Missing the Mark of Faithfulness

Those who know me know I think Pistis is best defined as faithfulness, which I understand as being the act of discerning what God wants one to do and the willingness to do it. So what does that mean for Hamartano?

Hamartano is understood to be "missing the mark" initially in archery, but then applied to other aspects of life, and in faith became "Sinning."  So if the mark we miss is Pistis, then Sin becomes either "not discerning God in what we do" or "not acting on what we have discerned."  Both of these options are things that would be hard if not impossible for anyone but the primary party to fully know.

Thus when we focus on the personal "Sin" of others, we ourselves are missing the mark of faithfulness that points throughout gospel and all stories of scripture to Justice as our primary call.  Only in a just world may we even begin to be able to see others actions through shared lenses of faithfulness.  As long as the world is not just, we can never clearly see the movement of God in another.

So if we are to believe God's grace is limitless, we must seek that which makes it up within ourselves: justice, love, peace, and mercy. Seeking those things of God and then acting upon them is at the core of Pistis and thus we must place them first in all we do.  We may never fully accomplish this and avoid Hamartano, but when we realize this tension is inherently personal, it allows us space to more clearly see God acting in the world and seek to join in that work of bringing about God's kingdom today that is so central to our faith.

Why I don't vote (a rough sketch)

**Note: This would be much better stated within a RL dialogue.  I don't think anyone should just accept this fully at face value.  This is complex even within my own head.**

Who are you going to vote for? I hate that question mainly because the answer I give usually turns into an argument with whomever may have asked it.  For most people there is a "right" answer to that question, or at the very least an acceptable "wrong" answer, but very few people are willing to even try to dialogue with someone who says: "I'm not voting."  The only response I ever seem to get to that is one of frustration often with a side of anger.  Things are said like "Well then I better never hear you complain about things!" or "You are neglecting your duty!" or "How can you not use the great freedom you have, do you not care?!?"

Yet when I ask them why they feel this way, and to help me see what I might be missing, they tend to speak to the exact things I've thought about time and again as voting seasons come and go each and every year.  Let me first address the 3 big reactionary statements listed above because I feel those are a bigger issue than what I really want to talk about.  

"You don't vote, you don't get to talk" is a bull response.  I don't get to say "I wish we had a different X" or "If Y had just gone the other way."  I'll agree with that.  But can I still say my views on social, family, world, and even government issues? Yes, I'm still welcome in the world of the public square and honestly I'm quite active there, I just don't vote instead choosing to act in other forms.

"You have a duty, You must use your freedoms."  You know what makes things free? They're not your duty and you don't have to do things. There are lots of freedoms that I don't use and there are good reasons why I don't.  For example, I don't bear arms, and there are many who agree with that choice, so why is voting different? Also, do you know what I feel my duty is?  Love others, Love God, Love creation, act as a good steward and servant through faithfully discerned actions.  That (in my case) doesn't include voting. 

Okay, now that all of that is out of the way:  Why don't I vote?  I wish there was a simple way to state this that everyone would understand and not just ignore as if I'm ignorant, but I know my reasons aren't that understandable to most, especially when I tell them that I WANT them to vote.  The simple answer is that in my lifetime of discerning my call from God, voting has never been something I've discerned as an act faithful to my understanding of that call.  

That though is just a reactionary answer.  The deep answer is that I feel very called to certain acts of ministry, certain stances on what it means to act as a Christian, certain things that God has placed before me, and voting could damage that work, and honestly might be seen by some as hypocritical of what I claim.  

I am called to relational work, work with all those who I come in contact with.  I am called to help them in the moments I have with them and try to empower them going forward.  I expect many readers now are thinking: well that's why you vote, to better empower others and to help them, but that's not where I fit in, I feel that I am called not to change the system, but to be change in the world.  

I am called to love all.  The way our political system is set up, to vote is to choose a side, but this is not God choosing the side of the oppressed, this is us choosing an ideology which we then defend, even as it (as all ideologies do) oppresses others.  My love for all is relational, I can only fully love those I know.  I feel my call is weakened when others see me as a label.  

I am called to a world beyond principalities and powers.  This world for me is not some future place, or some other plane of existence  but here and now within the Kingdom of God here in the Creation of God.  I cannot be part of choosing other powers over God's.  I feel I must be willing to do that which I choose to do regardless of its place within society.  I was once asked by someone upset at me not voting why I didn't go to China or Russia where I couldn't be free.  All I could answer was, "I would like to think the legality of my actions will always be secondary to the faithfulness of those actions."  I cannot be sure that I would actually do so, but here and now in the country in which I live, I will render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's as long as I first render unto God that which is God's.  

I have been called by others a "Utopian Anarchist" and I have redefined that term to fit as a compliment.  I do believe in a world where we will do what is right for one another in all cases without a government to "make it so."  I believe I am called to work towards that world.  There is the need for many to vote for whomever they discern to be the faithful choice as they are able to understand it, for me that need is to not vote, to speak through actions to a world possible regardless of what worldly powers exist.  Jesus did not overthrow the government, Jesus changed the world through his individual actions, changes that have influenced so many to do things in their lives faithfully as well.  God's world is not political, and for me that is key to my faith at this time.  

College or Hypocrisy? NEITHER!

Let's get this out of the way: Going to college has NOTHING to do with young adults not being part of church or identifying as "no religious affiliation."  There are so many issues with that idea it's barely worth discussing at all. But let's point out a few major issues:

1. It's based on a weak view of God, one where God cannot even "win" against "human ideas." So many places in scripture and in the Christian tradition we see this is a false idea.
2. It also requires us to think that we can fully understand God and God's ways.  Also a view that holds no water in scripture or tradition.
3. It also seems to assume we're better off not being part of the world we're created as part of, as well as assuming that we shouldn't learn about and discuss with those who challenge our ways of thinking.  Even Paul would laugh at these pieces, and many who hold this type of belief often point to his works as THE authority on what Christ and God mean to the world first and foremost.  
4. Many who make this argument have advanced degrees themselves.  Which just makes no sense.  So many issues here.

 Okay, so now with that out of the way, let me also say the response I've seen often recently seems to be just as problematic and weak.  I am going to oversimplify them all a bit for the sake of brevity and call it the "It's the hypocrisy" argument. Yes, the church is full of hypocrites, has been for ages.  We often do not do what we should, and we often preach and act in illogical ways.  Yet, I don't think this has any more to do with why young adults are not in church than the argument that their education is the cause of this phenomena.  There is hypocrisy in so many places in this world, we understand it's existence, and are willing to accept it most places, yes we may have slightly higher expectations of our religious organizations, but let's be honest: This is small fries for most who just don't see a need for a church.  

So why don't they see the need for a church home, for a community of faith, for a place in the body of God?  Because they are adolescents.  People trying to find their individual identity, people who have been for most of their life.  Adolescence is extended in our society, and as much as I wish we could just fix that problem, we can't, we have to deal with the reality of that is what it is.  We have to stop having church for adults, and become where adolescents take what they are discovering about themselves and connect to something greater. 

Which makes the church a place that nurtures people towards adulthood together. Which of course is not as simple as it sounds.  Yet, I think until we deal with the fact that we live in a society where adolescence is expected/allowed/encouraged to exist for 20-25 years of a persons life, we're not going to actually do anything that changes the end result for the church. Seeking identity with great freedom will always look something like this.

Young people aren't going to have the same attachment to the institutional church that any other generation has had. Yet, we, as the church, can create new relationships with those who will one day want to find a home community of their own. We just can't expect them to act like what we have seen in the past. Forty year old adolescents who are raising eight year old adolescents aren't going to come back to the church, but they do know a community that shares their passions for justice and a better world when they see one. How do we connect to those who are seeking those things while not expecting them to fit our adult mode until they get there in their own lives? 


That is the question that I think we should be asking, that is what the "Next Church" looks like.  It is both a bunch of individuals who think they may share similar passions within their larger world.  Not brought together by a set of beliefs or even a "faith," but by the commonality of searching and becoming.  Giving people that space and opportunity will become a larger part of who we are.  


All of this is to say we need to not focus on what is causing a certain group to not be active in the church, bur rather on the "whys" that they are looking for.  This means more focus on Human development and communication theory as we move forward, which does mean less simple answers, but as seen above the simple answers just don't hold up.  Let's move forward in reality and let God deal with what makes the world ideal.

Bible Thumping Christians

I have heard a number of people I respect told recently that they don't hold the bible in the proper esteem or that they completely ignore it.  I know better than to fight their fights, but I do know that I want to state my own view on the subject.


I am the very model of a modern major general . . . oops.

I take great pride in calling myself a Bible Thumping Christian today.  I take scripture VERY seriously.  It is at the core of what I believe and what I desire for life and all of creation.  I don't think there is any of scripture that is not useful for teaching and learning and talking about.  I don't think there's anything in there that's just a waste of words. Actually my feelings on those words is what I think makes me able to claim that title of "Bible Thumper."

I love language.  I took Chinese, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and German in school.  And then when I made it to seminary I was so addicted to Greek that I was named our schools language scholar and got into regular long winded discussions with my language professors.  I started trying to find as many ancient Greek texts as I could from all areas.  Trying to find how words may have been used outside of scripture.  I started looking at the little nuances of words and phrases, not taking even the "best" English translations at face value.  I picked apart words, trying to make it all make more sense, trying to see what it is that scripture could teach me about this God who I knew existed.

I knew tons about the world, I wrote my proof of God based on things I found in String Theory.  I saw a spirit moving in people and throughout the world, but it is scripture that brings me back to God.  Scripture brings me to a place where I face the struggle, the epic struggle of humanity to be who we were created to be.  The struggle that makes us question how someone like David could be "after God's own heart."  The struggle that makes us wonder why God made a world so diverse that we actually have to work to be in community even when we're around people very much like ourselves.  The struggle that brings people into a church crying because they are desperate for God.  The struggle that makes us look at what is written in scripture and wonder what pieces are contextual, and what is really truly a universal truth.

Yes, I know this is the sensitive subject.  Yet we all claim some things are universal and others aren't.  We know that scripture is written in a certain time, and in many cases there is no debate also for a certain community.  We all teach about the specific problems in Judah, or Egypt, or Ephesus, or Corinth.  We know that was the context that these are created for originally.  We also know that the words that are chosen are specific and nuanced for those communities and even the best of us who translate betray the actual text to some extent.

This is especially true when you get into word studies.  Some words are used differently in law texts, social texts, religious texts.  Other words are only found in one type outside of scripture.  Some aren't found at all and we really start playing games to try to define them.  Do I think there is one meaning that HAS to be the meaning? Well in some ways yes, because there was an original context. Yet in other ways no, because it's really not that simple.  I will argue till I die that Pistis is best translated as Faithfulness, and that will influence everything I teach and lead because it changes how I interpret scripture.  That is the key for those of us who are claiming a title others want to keep away from us.  We are Bible Thumping because we value that text as something special, something that informs all we do, and is a key to our faith.  It is not the only key, but without it we do fall down, or at least I do. God Bless the Bible Thumpers.