there are many within the church, particularly among the young, who are eager to integrate environmentalism (aka, creation care) into the evangelical agenda. Part of this is to be celebrated–a new awareness of God’s concern for all of creation, a cosmic scope to the gospel, and humanity’s calling to be stewards of the earth. But one wonders if much of the energy around “creation care” within younger communities of believers is rooted in an insecure desire to be seen as relevant by the popular culture. Is it just another case of the church jumping onto the green bandwagon?

But apart from the cultural and political implications of global warming, there is still the science. Regardless of what Obama, Rush, or Bono thinks, there remains the basic and important question: is anthropogenic global warming real?

In my brief exploration of the evidence, and I am certainly no scientist, I’ve come to this conclusion: I don’t know.

I’m not going to waste my time or yours recapping all of the evidence for and against. You can read that stuff all over the web. But I do want to share one video I found particularly interesting. Best selling author Michael Crichton, who died in 2008, was lambasted when he came out as a skeptic of AGW. I was a bit surprised when I read Crichton’s opinion and watched his interview with Charlie Rose. Consider Crichton’s community… he’s a Hollywood writer and producer. He’s a self-identified Democrat and personal friend of Al Gore. He moves within circles that include the leading voices of environmentalism in the popular and political culture. In short, unlike Rush Limbaugh or other GOP/conservative leaders, Crichton had nothing to gain by questioning the science around AGW.

In this video, Crichton gives one of the most balanced perspectives I’ve yet heard about global warming. Essentially he says that global warming is real, it is likely man-made, and it should be addressed… but it’s not a crisis. In addition, there are far more devastating problems facing the world that we can solve. I encourage you to watch the video. The conversations about global warming begins at the 22 minute mark:

In conclusion, I’m still not sure what I think about global warming. I’m not willing to join the “deniers” who shout “Drill Now! Drill Here!” at rallies. But I’m not able to embrace the call for carbon caps and massive economic policies designed to protect the environment but which may also hurt the poor and underdeveloped in the world. I’m pleased to see the church broaden it’s understanding of creation and God’s work. But I’m also hesitant to encourage the cultural bandwagoning that chronically plagues evangelicals.  In short, I don’t find it easy to be green.

But what does this new record holder mean? What does it symbolize?

A brief history of the record holding structures reveals the economic, political, and cultural shifts of the last 200 years. Consider that for most of recorded history the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, was the tallest structure. It was not surpassed until the Lincoln Cathedral was built in the UK in 1311.  The record remained in Europe for the next 600 years. Then in 1930 the Chrysler Building in New York City took the title away from the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building (completed in 1931) held the record for the next 42 years.

The shift from Europe to the United States coincided with the rise of American power in the world–both economic and political–and the decline of the European empires. The Empire State Building was symbolic of this shift. America was now on top…literally. This also explains why the 9/11 terrorists targeted the World Trade Center (briefly the world’s tallest building from 1973-74). The towers symbolized American power and dominance.

The Sears Tower (now called the Willis Tower…which is a cultural harbinger to discuss in another post) here in Chicago held the title of world’s tallest from 1974 until 1998.  Technically the Petronas Towers in Malaysia took the title in 1998, but a glace at any side-by-side comparison shows that the Sears Tower was still on top. (Remember that thing about antennas versus spires… and keep in mind that the Sears Tower has 108 floors and the Petronas Towers only have 88.)

In 2004 the record went to the Taipei 101 tower in China. But again, while the spire of the building was taller than the Sears building in Chicago, the American building still had more floors. We could still, figuratively, look down on the rest of the world.

But the Burj Dubai changes all of that. There is no question that the tower in the Persian Gulf is taller than any other building on the planet. It dwarfs the Taipei 101, Petronas Towers, and the Sears Tower.

Does this tower symbolize a shift in world power the way the Empire State Building did a century ago? Maybe. But the answer is also more complicated because of the impact of globalization. Consider that while Dubai has financed the construction of this new Babel, it did not design it. The firm and architects behind the Burj Dubai are American… from Chicago in fact.

The Burj Dubai symbolizes what Fareed Zacharia writes about in his fascinating book, The Post-American World. Other nations are rising and becoming economic powers in the world (namely China and India), but the United States remains the center of innovation and education. Products may be manufactured in Asia, but they’re being designed and sold in the US…the two ends of the economic equation where the most wealth is created.

As we enter a new decade, we are witnessing a change not seen in 4 generations; a global shift in power and economics that will probably be both painful and scary for many Americans. And what might it mean for the American church? That too is for another post.

Most agree that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize prematurely. He hasn’t yet made progress in ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. He has not convinced North Korea to repent of its human rights violations. He has not convinced Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. And, in a decision that has angered many on the Left, he has escalated the war in Afghanistan by ordering 30,000 additional troops.But there is one war Obama can take credit for ending-the war on Christmas.A recent article on Slate.com shows that the number of media reports about the so-called “War on Christmas” has declined significantly from recent years. The battle, if you are unfamiliar, is over retailers that use “Happy Holidays” in their marketing rather than “Merry Christmas.” Groups like Focus on the Family and the American Family Association are keeping their guns blazing this year, but most other Christmas combatants have laid down their arms.Consider the following stats reported by Nexis:

There were 431 articles mentioning [the war on Christmas] as of Dec. 17, 2006; 187 by that time in 2007; 155 in 2008; and 97 in 2009. Even Fox News, the network that pushed the story in the winter of 2005, has essentially stopped talking about it: At this time in 2005, Fox had aired 80 episodes explicitly referring to the “war on Christmas”; in 2006, there were 24; in 2007, 11; in 2008, five; and three so far this year.

There is little doubt that the fury over Christmas in recent years was fueled by Fox News, and particularly Fox host John Gibson who wrote The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot To Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought. (In a twist of irony, when Fox began it’s crusade against “Happy Holidays” it was selling its own “Holiday Ornaments” on its “Holiday Collection” shopping webpage until bloggers pointed out the hypocrisy.)But in 2009 Fox has aired sparingly few “war on Christmas” stories. Why have they given up the fight and who is to thank?Barack Obama.It seems Fox News and other conservative voices have something more sacred than Christmas to protect this year-the health care system. President Obama’s plan to overhaul health care has sparked so much fear, dread, and emotion that little energy remains to fight the war for Christmas.So, as a Christian who has been embarrassed by the ungracious and downright venomous tone of some believers in recent Advent seasons who believe that Christmas, Jesus, and the Gospel need to be defended against the assault of liberal elites who are dismantling the cosmic victory of Christ one “Happy Holidays” at a time-thank you Mr. President for saving Christmas by giving them a larger target for their anger.