And Who Am I? (…)

Over the last several months, my wife has settled into her role as interim associate pastor at our church, and I’ve discovered something very quickly: beyond the fact that she’s a brilliant, articulate classroom lecturer at seminary, she also happens to be a dynamic, passionate, and gifted preacher.

I guess it’s ironic, as I remember her words to me just before we got married: “Peter, I’m not going to be a pastor’s wife.”  Ha!  How the tables turn…

Jen wasn’t saying she wouldn’t support me in ministry if that’s how I felt led, or that I couldn’t be a pastor – after all, for those of you who remember, we rescheduled our wedding day so I could take my first class at George Fox Seminary, guest lectured by Brian D. McLaren.  That’s not exactly a lack of support  (it was years later that she enrolled in seminary, herself).  Rather, she wasn’t interested in playing the traditional, highly-gendered “role” of pastor’s wife… I guess that must mean wearing an apron, baking cookies, smiling politely and looking pious-and-pretty while standing behind her husband.  And I’m glad she didn’t want that role.  I confess, there was a time in my life — 10+ years ago, to be sure — where I probably was looking for something like that.  I feel ashamed of it now.

So as I sit in the pew with my wife at the pulpit, wearing her white vestments, I feel a deep sense of pride and awe at her natural abilities.  But I confess, narcissist that I am, to struggling a bit with what it means for my own identity.  I’m used to being the center of attention, damn it! I’m scheduled to guest-preach in a month or so — my first time at this church.  At prior churches we’ve attended, I was always the go-to for guest-preaching, and now I imagine what Jen must have felt like, not being asked, and having the natural gifts that she does.  I took a lot for granted.  I suppose I took her for granted.

When Jen first began attending George Fox, it was three years after I started there, so she was “Peter’s wife” for awhile, but as a full time student, she quickly developed relationships and a sense of community I could not with my half-time, evenings-only status.  For the last three years, I have learned what it means to be “Jen’s husband,” and it’s been both humbling and (I think) truly healthy for me.  In the same way, I’m learning to swallow my sometimes massive pride and help out with children’s ministry at church, teaching Sunday School or selling bags of coffee beans before the service.  It isn’t glamorous, but these may be exactly the lessons I’ve needed for a very long time.

If I can accommodate NOT being the center of attention, and truly integrate some kind of servanthood or humility or loving support into my psyche, this “metamorphosis” will be the best thing that could happen to me.  Because sooner or later, every “small town celebrity” ends up wondering why they didn’t “make it big.”

I’ve told you before: I once wanted to be a famous actor.  I got a gig in a Lifetime Original Movie in college.  Did I tell you that?  Then I wanted to be a famous writer.  I made friends with Leonard Sweet.  Did I tell you that?

But I still work a full time job, and I still live in small-town Oregon, and I like this life.  There’s something stepping out of the “limelight” (or off of the pulpit) has to teach me, and I think it’s very good.  And in those rare occasions when I do step back up to offer a guest-sermon, or get an article published, I pray I don’t find my identity there.

Bell’z Hellz

I’ve been skimming Rob Bell’s Love Wins yesterday and today, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what all the commotion is over.  Yes, I get it: hell is one of those foundational religious concepts whose imagery is so deeply soaked with our historical faith that – at least initially – it can be hard to imagine what Christianity would like like with out it…

But c’mon.  Have you watched Bell on his Nooma videos?  Have you really picked up the guy’s vibe from his books?  This is pretty soft stuff.  Yes, conservative naysayers call him a wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing (“the WORST kind”) but all I read are the same frustrations I have: I don’t want my friends doomed to a concept of hell that I can’t buy into myself!

What I read in these pages are the natural questions that arise from that dissatisfaction.  Much of that dissatisfaction comes from the very notion that Christians have any business at all judging anyone, given our spotty, often sad and sordid history:

When one woman in our church invited her friend to come to one of our services, he asked her if it was a Christian church.  She said yes, it was.  He then told her about Christians in his village in eastern Europe who rounded up Muslims in town and herded them into a building where they opened fire on them with their machine guns and killed them all.  He explained to her that he was a Muslim and had no interest in going to her Christian church.

But we’re the ones with “the answer,” right? And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love…

I think what pisses off a lot of folks is that Bell talks about “hell” in terms of “hyperbole,” using “hell” as a sort of allegory for “hell on earth” – children mutilated with machetes, raped women, genocide, torture… “Do I believe in a literal hell?” Bell asks.  ”Of course.”  And he indicates to the hells we create here on earth.  Evangelicals want an eternal, ethereal hell where the soul is tormented for rejecting Christ.  Doesn’t matter how one lives or what one does – whether one was kind or lived with love, compassion, grace or selflessness – only that one said the words (or thought the thoughts) “Jesus, forgive me, come into my heart…” even though those words — and that very concept — have no occurrence in the New Testament.

Bell writes:

We need a loaded, volatile, adequately, violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us.  We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s world God’s way.

And for that,

the word “hell” works quite well.

Let’s keep it.

I’m not going to spend a lot more time going over this book.  As I’ve said before, lots of other folks have written more (and better) analyses.  I’ve never met Bell, but I get the feeling he’s a nice guy.  He’s got a generous heart and it shows in his writing.

Now my critique: in his other books I’ve read (Velvet Elvis, Sex God and this) I get the distinct feeling that I’m being written to as a high school senior.  The font on the page is big.  The layout is scattered, poetic – lots of returns, creating stanzas spread across the paper.  A bit melodramatic.  A bit indulgent?  Maybe.  It’s certainly accessible, and that accessibility is probably why Bell’s book sales are as high as they are.  He’s creative – I don’t want to knock him for that.  But I never feel like I’m the audience he’s speaking to.  I was in a young adult Bible Study a few years ago (I was probably 28 or 29) and we were watching the Nooma videos, and we had some good discussion from them, and like I said before – I like the guy… but the videos felt more geared toward high school students.  So with Bell’s books.

That’s not a slam, but it’s interesting.  There are thousands of critiques of Bell online, attacking him – especially for this most recent book.  Bloggers, pastors, theologians and pseudo-theologians are going after Bell’s book as if it’s a serious piece of theological work.  It isn’t, and I don’t think Bell would ever argue that it is.  It’s a conversation starter.  It’s a Gen-Y conversation starter.  And more power to him, for creating it!  But going after Bell with heavy theological artillery is like The UTNE Reader critiquing Reading Rainbow for being sophomoric.  If we’re going to start weighing every piece of writing by some kind of (supposedly) objective, intensive rubric, then fundamentalists will need to answer for their crappy salvation tracts, dangerously ahistorical theology and hermeneutics, and dozens of poor and lazy translations of biblical texts.  And that’s not even a good comparison.  Again, Bell’s book isn’t presented as a piece of dogma or a theological treatise.  It’s an attempt at wrestling with information and material that has been around us, in our churches, in our history, in our canon, in our hearts, and – yes – even in the midst of our orthodoxy – for thousands of years.  By choosing easier answers, we wounded ourselves, and we wounded the world around us.

I’d Rather Choose To Do the Most Good

Instead of obsessing over which is the “RIGHT” belief (hopeless, indeed, and an adventure in missing the point of life and religion and being human, I think) I think it’s better to choose the belief or praxis that does the most GOOD.

I first started listening to the Euro-synth duo Erasure in early middle school, and had no idea then that beginning in 1986, lead vocalist Andy Bell was one of the first openly gay music stars in the world.  Because of his openness with his sexuality, Erasure’s success with US record labels was severely hampered.  The studios still sold their records (they still took their money), but publicity was muted, and noteworthy Erasure music videos featured Andy tragically singing to women.  Gentrified for American sensibilities.

There are all sorts of ways that we take people’s money without affirming them.  We marginalize them as we profit from them.  We do it in our churches.  In our universities.  I used to attend a church whose denomination claimed to affirm female pastors, but whose large pastoral staff of eight full time ministers were all male, and whose board would not even consider female deacons.  I attend a seminary that, for all its virtues as a well-intentioned emerging Evangelical institution (and it’s been very good to me) does not affirm my queer sisters and brothers (even though at LEAST one has paid tuition and she sat in classes next to me – she doesn’t attend anymore. I miss you Adele).

What exactly is at stake?  Biblical coherence?  A literal six day creation?  Women’s subordination to men?  A premillenial rapture?  I mean, how is this gay thing the linchpin of our whole theological system?  How is it the one final holdout, as we peel away slavery and racism and drinking alcohol and working on Sundays (or Saturdays) and believing in evolution and doing away with biblical inerrancy (we did most of these, right?) and empowering women (we try to)?  Why is is this gay thing the one thing we just can’t stand for?  Why is it different?  Why this issue, when all the others have already fallen away?

Takes awhile for this song to get going, but it’s awfully beautiful.

Erasure
“Grace”

God Bless The Whole World

You may have seen this bumper sticker:

“GOD BLESS THE WHOLE WORLD – NO EXCEPTIONS.”

I’m reminded of that when I read the book of Amos…

Amos 9:7

Meaning, however “special,” “elect” and “chosen” our theologies tell us we are, God reminds me that the whole world is loved, and I am part of a much (MUCH) larger plan.

We are all like the people of Ethiopia.

We are being brought up, like the Philistines…  Like the Syrians…

I have few formal allegiances.  I am loyal to my friends.  I am loyal to the people I love.  But I am called to love the whole world, so how can I allow loyalty to lead me against anyone at all?  ”Christianity” is a label.  America is a label.  Democracy is a brand.

But Jesus Christ is a way.  Love is a movement.

God bless the whole world.  No exceptions.