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To all of us young revolutionaries....

"He who wishes to exert a useful influence must be careful to insult nothing. Let him not be troubled by what seems absurd, but concentrate his energies to the creation of what is good. He must not demolish, but build. He must raise temples where mankind may come and partake of the purest pleasure. "
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

Also- from Kevin DeYoung:

 

The Glory of Plodding

by Kevin DeYoung

It’s sexy among young people — my generation — to talk about ditching institutional religion and starting a revolution of real Christ-followers living in real community without the confines of church. Besides being unbiblical, such notions of churchless Christianity are unrealistic. It’s immaturity actually, like the newly engaged couple who think romance preserves the marriage, when the couple celebrating their golden anniversary know it’s the institution of marriage that preserves the romance. Without the God-given habit of corporate worship and the God-given mandate of corporate accountability, we will not prove faithful over the long haul.

What we need are fewer revolutionaries and a few more plodding visionaries. That’s my dream for the church — a multitude of faithful, risktaking plodders. The best churches are full of gospel-saturated people holding tenaciously to a vision of godly obedience and God’s glory, and pursuing that godliness and glory with relentless, often unnoticed, plodding consistency.

My generation in particular is prone to radicalism without followthrough. We have dreams of changing the world, and the world should take notice accordingly. But we’ve not proved faithful in much of anything yet. We haven’t held a steady job or raised godly kids or done our time in VBS or, in some cases, even moved off the parental dole. We want global change and expect a few more dollars to the ONE campaign or Habitat for Humanity chapter to just about wrap things up. What the church and the world needs, we imagine, is for us to be another Bono — Christian, but more spiritual than religious and more into social justice than the church. As great as it is that Bono is using his fame for some noble purpose, I just don’t believe that the happy future of the church, or the world for that matter, rests on our ability to raise up a million more Bonos (as at least one author suggests). With all due respect, what’s harder: to be an idolized rock star who travels around the world touting good causes and chiding governments for their lack of foreign aid, or to be a line worker at GM with four kids and a mortgage, who tithes to his church, sings in the choir every week, serves on the school board, and supports a Christian relief agency and a few missionaries from his disposable income?

Read the rest here

Why Christians need to learn to party better...

Alan Hirsch asked a great question on Facebook the other day. Coming off his time at the Burning Man Festival (which he kept referring to as "BM") he wondered: 

"A BM thought: Burning man is definitely a neo-pagan event, but they sure know how to party. Why is that?"

Much good discussion ensured- but there was a definite theme: Christians are losers with large loads of guilt and shame up their butts who don't know how to party like the pagans! That got me thinking- here was my answer:

 

Hmm- let me humbly suggest-In regards to guilt and shame- I think we'd be silly to think non-christians never feel either. They do- sometimes as much as the very religious. After all- they are judging themselves on their own works, by their own standards, and they STILL are not measuring up. Shame is not a "Christian" thing- it's a human thing. Look at shame-based cultures that have no concept whatsoever of a personal God- where does that come from?
Yes- religion leads to shame and guilt. The Gospel however is the antithesis of both religion (justifying yourself through your own goodness) and shame (carrying the weight of your failures)- Jesus won't let you do either. 

It never surprises me when I see non-Christians who are very good people. After all- they are in a real sense trying to justify themselves (to themselves, to the world around them or to some deity)- they HAVE to be good. While the end result of the Gospel should never be to make us worse people, it will make us less likely to *need* to be seen in certain lights because our identity becomes based on what Jesus has done, not what we do. 
The good news (literally) is God doesn't judge us on how well we behave or conform to an image of goodness now, but judges us through the lens of what Jesus has done and our dependence on Him and His work. 

In the same way- I think many non-Christians are of course very good partiers- if I wasn't ever worried about how much I drank, what substances I imbibed, I'd probably party a bit "hartier" myself. But I do care :)  

If I thought there was no tomorrow, I'd not only party harder, my sexual ethic would be different, I'd probably chase experience a lot more... 

That being said- Christians need to remember that God's ultimate goal in the universe is a party- a wedding bash between Jesus and a redeemed community- and we need to learn how to be a sign and a fortaste of that. That's a bit of why I cut loose sometimes at weddings. 

But I think we also need to remember- we're looking at others and their celebrations in light of what we DO know about ourselves and what we DON'T know about them- in other words- how much celebrating is based on nihilism? On a today-is-all-I've-got point of view. That may look good for awhile, but ultimately, it won't lead them anywhere good. 

I think understanding what Jesus does for us, and where He's taking all of this is the ultimate key to better celebrations- celebrations that speak something worth saying.

Wow- the Author of The Shack tells Driscoll to "Man up!"

Mark Driscoll's YouTube video of the message in which he took The Shack to task was

1. highly watched

2. slightly overblown 

There are some things to be careful of in the Shack, no doubt (my review is here), but my guess is Mark's apoplexy was probably based more on an intern-produced bullet-point summary than a careful reading of the book. 

Now, Paul Young, one of the most irenic men I've ever had the privilege to meet is speaking Mark's language in an effort to get Mark to sit down and talk about public charges of heresy that he's made. While I think the chances of that happening are about the same as Mark reading Psalm 11:5 and being convicted to give up watching Ultimate Fighting, I think the effort is interesting nonetheless. 

Here's what Paul Young says:

“Mark Driscoll has leveled some serious charges against my writing and by extension against me. He has publicly called me a heretic. I’ve decided to ask him to meet me in Seattle on Sept 10th, from 1-3 PM, and have an open discussion in front of a public audience about the different ways he and I view scripture.

I have asked my good friend Jim Henderson to host this conversation. It will not be a debate but a discussion about our differences and because we are both Christians about the places we are in agreement. The audience will be able to ask questions of both of us.

Mark seems quite fond of telling his congregants to “man up” and I guess I am really asking him to do the same. I would like him to say to my face what he has spread around the world via Youtube, and you can be sure I’ll have a few questions for him as well.

I’m sure many ‘non-Christians’ wonder why someone like Mark can say things like this with impunity. When someone is able to garner 350K views on Youtube, or for that matter has sold almost 20 Million copies of a book, I believe the conversations have become public property.”

 

So what do you think? Is this a publicity grab on the part of Jim Henderson? Or Paul Young (though with a book that's sold as many copies as the Shack, probably not)? A real attempt to mend fences? Or just to make a point?

Should Mark talk to Paul? Is Paul a heretic? Should we care about either?