Donald Miller and the Anti-Church

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Donald Miller is known for one thing: writing Blue Like Jazz. That book captured the zeitgeist of many younger believers. Heck, it got a movie treatment. Seriously.

I thought the book was a self-indulgent mess that reeked of everything that’s off-kilter with a younger generation of Christians that isn’t satisfied with eschewing the Evangelical subculture but wants to toy with established doctrine too.

In other words, I’m not an apologist for Donald Miller.

Miller stepped in it this week when he wrote a blog post saying he doesn’t attend church often because he finds he doesn’t connect to God there. You can read that confession: “I Don’t Worship God by Singing. I Connect With Him Elsewhere.

I think a lot of men were nodding their heads after reading that post. I guess they did it in secret, too, because Miller certainly raised the hackles of a LOT of people. So much so he had to a write a retraction. Or maybe it’s a clarification. Probably the latter: “Why I Don’t Go to Church Very Often, a Follow Up Blog.”

In between, some notable Evangelical voices had to show their superiority to the obviously backslidden Miller by schooling him on how REAL Christians should think and act. Of course, they quoted the go-to passage whenever someone appears not to be “into” church all that much:

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
—Hebrews 10:24-25 ESV

Denny Burk had one of the most brutal rebuttals: “Donald Miller’s prescription for spiritual suicide.”

Burk writes:

It is very clear that Miller’s view of the church differs markedly from what we find in scripture.

After reading Burk’s rebuttal, it seemed clear to me that Burk’s view of church differs markedly from what we find in Scripture too.

In fact, I’d love to see a modern Evangelical church that even gets close to resembling anything I see in the New Testament.

Church as entertainmentEvery Sunday, Americans flock to giant, hangar-like theaters, where rock music with shallow lyrics that most people can’t sing along with well blares out of $200,000 sound systems for a scientifically prescribed number of minutes before some attractive woman gets up and makes an appeal for money. Then a goateed guy in a Hawaiian or bowling shirt talks for a half hour about how we can all enjoy our best life now by doing something that tangentially has to do with the Bible. And maybe Jesus. Maybe. There’s another song, and then everyone goes to IHOP for all-you-can-eat pancakes.

That’s what Church in America has become. That’s what Denny Burk says we must all attend every Sunday lest we commit spiritual suicide.

Excuse me, but it seems to me that attending something like that is the real spiritual suicide. And Evangelicals are committing it weekly.

Donald Miller says he connects better to God when he’s working than when he’s attending something like I just described.

Can anyone blame him?

I suspect there are many Donald Millers out there who went to a pale imitation of New Testament church and didn’t find God there. And when Denny Burk plays apologist for such an Ichabod “church,” how can he be taken seriously?

I’m sure Burk would probably endorse a more serious church, one that wouldn’t be a dog and pony show. But when all is written, is his version any better?

Are the people in Burk’s idea of church selling their possessions and dropping them at the feet of the apostles?

Does his church maintain a common purse so that no one in the church ever suffers need?

Does his church allow a few prophets to speak revelatory words from the Lord through the Holy Spirit and then have other wise people weigh those words?

Does his church encourage tongues and people who can interpret those tongues?

Does his church celebrate communion as a full meal and not just a thimble of grape juice and a stale cracker?

Does his church encourage others to bring their prayer requests and then prays over them all?

Does his church meet together daily in each other’s homes?

Does his church worship in such a way that the meeting place is shaken by God?

Well?

Just what is Burk defending that he chastises Miller for eschewing it? Why aren’t the leaders of those off churches faulted instead for delivering such a wan imitation of a genuine New Testament church that spiritually astute people find a whole bunch of smoke and mirrors and not a whole lot of God?

In the end, Miller may be edging toward a bad position, but in his edging is a stinging indictment. If our churches today are connecting people with cultural entertainment and not with a risen Lord, then what person in his right mind would want that? And what right-minded person would defend it?

Anymore, I don’t encounter much of God in a traditional Evangelical church setting. I have a hard time with the music, and I’m a musician. I wish the words were more meaningful and the tunes more melodic. I wish there were more quiet, contemplative songs. I wish we worshiped God in ways that didn’t always come down to something that emanated from Hillsong or the pen of Chris Tomlin. I keep hoping for a bright, airy space filled with people who minister to each other. I want to see the assembly of the people of God filled with prayers, and not just for a couple minutes. We need to use our individual gifts on a Sunday, and not just stare dully at a stage from whence the show pours forth. We each need to practice our spiritual gifts with each other in the assembly, because that’s what God gave them to us for. We need to eat a real meal together and bear each other’s burdens so that people leave encouraged and strengthened and not burdened by yet one more thing the pastor said they’re doing half-heartedly or altogether wrong. And we need to know that someone at that church has our back if the going gets rough. And we need to know whose back we’ve got when he or she stumbles.

Donald Miller needs that too.

And Denny Burk needs to open the Bible he teaches professionally and get a real vision for what the Church in America must be. He needs his definition of what the Church is altered so that it’s not a building and not an activity done once a week, but a living, vital people filled by the Holy Spirit and sealed for the Kingdom, who are the Church wherever any single Spirit-filled believer goes, regardless of how many go with him or her.

God help us that we have these national voices, who supposedly speak truth about the Christian life, and yet they can’t even get the basics right!

The truly sad part is that the person who asks if we’re doing it right is the one who receives the beat-down. Confess in all honestly that such a church as Miller avoids doesn’t personally provide a solid connection to God and it’s the questioner who is on the receiving end of the resulting indignation. The questioner is wrong. The questioner is spiritually immature or deficient. The questioner is the one committing spiritual suicide.

I have one word: Maranatha!

Feminism, Singleness, and the Idol of the Nuclear Family

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Every now and then a post seems to erupt in the Godblogosphere. The latest is Denny Burk’s “A Sad Tale of Feminism Gone to Seed.” As they say, read the whole thing.

The gist of the Burk post is that feminism sold author Elizabeth Wurtzel (of Prozac Nation fame) a trunkload of hooey that resulted in the life she now decries in a New York Magazine article. Some of that lament:

It had all gone wrong. At long last, I had found myself vulnerable to the worst of New York City, because at 44 my life was not so different from the way it was at 24. Stubbornly and proudly, emphatically and pathetically, I had refused to grow up, and so I was becoming one of those people who refuses to grow up—one of the city’s Lost Boys. I was still subletting in Greenwich Village, instead of owning in Brooklyn Heights. I had loved everything about Yale Law School—especially the part where I graduated at 40—but I spent my life savings on an abiding interest, which is a lot to invest in curiosity. By never marrying, I ended up never divorcing, but I also failed to accumulate that brocade of civility and padlock of security—kids you do or don’t want, Tiffany silver you never use—that makes life complete. Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis. If you don’t have the imposition of family to remind you of what is at stake, something else will. I was alone in a lonely apartment with only a stalker to show for my accomplishments and my years.

I was amazed to discover that, according to The Atlantic, women still can’t have it all. Bah! Humbug! Women who have it all should try having nothing: I have no husband, no children, no real estate, no stocks, no bonds, no investments, no 401(k), no CDs, no IRAs, no emergency fund—I don’t even have a savings account. It’s not that I have not planned for the future; I have not planned for the present. I do have a royalty account, some decent skills, and, apparently, a lot of human capital. But because of choices I have made, wisely and idiotically, because I had principles or because I was crazy, I have no assets and no family. I have had the same friends since college, although as time has gone on, the daily nature of those relationships has changed, such that it is not daily at all. But then how many lost connections make up a life? There is my best friend from law school, too busy with her toddler; the people with whom I spent New Year’s in a Negril bungalow not so long ago, all lost to me now; every man who was the love of my life, just for today; roommates, officemates, classmates: For everyone who is near, there are others who are far gone.

Burk then adds his commentary:

Wurtzel famously has a knack for finding the dark side of everything. Certainly here she has found the dark side of feminism. There is a price to pay when one trades her birthright for a mess of pottage. The trap of feminism is that so few modern people can see it for the mess of pottage that it is. Even Wurtzel misses it, though she feels deeply the pain of it.

I do not believe feminism is to blame for all women who find themselves single. Nor do I think that feminism alone accounts for all the moral pathologies on display in Wurtzel’s article. But I do believe that feminism has provided the social context for women to be congratulated by the culture for sad choices that they make.

The comments on Burk’s site reveal that he went back and tempered the statement shown above to reduce some of the vitriol ladled out against feminism. Honestly, I wouldn’t backpedal. I think the brand of feminism that arose out of the 1960s has been at the root of a whole score of societal downturns and downright evils, many of which feminists themselves are only now—reluctantly—acknowledging.

But here’s my problem with Burk’s feminist straw man. I’ve known just as many Christian singles who have shared with me the same lament as Wurtzel’s, even down to the specifics.

Burk says the source of Wurtzel’s problem is feminism. But what is the source of the problem for Christian singles who are generational peers of Wurtzel’s? Can we still blame feminism? Or is the Church in the West somehow failing to address some lack in its vision?

I’ll be honest here. I have a strong aversion to pundits who like to throw stones at the glass house of “the bad guy” but who refuse to acknowledge the transparency and fragility of their own domicile. For some Christians, feminism is about as easy a target for stones as exists. Woo, how brave we are at mocking it!

Are we we doing anything about our own glass house, though? And if not, why expend energy to toss rocks at someone else’s house when we should be addressing our own inadequacies?

Here’s the fundamental problem in the Church in the West that leads to a similar lament among Christian peers of Wurtzel…

Wurtzel’s lament isn’t just about bad personal choices. In large part, it’s about broken community.

If you haven’t noticed, the Church in the West has not been stellar at combating breakdowns in societal structure and building up vital community. If anything, we’ve taken the majority of our energy and plowed it back into trying to shore up the nuclear family.

While building strong nuclear families is certainly a noble cause, could it be a case of the good being the enemy of the best?

A few comments by Jesus about family—and Gospel priorities:

And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
—Luke 18:28-30 ESV

And his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.”
—Mark 3:31-35 ESV

And elsewhere it is noted:

To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am.
—1 Corinthians 7:8 ESV

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.
—1 Corinthians 7:32-35 ESV

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”
—Isaiah 56:3-5 ESV

The problem is that we don’t really believe or practice any of those verses.

If I were the keynote speaker at a Christian conference on marriage and family and said that I believe that the proper order of importance in my life, from most important to less important, is

  1. God
  2. Spouse
  3. My children

I would get a hearty round of Amens.

But if I said that I believe that this order and the words above from Jesus and other Bible authors say that I must also consider the following prioritized order

  1. Family of God
  2. My nuclear family

I would predict dead silence. Or close to it.

We simply don’t want to give Family of God the place it deserves. We’re not only averse to putting it before nuclear family, we’re not even sure it should rank as number two. Number one is completely out.

Is it any wonder then that single people “of a certain age” feel like the crazy aunt locked in the church attic? God may think differently, but we like our “eunuchs” to remain dry trees.

A man over 50 years of age visits your church. He seems devout, perhaps a bit too much so, and he talks about loving God, perhaps a bit too much. But for all his talk of love, he is unmarried and seems to want to stay that way. And while he is a great preacher, he dresses a bit frumpy and doesn’t seem to care for his personal appearance the way you think he should. He unnerves you because you can’t figure him out. You wonder about motives. Why is he single? What’s the story there? Really, he was never married? You begin to wonder about how safe your kids are around that man.

What if I told you that this was the Apostle Paul?

A lot of sincere Christian singles feel that same scorn in the Church. They know people are asking questions about them. They not only have to own up to their own decisions about life and whether or not they’ve made the right decisions, Single, white, female, alone by herselfbut they have the married folks in the church second-guessing their decisions too. It’s a burden that Christian singles bear that their non-Christian counterparts may not always deal with. Which only makes it tougher.

Because we may have our priorities wrong with the Family of God and nuclear family, we can’t get community right. And singles are usually the first to suffer for that inability. Our communities not only prove to be unfulfilling to marrieds with children (who counter the lack by retreating further into their nuclear family), but those failed attempts at community let down singles even more. Single Christians suffer the same lament as Wurtzel of wondering where everyone went in their lives, and how is it that they get left out of whatever dregs of community exist? And why is it that when THEY go looking for some kind of human interaction to fill that void, and THEY make a mistake with handling it, THEY get singled out for righteous scorn?

Really, Church, just what are we offering better to singles with regard to community than what the broken world offers?

Denny Burk ends his article:

He did not make us unisex. He did not make us genderless humanoids with no direction for our intimate lives. He made us male and female. And for those to whom it has been given, He made us to give ourselves away to years of finding stale Cheerios in every hidden crevice of the minivan, to seasons of graduations and of anniversaries and of empty nests, to gray years with the love of your life who is your best friend, to lifetimes of covenant love.

Feminism is the killer of that dream, even though precious few seem to notice.

Note the odd pairing of and for those to whom it has been given with that dream. That’s the classic marriage/singleness dichotomy of Evangelicalism on display. We tell singles that their calling is a wonderful one, yet the married life is the real dream.

Here’s reality: Feminism should not be the killer of that dream. Jesus should be. And Evangelicals need to stop pushing one option as a “dream” and another as a “calling,” because when you come to Jesus, all bets about dream fulfillment are off. That idol should go away. And boy, have we made an idol of the nuclear family.

But the dream/idol talk persists because there’s not really much of anything else for people, at least when it comes to community, because we have yet to figure out how real Christian community works. Especially for those who are single. Which is why their lament sounds an awful lot like Wurtzel’s.

And we can’t easily blame that on feminism, now can we?