Leadership

When Christian “Answers” Are Too Simplistic

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Many Christians are talking about what it means to be radical for Jesus. You’re either caught in the hellbound grip of the comfortable American Dream, or you give it all up to follow the Lord and therefore gain eternal life as a true disciple.

Alex and Bree are a young couple who read David Platt’s book Radical and decided they could no longer live the complacent hipster lifestyle they’d adopted. They sold their townhouse, quit their jobs as a videogame designer and a florist, and moved to Uganda, where they now serve as missionaries, working in an orphanage.

Rob and Tiffani, on the other hand, go to the same church as Alex and Bree once did. Tiffani works as a paralegal but is saving money to attend law school one day. After work, she holds down a second job as a waitress at an upscale restaurant, where Rob is one of the cooks and has a small vested interest in the restaurant as a limited partner. Both spend most of their day working, collapsing into bed at 10 p.m. each night. Neither has much time for church activities, but they are there in the seats every Sunday morning.

Alex and Bree versus Rob and Tiffani. Which couple is truly radical for Jesus?

What if you knew that Rob and Tiffani are the major dollar donors that make it possible for Alex and Bree to stay in Uganda? What if you knew that Tiffani works her second job solely to ensure that money keeps going to Alex and Bree?

Who is radical for Jesus now?

I don’t know about you, but I’m bored with facile arguments from within the Christian community. Most of the situations we set up to illustrate “Bible truths” are so disconnected from most people’s lives as to be utterly useless. No one can argue against them because they are so simplistic and obvious.

But people’s lives are not so easily measured. And what folks do with those lives is more complex than the simplistic bins we want to file them in.

I think that one reason that Christianity is suffering some losses in the United States is that smart people can see through the oversimplifications we sometimes hold out as “truth” on Sunday mornings. We attempt to take Scripture and shoehorn it into our perception of “genuine Christian living” only to find out that result leaves something to be desired—at least it does for those folks who think hard about implications.

Einstein: Duh!The problem is that not enough Christian leaders think about implications. Doesn’t matter what the topic is, they stay on the surface and then try to sell their biblical solution as the only way.

In the case of Rob and Tiffani, I think a lot of Christian leaders who ascribe to the new radicalism would condemn them  as not being radical enough. But what those leaders never consider is how folks like Rob and Tiffani are the ones who make it possible for others to pursue the kind of radical faith that the leaders hold up as necessary. Such is true in a lot of cases. People living a supposedly “self-centered, American Dream life” wind up funding big chunks of ministry because of the fact they ARE living according to the system. Take away the Robs and Tiffanis of the world, and you get a lot fewer Alexes and Brees as a result.

It’s not just that illustration I raise, either. Thousands of other cases exist that don’t fit our facile arguments of what genuine discipleship and commitment look like in real life.

More than ever, we need Christian leaders who go deeper. Not just deeper in Jesus, but deeper into the complex problems that face modern America.

Because I have to say that we are doing a terrible job communicating the essence of real discipleship to real people. Our answers are too simpleminded and not well considered. Living for Jesus doesn’t just mean handing out food to the homeless. Sometimes it means tackling entire systems of thought and redeeming them in Jesus name. Sadly, because we avoid the tougher problems in favor of the easy ones, our efforts are a figurative Band-Aid on a severed limb, and we pat ourselves on the back for what we label “radical ministry.”

Church, we have to do better. And doing better is going to ask more of us. And what is asked of us is going to be more complex than what we’re hearing from the pulpit on Sundays IF Christian leaders start examining what goes on beneath the veneer of real discipleship.

What is the radical Christian life? It’s not always the Alex and Bree response. Sometimes, it’s asking the harder question and then doing something about it.

The Kingdom Value of an Old Man’s Dreams

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'An Old Man Asleep, Seated by the Fire' by Rembrandt van Rijn“‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams…'”
—Acts 2:17 ESV

I’ve come to the melancholy realization that youth is departing and old age arriving. Gray is the new cast of my hair. And are those…jowls?

Sigh.

At such times, I find comfort in the Scriptures, but even there resides the lament of the aging. Abraham and Zechariah leap to mind, with their “but” responses in light of God’s revelation. “Too old, God. Dried up. Useless for your task.”

Except it wasn’t true, was it?

I also recall the prophet Joel’s statement from God regarding old men dreaming, and Peter’s use of the prophet’s pronouncement as an anchor for the New Covenant.

The young men get the sexier, more startling revelation: visions. The future. The pressing need. The warning.  A guy walks into the room and proclaims he had a vision, and everyone perks up. Being called a visionary is a positive that sets one apart from the greater mass of humanity.

Not so the dreamer, though. Get called a dreamer, and it’s a knock. Out of touch. Tilting at windmills. Fantasies. Won’t come to much. Anyone can dream. Nope, nothing special at all.

Old men, the ones with gray hair and jowls, dream.

Hey, I may not be 21 anymore, but I’m not ready for a porch-based rocking chair yet.

God gives dreams to old men because young men can’t handle them as well. Here’s the truth about dreams and why the older, wiser man (or woman) receives them:

1. Unlike visions, dreams pose puzzling questions older people are more experienced to answer.

Both visions and dreams can be strange. The Bible is filled with bizarre imagery that people receive in dreams and visions. The difference is that God tends to narrate visions as they happen. Dreams don’t get that same explanation. There’s no hand-holding or convenient running commentary in a dream.

What is the point of experience in life? To apply it. Old folks dream because they have the life experience to make sense of the imagery in dreams without annotations for what they see. God trusts the elders who have walked with Him for years to understand more readily because they know the character of God. They understand life in ways the inexperienced don’t. God entrusts dreams to those who can call upon a storehouse of knowledge or who have the walk with God down pat and can more readily tap into His supernatural wisdom.

2. Dreams bring older folks—and those around them who will listen—peace by taking the community back to the past and to the familiar.

In our youth, we sought out our elders to reassure us and lend their wisdom to us when we were troubled and uncertain. Unlike visions that often show disturbing, confusing images, dreams are associated more with a peaceful repose. Dreams are a sanctuary, a nocturnal sanctum. In dreams, we may see unusual combinations of people, places, and things, but they are usually already known. The past lives on in dreams. We recall the good times. What is lost or gone is alive and present again, and we can find comfort in knowing that nothing good is lost forever in God’s economy.

Dreams are the means by which the elderly help others recall the good times. When times aren’t good, the old folks serve as the community well to bring refreshment to others through their dreams.

That noted, being old also brings the burden of having seen too much. Dreams are not a mind bleach, but they do temper all the horrors and sadness that come with accumulated wisdom and life experience. Dreams reframe the good times that are past by bringing them, again, into the present as a balm.

3. Dreams help us recall anew what once worked well.

We tend to forget past solutions. Even wise, old folks. A seasoned mind is a bit more cluttered, and like a closet filled to the ceiling with life’s accumulations, wading through that mess to find the dojigger that does that one thing we need to do right this second…well, it can seem a daunting task.

Dreams allow experienced folks to cut through life’s clutter. They help reconnect with the past and what worked once so we can reuse that once-buried truth again. Because there really is nothing new under the sun.

4. Dreams allow seniors to recast the past and what is already known to form new solutions.

You know what they say about deep waters. Because the well of a life lived long with God is deep, the raw materials for new solutions may exist, just unseen.

Dreams are God’s way of remolding those raw materials of the past into new realities. Yes, the young men may see in their visions what is yet to be, but through dreams their elders can see the truths of the past combine in new ways to make something just as fresh and exciting.

Aren’t dreams intriguing when they bring together the disparate elements of life into one, impossible tableau? In a dream, what does it mean when a deceased parent, your soon-to-be born grandchild, and an old boss from a summer job three dozen years ago show up at your dream breakfast table and chat about life? What may God be saying through that impossible encounter? And how may that help others?

5. Dreams can also reveal the future and alert us.

To the one God has given much, much is expected. A life rich in God-given experience is a bank from which the banker invests in himself and others. Visions aren’t the only means of seeing what is to come. Dreams also are revelatory—only they don’t come with as many footnotes. God expects the person made wise with experience to fill in the annotations that aren’t there. Visions are for the raw. Dreams are for the already tested.

One of the most visited posts on Cerulean Sanctum is “God Speaks Through Dreams.” It’s so highly ranked because it’s one of the most heavily Googled. People are looking to make sense of their dreams. And people wonder if God is talking to them in those dreams.

If you are older, know that your dreams matter. God has something to say to you who are experienced with life, and He can do it through your dreams.

You matter to God’s Kingdom. Your dreams, your experiences with life and all its joys and sorrows have value to yourself and to others. Visions from the young may look great on the surface, but there is a surpassing value in dreams that give relevance to the seasoned saint, because God needs the service of everyone.

Rights, Oppression, and the Death of the Shared Societal Script

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12 Years a Slave won Best Picture at the 2014 Academy Awards.

I did not see the film. In fact, in a stunning case of cultural cluelessness, I’d not even heard of it before it won.

That said, I’m not surprised at its win. In fact, it may not have been possible for any other film to take home Oscar.

I wish I could find the link to the article, but several months ago I read an enlightening post concerning Hollywood’s rather banal decent into repetitive storylines. Slate had an insightful look at the Save the Cat phenomenon and how it has rendered all plots the same (“Save the Movie!“), but this gone-missing article struck a bigger nerve.

The contention is that movies today lack a touchstone for the American script—not a movie script, but the ongoing dialog we Americans maintain that defines our core beliefs as Americans.

Core beliefs? Can you even HAVE core beliefs today?

The article contended we were at a point in our history as a nation that we can no longer agree on shared values and core beliefs beyond some very general ones, milquetoast values that make for boring movies. We saw Man of Steel at the box office this summer, but what we didn’t see was much truth, justice, and the American Way on display. Wouldn’t want someone watching to get riled that a pro-America Superman places the Man of Steel into the imperialistic oppressor category.

Let’s be frank here: About the only shared value we Americans have left is a distaste for oppression. While in an earlier age that might have meant us fighting some tyrannical, overseas dictator or championing the cause of the poor, today it means something less noble: Don’t oppress me by questioning whatever it is I want to do to gratify myself.

OppressionBy choosing a film about slavery as Best Picture, the Academy recasts the worst of oppressions and shoehorns it into the modern expression. I mean, what kind of barbarian could possibly endorse the oppression of a fellow human being as expressed in Civil War-era American slavery? Now fast-forward that to America 2014 and witness how easily we slide from championing freedom from slavery to demanding freedom from all moral constraints.

Who is the new oppressor? The one who questions same-sex marriage. The one who questions abortion. The one who questions…

See, to be an oppressor today, to be the villain in a modern movie plotline, all one must do is question another person’s desire (now called “a right”) to do ____________.

The questions the supposed oppressor is asking may be worthwhile on the surface, but their worth is now trumped by any implications of inherent oppression. Carte blanche has never been more acceptable, at least when the self-satisfiers are in charge.

Movies are boring today because we have seen our American script became a one-note message. Worse, even that one-note message of opposing oppression lacks the depth and wisdom it once possessed. Today, it is all about self-gratification. Any constraint that prevents self-gratification has been deemed oppression. And we all know who the new oppressors are—at least as they’ve been tagged by the ones making up the new definitions.

So, if you’re reading this and nodding your head, how does it feel to be the new oppressor?

“Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”