Sojourners Magazine’s Deafening Silence
March 24, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Counterculture, In the News Feedback : 12 comments
In light of one of the most critical issues of our day, in a decision that all Christians should be concerned with, this is what Jim Wallis and Sojourner’s Magazine—a magazine that bills itself as concerned with justice issues for those who have no voice— has to say about the starvation death of a brain-damaged woman in Florida:
Ironically, just today Sojourners put up a post on their main page discussing end of life issues (although it requires a free registration to their mailing list in order to read it.) Nothing in the article directly refers to Terri Schiavo, but does discuss the issue of “Persistent Vegetative State.” Sadly, the article does not seem to take any one position, entertaining all options.
Although the date on the post is 3/24/05, it was not there yesterday when I posted. And still, their search engine reveals no article hits on “Schiavo.” That nothing was published in the past about previous starvation/dehydration attempts against Terri still speaks volumes.
You’d think that Jim Wallis’s new post, “Human Life is a Gift from God,” would address the Schiavo case, but it’s actually an anti-capital punishment commentary. Wallis chooses to plead for leniency for criminals (with the rationale that some might actually not be), but chooses to make no commentary on the gift of life that is being cruelly taken from Terri Schiavo.
However, in what must be the most craven quote (and choice of quote to highlight) I’ve seen about the Schiavo case, the online version of Sojourners has this listed as their Quote of the Week:
The case is full of great ironies. A large part of Terri’s hospice costs are paid by Medicaid, a program that the administration and conservatives in Congress would sharply reduce. Some of her other expenses have been covered by the million-dollar proceeds of a malpractice suit - the kind of suit that President Bush has fought to scale back.
—NPR commentator Daniel Schorr
I don’t even know how to respond to Schorr or Sojourners in their decision to cast this as their “Quote of the Week.” It seems so bereft of morality, so ignorant of the humanity of Terri, as to defy comment.
No tag for this post.
The Devil’s Instrument
March 22, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Judgmentalism, Oddities Feedback : 5 comments
I sometimes wonder if too many people out there who call themselves Christians have become little more than bouncers for the Kingdom. By this I mean that they seek to spend all their time outside of the party trying to keep out the “rabble.”
In 1984, I attended InterVarsity’s Urbana conference. My goal was to get on with an evangelistic music group 
that would tour the communist satellite countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia. What I did not expect was to run into problems with my choice of instrument.
Several music ministries had set up for the conference and I hit each one. On only my second interview with a group, I was asked what instrument I played by a very pleasant late thirty-ish woman with a mushroom cloud of hair that dwarfed her elfin face. I told her, “Drums.”
She swiftly drew back in her chair and put her hand to her mouth as if I had said I was a big fan of Baal. In her best Southern drawl she let me know my deception: “Well, young man, drums are the devil’s instrument—and we’ll have none of that.” She just shook her head full of Basic Youth Conflicts messages as if to say, “Such a nice young man and yet he’s one of the Enemy’s footsoldiers.”
Shock. Complete and total—that’s all I could say about how I felt. No one had ever said such a thing to me before despite my having played for more than a dozen years (at that time.) But then I started to consider the source and just walked away to the next booth.
I was greeted by skeletally thin man with an even thinner tie and the look of a lot of years of tobacco abuse before he saw the light. Told him what I was hoping to do and he, too, asked the vital question, “Waddya play?”
I told him.
This time there was less of a look of horror and more of a “Son, I was a prisoner of that hellish music, too, but now I’ve come clean.” He said, “We’ve got no place for that kind of instrument. We sing for the glory of God.”
So okay. Two out of three and already I’m starting to despair. How much had I paid to come here?
No one was at the next booth—it was singers only anyway.
At the end of the row was a lovely young woman about my age. Conservatively dressed, quite perky, with a fashionable hairstyle, she was the quintessential spokesperson for her traveling musical group. I looked over the material she had. Lots of good-looking young people and a full band—with one glaring exception.
“I see all sorts of instruments in your band, but I don’t see any drums.”
“Oh,” she said, taken aback, “drums are the devil’s instrument.”
I wanted to ask if she was somehow related to the Gothard with the bouffant, but what was the point? In a row of five musical evangelistic groups, three of them had basically told me I was going to hell because of my choice of instrument.
Eric Liddell, the great missionary of China (and martyred in an internment camp), said that the reason he loved to run was that when he ran, he felt God’s pleasure. I feel that same pleasure every time I pick up a pair of drumsticks.
I wonder if we truly know what it is to feel God’s pleasure. Many would contend, and rightly so, that much of Christianity has fallen under the spell of emotionalism. But we cannot merely chuck our emotions out of worship, nor can we assume that God’s pleasure cannot be experienced outside of a church building.
God’s pleasure is felt by the man putting the final touches on a piece of handmade furniture that will grace a home. God’s pleasure is revealed in the accountant who manages to save his company a small fortune by finding inefficiencies in the business process. God’s pleasure is alive in the mother who bakes her children cookies from scratch. God’s pleasure is in an elderly couple savoring the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon they’ve been saving since their honeymoon in Paris fifty years ago.
Tim Challies has a well-reasoned look at worship that I think all of us should read. However, I think Tim’s reasoning has the tendency to turn worship into a “bloodless” experience. Not all of Christian worship can be reasoned, I think. When Isaiah fell on his face in his vision when King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6), I don’t believe he was filtering any of this through the “Regulatory principle of worship.” Not everything is so easily categorized. I don’t care if the Regulatory principle forbids dancing in worship, Psalm 150 says to go for it:
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
—Psalms 150:4 ESV
Honestly, what are we afraid of? Do we fear that God enjoys listening to a full-bodied band of musicians playing for Him? Does the thought that dancing before the Lord might shake the dust off a few people frighten us? “Good grief, Martha, look at that woman over there raising up her hands during worship! Have you ever?”
God is worshiped when we experience His pleasure, when we open ourselves and lay bare our hearts in adoration of Him. When He is pleased, we are pleased. Even as I type, the Lord is preparing the greatest party that will ever be. Why are we so interested in being the bouncers?
So as I step back onto the role of drummer for the worship team at my new church, I just want to tell the boothminders at Urbana all those twenty-one years ago, “This pleases God more than you can know.”
Praise the LORD!
Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!
(Psalms 150:1-6 ESV)
No tag for this post.
The Official Cerulean Sanctum Census
March 20, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : add a comment
Take a census of all the congregation of the children of Israel, by their families, by their fathers’ houses, according to the number of the names, every male, one by one….
—Numbers 1:2
For a long time, I’ve resisted adding any kind of analytical tools to Cerulean Sanctum. But after some consideration, I’ve added Sitemeter to the 
site. My reason? I want to see what URLs are referring readers here and I want to track what pages are being read. My hope is to better reach out to other bloggers who put links here and to address the needs of people searching for answers.
After a couple days, though, I’ve come to a few strange realizations:
1. The major search engines don’t help people. I’ve noted the word strings that people are searching for and I’m shocked that people wound up at Cerulean Sanctum; in most cases, the search engines led people astray. For instance, I mentioned the Vineyard churches and music in one post and that came up as a hit for someone searching for “Vineyard worship music.” And a few people looking for info on quantum mechanics got a healthy dose of theology instead when they stumbled into my look at the debate between Arminianism and Calvinism in my post entitled “On the Brink of a Quantum Singularity with Calvin and Arminius.” I’m sure that was a surprise! Yes, the search engines got them here, but the people who followed those results didn’t find what they were looking for.
2. Many more Mac users than is commonly reported. I’m a Mac guy myself. Used to work for Apple, in fact, bashing Wintel. Nice to see the numbers coming up from 2% or whatever it was of total Mac users out there just a couple years ago. I’m getting around 7% last time I checked. Does that mean that more Christians use Macs or that the counter-cultural, visionary crowd likes my blog? 
3. Firefox is really gaining ground. More than 25% of the people who came to this site were using Firefox to browse.
Now all this is anonymous info so don’t worry that someone is spying on you! All this is just helpful to me. If you are interested in getting Sitemeter for free for your site or blog, just click on the colorful rotating cube above and you can sign up for nothing. Very helpful and a nice addition for anyone who wants to know how to better position his/her blog to reach the most people in the best way possible.
Blessings!
No tag for this post.
Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart
March 18, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Uncategorized Feedback : 1 comment so far
Beautiful, moving and true words. My favorite hymn by far. For this weekend, let the words soak in. They are worth meditating upon:
Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art;
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay,
No angel visitant, no opening skies;
But take the dimness of my soul away.Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.Hast Thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross; there teach my heart to cling:
O let me seek Thee, and O let me find!Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.
May God bless you this weekend.
No tag for this post.
Recovering Christianity’s Balance
March 17, 2005
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Best of Cerulean Sanctum, Christianity Outside North America, Christianity in North America, Church Issues, Godly Character Feedback : 13 comments
A couple weeks back, I asked the question, "Is Christianity Broken?" Today, I want to revisit this issue, probably the most popular post to Cerulean Sanctum thus far.
As a Christian for close to thirty years, I've seen a lot of movements within the Church in America rise and fall. In the 1960s, I witnessed the Protestant appropriation of Vatican II ideals, the rediscovery of the charismata by mainline churches, and the first flowering of contemporary worship music. The 1970s brought the Jesus People, the growth of Evangelicalism as a dominant political force, and the rise of the Third Wave churches. The 1980s gave us the beginnings of the Church Growth movement and the ascendancy of seeker-sensitivity. The 1990s have proven to be a backlash time, with every aspect of the faith being questioned and reconsidered, finding charismatics adrift within fads, the "Emerging Church" attempting a shaky counter-reformation, and—sadly—greater concessions to the spirit of the age within American Evangelicalism.
Now in the new millennium, with so many opportunities to stake a claim for the next thousand years, I would offer an old direction. To the question of "Is Christianity broken?" I can only say, No. What we are instead as American Christians is horribly out of balance. We have become a church of fads, running after what appears to work, but all the while ignoring the tools, wisdom, and gifts Christ purchased for us through His blood two thousand years ago.
I cannot escape this passage:
Then if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, 'Look, he is in the wilderness,' do not go out. If they say, 'Look, he is in the inner rooms,' do not believe it.
—Matthew 24:23-26
Now certainly, this is an eschatological reference, but I want to focus on the mindset behind it. When we go rushing around trying to get on board with the latest "appearance of the Lord," we swing like a pendulum. There is a tendency for us to accommodate to the wisdom of our times, too, picking up whatever business or pop-psychology trend is hot, fusing it to our new Christian fad. But for those of us who have been around a while—and have kept our eyes open and our discernment intact—all this is not coordinated movement, but spasmodic lurching from one soon-to-be-abandoned methodology to another.
Today it is the "Emerging Church" or the "Purpose-Driven Life" and so on. The future will bring some new trends. But what about yesterday's hot new ministry or devotional style? Do we even remember what it was? Or are we too busy reacting to the fallout of it as we swing on the pendulum to the other extreme, far, far away from what we so eagerly endorsed just a couple years ago?
To the world, this means one thing: "The Church has no eternal focus; we can find no answers within it."
In our attempts to read the times and accommodate to them, we have lost our balance. We continue, also, to stake out positions that only exist at the extremes on issues, rather than considering the holy middle.
Lately, I have been involved in several discussions on topics relevant to the Christian walk. Those discussions show out out of balance we are:
- On the topic of prayer, I have talked with others about focused times of prayer and about "practicing the presence" of God all day. Supporters have gravitated to the extremes, favoring only one or the other. But isn't the truth of our prayer life centered in the balance between those two?
- On the topic of the Holy Spirit, I have encountered cessationists and "charismaniacs," but isn't it true that the Holy Spirit still works today and that He does not contradict the Word of God? Aren't both the cessationists and the charismaniacs stuck at the extreme swings of the pendulum?
- On the topic of Calvinism and Arminianism, like I wrote in a previous post (On the Brink of a Quantum Singularity with Calvin and Arminius), are those two positions possibly at the extremes and not in the center of where the Lord would have us be?
- On the topic of the social gospel versus the moral gospel, is this not a false dichotomy to be making? Isn't the true Gospel a complete whole that encompasses both? (Wrongly Dividing the Gospel)
- On the topic of the nature of Christ, isn't our Lord both a Lover who draws us to Him and a Warrior who will slay His enemies with the sword of His mouth? Isn't He both the Lamb of God AND the Lion of Judah? Why are we so often given to exalting one side of the Lord's person over the other, clubbing those people on the other pole with our "enlightened" view?
- On the topic of the Christian's duty to the environment, must we divide into camps that either support radical groups like Earth First! or who ascribe to a pillage-the-Earth mentality based off a mangled reading of the Creation account? Is there no wise middle ground that we can support?
- On the topic of the Bible, why must we dwell at the extremes: one that practically elevates the Bible above the person of the Lord Himself and one that shuns the Bible in favor of just hanging out with Jesus relationally? Where is the balance?
- On the topic of the role of the Church, aren't we supposed to make disciples AND stand in the gap within our society?
No one said this kind of discernment—or the natural walking out of the results—would be easy. But isn't that why the Holy Spirit was given, to guide us into all truth?
Our failure to achieve balance in our Christian worldview has only confused the lost, the very ones who need to hear a right and balanced message from the Lord. If the Church in North America is to be all that the Lord desires us to be we have got to work for balance and show more discipline in standing against the fads of our day.
This is not to say that we compromise. In most cases, there truly is no compromise needed. We have simply spent too much time at one end of the pendulum swing to know the difference, though. It may seem uncomfortable to leave those extremes, but in truth we have done so quite a bit in just the last thirty years as we react to changes in worldly wisdom; this should not be unknown to us. Our problem is our inability to stop our momentum as we swing from one side to the reactionary other.
Cultural relevance does not trump eternal significance, and this is where we most suffer. We must be more discerning, testing the spirits—especially the spirit of the age—to see if it is of God or not. Nor should we be afraid to ask the hard questions and to administer the test at all. Examining an extreme position does not naturally lead to error if we are examining it against the Word and by the Spirit. Such an examination may reveal our own extremism and allow us to come to the truth of the center.
In closing, I offer three points that will align us:
- We must be prepared to look out of step with culture and culturally compromised churches. Balance is never fashionable.
- We must never forget our history. As Goethe once noted, "He who cannot draw upon three thousand years is living hand to mouth." Historical perspective compels balance.
- We must always ask, "What is eternally significant?" The answer to that question will bring us into balance.
Think about this. I believe the issue of balance is the single most important issue facing the Church today.
Blessings!
Posts
Comments
