Counterculture

Make Miracles Happen in 2014

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While the liberal drift over at Red Letter Christians turned me off long ago, someone pointed me back there today, noting 14 New Year’s hopes for 2014 as posted by Shane Claiborne. The concluding hope garnered a huge head nod from me:

14)   BELIEVE IN MIRACLES… and live in a way that might necessitate one.  Oldie but a goodie –  friends living in pretty extreme poverty have taught me that part of the reason that those of us in industrialized countries don’t see many miracles is that we don’t “need” them.  When we get sick we go to the doctor, when we get hungry we go to the store… but when we live like the lilies and the sparrows in utter dependence on God we see God provide in miraculous ways. I want more of that… not more poverty, but more of that kind of faith.

I believe one of the great troubles with modern Christianity is that it lives in most people’s heads alone. Our discourse has been driven by thinky Christians rather than the kind that occasionally throws thinky to the wind. Sometimes, that toss is what we have to do with thinkiness.

'Resurrection of Lazarus' by Gustave DoréWhy are Western Christians so fascinated by the miraculous? Because the Bible is filled to the brim with miracles and yet we experience so few genuine ones today in the West. I keep seeing that the most neglected aspect of our church life is the freedom to stand up before the congregation on Sunday and say, “This is how God made a miracle happen in answer to my prayers and yours.” (And conversely, “This is how I asked for a miracle and have not yet seen it come to pass,” a bold confession that scares the living daylights out of a lot of Christians—oddly enough, mostly church leaders—who find a lack of miracles disturbing to their faith.)

But really, God help us if living in hope for the miraculous is not a daily part of our faith walk! Claiborne is right here: We don’t live in expectation of miracles. Worse, we don’t subsequently have faith for the miraculous because we don’t live with an expectation for it.

All the apologists are talked out, when you get right down to it. Today, bold atheism seems to scare Christians. But you know what scares the hell out of atheists? Miracles. Because miracles are hard to explain away, and when someone tries to explain them away, that person just seems sad and pathetic. And let’s be honest here: Atheism IS sad and pathetic

So in 2014, say yes to believing for—and living for—more miracles. God wants you to.

Christianity, Evil, Control, and the End of Storytelling

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I’ve become a fan of The Phil Vischer Podcast/Videocast. The show talks popular culture and Christianity, and it’s almost always thoughtful, despite verging into moments of silliness. (This is the guy who started VeggieTales, remember.)

The following episode has so many interesting talking points on Evangelicalism, evil, tolerance, witchcraft, control, the world becoming post-Christian, and the end of storytelling, I didn’t even know where to start to unpack it. Once you get past the Pope sneaking out of the Vatican to give alms to the poor (ends around 7:17), the conversation shifts to the depiction of supernaturalism in films and what constitutes good and evil in a post-Christian world.

At around 22:38, Phil, Drew Dyke, and Skye Jethani begin discussing what happens when diversity attacks shared values and how this destroys the ability to tell a story. Phil quotes screenwriting guru Robert McKee noting that when a society has no shared common values you can’t tell a story because no one will agree with the framing mechanisms of rightness and wrongness needed to make a statement about a value depicted through story. Earlier, the trio decided that this has left us with only one agreed-upon value: Don’t oppress (or be mean to) other people. And in the end, this is all that is left of evil.

It’s a powerful discussion with startling ramifications for Christianity, both as Christians seek to share The Story of All Stories and as we confront genuine Evil as the Bible defines it.

The discussion then verges into talking about external evil and how stories are loath to discuss a greater evil that cannot be explained as just bad thoughts we might have for people who are different from us. We also see into how this comes down to control and why religious ideas with controlling godlike powers or controlling God Himself are anathema to the Christian worldview. And then Jethani mentions how some Christians are essentially practicing witchcraft.

If you want something to ponder this weekend, this provides a monster-sized load of fodder. Consider how certain groups in the U.S. are marginalizing Christian voices using revised storytelling. Ask how it is that Evangelicals try to control God. How are systems evil, including those systems we cherish as Americans first and Christians a distant second? And isn’t Atheism nothing more than a grab at control?

A lot of issues we American Christians don’t want to touch get talked about on this podcast/videocast, and not just this episode. Check it out.

(And for the Cincinnatians in the reading audience, yes, that’s a Skyline Chili mug in front of Skye Jethani, who is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford. The videocast is shot in the Wheaton, Illinois, area, home to my alma mater.)

The Church and the Employment Dispossessed

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Ageism & employmentIf 2013 was marked by any one trend, it was a sobering one: Many of my peers lost jobs.

For me, peer is anyone in that 46-56 age group. Somehow, we have been redefined as the new elderly—at least by some in the corporate world.

I don’t know if health care fears have driven some of this, but it is startling to see people who are supposedly in their peak earning years instead walking the unemployment line. Worse, the likelihood of such folks returning to the income level they enjoyed prior to being let go runs just about to zero.

This is not good. It’s not good for those people, nor is it good for America.

And it may be worst of all for the Church, since these are the folks who had the incomes that funded their local congregations.

I talk about a lot of Church issues on Cerulean Sanctum, but I think no other “daily living” issue is more ignored by the American Church than our work lives. The advice most churches dispense on being a Christian who works is to start a workplace Bible study and to practice ethical work habits. That’s as far as it goes.

But when churches start discovering they have many people in their late 40s and early 50s trying to find work and not succeeding, SOMETHING must give. This trend is not one we can continue to ignore. Technology is putting more people out of work, and tech job availability is not compensating for the losses. Worse, one recruiter told me that anyone with gray hair who walks into a tech company looking for work is just wasting his or her time. Even worse? The same recruiter told me it’s not just tech companies anymore—it’s every company.

Again, this is an enormous issue. Which Christian with a national presence is talking about it? In fact, which Christian with a national stage is saying anything about issues of health care costs, stagnant wages, the increasing ranks of the un- and under-employed, and this creeping down of when someone must consider himself or herself “done” with a career, even when he or she doesn’t want to be done?

I continue to get the sense that while the Church in America has no qualms talking about spiritual issues, issues of everyday living (such as work) are going unaddressed, and those issues cause the most worry and grief in people. They are looking for answers, and the Church is not providing them.

Problem is, Jesus didn’t leave behind an answerless Church. It may be true that in this world we will have trouble, but Christ has overcome the world. For Christians to throw up our hands and do nothing is not the way of the Lord.