We’re about halfway through the season of Lent, so for those of you fasting or focusing on a particular spiritual discipline, things might be getting tough.

My friend Melissa shared an idea with me the other day that might help:

“Discipline is remembering what you want.” - David Campbell

It’s a great perspective, and it reminded me of some of the questions I asked myself before embarking on my Lenten journey.

So what do you want?

What do you want from this season, from yourself, and from life? And how does that help motivate you on tough days?

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"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist." - Helder Camara

***

Glenn Beck: "I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words [for communism]. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Jesus:  "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18; see also Leviticus 25, Isaiah 58, Matthew 25:31-46, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15…and, quite frankly, the entire Bible.)

Often when I’m speaking with conservative friends about politics and I ask how a certain policy might affect the poor, they say that caring for the poor is not the government’s job; it’s the church’s job. I don’t necessarily agree, but I think it’s a fair point and I can respect that position. And yet Beck seems to be suggesting that even churches that seek to bring relief to the poor should be abandoned!

Now, I don’t want to spend much time picking on Glenn Beck. He’s a bit too extreme to take seriously, and I suspect most of my readers don’t think of him as an authoritative figure. In fact, I’ll give Beck the benefit of the doubt and assume he has no idea what “social justice” means and is simply ignorant of the fact that it’s been a part of the Church’s identity for over 2,000 years.

What I’d like to ask is this: Does YOUR church Web site say anything about justice? Does it say anything about caring for the poor, helping the sick, or standing against oppression?

Feel free to copy and paste or include a link!

Maybe Glen Beck has done us a favor, providing churches around the country with a little gut-check moment! :-)

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For the past five years or so, I’ve struggled with a pretty intense case of survivor’s guilt.

It may sound silly, but I feel guilty because I was born in the United States of America to white, middle-class Christian parents, a fact that—through no merit of my own—has provided me with a more comfortable and privileged existence than most people in this world.

While I count calories in order to trim my waistline, hundreds of thousands of little children go to bed without enough food to eat. While I complain about too much clutter in my home, entire families are left homeless. While I worry about deadlines to meet and friends to see, many of my neighbors are sick, lonely, and forgotten. While I take things like plumbing and fresh water for granted, people around the world are barely surviving.

I spent a few years being mad at God about the situation.

Then I spent a few years being mad at The Church.

Now I’m just mad at myself, for not committing more time and resources to those in need.

I was talking with my parents about this the other day at the Chinese restaurant (yes, I see the irony!) and my dad gently asked me how much I would have to give away before I felt better, before my conscience was eased. If all I had left was a single crust of bread, would I feel guilty for not giving it away?

I said something about how Shane Claiborne would probably give his crust away.

Dad reminded me that not everyone can be Shane Claiborne because Shane Claiborne is pretty radical, then I reminded Dad that Jesus was radical too, then Dad reminded me that someone had to fund Jesus’ ministry, and then I reminded Dad that the apostle Paul urged early Christians to pursue “equality” (2 Corinthians 8:13-15).

I spent the ride home from the restaurant grumbling to Dan about expensive church sound systems, all-you-can-eat buffet lines, and Republicans.  I was convinced I was in the right—so why was I so miserable?

Now, God doesn’t exactly speak to me the way he seems to speak to other people. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t get play-by-play directions from him, and I don’t hear his voice very often. But that afternoon, the famous lines from 1 Corinthians 13 came suddenly to my mind:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

I realized that I was giving out of guilt, not love.  And according to Paul, even the greatest, most dramatic acts of charity will leave me feeling empty if I do them out of self-interest (easing my conscience) rather than out of love (easing other people’s burdens).

[Note that Paul says that, “I gain nothing.” For a kid in desperate need of clean water, a well is a well—regardless of whether a donor gave out of love or guilt. I firmly believe that giving out of guilt is better than not giving at all, and that sometimes our acts of faithfulness must precede (or do without) our pure motives.]

So lately I’ve been asking God to show me how to give out of guilt rather than love.  A few things have come to mind:

• First of all, I’ve got to stop measuring the amount of love in my life by the amount of money/publicity I give to my favorite non-profit organizations. The truth is, it’s easier for me to love people I have never met (kids with AIDS in Africa) than it is to love people I have met (that hard-core conservative down the street who always gives me flack about my politics).  It’s easier for me to have compassion on the widows I spent a week with in India than the women I see every day. It’s easier for me to say I am intellectually committed to Jesus’ teaching that we are to love our enemies than it is for me to let go of the bitterness I carry around from people who have wronged me.  In other words, if I have no compassion for my friends and neighbors, what I give to strangers is just charity—not love.  But if I can become more patient, kind, understanding, forgiving and compassionate toward those around me, what I give to those in far away places will come from the overflow of love already in my heart.

• Secondly, I’ve got to stop looking at the “poor and needy” as mere objects of my charity and actually form interdependent relationships with the people around me—where I am a part of their community and they are a part of my community.  It’s so much harder, yet so much more authentic and rewarding, to give to people I know than it is to give to people I keep at arm’s length. It’s even harder (for me) to make it reciprocal, to accept their help and friendship in return. My pride likes to keep me in the position of giving rather than receiving.

• Finally, my favorite trick for easing my conscience is to judge people who don’t give as much or care as much as I do. But this is not love. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.  The best way to inspire others to give more is not to tell them to give more, but to live as an example—without judgment, without pride, without envy, without (gulp) cynicism.  (Looks like I’m going to have to meditate on this passage a bit more!)

But even with all these things in mind, I still struggle almost every day with guilt, so I need your help.

How do you overcome guilt and start giving out of love?

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So the 82nd Academy Awards are scheduled for Sunday and even with the new extended list of nominees for Best Picture, Dan and I are a little behind. (We’ve got a pretty sweet setup in our basement for movie-viewing + we have a moral aversion to spending $25 for 2 hrs. of entertainment = we wait for Netflix to send DVDs to our mailbox.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the following movies, nominated for Best Picture:

• Avatar (We saw it in 3-D and enjoyed it; Driscoll says it’s demonic.)

• District 9 (In my opinion, over-hyped, kinda disappointing.)

• An Education

• The Hurt Locker (In our Netflix queue)

• Inglorious Basterds (In our Netflix queue)

• The Blind Side (In our Netflix queue)

• Precious

• A Serious Man

• Up (I cried during this movie. I bet y’all know which part!)

• Up in the Air

Feel free to make a case for your pick for Best Picture, rant about your least favorite of the ten, review all the ones you’ve seen, or share your thoughts on Driscoll’s controversial remarks.

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If you think of it, please say a prayer or two for the Ward family. Brian, Carrie, Avery, and Adi have made a lot of sacrifices to come to Dayton to start The Mission, and we are so thankful.

So, what’s the most humbling job you’ve ever had? What did you learn from that experience?

[See also: "Jesus and the People of Wal Mart"]

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I think it’s important for Christian colleges to transition into teaching evolution (both micro and macro, if you make a distinction) for a few reasons:

1) The scientific data in support of evolutionary theory and an old earth is overwhelming and sound.  Scientists continue to make testable predictions based on the theory, and 99 percent of the scientific community embraces it.  Graduates entering any field of scientific study without a proper understanding of evolution will be severely crippled.

2) I fear that if Christian institutions continue to teach young earth creationism, they will render themselves irrelevant in the marketplace of ideas.  This only perpetuates the myth that religion and science are at odds, and that one has to choose between faith and reason. 

3) Biblical scholarship relating the creation account of Genesis and ancient Near Eastern cosmology continues to become more accessible to the average reader, so Christian university students are in a great position to learn from Bible professors why a literal, scientific reading of Genesis 1 and 2 need not be a fundamental element of the Christian faith. (The Lost World of Genesis One by John Walton would be great required reading for Christian college students.)

4) College is just about the best environment in which to wrestle with tough ideas and learn to think critically about your faith. Trying to “protect” Christian students by not exposing them to the science of evolution will only cause them harm in the long run. I can personally testify to the fact that, if evolution is presented to college students as being incompatible with their Christian faith, there is a good chance that many of those students will walk away from their faith later on in life, having been presented with a dangerous false dichotomy.

What do you think? Should evolution be taught in Christian colleges? Should both old earth and young earth models be presented, or are academic institutions obligated to stick with established science?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this controversial issue!

[For more on the science, see "Eight Reasons to Give Evolution A Second Chance"]

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Q: Have you seen Inherit the Wind?

A: Yes, but as a good Daytonite I feel obligated to remind everyone that Inherit the Wind is only loosely based on the Scopes Trial. In fact, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee wrote the play in response to McCarthyism back in the early 1950s, so much of the story is complete fiction.  (Inherit the Wind was supposed to be a bit like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which also served as an allegory to McCarthy Trials.) To tell you the truth, there aren’t many Inherit the Wind fans in Dayton because the play and the film make the residents of “Hillsboro” appear ignorant and backwards, and because so many people get all their information about the trial from that source alone. If you want a more accurate picture of the Scopes Trial, consider reading Edward Larson’s Pulitzer Prize winning account, Summer for the Gods, or check out the PBS “American Experience” documentary on the subject.


Q: How do people from Dayton feel about the title of your book—“Evolving in Monkey Town”?

A: I don’t know, and I wasn’t really that concerned about it until recently.  See, a few weeks ago, MainStreet Dayton, a local organization that funds and organizes events in the downtown area, announced with a big, colorful billboard an event they called the “Monkey Town Mardi Gras,” scheduled for March 6. The billboard, located just north of town, included a picture of cute cartoon monkey wearing a hat and mardi gras beads. When I saw it, I thought to myself, “Oh good. People around here embrace Dayton’s colorful history, including the whole ‘Monkey Town” thing. I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Well, three days later, the vinyl on the billboard was ripped off so that only shreds of it remained.

It stayed that way for nearly a week before it was replaced with this:  

The very same billboard, but without the “Monkey Town.”

So now I’m a little paranoid. I love the title of my book, and I wouldn’t dream of changing it.  I can only hope my friends and neighbors will have a sense of humor about it, recognizing that the Scopes Monkey Trial is a part of our history—for better or for worse.  In fact, as I explain in my book, the idea to host the Scopes Trial in Dayton came from local politicians and businessmen who hoped a high-publicity test trial might bring some much-needed attention to the town in the 1920s, when the local coal mining companies were really struggling. Any expert on the trial will tell you that it essential began as a publicity stunt.  The way I see it, we can either pretend the whole thing didn’t happen or embrace it with a smile.

Q: What do you think of William Jennings Bryan?

WJB was a fascinating character, and the more I’ve learned about him over the years, the less I’ve been able to box the guy in.  Sure, he was a bit of a Bible-thumper, but he also supported women’s suffrage, advocated for the rights of laborers and farmers, and so passionately opposed U.S. involvement in World War I that he resigned as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. He was a prohibitionist, a trust-buster, an anti-imperialist, and a (borderline obsessive) proponent of Free Silver. In fact, I would say that his performance on the witness stand during the Scopes Trial was a low moment for WJB. He was not well prepared, and he should never have allowed Darrow to cross-examine him. Interestingly enough, if you read the transcript from the Scopes Trial you will see that Bryan did not necessarily believe in a literal seven-day creation, but conceded that the “days” described in Genesis may have simply been “periods.”

Q: How will people at Bryan College react to your book?

A: I’m not sure. In a lot of ways, I have strayed from what I was taught at Bryan. I can no longer support young earth creationism in good conscience. I’m not exactly a strict religious exclusivist anymore. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, support gay rights, and prefer the word “inspired” to “inerrant” when describing the Bible.  I would hope that my desire to follow Jesus and my commitment to orthodox Christianity would be enough to keep me in the Bryan College fold, but this remains to be seen. My biggest fear is that my parents will catch flack over my book. They have been nothing but encouraging, supportive, and understanding throughout this whole process, and I'll be really disappointed if they are ostracized because of something I wrote. I worked especially hard to portray my experiences in Dayton and at Bryan College in a favorable, yet truthful, light, and I’ve spent hours and hours double-checking the manuscript to make sure that I am fair, considerate, and honest. At the end of the day, I can be confident and at peace knowing that I did my best to write with integrity. How people respond is out of my control. (Read: I worry about it all the time.)

Q: This book sounds like a work of literary genius. How can I pre-order it?

A: Why, thank you for asking! You can order it now on Amazon for the low, low price of just $10.19. The book will be released in June/July.

So, do you have any more questions about Dayton, The Scopes Trial, or the book?

What about you? Is YOUR hometown famous for anything? (Please include food, if applicable.)

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“We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended... We are not the only ones. We have found a few other fakers out there.”

My first reaction was to be mad at the Christians in Texas who are too cliquish to arrange play dates with agnostics. But the longer I thought about the situation, the more I identified with the woman and her family. Because the truth is, sometimes I fake it too.

As you can imagine, Dayton, Tennessee is not the most convenient place to have doubts about your faith or questions about biblical inerrancy, religious pluralism, and homosexuality.  Home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925, it’s one of the most conservative Christian towns in America. Sometimes I revel in the chance to rock the boat a little. But often, when I really want to be liked or included or esteemed, I pretend to be more at peace with my faith than I really am.

For example, a dear friend of mine had a strong negative reaction when I first began expressing doubts about Christianity. Our relationship has been a bit strained ever since, so whenever we get together to catch up, I make an extra effort to talk about church, drop some Christianese into the conversation, and mention my newfound love for liturgy. I really want her to respect me again, so I try to say what I think she wants to hear. I’m not exactly lying, but I’m definitely leaving out a lot—like the fact that there are still days when I’m not convinced that God exists, still nights when I lie awake begging him to “help me in my unbelief,” still mornings when I wake up mad as hell for not hearing back from him.

I fake it in other situations too. I’ll refer to my good fortune as “blessings” when I’m around Christians and “luck” when I’m around non-Christians, (when the truth is I’m not exactly sure why I have so many good things in my life while millions around the world are desperate, hungry and lonely). I’ll participate in religious activities even when I’m not feeling particularly religious. I’ll refer to myself as a “follower of Christ,” when Christ seems so far ahead in the journey, I can't even see the back of his head anymore.

I fake it for several reasons:

1) This is not a particularly hospitable place for agnostics
2) Nothing would crush my parents more than learning that their daughter has walked away from the faith
3) I have a book deal with a Christian publisher
4) I want to keep my Christian friends
5) My doubts come and go, so there’s no reason to unnecessarily drag the people I love through my drama
6) If I fake it maybe I can convince myself that everything's okay

Christians talk a lot about counting the cost of following Jesus. But I often wonder if, in this particular environment, the cost of NOT following him is actually greater.  I'm not sure what that says about modern Christianity, but it scares me a little.

Still, I've found that there is a surprising upside to faking it.

Like the times when I reluctantly drag myself to our little church gatherings, only to leave feeling indescribably hopeful. Or the times when I begin the Lord’s Prayer with the assumption that no one is listening, but finish it with the sneaking suspicion that I’ve just connected with the most powerful, beautiful thing in the universe. Or the times when I go through the motions—caring for the poor, showing hospitality, fellowshipping with believers,  praying, reading Scripture, trying to live like Jesus—to find that there is redemption in the motions themselves, that taking a step of faith does not necessarily require a desire to move. 

Sometimes faking it through one leg of the journey is what gets me to the next.

Do you ever fake your faith? What reasons do you have for faking it?

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What I love most about the Olympics is the chance to see people who have worked really hard at something succeed. It’s exciting to watch as all those hours of practice, moments of frustration, and years of preparation come to fruition in one beautiful moment on the winner’s podium.

So, in the spirit of the games, I thought I’d ask:

1. When was your last “Olympic moment”—a time when you felt your hard work really paid off?

2. What’s your favorite Winter Olympic sport?

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   • In middle school, he “rebelled” by listening to Sandi Patti.

   • In high school, he felt so guilty for buying Amy Grant’s Heart in Motion CD that he destroyed it, and then bought it again, five times.

   • As a kid, he had to cover his ears at Sea World when Ollie the Otter began dancing to Michael Jackson. (“The beat was syncopated,” explains Turner, “and for a young Independent Fundamental Baptist, few things existed that were more frightful than a syncopated beat.”)

   • The first time he set foot in a movie theater, he was 19 years old.

   • When his Belmont University professor began quoting Bob Dylan, Turner raised his hand in class and asked, “Should I know who Dylan is?”

If these tidbits make you grin (or cringe), you will love Matthew Paul Turner’s latest book, Hear No Evil: My Story of Innocence, Music, and the Holy Ghost.  A collection of anecdotes about Turner’s tumultuous relationship with popular culture through the years, Hear No Evil can best be described as a lighthearted tribute—to growing up, to the evangelical Christian subculture,  to music.

It’s been a while since a book made me laugh this much. I found myself reading some of my favorite lines out loud to Dan—“For a lot of Christians, their imaginations are liabilities, like the five senses and genitals” (p.51);  “Then my father introduced me to Sam, a thirty-something single man who had recently converted from being Episcopalian to Christianity” (p. 52); “A month or two later Laura and Jesus broke up, and she started dating a nice-looking keyboardist from Arkansas” (p. 156).

Those who grew up in the evangelical subculture will especially appreciate Turner’s stories about accountability groups, contemporary Christian music, and how the Holy Spirit was so involved in the everyday decisions of Christian college students that he appeared to work part-time in Belmont’s admission office.

Of course, Turner is at his best when he turns the joke on himself and connects his personal stories to the universal so that the reader can really relate.  In one of the more insightful chapters of the book, Turner explains how he and his college classmates “rebelled” against their upbringing by becoming Calvinists.  Writes Turners, “I liked being Calvinist because it made me feel controversial and edgy to believe something different than what my parents believed. On those trips home, I felt like I was experiencing my own little Protestant Reformation, hammering various disagreements I had with my past into my parents’ faces…Reformed doctrine offered a different way to think about God. And sometimes different, even when it really isn’t that different, is all we need to make us feel alive, creative, and in control of our own destiny” (p.131).

I hope that in his next book, Turner does a little more of this, for it transforms his funny, sometimes bizarre anecdotes into more relatable, human stories and makes the reader feel more like a participant and less like an observer.

If you’re looking for a fun, memorable read, be sure to check it out. Hear No Evil will get stuck in your head, like a song you almost forgot you loved.

[This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.]

So, what have you been reading recently? What are some of your favorite books that humorously highlight the idiosyncrasies of your particular religious culture?

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10 Questions to Ask Yourself

1. When I wake up on Resurrection Sunday morning, how will I be different?
2. From what do I need to repent?
3. Is there one particular sin in my life that repeatedly gets in the way of loving God with my whole heart or loving my neighbor as myself? How do I address that sin over the next 40 days?
4. Is there anyone in my life from whom I need to ask forgiveness or pursue reconciliation?
5. What distractions most commonly interfere with my time in prayer/Scripture?
6. What spiritual discipline do I need to improve upon or want to try?
7. What are some things in my life that I tell myself I need but I don’t?
8. Why am I giving this particular thing up? How does giving it up draw me closer to God and prepare me for Easter?
9. What am I going to tell myself when self-denial gets hard?
10. Is it necessary/helpful for me to share the nature my fast with others or should I keep it private?

10 Book Recommendations  

1. 40 Days of Living the Jesus Creed by Scot McKnight
2. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
3. The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
4. The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle
5. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence
6. A Gift For God: Prayers and Meditations by Mother Teresa
7. The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns
8. Following Jesus by NT Wright
9. The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
10. The Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross

10 Creative Ways to Give Up AND Give Back

1. Choose to make water your only beverage for 40 Days between February 17 - April 3 to help Blood:Water Mission provide clean water for people in Africa who don't have a choice. Check out Forty Days of Water for more info. 
2. Eat porridge for a day (or for 40 days!) and host a Broken Bread hunger meal to raise awareness about hunger.
3. Give up eating out for 40 days and donate the money you save to The Christian Women’s Job Corp in Nashville. My sister works full-time for this organization, so I can personally vouch for the fact that the money will be used wisely and lovingly!
4. Do a 40-day purge of all your excess stuff and donate the best of it to Goodwill or a local thrift store that benefits the needy in your community.
5. If you are giving up social networking (like Facebook and Twitter), commit the next 40 days to getting to know your neighbors better and meeting any needs you perceive.
6. Ladies – Give up your favorite beauty products for a month and loan the money you save to an entrepreneur on Kiva.
7. If you are really brave, try living on $2 a day for 40 days, the way millions of families around the world live every day.
8. Give up your favorite little luxury purchases (chocolate, iTunes, magazines, books, shoes, specialty coffee, electronic gadgets, etc.) and send the money you save to an organization that provides help to the victims of the Haitian earthquake.
9. Give up your Saturday mornings for 40 days and volunteer at a local soup kitchen.
10. Become a "ringleader" for Take This Ring.   

10 Mediations

1. Psalm 51
2. Psalm 139
3. Isaiah 58
4. The Beattitudes (Matthew 5:3-12)
5. The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13)
6. Litany of Penitence
7. Litany of Humility
8. Prayer of St. Francis
9. Penitential Prayer of St. Augustine
10. Consider reading the Sermon on the Mount (alternating between Matthew’s account and Luke’s account) every day for the next 40 days.

What approach do you take to the season of Lent? What is its purpose in your life? Do you have any additional resources, ideas, or links to share?

(Note: I recently decided to abstain from asking people what they intend to “give up” (specifically) for Lent and also from sharing (specifically) how I intend to observe the season. If you would like to volunteer this information here, that is totally fine; but please don’t feel like you must.)

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So every week I prepare the liturgy and speak a little about the religious season.

So far, I’ve really enjoyed the rhythm and poetry of the liturgical year—the expectant tension of Advent, the celebration of Epiphany.

But now it’s time for Lent, a season of fasting and repentance.

When I first began my research into Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent, it was with trepidation and dread because the whole thing sounded to me to be very…Calvinistic.

What I mean is that Calvinists love to talk about depravity. It’s the first petal in the TULIP and the one I hear the most about. Total depravity provides an intellectual cushion to the blow of predestination because it explains why no one deserves salvation to begin with. The Reformed understanding of total depravity effectively shifts attention away from the question of why a loving God would damn most people to hell to the question of why an angry, offended God would choose anyone for heaven.

This is why several of my Calvinist friends have told me that objections to their theology are the result of pride. Ever since the sin of Adam, they say, our fallen nature has made us so utterly disgusting to God he is under no obligation to pay us any mind. It is therefore arrogant for me to assume that I or any of my fellow human beings deserve a chance at salvation.

Famed Reformed preacher Jonathan Edward explained it like this:

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. (Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God)

Recently, Reformed pastors like Mark Driscoll and John Piper have revived this kind of language, Driscoll explaining that the Gospel begins with “God hates you, and it’s going to go really really bad forever,” Piper concluding that natural disasters like the Asian tsunami and presumably the Haitian earthquake are acts of judgment by a holy God on an unholy people, stern illustrations of what we all deserve.

In other words, according to Piper, we find the bodies of children buried underneath rubble because God wants to remind us of just how little he thinks of us. They deserved it and so do we.

This is why I dreaded Lent.

Not because I agree with Edwards or Piper, but because I have a hard time reflecting on sin without thinking about their view of it. I guess I just assumed that Calvinists had the edge on the whole penitence thing because they have such a developed theology regarding depravity. In fact, one of the things I appreciate about my more moderate Calvinist friends is their deep appreciation for God’s grace in light of their sin. They talk about it all the time.

With this in mind, I opened my Book of Common Prayer wondering if I could spend 40 days in penitential reflection without becoming a Calvinist.

When I read the Collect for Ash Wednesday, my heart lifted with relief. Then it sunk with conviction and remorse.

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.

My heart sank because in one wrenching moment I realized that the true ugliness of our depravity lies not in the fact that we have offended a God who hates us, but in the fact that we have offended a God who desperately and relentlessly loves us.

The hyper-Calvinists have it backwards. We do not grasp the full weight of our sin by claiming we are inherently worthlessness to God, but by acknowledging that we are infinitely valuable to him. For if we are worthless to God, our sins against him are inconsequential; if we are but pesky insects or venomous serpents, our rebellion would not grieve him. 

To enter penance with the assumption that God loves his creation changes everything. It is the difference between realizing you have offended a vengeful deity and realizing you have grieved a loving Father.

It is painful.

It stings through to the bones.

But it is the beginning of restoration and redemption and all the beautiful things that God does through people who know they came from dust.

What do you think? Does God love his creation? Is it possible for him to hate anything he has made?

[For a brief response to potential biblical objections, see the first comment below.]

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“So what’s your name?” I asked the tall, quiet guy sitting next to me in psychology class. 

“Why do you want to know?” he replied.

“Oh,  I see how it is. You must be a Yankee.”

“So I’m told. I didn’t know I was one until I moved here.”

“Well around here we like to introduce ourselves to one another.”

“Alright, I’m Dan and I’m from New Jersey.”

“Nice to meet you, Dan. I’m Rachel, and I'm from Dayton.”

The rest, of course, is history...and I wouldn't change a minute of it!

***

Your turn: 

Married/ Engaged Folks: How did you meet your spouse?

Singles: Describe your best and/or worst date!

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All I know is I’m getting sucked in.

My inbox is bulging. I’ve got 34 starred items waiting in my RSS feed. I’m tweeting before every meal.   I have an opinion about the new Facebook layout.

I’ve taken to measuring myself in numbers—followers, friends, hits, visits, and pageviews.  My self-esteem rises and falls with every peak and valley of my Google Analytics line graph.

Every day I wonder, Will my readers like this post? Why haven’t I gotten more comments? Why does she have more followers than me? How did he get so many subscribers? Why can’t I look as pretty in my profile picture? What witty and repeatable statement can I make in 140-characters or less? Am I reviewing this book because I want to or because I want the favor returned? What would Donald Miller do? Who is this person writing on my wall? Will my readers buy my book? Is that the only reason I’m doing this? Do I really know them as well as I think? Would they like me if they knew the ‘real’ me?

Sometimes I feel like a fake.

And then there’s the advice from the experts—“You must be on the Twitterfaceogosphere to build a platform,” they say.  “Don’t make your posts too long,” they say. “Write about controversial subjects,” they say.  “Include a number in the title of your post,” they say. “Consider posting a picture of your child or pet,” they say. 

I wonder if perhaps I should write a post entitled “10 Reasons My Opinion About Homosexuality is Cuter Than Your Cat” because I bet that would get more comments than Anne Jackson’s post about Haiti.

Sometimes it just seems like so much noise, and I’m just one little voice screaming into it, desperately hoping to be heard.

I consider giving it up.

Maybe for Lent.

Maybe forever.

I consider writing a dramatic post announcing my exit.  The post would explain why Christians should spend their time on more important things, like helping the poor, and it would make everyone feel really guilty for tweeting about their breakfast or sending their books on blog tours or having opinions about the new Facebook layout. It would get WAY more comments than Jon Acuff’s posts about stuff Christians like.

But then I remember that God is sovereign over the Twitterfaceogosphere too, and that my problems aren’t out there but in here.

I remember the friends I’ve made. I remember the meaningful conversations I’ve had. I remember the encouragement I’ve received.

It’s so easy to convince myself that it is my pleasures that are guilty, not me. I tell myself that it’s Facbook’s fault I procrastinate, Twitter’s fault I’m jealous, and the blog’s fault I lay awake at night worrying about how many books I can sell.  I tell myself  that if I can just get rid of this platform I’ve worked so hard to build, I will be rid of the sins that I’ve brought to it.

The truth is, it’s easier to blame the Twitterfaceogosphere than it is to make boundaries,  discipline myself, and turn the computer off and go for a run. It’s easier to look away from this mirror than it is to face the truths that it reveals—that people don’t necessarily care about the things I care about, that my insecurity won’t go away with better blog stats , that I’m probably not the next Donald Miller after all.

Maybe the biggest mistake we make in assuming that the Twitterfaceogosphere isn’t a part of “real” life is believing it’s got nothing to teach us.

What are your feelings about the Twitterfaceogosphere? What have you learned from it? What measures have you taken to keep it from taking over your life?

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I know we have spent a lot of time talking about doubt here, and I promise to take a break from the subject over the next few weeks. (Perhaps I should consider giving it up for Lent!) But a few things made another post seem like a good idea.

The first was your response to last week’s post about “Embracing Doubt.” Several of your comments really got me thinking. The second was a blog post written by Mike Duran in which he fairly and respectfully criticizes me and other “emerging” Christians for glorifying doubt. The conversation that followed his post made me realize that perhaps I need to be clearer about what I mean when I talk about doubt.  And the third was an absolutely fantastic post by Dr. Richard Beck entitled “Faith and Doubt After the Cognitive Turn,” which was brought to my attention by a reader. I highly recommend reading the whole piece, but here a few highlights:

…Intellectual doubt has become particularly acute for many Christians due to the fact that there has been a hollowing out of faith in many sectors of Christianity. More specifically, for many Christians faith simply means "belief." Further, "belief" is taken to mean "I think proposition x is true.”…Faith becomes an abstract, intellectual, cognitive, and rationalistic process. And the implication is that if you can't get your intellect in line then you don't have faith...In the bible faith is never understood to be unshakable intellectual confidence. In the bible faith is more similar to perseverance, obedience, covenant faithfulness or worship.

When I read those last few words, I felt as though Beck had said what I’ve been trying to get at for years—that the most important indicator of unhealthy doubt is not having intellectual questions about your beliefs, but failing to obey.

As I’ve said before, the line between healthy doubt (doubting one’s beliefs about God) and unhealthy doubt (doubting God Himself) often gets blurred and is not clear-cut. Having been through both, I know from experience that one can lead to stronger faith and one can lead to sin.

So with that in mind, I compiled a list of six indicators that can help us measure the health of our doubt.

Three Indicators of Bad Doubt

1. Disobedience

My friend Dave puts it this way, “Belief is always a risk, a gamble—an adventure, if you will. The line between faith and doubt is the point of action. You don't need certainty to obey, just the willingness to risk being wrong.”

When I allow my questions about God to stop me from taking the risk of obedience, I am guilty of sin. When I let intellectual certainty dictate whether I continue to love my neighbors, care for the poor, fellowship with other Christ-followers, study Scripture, pray, serve and love, I become “like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6), for I am slave to my cognitive whims.

For example, it is not a sin to have questions about my interpretation of Genesis in light of the science that supports evolution.  It is a sin to allow these questions to kill my prayer life or keep me from reading the Bible altogether.

2.  Entitlement

Entitlement happens when I start demanding answers from God, as if he owes me an explanation for everything.

In the book of Job, God rebukes both Job and his friends. Job was rebuked for his entitlement, for acting as a “faultfinder contending with the Almighty” (Job 40: 1).  Job’s friends were rebuked for claiming to know all the answers about why Job was suffering (Job 42:7). Job repented. His friends did not.  It seems to me that we have to avoid both the sin of entitlement (demanding an explanation) and the sin of pride (assuming we already know it all). Unfortunately, I’ve spent far too much time bouncing between these extremes.

3. Cynicism

As Jeff noted in the comments last week, “I have found it important to not pair up cynicism with my doubt. It's easy to do that, and it does more bad than good, only leading to more restlessness.”

Boy, I can relate to that! There have been times when I have allowed my intellectual objections to some of the tenants of conservative evangelical Christianity turn me into a bitter, argumentative person, eager to play the devil’s advocate at every opportunity. I become cynical of everything evangelical, and I look for ways to belittle those with whom I disagree. This is clearly a sin. Even if I’m right about something, without love, I become nothing more than an annoying, clanging symbol (1 Corinthians 13:1). When I am cynical, I am rendered useless in the Kingdom of God, which is inherited by the poor, the gentle, the meek, and the merciful.

Three Indicators of Good Doubt

1. Obedience

One thing I love about Mother Teresa is that, despite experiencing many days of dark doubt, she continued to serve the people around her.  To me, obedience in the face of doubt is perhaps the strongest kind of faith there is.  

2.  Humility

The best kind of doubt is the kind that springs from humility—from an acknowledgment that we haven’t got God figured out, from a willingness to admit we can be wrong, and from a commitment to think critically about our beliefs. We doubt with humility when we recognize that our theology is not the moon, but rather the finger pointing at the moon.  In this way, I think it is essential that we doubt, for we are not doubting God, but rather ourselves. If we do not learn to question our beliefs, we will grow arrogant and prideful, unwilling to change our minds even when it’s the right thing to do.

3. Love

Love should be our motivation behind everything, particularly doubt. The person who loves God will often choose to struggle through intellectual objections rather than ignore them or succumb to them. The person who loves his neighbors and his enemies will often ask serious questions of himself, of the Church, and of God about how to truly care for them. 

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For now we see in a mirror dimply, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. These three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (I Corinthians 13:12-13)

In order to embrace the tension between knowing fully and being fully known, we must learn to abide in love. It is even more important than faith.

So, what would you add? What are some other indicators that your doubt is hurting your faith? What are some other indicators that your doubt is strengthening your faith?

Some other posts about doubt you might like: Dear John, Why Do You Find It So Easy to Believe?, Interview with Jason Boyett, Is Doubt a Disease?, Maybe God Doesn't Exist, Off-Limits Questions

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I had so much fun interacting with those of you who participated in the “Ask Me Anything” post. The best thing about blogging is the opportunity to connect with smart, fun, and interesting people, and I’m convinced my readers are the best in the blogosphere!

So today I thought I’d turn the tables and ask a few open-ended questions that will give you the chance to share whatever’s on your mind.

Feel free to take the opportunity to pimp your blog, to make Super Bowl predictions, to share with us the challenges you face, to tell a story, to express an opinion, to let us know what you’re reading, to include a link or two, to vent, to celebrate. Think of it as open mic night on the blog.

So,

What have you been thinking about?

What have you been writing about?

What have you been praying about?

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Today you can ask me anything, and I’ll answer.

Well, almost anything. Obviously, I won’t answer questions that are wildly inappropriate or in any way related to math.  I will not give you money, adopt your pets, or pitch your book to my agent unless we have already talked about that. Also, you should know that Dan and I have yet to watch last night’s season premiere of LOST, so theories will have to wait until tomorrow, after we’ve seen it on Hulu.

Besides that, you can ask me anything—about writing, about theology, about politics, about small-town life, about the blog, about The Mission, about monkeys, about Alabama Crimson Tide football, about doubt, about faith, about music, about movies, about publishing, about life. 

Just leave your question in the comments and I'll use the reply feature to respond.

(I’ll answer each question just once, so as to avoid overly lengthy discussions about predestination and free will.)

As Jason said in his post, “If you don't ask any questions, this will be the worst blog post ever. So I'm counting on you.”

Ask away!

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Quiz—

When I am presented with a new idea or proposal, my first question is more likely to be ...

___A. Is it acceptable to my religious/ideological community or belief system?
___B. Is it possibly true, valuable, and worth exploring?

According to McLaren, if your answer is ‘A,’ you are a fundamentalist, and if your answer is ‘B’ then you are curious.

McLaren draws his inspiration from Seth Godin’s definitions for fundamentalism and curiosity. In his excellent book, Tribes, Godin writes:

A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to his religion before he explores it.  As opposed to a curious person who explores first and then considers whether or not he wants to accept the ramifications.  A curious person embraces the tension between his religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.

When I first encountered the quiz, my reaction was, Why of course I’m not a fundamentalist! At least not anymore. I approach every new idea with an open mind and a willingness to embrace the truth no matter the consequences. I’ve voluntarily studied the science behind evolution, despite being told my whole life that it’s incompatible with my faith. I’ve read Richard Dawkins, Thich Nhat Hahn, and Friedrich Nietzsche. I’ve re-evaluated my position on politics, on homosexuality, on biblical inerrancy, on religious pluralism, and on church. I may be a person of faith, but I’m no fundamentalist!

But upon further reflection, I realized that if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that my first question when encountering a new idea is almost always, Does this fit with my faith?  It’s my default—perhaps out of habit, perhaps out of fear, perhaps because it’s part of the human condition to be wary of anything that might upset one’s current paradigm.

In fact, I have the same initial reaction when I am presented with a new perspective on politics or theology. My first question is almost always, Does this fit with what I already believe?  I hate to admit it, but my enthusiasm for exploring a subject is directly proportional to the degree to which I want to change my mind.

The difference, I suppose, is that over the past few years I’ve learned that my faith is strong enough to withstand new ideas and hard questions. I no longer let the question Does this fit with my faith? stop me from exploring. If all truth is God’s truth, then I figure I’ve got nothing to be afraid of.

I love Godin's perspective on fundamentalism and curiosity, and I'd like to think that I’m the kind of person who “embraces the tension between [her] religion and something new, wrestles with it and through it, and then decides whether to embrace the new idea or reject it.”

But this is a learned response for me, not a natural one. I’m afraid that my gut reaction will always be A, not B. I'm afraid that, deep down, I'm a fundamentalist at heart.

What about you? Based on this quiz, are you a fundamentalist?

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So Jason Boyett and I have been talking about the fact that we’re not the only ones writing about doubt these days. In addition to Jason’s memoir, O Me of Little Faith (due out in May), and my memoir, Evolving in Monkey Town (due out in July), Zondervan has re-released John Ortberg’s book on the subject, now entitled Know Doubt.

Either the folks at Zondervan are having a collective faith crisis, or the evangelical community is finally opening up about doubt.

On the blogosphere this week, Scot McKnight posted a letter from a young adult wrestling with doubts about his faith. Scot’s response was absolutely fantastic, and something I desperately wish I had encountered five years ago, when I first started asking serious questions about Christianity.  He recommended a few books that I plan to order on my oh-so-old-school Kindle: The Myth of Certainty by Daniel Taylor and Faith at the Edge by Robert Wennberg.

Also online, check out John Frye’s piece entitled “Doubters Arise!” and the very cool illustrations of David Hayward at NakedPastor.com, from where I got the illustration above, (after buying David a beer, of course). 

And finally, I thought the conversation that followed Monday's post, "Does God Speak to You?" was one of the best we have ever had here, and I was so moved by your stories, many of which included your struggles with doubt.

All of this points to what I hope is a trend toward talking more openly about doubt and acknowledging the vital role it can play in shaping our faith. As I’ve mentioned before, doubt can take two forms—questioning God and questioning what we believe about God. Having experienced both, I know that the first can be destructive, while the second can be enriching and beneficial, though admittedly the line between them can sometimes get blurred.  But I remain convinced that serious doubt, the kind that leads to despair, does not begin when we start asking God questions, but when out of fear, we stop.

What do you think? Are Christians developing a more nuanced attitude toward doubt? Do you feel it is becoming less  taboo to talk openly about your questions about Christianity? Is this a good thing?

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Here’s a fun way to get to know one another better.

Send a “postcard” from:

1. Your current hometown.

2. The most far-away place you have ever been.

3. The place you would most want to be if you could snap your fingers and go now.

Feel free to include as many details as you please!

I’ll start.

1. Dayton, Tennessee—home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925.

2. India—where the sights, sounds, colors, tastes and smells are impossible to describe. (I took the picture at the Red Fort in Delhi.)

3. Glacier National Park, Montana—the most beautiful spot in America, though I would want to wait until summer to be there!

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