follow-up to "Christians are jerks"

(This post is a little late - I started it about 2 weeks ago, but my brother has been visiting.)

Richard Beck posted a little while back on Christians being jerks. Here's a follow-up post on why that might be. From the post

Despite what I said in previous post, I don't think most Christians are jerks. Rather, I think Christians tend to behave like jerks due to failures of attention. I just don't think Christians are mindful enough.

I commented a while back on the original post of "Christians being jerks" (and before that, on the related idea of moral bs). Both address the fact that quite often, the world sees Christians (evangelicals especially) as being jerks, hypocrites, etc, and offer explanations of why. I tend to relate to this most recent post most of all - from my experience, most Christians I know are very genuinely and passionately trying to be the salt of the earth, but somehow end up leaving a funny aftertaste.

The main idea Beck offers is that much criticism directed towards Christians is the result of sins of ignorance or inattentiveness. Previously, he offered the example of Christians going from church to Sunday lunch - they're often known as a group of impatient, haughty, dismissive, lousy tippers. This time around, he qualifies it by explaining why this behavior isn't something done purposefully, or even consciously, but that in not paying attention, we let our default setting (our sinful self, if you will) get to us. He gives examples of, say, standing in a long checkout line at Walmart and letting frustration and impatience get to us. We can become angry at people we don't even know (road rage, anyone?), dehumanizing the person without ever thinking about their own struggles and what might be going on in their life, simply by not being attentive to our own state of heart.

(as a culturally-specific note) :: To be fair, among the Chinese-American crowd, I haven't often seen rude crowds of Christians leaving lousy tips at restaurants (probably because the Chinese culture emphasizes politeness, or because our parents emphasize cheapness - i.e. going to places where we don't need to tip), and many of my friends really go out of their way to love and care for whomever they meet. However, I do remember when we held small groups or house church meetings at friends places, often the guests would leave a fairly large mess of dishes (and sometimes stains) for the hosts to clean up afterwards. I don't believe this was rudeness, but simply an immaturity/inattentiveness and ignorance of the trouble we bring to others unconsciously (and as a personal comment, I'd like to add that Beck's example of the being Christlike at the urinal is a particular pet peeve of mine).

I think the analogy can be extended to many different places. One example I've seen before might be social justice ministries. While research into doing effective social ministry has taken huge strides recently, that area of ministry has historically been (and sometimes still is) less effective than it's practitioners might believe. A book I saw on a blog recently (When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself), for example, talks about the way in which misguided attempts to help alleviate poverty have actually made it worse.

Evangelical Christians are often noted for their passion and focus, a strong point of theirs. However, at the same time, I think this characteristic may tend to lead to inattentiveness towards some other things (this is not to say all evangelicals are like this). Perhaps this is why, when Jesus spoke about the two greatest commandments, he spoke about loving God without divorcing it from loving your neighbor as yourself - so that "turning our eyes upon Jesus" would not cause us to turn our attention from everything else as well.

egads! gay marriage and controversy

EDIT :: fixed a few mistakes I made while typing this at 3AM, and added one more link to a blog post on Piper's post.

Somehow, my entire day today was filled with conversations about about gay marriage. To start it off, John Piper wrote a fairly controversial post on a tornado which struck an ELCA convention that was discussing human sexuality (I encourage everyone to read the post and try to consider the many reasons people think why it was both good and bad).

Some posts on the topic
From what seems to be a theologically liberal view
From what seems to be a theologically moderate view
From a theologically conservative view
From Greg Boyd

Personally, I'm a lot more sympathetic towards the second and third posts. You can say a lot about the wisdom of Piper's post without having to get into the theological debate over gay marriage. In general, I tend to think that Piper's post was unwise and a little shaky logically.

Logically
The first three points are fine - given Piper's assumptions on Biblical authority, these are very sound conclusions for him to make, even if you don't agree with them. However, points 4, 5, and 6 seem kind of like a train wreck to me. There is a major non-sequitur in between points 3 and 4. Point 5, to me, seems to be both a misinterpretation and a point that can be easily misinterpreted by readers. Point 6, the conclusion, just seems to come absolutely out of nowhere.

Point 4 - "Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornadoes". Perhaps, but what does that have to do with this (many commenters also noted that in the verse from Mark that Piper cites, Jesus calms the wind and storm. Except for the destruction of the fig tree, Jesus doesn't seem to perform miracles in violent, destructive ways)? Piper believes every action is ordained for a reason, but that still doesn't answer why this particular tornado should have so clear the purpose he interprets (several posts offer examples of why applying his interpretation to other natural disasters and tornadoes is problematic).

Point 5 - "When asked about a seemingly random calamity near Jerusalem where 18 people were killed, Jesus answered in general terms—an answer that would cover calamities in Minneapolis, Taiwan, or Baghdad. God’s message is repent, because none of us will otherwise escape God’s judgment." Piper quotes from Luke 12

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

I don't see much wrong with the conclusion Piper draws. Applying it to this situation, however, is something I can't follow. The verse seems to be given as a response to why suffering occurs, why people are hurting, and it specifically talks about a group NOT being more sinful for receiving punishment.

Point 6 - There is a lot hidden between the lines to arrive at this point, and I'm not very happy with what Piper did. Even if points 4 and 5 are shaky, they are points I might agree with in general. Concluding point 6 from 4 and 5 is not.

Piper assumes first of all that Jesus would use nature's destruction to warn (which seems akin to threatening), which doesn't seem to be the Biblical precedent with either God (Noah was warned of the flood before the flood, Lot was given time to warn Sodom and Gomorrah before their destruction), the prophets (even Moses' curses were never meant to be warnings; they warned Pharaoh while speaking directly to him, and the curses were given as confirmation that God kept his word), or Jesus. In the cases where nature is actually used by God to destroy, the warnings are usually given before nature arrives to decimate everything. God may have used nature to cast judgment; but God using nature as a big threatening stick seems very petty, and not at all in line with what is Biblically recorded. This is not precluding the fact that there's plenty of Bible references that claim that good and evil happen to both righteous and sinners, and that Piper assumes automatically that this is a case of evil happening to sinners.

Piper then seems to conclude the complete opposite of point 5. Point 5 and the Scripture from which it quotes claims that the ones whom disaster struck were not worse sinners. His point for 5 was that we all are sinners, and have need to repent. Piper then seems to conclude in 6 that, since a disaster struck the ELCA, they are therefore being singled out for a warning. This doesn't make any sense.

A friend asked me for a Biblical response to Piper's interpretation, but I didn't see much of a Biblical basis for his conclusion. It seems as if the specific interpretation that the ELCA tornado was a warning from God came from pretty much nowhere.

Wisely?

Logically, I can excuse Piper - perhaps I'm missing something in his arguments, or perhaps this seemed extremely clear to him at the time (which might have felt like a leading of the Spirit to him). However, I think the post itself was unwise due to its impact on Christians and the publicity of the post itself.

On the impact of Piper on Christians, there is no doubt that he is near idolized among many Christians today. His influence among evangelical pastors is huge. Perhaps he did intend to spur Christians to think like he did in the post. If he did, however, I find that strange, because he has typically not been one to speculate in this faux-prophetic sort of manner, and I don't think his church is one to do so either (and his blog does represent his church, after all). It just strikes me as out of character for him.

On the publicity of the post, let me just say that a post like this gets extremely bad press. Perhaps Piper didn't intend to sound like Pat Robertson. However, he certainly came across similarly. From one of the linked blogs:

Piper should have been more aware, in my opinion, that to the watching world his comments will sound identical (though they are surely not) to Pat Robertson’s unbelievably self-righteous and irresponsible remarks after 9/11. It’s not Piper’s fault that his remarks will be received that way. But it’s where we live, and I believe Piper’s remarks will make it even more difficult to win homosexuals to Christ because he has planted unnecessary stumbling blocks that have nothing to do with the gospel of Christ crucified for sinners.

By now, I'm getting sleepy (it's 3AM), so I'll wrap this up, and hopefully continue this conversation in the comment section.

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Secondly, a great friend at school talked with me about the Episcopal Church's General Convention meeting, where the issue of human sexuality was brought up in two resolutions, each of which pushed to acknowledge openly partnered homosexuals in the church.

The Episcopal Church is an interesting entity - it's officially tied to the global Anglican Communion, but it gets press for being much more liberal theologically and (church) politically than the rest of the Communion. I was drawn to the Anglican culture through figures like C.S. Lewis, NT Wright, Rowan Williams - all great scholars and thinkers who were, at the same time, very much Orthodox Christians. Rowan Williams, for example, is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the chief bishop of the Anglican Communion (i.e. he's probably the largest figure in Anglicanism globally).

A few things to note - in his earlier years, he held fairly liberal views concerning same-sex marriages. In taking up the title of Archbishop of Canterbury, however, he expressed his public views as being much more Orthodox for the sake of keeping the church united. The Episcopalean church has typically been very American in it's actions - independent, a little bit arrogant - and it has already caused some hints of schism between them and the larger Anglican church (Episcopaleanism in America has already sort of split - many American bishops cut ties to the Episcopalean church in response to their increasingly liberal policies, aligning themselves instead with the more conservative African arm of the Anglican Communion). At their General Convention, the pattern seems to have continued - Rowan Williams himself showed up and essentially pleaded for the Convention to not make decisions that would increase the divide between them and the rest of the Anglican Communion. The Convention didn't seem to listen.

What seems so odd about this is that Williams is publicly known to be sympathetic towards openly partnered homosexuals, but that he was pleading on behalf of church unity for the General Convention to, at the very least, take smaller and slower steps. It seems very disrespectful, to me, that he might merit such a response from the Episcopalean Church. Even if the General Convention believes strongly in the open practice of homosexuality, moving too quickly towards that goal seems rash, irresponsible, arrogant, and inconsiderate of the rest of the Anglican communion, especially for a group that claims individualism is the "great Western heresy" of evangelical Christianity.

Here's a news report detailing the General Convention, with quotes from Rowan Williams and NT Wright.

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A few thoughts about the issue on a more holistic level
1) It seems as if most people defending the conservative view have moved past the question of whether homosexuality itself is a sin (which I think is a very good thing) and onto questions concerning open practice of homosexuality.
2) While some may claim that the issue isn't central to Christianity, a lot of other issues are tacked on to the gay marriage controversy that would probably be considered much more important; for example, changes in theological views on gay marriage also carry with them questions about the interpretation/view of of Scripture, and possibly questions on the interaction of church and culture. Like it or not, this is an issue we should all probably wrestle with somewhat.
3) This should not be an issue to rush towards a conclusion on (either towards the conservative or liberal conclusion).

Thoughts?

"jerk factories"

A thought-provoking new post by Richard Beck on why some Christians tend to act more like jerks the more "spiritual" they become.

From the conclusion:

My point in all this is that contemporary Christianity has lost its way. Christians don't wake up every morning thinking about how to become a more decent human being. Instead, they wake up trying to "work on their relationship with God" which very often has nothing to do with treating people better. How could such a confusion have occurred? How did we end up going so wrong?

I'd be interested in hearing thoughts/answers to this question.

A few thoughts on the post...

• In broad terms, Beck is criticizing devaluing relational growth in favor of personal spirituality (which I think most would agree with). What he contributes that's new, however, are observations of common ways in which Christians live contrary to this idea.
• Beck critiques one POV; the opposite view can be just as problematic (with different consequences) if taken to the extreme. Most of the time, I think that Beck is simply criticizing extreme/unbalanced views.
• Even when relationships are emphasized, they can be emphasized in a way that devalues the relationship (i.e. "make friends outside of church...*because* you can share the gospel"), which is exactly what Beck's critiquing.
• I'm reminded again of my own Pharisaical behavior - a tendency to get comfortable in my own little group, neglecting others around me.
• In broadest terms, I think Beck is criticizing our tendency as Christians to live at the expense of others, both willfully and unconsciously/out of ignorance.

On a slightly unrelated note, I've noticed this piece is very easy to read, but makes a big impact. My own writing doesn't seem to; any thoughts on why/tips on how to improve?