The Gospel According to the Joneses: Christianity and the Middle Class

In my last post, my friend, Lindsay (who has a great blog you should check out), left a comment posing a question too big to answer in a simple reply:

How did Christianity in America become the realm of the middle class?

It’s really a strange phenomenon that if one were to make a mental picture an American Christian, they’d likely see a White suburbanite. In most countries, this wouldn’t be the case. For starters, there simply is no middle class in many countries. However, I think it’s also significant that in most countries, especially in countries where the church is growing, Christianity is more frequently associated with the poor.

So why, then, is Christianity in America associated more with the middle class than with the poor? What does a religion whose leader taught “Blessed are the poor in spirit…” have to offer a class of people who are economically more stable and wealthier than the majority of the world? Why would a class of people so obsessed with “keeping up” with fashion, technology and material possessions be so ready to call Lord the one who told one man to sell all the had and give to the poor? I have a number of theories, and I’m guessing the truth lies in a combination of these and other ideas.

1.) America’s heritage and values. Christian values have been woven into the story of America, at least as many people tell it. The first (European) settlers came seeking religious freedom. Our founding fathers designed the law of the land around Christian values. Even early on, people considered America a “Christian nation.” (This is despite all of the very unChristian pieces of our history, like stealing land from natives and participating in the human slave trade, but that’s a whole other blogpost.) Christianity in many ways is considered as American as baseball and apple pie. And who likes baseball or apple pie more than the middle class?

2.) The evangelical church’s evangelism strategy in the 20th century. I’ve become more aware of this as a church planter. For years, the “church planting model” for evangelical churches in America was something like this: 1.) find a new developing suburb. 2.) buy several acres of land there. 3.) build your church. 4.) watch the people come. This is how most evangelical churches grew, particularly the evangelical megachurches, which are almost always located in the suburbs. The problem is that while this was happening, most were completely ignoring the fact that demographics in the neighborhoods of existing churches were changing, especially in the city. Most urban churches, however, continued their ministries as culturally White, middle-to-upper-middle class congregations, despite their surrounding context becoming increasingly less wealthy and less White.

3.) Our consumerism. I’m becoming more and more convinced that this has been the source of much of the church’s problems in the past 50 years. Along with buying land in a growing suburb and building there, church planters in the 20th century (and many still) stressed the importance of finding your churches ‘niche’ ministries. The underlying assumption was that everyone was looking for a church; your church just needed to provide what ’seekers’ were looking for. This resulted in church buildings that resemble shopping malls and movie theaters, church music that imitated top 40 pop music, and ministries targeted to very specific demographics. This consumerist model of doing church led to divisions among Christianity; most evangelical churches today can be linked to a particular race and economic class. (The consumerist model also led to the church losing it’s appreciation for beauty and shifting its focus more toward cultural imitation as opposed to culture making. But again, a whole other blogpost…)

4.) We’ve watered down the gospel. A friend of mine who used to work for the administration at my alma mater, Grove City College (a college that’s about as Christian middle-class as you can get) once said to me, “Grove City College talks a lot about ‘Christian values,’ but they never talk about Jesus. Jesus is far too radical for Grove City College.” I think this is an absolutely true assessment (at least in terms of the administration and overall culture of the place). The Christian values of the Christian American middle-class are an incomplete, if not at times inaccurate, representation of the teaching of Christ and his first followers.

To sum up, Christianity has become the realm of the middle class mainly because the evangelical church in America has targeted them in the past century. The evangelical focus on church-planting in growing suburbs often left many urban and rural areas neglected. Our focus on the middle-class included ministry models that reinforced already-present class divisions in America, and failed to challenge middle-class Christians with portions of the gospel that challenge middle-class values.

The Witness of Tipping

I had a friend in college who worked as a waitress. She once told me that her coworkers would often complain about having to work on Sundays at lunchtime. Their reason why? “The only people who come in are Christians on their way home from church. And Christians are bad tippers.”

I’m guessing that we Christians can owe part of our bad reputation among wait staff to the fact that many of the after-church restaurant patrons are elderly individuals who may just have a set habit of tipping a dollar or two, despite the fact that a dollar or two gets you considerably less than it did thirty. But the problem isn’t limited to our elders. I remember once being to dinner with a group of friends from high school on a visit home from college. They weren’t all Christians, but one was a rather outspoken Christian. And this outspoken Christian, after we had all chipped in our share, insisted that we leave a smaller tip than what our contributions were adding up to. “You’re just supposed to double the tax, and that’s the tip,” she said. In Pennsylvania, that amounts to a 14% tip, not even the expected 15% minimum… and there were nearly 10 of us that this waitress served. I’m not sure how she convinced the rest of us to take pack some of our contribution, but I remember wanting to leave quickly before the waitress picked up the money off of the table because I was so embarrassed.

What motivates us as Christians to be so stingy? Are people trying to be good stewards while ignoring Scripture’s exhortation to give generously? Christians need to realize that tipping is an act of witness to a waiter or waitress; and the waiter or waitress is going to make judgments on your character based on how well, or not well, you tip. Trust me. I’ve worked for tips before as a pizza deliverer, and that job completely changed my opinion of one church near my home after they tipped me very poorly (something like $1 on a $50 order), and my opinion wasn’t, “Well, they’re just trying to be good stewards.”

A few practices that I try to keep:

1.) Always tip at least 20%.

2.) Don’t “punish” your waiter/ress for bad or disappointing service with a smaller tip. Instead, show grace.

3.) If you give your waiter any reason to think you’re a Christian (being well-dressed on a Sunday afternoon, praying before your meal, faith-related conversation at the table, etc.) know that there’s a good chance that you’re representing the Church and maybe even Christ to your waitress, especially if s/he’s not a Christian him/herself. I once left a restaurant and realized 30 minutes later that my table forgot to leave a tip. On top of that, we had our Bibles out and open on the table. I went back, found our waiter, apologized and gave an even bigger tip than I would normally give.

4.) Take time to get to know the person waiting on you, especially if you’re a repeat customer. I’m still not too good at this one, but want to improve. Waiters and waitresses expend a lot of energy trying to make their customers feel good. It’s a very selfless act. Building a relationship with them and providing the conversational space for them to say now they’re doing or share from their life outside the restaurant could be a breath of fresh air.

 

Weeping Over Scripture

When the seventh month came – the people of Israel being settled in their towns – all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the Law of Moses, which the Lord had given to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it face the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Law. The scribe Ezra stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the purpose… And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. Also… the Levites helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading.

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” Fall the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

- Nehemiah 8:1-4a, 5-9

Generally speaking, I’m not a very emotional person. I don’ t typically where my emotions on my sleeve. With the exceptions of close friends who read my non-verbal communication well, most people won’t know if I’m angry or upset or depressed. For better or for worse, I generally prefer to deal with my emotions internally.

Consequently, it usually takes a lot for me to cry. I can think of very few times that I’ve wept. I couldn’t tell you the last time I cried while watching a movie. I can, however, tell you the last time I cried while reading a book.

It’s happened to me only once. I was in college, and was working on an independent study during my senior year focusing on theologically significant themes in various dramas. I was reading the play Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht. Towards the end of the play, which takes place during the Thirty Years War, Mother Courage’s mute daughter Kattrin is shot as she attempts to warn a nearby village of an impending attack by beating a large drum. The soldiers shoot her, but the town is saved. My description of the scene doesn’t give full justice to its beauty. I sat there with tears flowing down my face as I read this scene, and I realized that I was weeping in response to the gospel. Kattrin’s death was salvific for the nearby village.

What bothers me, though, is that I’ve never had an experience like this reading the actual story of Jesus in any of the gospel narratives, let alone in response to any portion of Scripture. In the passage above from Nehemiah, the people weep in response to hearing Ezra read the law and the Levites interpret it. Granted, the people are then told that weeping isn’t the correct response; they ought to be rejoicing. Nevertheless, the weeping is an indication that the law was cutting right into their hearts.

I can think of very few times when I’ve read Scripture and felt like weeping (or rejoicing, for that matter), and I’ve never actually wept. The same is true in most of my experiences hearing Scripture in corporate worship (a context closer to the one in Nehemiah). With some exceptions (most often in Charismatic congregations and non-White congregations), Christians rarely respond with any emotion to the reading of Scripture. In fact, there are times (and I speak firstly in reference to my own worship leadership and preaching) that our reading of Scripture feels only like a “transition” into the sermon.

Now, I realize that being concerned about emotional responses can be a slippery slope. Thinking about this too much can lead to manipulative attempts to elicit emotions for all the wrong reasons. But how do we create in our worship communities a culture of emotional openness? And what obstacles stand in the way of creating that culture?

Lifting Hands in Worship

If you’ve ever wondered why some Christians raise their hands in worship, this is the best explanation I’ve ever read. This is from Patrick Henry Reardon’s Christ in the Psalms. He’s commenting on the opening of Psalm 41: “Let my prayer rise before you as incense, the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice.”

Whenever, then, we Christians raise our hands in prayer, as St. Paul tells us to do (cf. 1 Tim 2:8), it is  to symbolize that our prayer, our entire relationship to God, is founded in the power of the Cross. We are thereby proclaiming that we have no access to God except through the Cross of the Lord. The raising of our hands in prayer is acceptable to God only because of its relationship to that true evening sacrifice through which we draw near.

Scripture: The “With-God” Book

The Bible is all about human life “with God.” It is about how God has made this “with-God” life possible and will bring it to pass. In fact, the name Immanuel, meaning in Hebrew “God is with us,” is the title given to the one and only redeemer, because it refers to God’s everlasting intent for human life – namely, that we should be in every aspect a dwelling place of God. Indeed, the unity of the Bible is discovered in the development of life “with God” as a reality on earth, centered in the person of Jesus…

- Introduction to The Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible

In my personal spiritual development, I’ve begun to think more about Scripture. I’ve noticed lately that more often than not my times of personal reading and studying of Scripture have been dry. Many times I’ll read a passage of Scripture, finish, and then realize that I have no idea what I just read. Other times when I am actually making an effort to be fully present to the text, I more often find the curiosities of my brain being stimulated, rather than the desires of my heart.

I find this excerpt from the Intro to the Renovare Spiritual Formation Bible to be really helpful, particularly because the emphasis on being “with God” challenges me to heighten my expectations when approaching Scripture. In my life, there are numerous people I would call “faith role-models” – people whom I look at  and think to myself, “God is with that person.” I admire and trust these people. I feel safe following them because I am confident that the path they are on is one toward God.

These people aren’t just friends whom I know personally, although I’m blessed to have many friends whom I count among these role-models. Within the communion of saints, there are men and women, living and dead, whom I’ve never met personally, and some who have lived long before I, who have had great influence on my faith. Brother Lawrence, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, St. Augustine, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are some of the first to come to mind. Again, the theme among all these individuals is a particular “with-God-ness.”

Regardless of how well I know the individually personally, whether friend or stranger, I’m excited to follow these people. I look forward to learning from them, as they challenge me to a greater faithfulness. It’s this same eagerness, likely even a greater eagerness, that I think I need to cultivate in approaching Scripture. Scripture is a book about and written by “with-God” people. In fact, the writers of Scripture are so closely “with-God” that anyone seeking to be closer to God will need to follow them. And, of course, at the heart of Scripture is Christ Himself, God-with-us.

A fruitful reading of Scripture, then, begins with one’s desire for being with God, and seeking to meet that desire in the communion of the saints. The desire to be with God is met in following the writers of Scripture, the prophets and the apostles, as they follow Christ.

Prayer: Reflections from Matt Bell

In the formation of my own prayer life, seeing others pray and learning from them has played an integral role. In recent years, I’ve been blessed by numerous saints whose prayers and insights have both inspired and challenged me. One of those individuals is my friend, Matt Bell. Matt and I became friends in seminary, and also became colleagues in ministry at Korean United Presbyterian Church. I and the Upper Room are also blessed to have Matt and his wife Alyssa as a part of our worshipping community. Matt is currently pursuing a PhD in Patristics from the University of Durham, and is also one of the instructors and founders of the Ancient Christian Faith Initiative. Below are seven questions that I posed to Matt in an email, followed by Matt’s response – he chose to weave the answers to the questions into a larger narrative. Thanks, Matt for your wisdom and witness.

1. When and how often do you pray?
2. What do your times of prayer look like? How are they structured? Do you pray in a particular physical posture?
3. Are there any particular prayers or Scriptures that you find yourself coming back to when you pray?
4. Do you remain consisten in your prayer practices or do you change things up from time to time?
5. How do you determine/discern who or what to pray for? How do you discern what specifically to ask for on behalf of those people/matters?
6. What do you ask for when you pray for yourself?
7. How long has it taken you to develop your current discipline of prayer?

I always feel a little cheeky answering questions about my prayer life as if it were something to be imitated or learned from.  Prayer and corporate worship are both struggles for me; I recall a cloud of difficulty, at times verging on pain, descending upon me around when I became a teenager.  The difficulty led me to different responses, sometimes to a weariness and unbelief that’s left me in stunned silence.  It may be that reflections on that would be most helpful to you and your readers, so I’ll post that as background to answering your numbered questions.  I’ll try to weave answers to the numbered ones in the larger narrative.

First of all, like most Christians, I was raised to expect God to answer prayer by speaking back, sometimes in words, in images, through signs, through other Christians in the Church…….Worship on Sunday mornings was especially passionate.  We tried to be emotionally open to the Holy Spirit, to have our hearts open.  Feelings were important, and outward response to God was important.  Worship of this kind was a sort of prayer, even the core discipline.  Since you ask about posture, upraised hands were our most common gesture.  We were told it represented sacrifice — that with one’s hand upraised, you were lifting stuff up to God.

At around age 13, maybe a little earlier, a couple changes happened.  First, I stopped “feeling” God in corporate worship, which experience I interpreted as divine displeasure.  Second, for whatever reason, I became extremely self-conscious about raising hands in worship.  It became difficult for me to do it.  My sister, Rebekah, became similarly affected about raising hands, but she articulated a different reason: it felt artificial.  She observed people raising hands to be visible to others, and was offended by the hypocrisy.  I can’t remember why I didn’t raise my hands — only that it was hard, and that God felt distant.  I remember around that time that I tried to start manipulating my emotions, to stir myself inwardly to passion towards God, all to no avail.  The effort simply increased my pain.  Around that time, the pastor even gave a word of knowledge that someone in worship was “working too hard”.  That was a very unhelpful word for me, because it simply led to frustration — I couldn’t stop working, or felt I couldn’t.  To work led to pain, to stop working felt like apathy.  Gradually, this experience grew until it covered everything, taking over my spiritual life bit by bit, like an advancing glacier.

Looking back at this time I sometimes find myself surprised, because although it felt like God was so absent, I now can see he was stunningly present.  It’s been that way a lot throughout the years — when I look at the present moment, all I see is confusion.  When I look at the past with gratitude, I see the Lord everywhere.  So it was with that time.  Three or four experiences related to the nature of prayer stand out very dramatically from that period.  The first happened as I was waking up, engaging in very mundane, early morning “get-ready-for-the-day” activity.  I was pitying myself over the lack of feelings of God’s presence as I got washed up, occasionally complaining to the Lord about it and asking why he was displeased with me.  The Spirit broke the silence and said, “Why do you need feelings from me?  Is it not enough goodness just to worship me, even without the feelings?”  The second was years later, when I was in college.  I was walking around the campus, struggling with prayer.  I was on the third floor of Corbett Center, the student union building at NMSU, standing nearby the payphones on one side of the building by the stairs.  I complained to God about the struggle, said that I could not pray, and he responded to the effect, “Your problem is not that you cannot pray, but that you will not.”  On another occasion he said, “You don’t believe.”  Through these experiences, I began to learn that prayer is not about feeling God respond, but acting in confidence that he is there and will respond.  A third experience occurred as I was trying to quiet myself to hear his voice on a particular request.  The Spirit interrupted and said, “I have no difficulty speaking to you.  I don’t need you to do that.”  Through experiences like this, I was slowly brought through to a place where I could again worship and pray not without difficulty, but in spite of not feeling things, not hearing things.

Perhaps because of the difficulty, though, I don’t really have set times of prayer or strict habits.  Having them might help; I’ve not set them, however.  I tend to try to pray throughout the day, to cultivate an awareness of God’s presence.  Since meeting Alyssa, who is more structured, I do now pray with her once a day about certain specific, “covenanted” requests — for the salvation of five people we have agreed to pray for daily, and for needs in our family.  We begin by going over our requests and debriefing about our day, then reading a psalm slowly, then alternating our requests.

I’ve found it very helpful to think of prayer as participation in the divine counsel.  I really believe this is the case.  Prayer is not just “me and God”.  Prayer is a priestly activity.  In addition to myself there are saints and angels, including some fallen powers, before the Throne.  The Lamb is on the throne and in the midst of the elders, and the Father is upon the throne.  The Lamb is the great high priest, and the saints and holy angels are lesser priests, and they all offer sacrifices of incense and intercession to the One on the Throne through the Lamb, who ever intercedes and whose intercessions will not be rejected.  It is a royal, as well as a liturgical, space.  The Lamb is the Son and Crown Prince, the One on the Throne is the Father and King.  The saints are adopted and beloved sons, royalty invited into the King’s secret councils.  The more one gets to know the Father and the Son and the Spirit, the more confidence one has in prayer, for your prayers cease to be the petitions of an individual.  They become participation in the governance of the kingdom, and the King is just and good and passionately interested in the wellbeing of the kingdom and everything that occurs within it.  Other councils are also being voiced before the throne, and not all of them intend well.  Some are subversive, hostile to the King and Crown Prince and the interests of the kingdom.  They persecute the saints and make war against the angels.  Thus, it is desperately important not simply that good “win”, but that the Victor appear good — that at the end of the day it be clear who is righteous and who is not.  Prayer and worship participate in this, too.  The saints ever keep in mind the reputation of the One on the throne and of the Lamb.  Their very identities are integrated with that of the King, for he is their father by adoption, the source of their own beatitude and ground of their rule in the kingdom.  They are jealous that he be honored, and pray with that in mind.  What they speak in the council they do so to honor the King and the Lamb and neutralize the enemies.  The more we get to know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the more we can speak effectively to this end.  We come to know the love of God and enter more deeply into his counsel and life.  The more we know the love of God, the more confident grow our prayers, where love is not always or just a feeling, but an act of the will that becomes the fabric of one’s very being and identity.

The above effects how I pray, or perhaps the above view grew out of our I prayed — it’s difficult to tell.  I try to pray daily and as often as I think of it.  Periodically, I try to engage what Dave Hansen calls “long, wondering prayer” — walking a few miles, letting my distracted mind simply be distracted before God, treating life as something lived in the Presence.  I do use gestures, especially when out amongst people.  If I sense I’m being hypocritical or worried for my own appearance, I withdraw; otherwise, I try to worship and pray outwardly in a way to direct the attentions of those around me to what is going on in the Spirit’s realm.  Hands upraised in blessing and words such as “Blessed be…” or “Let it be….” are not simply requests (although they are), but participation in the life and rule of God over the creation.  When God himself is the One blessed, the creation is being offered back to Him in sacrifice, it’s transformation interceded for that He might properly be blessed by and within it, his just and loving character no longer obscured by the malice of demons and men.  Hands raised with palms up or resting on my knees symbolize openness to receive from him.  He doesn’t need the gestures, though.  (Invocation is not incantation.  Incantation is where an occultist tries to manipulate the divine; invocation operates out of the confidence that God is open to us and for us, and wills the best, and is active in the world, and so does not need to be manipulated!  In fact, he rather dislikes it…)

When doing the above, there are some bits and pieces of prayer I do find myself, personally, coming back to.  These are largely fragments of scripture and liturgy.  These days, I find myself using a lot phrases including the trishagion, the Jesus prayer, blessing upon the kingdom of the Trinity, affirmation that God is the source of all goodness and that we only offer to him out of his goodness (“All things come from you, and of your own do we give you”), pleading for mercy upon myself and the system of which I am a part, and sometimes appeals to his reputation a la the psalms.

In discerning how to pray and for whom, I find it helpful to keep a couple general guidelines in mind.  First, abstraction is frequently the devil’s realm, whereas the concrete and actually real is the Holy Spirit’s.  I think it was Oswald Chambers (but it may have been Bonhoeffer) who noted this with regards to the confession of sin and guilt — that Satan likes to stir up self-hatred along the lines of generalities (“you’re not pious enough”), but that the Holy Spirit is specific (“just now you were unreasonably angry with your brother”).  Tim Becker taught me that this applies over a vast range of matters.  Whenever a matter occurs to me, I try to think of some particular, specific request I can make about that matter, keeping in mind the just, loving character of God.  I then try to articulate that request in words.  If my request is too abstract, I try not to make it; if it has been corrupted with unbelief regarding the character of God, I confess it as brokenness and plead for mercy on myself and do not make it as a request.

On praying for myself, if I find myself falling into self-pity, I focus on gratitude and intercession.  If I am genuinely suffering, however, or am in real pain, I pray for myself.  C.S. Lewis notes that it is a trick of the enemy (temptation towards spiritual pride?) to convince us we should never pray for ourselves.  Sometimes we need mercy to strengthen us so that we can pray for others.  Here, I find it helpful to think of myself as like a ranger in a rough wilderness, responsible to help guide other pilgrims through treacherous land.  If my health or good judgment becomes compromised I risk the safety of everyone with me.  Of course, sometimes a ranger has to treck ahead despite pain.  There are no clear rules here, only guidelines.  Our success hinges not upon our genius to get it right, but on the faithfulness of Jesus, whose Spirit is the chief “ranger” who searches all things in this wilderness, even the infinite depths of God, and who will not get lost or tired.  If we get a bit wrong, we stumble, repent in His grace, then get up — and he is pleased with us doing so.

I hope this helps and isn’t either too general, on the one hand, or without sufficient explanation on the other!

Prayer: The Examen

As I’ve been thinking about prayer over the past several weeks, I’ve also taken stock of my own prayer life. Too often for me (and I suspect this becomes the case for many) prayer becomes routine. Every morning, I take time to read the Bible, and to read from another theological work. Prayer usually gets sandwiched between these two times of reading. Many times I don’t know what to pray for. Who to pray for is not a problem; only a few moments of reflection will quickly bring to mind plenty of people and situations for whom and for which I ought to be praying. But what to pray for – what to ask God to do for this people or in those situations – often becomes stale and unthoughtful.

As I’ve reflected on this, I’ve been finding myself confronted with my own unbelief. Do I actually belief God answers these prayers? Do I believe that God is listening? I concluded that I needed to find concrete ways to experience what God was doing in my midst and how God was answering prayers I was praying. So, I decided to practice the examen.

The examen is a spiritual exercise taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola. You can read a more detailed explanation of what examen is and looks like in practice here. A basic explanation of the examen is that it’s time spent consciously in God’s presence at the end of the day. It includes reviewing the events of your day and giving thanksgiving for the gifts God gave, and searching your own conscious and heart in the decisions you made.

Though I’m still not perfectly disciplined in practicing the examen – I’m rarely able to practice it multiple days in a row – I’ve hoped that practicing the examen would help me to see what God is doing in my life. It’s helped in that, but what I’ve noticed more is how practicing the examen has changed the way I go through my day. Since practicing the examen, I’ve found myself more deliberately recognizing what God is doing as He’s doing it.

The examen has disciplined me in practicing the presence of God throughout my day. I’m still far from able to do this perfectly. In fact I’m still rarely able to be fully present to God’s work in my midst for more than an hour. Nevertheless, I think this is the real benefit of practicing the examen. Being able to see how God is at work in hind sight is a blessing, but seeing God at work in the present makes the previous reflection worthwhile.

Prayer: Learning from Our Lord

Our Father in heaven, Reveal who you are. Set the world right; Do what’s best – as above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil. You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.

Paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer by Eugene Peterson in The Message

Whenever I read Luke 11, I’m always intrigued by the request made to Jesus by an unnamed disciple at the beginning of the chapter. “Lord, teach us to pray.” It’s a request I often pray myself when I begin a time of prayer and feel as if I don’t know what to say. The lesson in prayer that Jesus gives in this chapter of Scripture is what we now call The Lord’s Prayer. The Spiritual Formation workbook I’ve been going through included an exercise in meditating on Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer (quoted above). I appreciate a lot of the insights Peterson gives through it. Here are each of the petitions in the “traditional” translation side by side with Peterson’s paraphrase along with some of my thoughts on how the paraphrase enriches the meaning.

Hallowed be Thy name -> Reveal who you are

“Hallowed be…” is from the King James Version, and is an archaic way of expressing a request for God’s name to be considered holy. God’s name is most “hallowed” by those who see Him most clearly. In the visions of the heavenly throne room in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, those around the throne never cease to cry out, “HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!” When we pray this petition, we’re asking God to reveal himself to ourselves, to the Church, and to the world, that we might cry “Holy!” with authenticity and passion.

Thy Kingdom come -> Set the world right.

The Kingdom of God is equivalent to a “right” world; a world without hunger or poverty, without sickness or disease, without sin or injustice. This echoes of Mary’s Song in Luke. When I pray this petition, I want to have in mind particular, specific, situations in the world that are not right at the present, and ask God to set it right.

Thy will be done -> Do what’s best.

There can be nothing greater than God’s will. Praying this with faith requires a broadened perspective. I intuitively want what’s best for myself. I need to pray for what’s best from God’s perspective. As we grow in faith and in relationship to the Father Son and Holy Spirit, we understand more clearly God’s will, and can pray for God’s will to be done in very specific and concrete ways.

Give us this day our daily bread -> Keep us alive with three square meals.

Of all the petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, I take this one the most for granted (as I’m guessing most Americans who pray this prayer do). Even as someone right out of school and in a career that I’m never going to get rich in, I live in considerable abundance compared to most of the world. Frankly, I have difficulty even imagining the situation being different. In a lifestyle of abundance, it’s difficult to perceive dependence upon God for daily sustenance. Like Job, though, my plenty can be taken away at any time. At no point does my plenty exceed my need for God’s provision.

Forgive us our debts/trespasses/sins as we forgive our debtors/those who trespass/sin against us -> Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.

I find it fascinating that Peterson translates this petition in terms of sustenance – “keep us…” – just as he translates the previous petition. Forgiveness is sustenance. For God to withdraw His forgiveness from us, or for us to withhold forgiveness from others, would be as detrimental and malnourishing to us as deprivation from food. Praying this petition ought to lead us to asking, “Who am I withholding forgiveness from?”

Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil -> Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil.

I don’t think I’ve ever before thought of temptation as me imposing a threat on myself. But this is what Peterson’s paraphrase implies. This would make sin a form of sadomasochism. In our desire to sin, whether it’s a deliberate sin against someone else or a sin of self-indulgence, the temptation to commit any such sin poses an ominous threat to our own well-being. What if we really considered the danger our own sin imposes on ourselves?

“Lord, teach us to pray” is a prayer we ought to pray, and a prayer our Lord is eager to answer. Next time you pray the prayer that is the answer to that request, slow down and consider all that those petitions connote and imply.

Prayer: How Specific Should Our Prayers Be?

A while back, I felt convicted that as a pastor, I wasn’t praying enough. It was hard for me to see prayer as something I was supposed to do “on the clock.” If I wasn’t talking with someone, writing a sermon, answering an email, preparing a Bible study, I didn’t think it was ministry. I came to realize through conversations with more experienced ministers and through reading Scripture that prayer is what I’m supposed to be doing more than anything. So, I started praying more.

This has developed into praying very specific prayers. For example, in my InterVarsity work, I’ve become convicted that God’s vision for grad students at Carnegie Mellon is for there to be a network of witnessing communities in every college at CMU. Since Jesus says that wherever two or three are gathered, he’s there with them, I decided that at least two missional grad students in each college at CMU was a reasonable expectation, so that’s what I’ve been asking for. Likewise, I’ve realized recently how great it is to have “divine appointments” – moments in which I can either share my faith or hear someone else share about their faith. I felt convicted to pray for a divine appointment every day, and have been amazed at the frequency with which God answers those prayers.

Some of the responses I’ve gotten from fellow Christians about this praying have been interesting. When someone else in a prayer group heard me ask God specifically for two missional Christians in every college at CMU, he responded, “So you’re a person who prays numbers? I’ve been told that when you do that God will do one of three things, he’ll either give you less than what you ask for, give you  more than what you ask for, or give you something completely different.” Translation: If you ask God for something too specific, there’s no chance that he’ll grant your request to the “T.”

Likewise, when another colleague learned of my asking for a divine appointment each day, his response was cautionary. He reminded me that the reason those prayers were being answered wasn’t because God was doing anything different, but because I had simply made myself more open to divine appointments happening. Translation: Prayer is less about asking God to do something and more about making us more attune to what God is already doing.

It’s hard to pray specific prayers. In fact, it’s hard to ask anyone, whether God or a fellow human being, for something specific. In my support raising for InterVarsity, I’ve been encouraged to ask for potential donors to give specific amounts of money. Mustering up the courage to do this is extremely difficult, and I’m rarely able to find that much courage. Asking for something specific is scary because it increases the chance that our request will be rejected. The same is true for prayers to God; the more abstract our prayers, the less likely those prayers will go unanswered and the less likely our faith will be shaken.

At the same time, though, the specific prayers that I’ve been praying have been increasing, not decreasing, my faith. One of the influences on me in praying these specific prayers has been my InterVarsity training materials. InterVarsity’s Chapter Planting Manual encourages planters to ask God to bring specific numbers of students to various events, and when it does this, it says to only ask for the number of people you can pray for in faith. In other words, when you pray specifically, don’t pray for more than what you believe God can do. I don’t take specific prayers lightly. Praying in this way has forced me to reflect on my own faith and to think through what I truly believe my God is capable of.

Also, praying for “divine appointments” has, in my opinion, done far more than simply open me up to what God is already doing. I’m always amazed at how often God answers this prayer when I pray it, and how often divine appointments don’t happen when I forget to pray this prayer. I think God is teaching me something in this experience about his own heart for those whom He loves. God longs to gather His lost sheep, and He longs to do it through the voice of his people. Praying for divine appointments is showing me the heart of God in a very intimate way.

Specific prayers are dangerous. They make us far more vulnerable before God. But when we take them seriously, they also make us more honest with God about our own faith, and they open up for us the opportunity to experience God in ways far more vivid.

Thoughts on “The New Christians” by Tony Jones

About a year ago, now, I attended the Church Basement Roadshow when it stopped at Hot Metal Bridge Faith Communty in Pittsburgh. The Roadshow was a book tour for 3 then-recently-published books by Tony Jones, Mark Scandrette, and Doug Pagitt. I was really intrigued by what Tony had to say then, and so I picked up Tony’s book The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier.

Though he stepped down from the position last year, at the time of writing The New Christians, Tony was serving as the National Coordinator for Emergent Village. In The New Christians, Tony gives an explanation of the emerging church movement, including the shifts in our broader cultural context from modernity to post-modernity, some of the earlier history of the movement, the theology and ecclesiology behind the movement, and some contemporary stories that illustrate what the emerging church looks like on the ground.

The stories from the movement, both its early history and more recent stories of emerging churches, are what’s most helpful in the book. More than anything else, the emerging church is a movement of people. It’s difficult to define emergent Christianity in terms of a particular doctrine or theory, which Tony illustrates very well in the diversity of stories he tells. Tony’s stories aren’t just diverse in terms of the theological perspective of the individuals, though. Tony also reports “dispatches” of emergents who are very much at the center of the movement (though they wouldn’t like to be considered at the center or choose to be there) as well as lesser known emergents, faithfully demonstrating the movement’s egalitarian values.

What I found less helpful about the book is the ways in which Tony handles his and the emerging church’s critics. Tony begins the book by critiqueing and attempting to reveal the weaknesses of both evangelical/fundamentalist/conservative forms of Christianity and liberal/progressive forms of Christianity, as well as criticize both the religious right and left for attacking each other and the emerging church. He concludes that “Christian leaders resort to unnuanced attacks on one another.” [p.21] While this may be true, Tony says this after critiqueing and rejecting both the “right” and the “left” in less than 20 pages. His criticisms ultimately comes across as the pot calling the kettle black.

Tony also takes the comments of his critics VERY personally. Granted, some of his critcs have made comments that are very personal. Yet as I read the book, I couldn’t help but get the impression that Tony wasn’t prepared for some of the harsh criticism his thoughts have received. Much of the book comes across as defensive, and in some cases even as emotional venting.

The personal responses to personal attacks lead to what I think is the greatest weakness of the book. Because Tony responds in such a personal way that it’s hard to tell when Tony is talking about the characteristics of the emerging church and when he’s speaking more from his own opinion.

At the same time, this may be the book’s greatest strength. For much of the book, reading it feels like sitting across the table with Tony and chatting him. The New Christians is very much an insiders account of the emerging church, and Tony’s personal interest in the movement, his passion, and his emotions give the book an extra measure of authenticity.

If you’re looking to be inspired or to find new insights into the current state of the church, The New Christians will probably disappoint you. If you’re looking for an authentic first-hand account of the emerging church movement, though, The New Christians is certainly worth checking out.