Still, that thought – borne of personal sweat, genuine passion, and sincere application of intellect – will either not be shared at all (outside of our infrequent meetings), or else it will be instantly disregarded when it first sees the light of day in a public group. Why? Because in the public group all the acceptable answers have already been identified by those who hold power. All that remains is for enough discussion time to elapse in order for the public group to claim that genuine deliberation did, in fact, occur, and therefore the decisions made are valid “group” decisions.

(see groupthink)

Whether it brings wonderful new things, or terrible problems, revolution always brings change. If change is inevitable, is it be better to RISK it on revolutionary, yet principled ideas – or just RESIST it and wait for time to force it upon you?

One of my personality quirks is that I tend to always be looking for a big picture analogy about the human condition. Mississippi circa the early 60s was certainly full of potential analogies. I’m going to really reach, though, and take inspiration from movie’s depiction of old-south social groups to critique… groups as a whole. That’s right. I am a critic.

Of.

All.

Groups.

At least a little bit. If you never critique anything at all, you develop a false sense of the inherent perfection of things. So I certainly don’t avoid groups and I don’t think they are bad. The power of a club, group, team or organization can be tremendous. But here’s the key: without the present and pervasive Gospel (see The Gospel According to MLK, Jr) people will always abuse power. I don’t even mean that people have to understand the gospel the way a Christian understands it, but they have to at least value the principles (see Gandhi). If they don’t, power cannot help but be abused.

[I know a lot of skeptics, and the first thing they will point to when this topic arises is the Catholic Church. What about the abuse that has come to light from the Church? Doesn't that prove the gospel is insufficient - perhaps even an evil tool employed to manipulate and control? Nope. No more than it proves Martin Luther King, Jr. was really an evil double-agent for the KKK. People have always sought power. The avenue through which they attempt to gain it is not necessarily good or evil, by itself. That said, the gospel IS good - because it suffers and serves and loves (even an enemy). What the church seems to have mishandled is the gospel's natural response to people themselves. The gospel is, in fact, a person: Jesus Christ. He is the one who told the parable of the prodigal son, which contrasts the common selfishness of BOTH sons with the infinite forgiveness and generosity of the father.]

But I digress. My point is that human nature does not naturally lean toward the gospel (toward Jesus) – and when humans get together and formalize groups, the “leaning away” effect is often compounded. Nothing about hierarchy, efficiency, stability or any other prized group characteristic necessarily moves people toward thinking like Martin Luther King, Jr.

King’s was perhaps the least practical-sounding approach ever. Can you imagine a group voting to ratify King’s approach? “All in favor of suffering and dying and showing love to our enemies indefinitely say ‘aye’.” No way. But Jesus Christ was the primary motivator for King, and his was not a practical solution so much as a principled solution. King was bound and determined to do what he believed was right regardless of the outcome. He did not start with a goal and then strategize on how to reach that goal, as we are largely taught is the proper way to live (reverse engineering morality). He started with immovable truth and then called others to live according to that truth, to that gospel, to that Christ… no matter what. King knew that, in the end, love wins. And like his spiritual mentor, King gave his life for the principle.

Most groups, like those old southern groups from 1960′s Mississippi , are well intentioned. But they are also blind to the lack of value they place on other human beings. Goals, efficiency, hierarchy, longevity, and comfort become idols for groups. Idols are things that supersede the natural affection man ought to have for his fellow man, and groups are usually just too busy to deal with that. The gospel may be believed as a fact – just like Moscow is believed to be the capital of Russia – but it is not present and pervasive. So even if it is only a community ladies’ club, there is a measure of power to be had in any group. And that power will still wound before it heals in the absence of Love.

“You a Godless woman! Ain’t you tired, Miss Hilly? Ain’t you tired?” - Aibileen Clark to Hilly Holbrook, the social leader of the women’s community

I’ve wondered before if anyone else has ever felt the way I have about the church. That it seems odd to imagine a C.S. Lewis or G.K. Chesterton doing what we Evangelicals tend to do week in and week out, with our hectic displays of church busy-ness and much-ness and all the work, work, work that it takes to worship God adequately in that one hour on Sunday morning… It’s easier for me to imagine Lewis or Chesterton in the Anglican or Catholic church

It seems Yancey may have wondered similar things.

There is something absolutely life-giving about reading the authors in Yancey’s list (and they aren’t all liturgically-minded). I think it’s grace. There are other graceful authors, too, of course. I have a list of my own. But Yancey’s list is pretty good, too. Certainly a good primer in the language of grace.

I think grace draws people. Usually quietly, profoundly and through the dry desolation of corrupted earth that is so opposite of gracefulness. It is the “deep out there” that calls to our own “deep in here.” And I can’t live without it.

Father, give us our daily bread.

• cynical

adjective

1 believing that people are motivated by self-interest; distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.

• cynic

noun

1 a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.

Why do Christians maintain that people need Jesus Christ? Is it because we are primarily motivated by selflessness? Is it because our sincerity and integrity are above reproach? Methinks not. Let’s face it, Christianity is perhaps the most cynical religion in the world. The very idea that all men are sinners… does it get any more cynical than that? I suppose the definition of cynic even goes a little more Calvinistic. “Motivated purely by self-interest” sounds a lot like the concept of total depravity to me. That isn’t necessarily main-stream Bible-belt culture, but close.

How is it that such a fundamentally cynical faith has come to elevate the typical Sunday morning meeting we see in the Bible-belt? The Church – the very Body of Christ gathers, and… we poo-poo individualism? We are impatient with the tough questions?  We are primarily investing in the task of plugging everyone into a finely-tuned spiritual economy where the laws of supply and demand dictate the manner in which scriptures are interpreted? I would suggest that we are able to hold to these cynical theologies while at the same time putting on such an angelic display for each other during that hour on Sunday morning because we compartmentalize. Our theologies exist mainly in the hazy world of academia, and our daily (or perhaps I should say weekly) practice doesn’t really need to be influenced by them. In fact, I’m afraid we actually prefer to NOT be influenced by something as difficult and disputable as scripture.

If our practice is predominantly influenced by something other than our creeds, theologies, and scriptures – what is it that now functions as the primary influencer? I would suggest that it is the culture we have created that influences our actual ecclesial practice. We have intended, of course, for that culture to be influenced by scripture. But cultures have a way of taking on a life of their own – especially when we have asked them to function as middle-men. They have a way of taking over. The weight of the preferences of a community, authority figure, or best-selling book can very quickly override anything as prone to interpretation as the scriptures. And as the culture has been accepted as representative of the biblical church by so many, the options for the new initiate are limited. Find the preset on the radio dial that you like, and stick with it.

There is probably no end to the skewing of which we are capable, but I want to question one area specifically. Why do we seem to feel obliged to work so hard to appear… all together… on Sunday morning? Why do we judge those with rough edges so harshly? Why do we have a perpetually growing list of things that are “distractions to worship?” Could it be that our hearts have begun to lose the humility that comes from a healthy does of cynicism? Perhaps we have forgotten to walk in the difficult truth of Jeremiah 17:9. When we see proof of the heart’s deceitfulness in others (or what we deem to be proof) we judge them. Sometimes very openly. Is it really because we are holding up a “higher standard” – or are we simply trying to distance ourselves from our own reflection?

We do not have it together. But Christ does. The question is, can we tell the difference between seeking Him and simply participating in a culture of its own making?

True or false:

• God needs/wants you to lean a little bit on His people in order to get them to do what He wants them to do.
• He approves of a little coercion from those who are spiritually mature (you know who you are) to pressure those who are spiritual babes into doing what’s good for them.
• Jesus died on the cross to provide the foundation for an institution and hierarchy that would manage his followers by appealing to the ideals of authority, obedience and duty.

I believe there is a not-so-fine line between the notion of iron sharpening iron (equal interacting with equal) and the wielding of presumed spiritual authority over the Christian brethren. I am convinced, in fact, that the latter is often absolutely at odds with the gospel itself.

At its core the gospel is about love. Not sappy, romantic, Disney movie love – but a wholly selfless love that would freely choose death on a cross for the good of the beloved. God’s love is the initiator that allows us to love Him back. Divine love is the only sustainable motivator precisely because it is divine. How can it be that the Church has stalled in its proclamation of divine love as the motivational goal? I believe it is because the Church has almost forgotten that the O.T. Law is only a tutor – a guide that ought to eventually become irrelevant for the individual in pursuit of God as he grows from duty-motivation to love-motivation.  The law was never meant to be the sustainable motivator in the life of the follower of Christ, just a sign showing the beloved the way to the Lover.

Is it not, then, practically obscene for the man touched by divine love to linger over the lesser motivators? Does it not make sense that the leader motivated by love will have as a goal the graduation of those he leads from the UNsustainable law to the ETERNALLY sustainable divine love?

So where are the graduates?

It seems many have remained in school, studying about how they “ought to” and “should” do this or that. They hear the word “love” – and they DO … but not because of the endless curriculum of tests, checklists, and study material. They love because God first loved them. And they keep listening to the perpetual legal advice because it’s the only way they get to see and worship with their friends.

…

Oh, alright. I might as well confess the rest.

I also have no problem with drinking alcohol. I don’t mind creative, Mark Twain-inspired cursing between consenting adults. I am not in favor of the creation of a “Christian state.” But perhaps this takes the cake: while I can certainly recite the Apostle’s Creed with complete conviction, I don’t regularly participate as a member of a tax-exempt religious organization. Yes, I am a Christian.  No, I am not really interested in being part of a club that confuses following Jesus with conformity to the bylaws of a particular 501(c)3.

So I’m a big fat rebel, and I’ve just gotten worse with age.

I never gave homeschooling much thought prior to having children (other than, “that’s sort of weird”) and barely remember the first time my wife broached the subject.  She probably asked what I thought about it.  I probably said something like, “I don’t know. I’m not opposed to it, I guess.” What I do remember is a very affirming emotion welling up inside when I discovered that she was seriously considering the option. I don’t mean to suggest that a warm feeling actually means anything, I’m just saying I had it. It dawned on me that we really did have a choice in the matter.

The primary drawback was obvious. As a physical therapist, she was guaranteed to make more money than I. So taking time off work to be home with kids through the preschool years was going to have a definite financial impact. Staying home to school them PAST that point was going to have an even greater one. But we both felt like we could pull it off. We were never worried at all about socialization, quality of education, or our resulting inability to tour wine country during our 30′s.

Before I discuss the positive attributes of homeschooling (from my perspective, anyway) I should make it clear that I am not opposed to public school.  I don’t look down on public schools. Given the partisan bent so many people seem to demonstrate, I really don’t want to turn schooling options into a culture war if it can be avoided. People are different; kids are different. It follows that different approaches should be available as options when it comes to a lot of things – including education.

That said, I think lots of thoughts (on a lot of topics) that go against the grain of conventional wisdom. I think about …everything. When it comes to my children, I wonder why I should assume that 5 is the right age at which to immerse my child in a system over which I have no influence whatsoever. Why should I assume that the best option is one that requires my 5-year-old to spend the majority of his or her waking hours among a randomly assembled collection of other 5-year-olds from the community at large? If I don’t have to cross my fingers and hope, hope, hope for my child to get a good teacher… why should I? If kids are different, does the system ignore those differences for purely practical reasons? I could go on.

As I consider my own experience in the public school system, I must admit that school seemed to encouraged a compartmentalization of the world. There was my ‘home’ world (with Mom and Dad) and then there was the ‘real’ world – which I came to understand from my experiences in school. Mom and Dad were just two people; the whole rest of the world was represented by the hundreds of kids and dozens of adults around whom I spent the majority of my childhood. But I did not experience the same sort of acceptance at school that I experienced at home. I didn’t really know what or who the ‘real’ world expected me to be, but I tried to guess and I acted accordingly. “Act” – now there is an important word. I think there’s a good chance a lot of kids fall into the trap of pretending to be something they think will be more acceptable. As I grew up trying to make sense of my new reality I was also very influenced by media. TV and movies helped to define social ideals in my mind. Of course back in the day TV and movie stars were grown-ups (even if they were playing kids).  Today many of the biggest stars and most popular shows surround real teenagers, are set in high schools, and involve kids overacting in the manner our culture has implied kids are supposed to act.

[Ready for a crazy leap? Speaking of performances, this is one concern I have for kids in the modern church. While popular music is great, culturally relevant, and fun, I think the lure of performance (i.e. acting) is an ever present influence in modern culture. If a kid is already struggling with finding significance apart from their social, athletic, musical or other performance... when images of good-looking teens singing and dancing around the stage are all over prime-time television... can the church honestly expect to stick an electric guitar into the hands of a 15-year-old and have him "lead worship?" Is that going to be a healthy practice 90% of the time? 50%? One brief admonition about the ills of a "performance mindset" is bound to straighten any teen out, right? I guess that's probably another post...]

I’ve never been a big fan of the Summerhill philosophy; I think it goes too far. But I do like the idea of empowering the child. I believe a good way to do that is to provide a comfortable climate (one with little or no social pressure – and therefore no perceived need to “act”). I like flexibility, simplification and consolidation when considering early childhood education. Given the situation my wife and I are in right now, we are hard pressed to imagine anyone better suited to educate our five year old than us – and no place better to do it than our own home. What an opportunity to tailor the approach to the child while avoiding the compartmentalization that can occur when introducing a totally separate social system! What a chance to involve the child in the process of tailoring her own schooling! Later on, critical thinking must become a priority.  I hope that by encouraging the questioning of systems, culture, and the status quo, my kids will be better able to resist the passive tendency to let those things define their sense of reality.

So what’s the score? I think we have the edge in educational quality.  My wife is a scientist and I’m a musician (say hello to a liberal arts curriculum). I think we have the edge in extending unconditional acceptance and offering a low pressure climate. We definitely have the edge in teacher to student ratios. The only things we can’t bring to the early childhood education table all by ourselves involve outside social situations. There are many public events, sports leagues, church events, et cetera that seem to be a good fit for that requirement.  Even more socially comprehensive, perhaps, than the routine offered by public schools.

There will certainly come a time when a child needs to interact with the ‘real’ world, deal with social pressures, and make her own choices. As for my own kids, I’d like one of those choices to be if/when to attend a public school. But if they aren’t prepared to make that decision on their own at 5, then perhaps they aren’t prepared to deal with the rest of the baggage that comes along with the system of public education just yet either.

In reality, the gospel is best understood as words of life. If someone is trying to pass off words of death as the gospel, do yourself a favor and run in the opposite direction.

Real unity is not agreeing about everything, it is the recognition that our differences aren’t nearly as important as our similarities.

Freedom is sometimes called anarchy by those who fear it (usually those with plans to ascend to power).

Rules are not what keep us from punching each other in the face. Love is.

Jesus’ new way to be human turns out to be entirely different from the old way. Which is why very few Christians are doing it.

The easiest way for a man to justify building his own kingdom is to just do it – and then call it God’s kingdom.

Transparency in a community is not just a good idea – it’s a definitive characteristic.

The more church leaders tighten their grip, the more star systems will slip through their fingers.

There are moments when marketing goes a touch overboard and we get a glimpse at how completely surrendered we are to the idea that the perfect system is the solution to every problem. We have systems for everything. We often equate the perfect knowledge of a system with the highest form of knowledge in a given area – hence our irrational worship of (and service to) systems. It should be the other way around. Thankfully there are still a few hold-outs who don’t pour their lives out in worship to systems. There are musicians who are more passionate about playing great music than only explaining the theory of it in cold, academic vernacular. There are craftsmen who infuse their creations (even the practical ones) with a sort of soul that transcends systemic influence. And there are mothers who whip out the fountains of youth and let their babies go wild.

Systems aren’t bad, but they aren’t living, breathing, thinking things. Systems don’t have brains, souls, or hearts. They’re creations of man, and if we worship them we are really only worshipping ourselves in a silly, round a bout sort of way. If you’re focused on serving a system instead of living life… don’t worry; you won’t find it difficult to stay that way. There’s a system working overtime on that problem, too. It’s called religion.

A few weeks back I was contracted to produce a video of a newly ordained Nigerian priest conducting his first Holy Mass. This was an important event for the young man and for those in the church who had walked with him on this journey.  They really wanted to capture his first Mass well.  So a week before the service, I visited the building with a friend of mine (who also attends the church).

Two points to make here:

1) upon entering the building, my friend crossed himself with holy water.  No one was in the building, but it was not unlocked.  All the lights were out, but all the candles were lit. Made me wonder what my kids would have thought of it.  I doubt they would have known it was a church building at all – probably would not have had any idea what it was or what this fellow was doing;

2) we walked all around checking angles; I found a good place for the wide-angle camera to go, and a good place for the close-up camera.  I examined the sound system to see how I might patch an audio recorder into it for better audio than what the on-camera mics would pick up. We spent some significant time paying attention to the environment because the video was important to people, and the time spent had a correlation to that importance.

Point 1 led to a flurry of questions for me. Why does a Catholic do what a Catholic does? Because they are confused? Because they don’t interpret the Bible correctly (correctly meaning like we Evangelicals do)? Why do I wish I could go to this church to have some quiet prayer time – what it is about the atmosphere that is more contemplative? What is it about this contemplative, reverent atmosphere that I wish my kids could experience? Why does it stand in stark contrast to the assembly-line quality of the average Protestant church program?

Point 2 led to some observations. When something is important, we pay for it with more than money. We spend time on it.  We patiently work through the stages of preparation, so the final product can be a result of our recognition of the inherent value of the thing (not unlike the Catholic Mass). This is a principle.

A week later, I attended the Mass to shoot the video. For those who haven’t been to a Catholic mass in a while, let me say yet a few more things:

1) you might be surprised just how much meat there really is in what many of us Evangelicals consider to be the simple “milk” of the faith. Evangelicals don’t often think about this “milk” because we are so driven to achieve what we consider to be “meat level” (for those interested, here are two links of varying visual pizzaz regarding the Mass: plain and fancy).

2) it is difficult to argue for hierarchical authority in the local Protestant church without feeling a bit hypocritical as one remembers that the heritage of Protestantism is rebellion against the ancient organization of the Catholic church.  Ultimately we must confront a fact: we cannot argue for blanket submission to authority in the absence of present, sufficient principle. Nor is it sufficient to say that the absence of obvious, anti-biblical thought is “principle enough” to follow. A lack of blatant heresy does not support hierarchical authority.

It was principle that made Martin Luther write his 95 theses. Can you imagine? 95. Have you ever even read them? What modern Protestant church leader wouldn’t laugh such a presumptuous list of criticisms right past the cappuccino maker, past the donut table, and out the church’s front door? Who did this uppity monk think he was anyway, going against God’s will and God’s ordained leader? This reminds me of one of the criticisms from the Catholic church: that the Protestant churches operate as if each one has its own authoritative pope, with the freedom to decree God’s opinion – and no accountability or responsibility to answer for the inconsistencies that arise between the myriad “popes” of Protestantism. It is ironic that, years after Luther, Protestants do seem to have reinvented the papacy to some degree and grown the concept exponentially.

Yet we still sense the need to provide a visage of individual responsibility – the hallmark of the reformation. So we come up with some remarkably deceptive games. We have denominations that manage to get along with each other as corporate entities (they agree to disagree – “sure, we’re brothers”), but even within our own denomination (or specific church) we demand adherence to peripheral ideas and leadership preferences that aren’t even worth discussion in the larger context of Christianity, because we’ve already agreed to disagree about them. We have up or down votes for various things, but if a person votes the “wrong” way, we say they are going “against God.” Notice the lack of principle here?

Oh, the games our fallen imaginations can construe. We talk about principle, we talk about the gospel, but in reality our fingers have a white-knuckle grip on something else. Power and control. In reality I fear our highest principle is keeping order/maintaining comfort.  The gospel itself is sacrificed upon it.

In reality, we don’t need to fear the uncertainty and discomfort of not having all the answers. Jesus really is sufficient; the faithful really can find unity in the midst of our great diversity:

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.

And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.