Reconstructing My Faith: A Question, The Rapture, And Dreaming of Escape

A Question

Back in 2006, I had a very strange pastoral day - which, if you'll ask any pastor, is kind of a regular feature of the job.

A lady who attended another church in town stopped by my office & asked me for help. She apologized for bothering me when I was busy... but wanted to know if I could give her a "real short explanation of the book of Revelation." Hmmm....

 

I managed to keep the answer down to 5 minutes, which definitely isn't time for much in the way of detail:

• letters to churches (chapters 1-3)
• things are gonna get worse before they better... and everybody & his brother has an opinion on how that's going to work - some are more detailed (read: specific charts, timelines & battle plans) than others... and I'm one of those "less details, more big picture" kind of guys when it comes to this subject (chapters 4-19)
• things will get better (chapters 20-22)

For those wondering - yes, I'm still unclear why she came to me rather than her own pastor (who was/is a great guy.)

Then Shari came home and said she had been hearing ads on one of our local Christian radio stations for a service that will e-mail your pagan friends who are not raptured when the rapture comes. I googled and found www.youvebeenleftbehind.com (the site is thankfully dead now). Seriously, that was the name of it. (I figure Larry Norman was spinning in his grave at someone profiting off his song in such a cheeseball way.)  

 

My reaction: "If we love people who don't follow Jesus so darn much, why not do something about it now rather than spamming them from heaven?"

The Rapture

A few years later, as the Harold Camping end of the world nonsense metastasized, I found myself looking more carefully at my own history and the theological assumptions I'd grown up with. (Note: I don't want to get into the details of Camping's prediction - they're the usual mess of numerology, Scripture-twisting & outright nonsense... which, when they failed, caused him to talk about the "spiritual" end of the world... and then finally to admit that he was flat out wrong.)

As I've noted before, I grew up in Southern California in the 1970s, back when it was one of the great gathering places for Jesus Movement folks - Calvary Chapel was king & Chuck Smith (their pastor) was a gifted speaker who spent a lot of time on the sure return of Jesus Christ. One of the guys who led my youth group Bible study was an ex-hippie who came to Jesus & was a big part of a "Jesus Music" band - and he was also very into teaching & talking about the End Times.

You see, evangelical culture was flooded with books (The Late Great Planet Earth was the most notable), films (I still run into people who were profoundly influenced and/or scared by "Thief in the Night"), and music (Larry Norman's "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" was popular - long before DC Talk covered the tune or LaHaye & Jenkins ripped off a line to title their fiction series) about the Rapture.

Remember, it was the 1970s: Watergate, the fallout from the Sexual Revolution, the loss of the Vietnam War, the energy crisis - complete with gas rationing, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, etc. It was pretty easy to convince folks that life was getting worse & a one-way ticket out of here was an incredibly desirable thing - esp. if the destination was eternity with God.

Notice that the fervor for this kind of thing began to ebb as circumstances got better - reaching a real low point for the End Times business when the perennial favorite for the "Who is Gog & Magog?" contest (see Revelation 20) - the Soviet Union - went belly up in 1989.

But the flames were fanned again with the release of the "Left Behind" book series... and movies... and young adult book series... and one begins to wonder whether the primary motivation is theological or financial. (My personal critique of the Left Behind series? In short: "badly written dialogue, cardboard cut-out characters in an interesting plot... but undercut by the need to shoehorn in the author's very detailed premillenial dispensationalist view of Bible prophecy.")

Of course, there's been a long history of prophecies (check out the website A Brief History of the Apocalypse for that long, sad lineage) about the end of the world, both inside & outside Christianity... 

OK, enough history. With that particular theological context growing up, I'd always just assumed that the Chick Tract/Left Behind/Thief in the Night storyline was the only or best way to interpret the Scriptures.

But with some research, I kept running into the inescapable fact that the "doctrine" of the Rapture (as we know it) pretty much started in the 19th century with the teachings of John Darby (pretty much the father of dispensational theology) & C.I. Scofield (who published the Scofield Chain Reference Bible, which put Darby's theology on the same page as the Scriptures in the form of footnotes). So, the Rapture is a theological belief that's a little more than 150 years old.

New isn't necessarily bad... but when it comes to theology, it's always possible that something "new" simply means folks pulled stuff out of context to come up with their belief system... so I found myself struggling with what I believe about the Rapture - but, then again, I've always struggled with what I believe about the End Times. Not about the sure return of Christ or that God will reign... but with the nitty-gritty details of what will happen when and the tendency of some believers to want a "map" of how it's all gonna go down.

Am I saying there won't be a Rapture? No. Is it possible that the return of Christ (the Second Coming) and the Rapture will occur at the same time? Yes. Do I know this for sure? Absolutely not.

Here's my two cents - this particular issue (the Rapture) can NOT be one of those theological hills that we chose to fight to the death for... the divinity of Christ, the truth of the Resurrection, the inspired nature of Scripture - yes, these fundamental beliefs are worth everything we have.

But a particular brand of End Times theology is not worth our time & energy. Since we acknowledge that "no man knows the day or the hour" (Matthew 24:36) and that appearance of the Lord will be "like a thief in the night" (1st Thessalonians 5:2), we do a horrendous disservice to those in need of Jesus' saving grace by focusing inordinate amounts of attention & emotion on fighting with each other over signs & interpretations.

You & I may not agree completely on what will happen at the end of time - but I once again would suggest that our call to evangelize & disciple, to serve & minister in the name of Christ is substantially more important than convincing someone of our particular eschatology.

The Escape Hatch

Let me be clear - all of the "reconstructing" I wrote about concerning the Rapture & the End Times occurred 12+ years ago. So what does that have to do with my faith right now?

Well, I've come to the realization that I am always looking for ways to cope with the struggles of life... and the current chaos of our political and cultural climate makes an escape hatch particularly tempting. Like I wrote back in the day, the Rapture looks like a pretty good theological idea when you think the world is in free fall.

.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote (in his book, Get Back in the Box) that:

In extreme cases, like fundamentalist religious or political stories, the chaos of any given moment becomes an indication of some great impending apocalypse when justice will be done. I've seen cheeky bumper stickers that read: "In case of rapture, this car will be empty." The passengers are literally looking forward to that scenario. When we are addicted to stories with endings, we'd prefer Armageddon to no ending at all.

I think, at some level, that's what is happening to many evangelical followers of Christ right now - seduced by fear-mongering news sources and fueled by those claiming to speak for God, they are tempted to buy into a persecution narrative that leads inexorably to excusing, minimizing, and/or even participating in things like this...

...or pictures like this (life-sized sticker of the current president hogtied in the back of a pickup truck) being posted by a presidential candidate:

Political fervor and tribalism has become an escape hatch... a way to run away from the difficulties of a multicultural society full of people who desperately need the love of Christ. Rather than obeying the Biblical commands to "conduct yourself with wisdom in your interactions with outsiders (non-believers), make the most of each opportunity [treating it as something precious]" (Colossians 4:5 AMP) and to "always be ready to offer a defense, humbly and respectfully, when someone asks why you live in hope" (1 Peter 3:15 VOICE), the tendency is to lean into sloganeering, idolatry, and raw abuse of power.

There's a temptation - documented by Russell Moore in conversations with pastors - to give up on the words & example of Jesus and instead invest your time, talents, and treasure in uplifting a strong man to fight for you and/or choose to focus on fighting yourself.

It was the result of having multiple pastors tell me, essentially, the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount, parenthetically, in their preaching — "turn the other cheek" — [and] to have someone come up after to say, "Where did you get those liberal talking points?" And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, "I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ," the response would not be, "I apologize." The response would be, "Yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak." And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.

 I'll note that (as David French so aptly put it) "one doesn’t comply with the command to “love your enemies” by hiring someone to hate them for you."

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Relentless cynicism and disengagement can be an escape hatch as well - especially for those of us tempted to disassociate ourselves from theological and political viewpoints we find repugnant. It's all too easy to bury our heads in the sand, to stay silent in the face of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) pressure to hunker down and "stop rockin' the boat." This could be about politics, theology, ethics, or simply evidencing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23 AMP):

But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Thinking about the gnawing desire to disengage from the world around me, I was reminded of the lyrics of Steve Taylor's "Since I Gave Up Hope, I Feel A Lot Better":

Life unwinds like a cheap sweater

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And the truth gets blurred like a wet letter

But since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

While the world winds down to a final prayer

Nothing soothes quicker than complete despair

I predict by dinner I won't even care

Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better

And this cartoon by Dan Pegoda:

I feel this temptation in my bones - and I'm thankful for the examples of folks like David French & Russell Moore who haven't given up and/or given in to bitterness. 

Moreover, I find myself clinging to the words of  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

Let your credo be this: Let the lie come into the world, let it even triumph. But not through me.

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Our desire for escape from the stresses and fears of this world - whether into tribal politics, cynical detachment, accumulation of possessions and power, or hedonistic indulgence - is so much less than what God intends for us. Erwin McManus (in his book, Chasing Daylight) says it well:

Our pop theology has eliminated the place for risk and insulated us with a comfort-and-security theology. This view runs counter to what is found in the Scriptures. I want to reiterate the fact that the center of God’s will is not a safe place, but the most dangerous place in the world. God fears nothing and no one. God moves with intentionality and power. To live outside God’s will puts us in danger, but to live in His will makes us dangerous.

Mike Yaconelli wrote something similar in his book, Dangerous Wonder:

I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

Those both sound a lot better than longing for an escape hatch - even couched in spiritual language and Biblical imagery.

This is the eighth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first seven, here they are:

#1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds

#2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

#3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

#4: Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

#5: Reconstructing My Faith: John Wayne, Straight Lines, and the Benefits of Being a Nerd

#6: Reconstructing My Faith: Pedigrees, Car Crashes, and Saying Goodbye
#7: Reconstructing My Faith: Worst. Church. Service. Ever.

Reconstructing My Faith: Worst. Church Service. Ever.

Carlos A. Rodriguez asked a simple question on Twitter (yes, I know, "X" - sheesh):

The responses are a chronicle of jaw-droppingly thoughtless decisions on the part of pastors and church leadership from churches across the conservative and liberal spectrum. I'll share a few highlights just to give you the flavor:

• Christmas Eve. A cathedral. The associate priest preached the sermon which consisted of standing in the pulpit with two sock puppets and having them sing Bette Midler’s “From a Distance” to one another. 
• Recalculating the rapture date (after a previous sermon apparently proved incorrect) like live, on stage. 
• That Sunday the prescribed Gospel reading was when Jesus turned water into wine. And the priest made that the whole point of the homily. But to the extent of saying that Jesus was a drunkard. A friendly one. And that that part of the Gospel he loved most.
• Once we visited a new church on Cinco de mayo and they had people get up on stage to get blindfolded and hit piñatas while Mariachi music played. The winner got a $50 gift card.
• I had a pastor preach from the pulpit in front of the entire church but directly at me because I asked a question about free will vs predestination that he didn't like.

I have my own list of highly questionable church services:

• the youth evangelist who decided to pound the heck out of the assembled teenagers about the Bema Seat judgement and how few of them were going to make it
• note: preacher friends, scaring the hell out of people is a good way to get responses and a bad way to elicit actual meaningful spiritual decisions
• the SBC pastor who decided that the best celebrity example of bad sexual decisions was Kobe Bryant when preaching to a church that was 99% white
• cynical note: it's awfully easy to preach against sin when nobody in your congregation can identify themselves with a super-wealthy athlete of another color who lives half the country away from you
• the minister preaching a funeral who admitted that (a) he didn't really know the deceased all that well, and (b) he was just going to let the Spirit lead... so he yammered on for 45+ minutes, mixing in 3-4 different "standard' sermon outlines into a meaningless ramble
• note: preacher friends, "I'm just letting the Spirit lead" is spiritualized code for "I was lazy and didn't actually prepare for this opportunity to share grace, truth, and hope"
  
• And, though not a worship service but a Christian concert, the one where the guest speaker in front of a ex-hippie Jesus People band told us about how he drove out into the desert and took off all his clothes in order to get closer to God
• cynical note: I'd be concerned about sunburn and getting dirt/sand in problematic places, which would likely reduce my ability to feel close to God

Thankfully, those are the exception rather than the rule in my life. As I noted in an earlier Reconstructing post, my own church experiences were (mostly) healthy... which meant I wasn't shaken when I ran into craziness like ex-hippie or the guy jumpin' up & down (metaphorically) on the Bema Seat.

What breaks my heart is how these kind of experiences seem designed to alienate people from the community of faith. 

We have to remember that the people in the pews (or, in the case of the church I attend, the beat-up couches & upholstered chairs) walk in the door with real hurts and a desperate need for real community. They don't need their prejudices reinforced, their intelligence insulted, or to simply act as an audience for a communicator enamored with the power of a pulpit.

For me - in my very occasional opportunities to preach/teach - it's a reminder that I need to put in the work of study & preparation & prayer. I need to wisely consider who will be listening and how best to communicate Biblical truth in culturally relevant ways - relevant not only to me (at age 59, my go-to illustrations are likely to be a bit dated) but also to them. 

And, simply as a follower of Jesus, I need to be someone whose spiritual life is more than church attendance and talking about Jesus. I want to be more like Jesus - more loving, more peaceful, more patient, more self-controlled. Moreover, I want to want to be more like Jesus.

This is the seventh post in a series... if you'd like to read the first six, here they are:

#1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds

#2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

#3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

#4: Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

#5: Reconstructing My Faith: John Wayne, Straight Lines, and the Benefits of Being a Nerd

#6: Reconstructing My Faith: Pedigrees, Car Crashes, and Saying Goodbye

Reconstructing My Faith: Pedigrees, Car Crashes, and Saying Goodbye

Pedigrees

If any try to throw around their pedigrees to you, remember my résumé—which is more impressive than theirs. I was circumcised on the eighth day—as the law prescribes—born of the nation of Israel, descended from the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew born of Hebrews; I have observed the law according to the strict piety of the Pharisees, separate from those embracing a less rigorous kind of Judaism. Zealous? Yes. I ruthlessly pursued and persecuted the church. And when it comes to the righteousness required by the law, my record is spotless.

But whatever I used to count as my greatest accomplishments, I’ve written them off as a loss because of the Anointed One. And more so, I now realize that all I gained and thought was important was nothing but yesterday’s garbage compared to knowing the Anointed Jesus my Lord. For Him I have thrown everything aside—it’s nothing but a pile of waste—so that I may gain Him. 

Philippians 3:4-8 VOICE 

I'm kind of like the Southern Baptist version of Paul writing to the Philippian church:

• born to parents who were deeply involved in their local SBC church (at one point, Dad was chairman of the deacons and Mom was head of the WMU)
• raised in Sunday School
• attended Training Union, graded choirs, and Royal Ambassadors
• professed my faith in Christ and was baptized at age 7
• sang in the youth choir
• served on the church council as the youth representative
• surrendered to ministry at a Centrifuge camp at Glorieta
• attended and graduated from Baylor University
• led BSU drama ministries at Baylor my junior & senior year
• served two different summers with the Home Mission Board as a summer missionary in Alabama and Colorado
• earned multiple Christian Life Diplomas from the Baptist Sunday School Board 
• Completed MasterLife 1 and 2 as well as PrayerLife and Experiencing God studies
• attended and graduated from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary with a Master of Arts in Religious Education
• taught elementary school Sunday School and led college & career Bible studies
• married a Southern Baptist girl in a SBC church with a SBC pastor
• served as a youth pastor at four different SBC churches (Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Tennessee)
• took students to various state youth camps and Centrifuge camps at many of the "classic" Baptist encampments: Glorieta, Ridgecrest, Siloam Springs, Gulf Shores Baptist Assembly, Jenness Park
• was part of the leadership for State Youth Evangelism Conferences and summer camps (Arkansas)
• wrote teaching materials and articles for a variety of Lifeway publications
• led youth ministry breakout sessions at national SBC youth conventions
• planted and pastored a Gen-X focused church with the cooperation/assistance of the Tennessee Baptist Convention
• consulted with the North American Mission Board on Gen-X focused ministry
• served the Tennessee Baptist Convention on a project identifying and connecting with innovative SBC church plants in Tennessee
• pastored a SBC church in central California for nearly a decade
• served as associational children's camp pastor/director 
• attended three different SBC churches after leaving vocational ministry (two here in Tennessee, one in Texas) - including sitting under the teaching of Ed Stetzer (then the head of Lifeway Research)

And, like Paul, "whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ." (v. 7 NIV). A lifetime (nearly 59 years) of being smack dab in the middle of SBC life is, as Eugene Peterson's The Message paraphrase so beautifully puts it, "compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung."

Fender Benders & Actual Crashes

I've been in four vehicle accidents in my lifetime - not counting the brakes of a church bus catching on fire and me backing my Honda Accord into a tree while attempting to impress a girl I was trying to date.

• Two fender benders
• one in college when I zoned out in stop-n-go L.A. traffic and bumped the car in front of me
• one much later in life when I ran into the back of a car in a turn lane
• Two actual accidents (both, not surprisingly, in Nashville)
• one when an uninsured driver ignored the light and turned into the side of my car when I was making a protected left turn
• one when (again!) an uninsured driver sped through the stop light and sent Collin & I spinning (the car was totaled) [pictures above]

I have some other SBC "accidents" that aren't likely to headline anyone's résumé:

• As an elementary school student, we left the church I was baptized in after a powerful and wealthy family forced out the pastor 
• As a summer missionary, I was aghast as one of the elderly godly women in the church emphatically insisted that the "curse of Ham" heresy was Biblical truth
• As a youth pastor, I served a church that had an unwritten rule that the Family Life Center was to close if any black youth came to play basketball
• As a youth pastor, I watched a fellow youth pastor be forced to close down his incredibly successful 5th quarter events because students of the "wrong color" were coming to know Jesus and getting baptized
• As a youth pastor, I was fired (position was "being phased out") and reinstated due to a determined pattern of undermining from youth parents who wanted less discipleship and more kids attending
• As a youth pastor, I was on staff when my pastor was forced to resign due to having an adulterous affair
• As a church planter, our sponsor church fired their pastor (without moral or spiritual cause) and then dismissed the entire deacon board for supporting the pastor... which led to our church plant having to find a new sponsor church
• As a pastor, I resigned after nearly two years of manipulation and pressure - including pressure to hire a spiritually unfit relative to a ministry position in the church

Saying Goodbye

But my choice to support my church's decision to leave the Southern Baptist Convention was not predicated on those fender benders & crashes. And it's certainly not because of the work of International Mission Board or North American Mission Board in reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ.

Cooperatively, the denomination has done some amazing things - for example, the SBC Disaster Relief system (both funding & volunteers) is a great force for good in the midst of tragedy & difficulty - and without siphoning huge chunks of the donations to support the infrastructure of the program. I mentioned Centrifuge above - this SBC summer camp system not only played a major role in my own spiritual journey but continues to be one of the best high-impact low-manipulation youth camp experiences available.

But I wholeheartedly agree with the decision by the elders of our church to remove us from partnership with the SBC due to long-standing patterns of the cover-up of sexual abuse, abuse of power, continual infighting, and "an increased emphasis on cultural confrontation over redemptive engagement." The narrowing of 'friendly cooperation' this summer at the SBC convention is more confirmation of the wisdom of the decision... as are the continued struggles with dealing with racial reconciliation in a healthy & God-honoring way.

At the same time, I lament with my church's leadership this parting: "It is our desire to work with a denomination that better reflects our beliefs, values, and commitment to spiritual health. This does not mean we will never work alongside SBC churches or entities. It does mean we will no longer be a Southern Baptist church. Make no mistake, this was not an easy decision. Even in clarity we feel sadness, as there are many wonderful people serving the Lord with utmost integrity within the SBC."

For my part, I am immensely thankful for so many Southern Baptists laypeople and leaders who mentored me and showed me what following Jesus looks like "in real life":

• the pastor who prayed with me about surrendering my life to Christ... and baptized me
• the Sunday School teachers who encouraged my desire to learn the Scriptures
• my parents... who modeled sacrificial giving and gracious love
• my first full-time pastor as a staff member... who taught me about hands-on ministry and caring for difficult people
• the BSU staff who gave me opportunities to grow and challenged me to follow Christ
• the seminary professors who not only taught the material but lived out what they believed in the way they related to us as students
• the various deacon bodies and laypeople who showed courage in the face of church politics
• the launch team of our church plant who trusted me to lead them despite me knowing almost nothing
• the second sponsor church who welcomed our fledgling church plant with open arms
• a plethora in friends in ministry through the years who spoke truth and offered companionship throughout the journey

My prayer for my former spiritual home:

• that the SBC will be a people who do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with our God. (Micah 6:8 ESV) 
• that the SBC will be a denomination who "give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute, rescue the weak and the needy; [and] deliver them from the hand of the wicked." (Psalm 82:3-4 ESV)
• that racial reconciliation will once again be prioritized in the SBC and not waved away by cynical opposition to discussing CRT (critical race theory) - a smokescreen that winks at racism (and doesn’t actually deal with CRT in any meaningful way.) Our brothers and sisters of color deserve better than a half-baked statement cooked up by six white seminary presidents. 
• that "justice [will] flow like water, and righteousness, like an unfailing stream" (Amos 5:24 HCSB) in the issue of sexual abuse inside SBC churches and the cover-up of that abuse by SBC leaders. The hellish patterns of resignations for "personal reasons"; avoiding asking or answering difficult questions during reference checks; pressuring victims to keep quiet "to protect the church"... all in the name of the "kingdom of God" - must end.
• that the leadership of the convention and individual churches will reflect 1 Timothy 3:2 (NLT): above reproach, exercising self-control, living wisely, and having a good reputation.
• that this renewed commitment to biblical justice and Christ-like character in the SBC will result in more individuals surrendered to Christ, more broken lives redeemed and healed, and more chances to celebrate the goodness of God in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13 NIV)

I finished writing this last night... and woke up this morning concerned that someone would read this and think that I'd somehow rejected my faith or theology. Nothing could be further from the truth. I resonate with Dr. Russell Moore: "The problem now is not that people think the church’s way of life is too demanding, too morally rigorous, but that they have come to think the church doesn’t believe its own moral teachings. The problem is not that they reject the idea that God could send anyone to hell but that, when they see the church covering up predatory behavior in its institutions, they have evidence that the church believes God would not send “our kind of people” to hell. If people reject the church because they reject Jesus and the gospel, we should be saddened but not surprised. But what happens when people reject the church because they think we reject Jesus and the gospel?"

This is the sixth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first five, here they are:

#1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds

#2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

#3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

#4: Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

#5: Reconstructing My Faith: John Wayne, Straight Lines, and the Benefits of Being a Nerd

Reconstructing My Faith: John Wayne, Straight Lines, and the Benefits of Being a Nerd

John Wayne: Hollywood Icon

My favorite classic Hollywood actors are Jimmy Stewart and Gene Kelly… which, in the context of what I’m about to write, may offer a glimpse of insight into my own personal feelings. (Seriously – if you haven’t seen It’s a Wonderful Life, Singin’ in the Rain, Rear Window, or The Pirate, just stop reading this post and go have some fun. Then come back… I have a lot to say today.)

While I enjoyed John Wayne in a couple of his films, I’m not really a fan of most westerns.  His True Grit is very good, as is The Searchers – though you need to be ready for director John Ford subverting Wayne’s usual stock Western good guy character to deal with racism. Hint: John Wayne is NOT the hero in The Searchers.

Which brings me (finally) to Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. You may have heard of it – either through the effusive praise of exvangelicals and folks who are deconstructing their evangelical upbringing, or through the blistering critiques of those who are defensive of the various ministries, leaders, and theological preferences (i.e. complementarianism) she calls out in the book. 

I originally read Jesus & John Wayne in December of 2020… and I actually finished the book one day before the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. So, when I wrote my original review of the book on Goodreads, this is how I saw it:

My response to this well-researched trip through evangelical history is colored by my own personal experience of that history... and how I managed to avoid the worst excesses of "muscular Christianity" despite being around or involved with a variety of the organizations that the author profiles: Focus on the Family, Wild at Heart, Promise Keepers, Mars Hill Church (Seattle), and the Southern Baptist Convention.

I think that the author sometimes makes connections that may or may not be warranted... but she also does a tremendous job of surveying the problematic teachings and ministries that have influenced evangelical theology and political involvement.

I'm also aware that I would have read this book through very different lenses a decade ago... pre-Trump, pre-#ChurchToo... I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking about the issues she raises and what that means for how I live out what I believe.

I'd recommend this to any evangelical who wants to think carefully (and prayerfully) about how our tolerance for questionable teaching (and leaders) has created an evangelical culture ripe for fear-mongering, unbiblical rhetoric, and authoritarian demagogues in the pulpit and in politics.

Nearly two years later, I read Jesus & John Wayne again, wanting to write clearly about my own process of rejecting toxic versions of masculinity, whether they were taught from behind a pulpit or by the confused first world online culture. What I discovered was a little more complicated than that.

The Myth of a Straight Line

Later in 2021, I read and reviewed Heather Cox Richardson’s How The South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continued Fight for the Soul of America… and while I found a number of her ideas convicting and/or intriguing, I noted that she, like so many others, had fallen victim to “the myth of a straight line”. Here’s what I wrote:

It is profoundly tempting when attempting to make your point - whether it is drawing from historical precedent, religious text, or scientific data - to assert that since A happened, of course B occurred... and that inexorably led to C & D…

…I understand that Heather Cox Richardson wasn't writing a book about the SBC and its role in supporting the political structures and decisions she is criticizing. On her way to proving her point, however, she drew a straight line through a much thornier and complicated bit of history.

And that makes it more difficult for me to take in the rest of the book - leaving me to wonder where else she elided pesky historical facts or sandpapered down sharp edges from individuals or movements she supports. 

On a second read, that same tendency is even more pronounced in Jesus & John Wayne. I understand that Du Mez is arguing for a particular thesis:

By the time Trump arrived proclaiming himself their savior, conservative white evangelicals had already traded a faith that privileges humility and elevates “the least of these” for one that derides gentleness as the province of wusses. Rather than turning the other cheek, they’d resolved to defend their faith and their nation, secure in the knowledge that the ends justify the means… In reality, evangelicals did not cast their voted despite their beliefs, but because of them.

Unfortunately, the author’s dedication to that thesis leads to quoting primarily from those who agree with her premise and cherry-picking speakers and authors for their most egregious and toxic statements. Her use of “conservative white evangelicals” as a catch-all term (which sweeps decidedly Never-Trump me up in the same net) is problematic as well:

For conservative white evangelicals, the “good news” of the Christian gospel has become inextricably linked to patriarchal authority, gender difference, and Christian nationalism, and all of these are intertwined with white racial identity.

I’ll take just a moment to point that literally none of the things in the previous paragraph describe my own personal theological or political beliefs… and it is that dissonance that made the second reading of this book more difficult and frustrating.

Does that mean that the issues she raises about an overly militaristic approach to faith and a culturally loaded viewpoint about male & female roles are incorrect? Absolutely not. But it does mean that her expansive picture of the evangelical view of John Wayne/American Cowboy masculinity is not a Walter Cronkite-esque “and that’s the way it is”. 

Again, I don’t dispute that there have been a plethora of stupid and even potentially heretical things done/said by pastors and Christian leaders in an attempt to stampede evangelical believers into voting, giving, and behaving in certain ways. Fetishizing the cleansing of the Temple and the picture of the triumphant Christ in Revelation 19 while downplaying the compassion and patience of Jesus leads to skewed and unbiblical forms of engagement with God and with others.

At the same time, forming an image of your deity based on the prevailing cultural narrative is not restricted to American evangelicals in the 20th and 21st centuries. A big chunk of my personal “reconstruction” quest is to clean off the cultural barnacles that so easily accumulate on the ship of my Biblical faith in Christ.

Board Games Saved My Soul

Okay… maybe that headline is a little overblown – but I’ve come to believe that my non-athletic, theater-loving, board game-playing lifestyle protected me from most of the worst excesses of the “cowboys & warriors” culture in evangelical men’s ministry while enabling me to glean some incredibly helpful spiritual truths from those same folks. 

It's a weird paradox – the kid who was fascinated by war games and the history of the Civil War & World War II wasn’t particularly interested in shooting guns or tromping around in the woods. Due to extensive reading about battles and soldiering, I had a clear-eyed view of how horrific war could be – which fueled my admiration for veterans and those who gave their lives without mythologizing going to war as some kind of grand adventure.

But it wasn’t geek culture alone that helped me reject the overblown portrayals of Christian manliness. I was taught the truth of Scripture by wise female Sunday School teachers in SBC churches – including into my college years. At Baylor University, my key advisor at the Baptist Student Union was our assistant director, a single woman with a deeply compassionate heart and a willingness to ask the tough questions that helped me grow towards God. 

I also experienced deeply moving teaching and ministry through those ministries with a tendency towards “muscular Christianity” that Du Mez highlights in her book. I found parts John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart book & study to be warmed-over Iron John “back to nature” nonsense… but other parts – dealing with father wounds and living by vows rather than faith in God – were profoundly important in my walk with God. The staff at Focus on the Family’s ministry to pastors were incredibly helpful when I went through my first forced termination as a youth pastor, as were the staff at the Baptist Sunday School Board (now Lifeway). The PromiseKeepers Pastors Conference was a watershed moment for me in dealing with racial and denominational reconciliation. 

Yes, I understand the damage that various elements of those ministries and organizations have done – and, in some cases, continue to do. The books they write, the conferences they speak at, the interviews they give… all play a part in normalizing an unbiblical picture of Christian character, especially for men. Du Mez says it well in the book:

“The products Christians consume shape the faith they inhabit. Today, what it means to be a “conservative evangelical” is as much about culture as it is about theology.”

Final Thoughts

My responsibility as a follower of Jesus is to 

• continue the difficult process of separating Biblical truth from cultural baggage, even the baggage I’m personally comfortable with
• lean into the whole character of Christ
• ignore the gendering of character traits as “male” and “female”, particularly when they attempt to sideline clearly Biblical values such as mercy, compassion, and self-control
• speak truth

So, do I still think you should read Jesus & John Wayne? The simple answer is “yes” – even if it makes you mad, even if you find yourself arguing with it, even if it frustrates you with some “straight line” argumentation. Kristin Kobes Du Mez throws a blistering spotlight on the evangelical movement that highlights our tendency to echo parts of the culture we are in when it plays to our presuppositions… and our willingness to justify ungodly behavior in the name of preserving power and influence. We all need that wake up call.

Note: This post is already getting crazy long… so I’ll get into the role of women in ministry and in the life of the church in a different post – that’s a much bigger subject that deserves space to breath. The same is true of my reactions to Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church (Seattle).

This is the fifth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first four, here they are:

• #1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds
• #2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word
• #3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu
• #4: Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

Reconstructing My Faith: Flywheels, Smokescreens, and The Medicine

I spent my formative years growing up in Orange County, California... pre-"The O.C." TV show and before the area became as culturally & ethnically diverse as it is today. I went to a middle-class/upper-middle class public high school that was 70%+ white students, with Hispanic & Asian students forming the rest of the cohort. Race wasn't a forefront issue in my mind - I knew being racist was wrong, but I didn't have to deal with many situations in which it was an issue.

Michael Emerson cites research that shows “Whites tend to view racism as intended individual acts of overt prejudice and discrimination.” According to this individualist view, “Groups, nations, and organizations are not racist; people are. Second, to be considered racist, the person must classify a group of people as inferior to others, and then whatever they say or do must result directly from that view. That is, they must mean for their actions to be racist for them to actually be racist. Third, racism is equated with prejudice (wrong thinking and talking about others) and individual discrimination (wrong actions against others). Finally, because of the other components of racism’s definition, if a person is a racist it is a master status, a core identity of who the person is, not just some passing act. In short, it defines the person’s essence.” (Interestingly, this individualist definition of racism is even more strongly held by white evangelical Christians than by other whites.) from a discussion guide on racism published by Baylor University's Center for Christian Ethics

Grappling with systemic racism didn't happen for me until I was actually doing ministry. For all of my positive experiences in church, serving churches brought me into my first exposure to virulent racism: the godly Sunday School teacher who sat on her front porch and calmly explained the "curse of Ham" to me, surprised by my rejection of this horrible false doctrine; the church I served that had an "unwritten rule" that the Family Life Center would close if local African-American students came by to play basketball; the fellow youth minister whose incredibly successful 5th quarter events were shut down by the deacons because the wrong color of students were being saved and baptized.

Most people of color, on the other hand, give a structuralist definition. “Racism is, at a minimum, prejudice plus power, and that power comes not from being a prejudiced individual, but from being part of a group that controls the nation’s systems. So while anyone can be prejudiced, only whites can perpetrate racism in the United States, for they hold and have always held most of the power in American institutions.” from a discussion guide on racism published by Baylor University's Center for Christian Ethics

I've found the following quote from Skye Jethani to be really meaningful in my own struggles to explain and understand this difficult topic.

I find it helpful to think of institutions as flywheels. A flywheel is a device that stores and dispenses energy. Consider a potter’s wheel. A person puts energy into the wheel by pumping a peddle with her foot. This irregular energy input is then stored in the wheel which dispenses the energy evenly over time by spinning the clay even after the potter stops pumping the peddle. Likewise, when we build organizations, governments, or institutions, they store up our values and dispense them over time—sometimes even over generations.

Consider the U.S. government. The founding generation “pumped” their values into the Constitution and created a system of government that respected individual rights, freedom of speech, religious liberty, and limited government. Over 200 years later, the system they created is still “spinning” and shaping the lives of over 300 million people. Of course, a flywheel can also store and dispense evil values over time which is why the Constitution had to be amended to end slavery, recognize African-Americans as full citizens rather than 3/5ths of a person, and give women the right to vote.

Once we see human institutions as flywheels, we can see why the current debate between personal and systemic evil is misguided. It’s not a matter of either changing hearts or changing systems. It’s entirely possible to have individual hearts healed and transformed by the gospel, and yet still have centuries of evil energy stored up within the systems we’ve created. Left unchanged, these flywheels will continue to dispense evil far into the future and hurt many people. Likewise, only changing evil systems isn’t sufficient if the people overseeing those systems are still pumping the evil and injustice of their hearts into the flywheel. Rather than fighting about hearts or systems, Christians who care about injustice and loving their neighbors should desire to overcome evil with good no matter where it resides.

The problem for me personally hasn't been a temptation to racist behaviors... it's been a temptation to pretend that the hard work of healing was accomplished during the Montgomery Bus Boycott or on the Edmund Pettus Bridge or with the election of President Barack Obama. It's that same inclination that seems to drive some evangelicals to militantly oppose CRT (whether or not they can define it) and attempt to ban or censor teaching about racism in America. 

Look... opposition by followers of Christ to discussing CRT (critical race theory) is a smokescreen that winks at racism (and doesn’t actually deal with CRT in any meaningful way.) Our brothers and sisters of color deserve better than a half-baked statement cooked up by six white seminary presidents. And if someone needs recent evidence for systemic racism, just look at the NFL finally backing away from “race norming” in settling claims about concussions.

The denomination I grew up in (Southern Baptists) has repented via resolution after resolution of the pro-slavery roots of its founding. Now, regardless of our denominational commitment and/or our proud non-denominational stance, we who declare the love of Christ must stop taking steps backward in the name of false unity. We must stop pretending that the hard work of fighting for civil rights magically fixed the problem and we can simply rest on singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children" at VBS. The Gospel is for all nations (Matthew 28:19)... more specifically (though it's hard to be more specific than "all") "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" (Revelation 7:9-10)

And that includes me... speaking truth in love.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Extra credit reading from David French: Structural Racism Isn't Wokeness

Extra credit watching from Phil Vischer: Race in America & Race in America (part 2)

Extra credit watching from John Amaechi: What Is White Privilege?

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Common Hymnal:

The Medicine

There's a sickness here that threatens to divide us 

And we're all afraid to say its name out loud

But, Lord, I know that you can heal us of this virus

So, we need you, we need you right now

There's a darkness here that's dangerous and aggressive

It getting harder every day to shake its power

But, Lord, I know that you can free us from oppression

So, we need you, we need you right now

Cause we don't know what to do

So, we turn our eyes to you

We've run out of words to say

But if you come and have your way

You can save us from ourselves

Before our wounds hurt someone else

We need you now

What does it mean to have compassion for another?

How can I claim to love a God that I can't see?

If I can find the will to harm and kill my brother

Cause he neglected to look like me

I can speak the words of men and songs of angels

I can give all my possessions to the poor

But if your love can't move the mountain of my hatred

Somehow, I missed you, and I need you so much more

This is the fourth post in a series... if you'd like to read the first three, here they are:

• #1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds
• #2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word
• #3: Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

Reconstructing My Faith: Cheaters, Ice, and Déjà vu

Cheater!

As regular readers of my blog know, I play a lot of board games. (Ok, 800-900 plays per year… “a lot” may not quite cover it.) As far as I can remember, I’ve only cheated twice in my life while playing a game.

The earliest game cheating memory is against my sister during a game of Parker Brothers BILLIONAIRE. It’s a blind bidding game (that’s gamer-speak for “game where everyone makes their bid for something simultaneously”) that used the old school “magic slate” style notepads for writing those sealed bids. I figured out how to write down two bids and pull up the edge of the wax paper to eliminate one of them as we revealed our bids to win. (I have long since apologized to my sister for this underhanded behavior.)

My second cheating memory is a game that my good friend & roommate (Tim) played against our girlfriends (now wives) back in the late 80s. It was the AH classic RAIL BARON (more recently republished as BOXCARS by Rio Grande Games) and Kim & Shari were, not to put too fine a point on it, completely and utterly destroying Tim & I. The two of us decided that the only way we could survive is if we (a) flirted with our then-girlfriends, in order to (b) surreptitiously abscond with some of the piles of money the girls had collected. The plan worked – and after taking large amounts of their cash, we admitted our “plan” and apologized. And flirted some more. (Ah, young love.)

Anyway, I don’t like cheating – and I refuse to continue playing games with someone who ascribes to the “if you’re not cheating, you’re not winning” philosophy.

Moreover, the accusation (even made playfully) that I cheated pierces right to my heart. I can feel the anger rise and I have to fight to control my response to gently ask them not to keep heading down that particular teasing road. (I have some theories about where that particular wound comes from – but I’m going to save that discussion for another day & time.)

Ice in My Carbonated Beverage

I am not a fan of fountain drinks. I like my Coke Zero in a deeply chilled bottle or can. (And, while I prefer Coke Zero over Diet Coke, both are infinitely better than Diet Pepsi. Trust me on this one.)

The reason I don’t like fountain drinks is that you really need to put ice in the cup to cool down the cola to the appropriate temperature… and when you do that, you have to drink it at a decent clip to beat the inevitable watering down of the flavor and carbonation by the melting ice.

What you end up with is a slushy brew of 50% cold-ish tap water & 50% once-delicious cola.

Blech.

Déjà vu All Over Again

I promise that my wandering stories will eventually pay off in something semi-profound… but you’ll have to keep reading a bit longer for that to happen. (Thank you for your patience.)

I grew up attending Southern Baptist churches on the West Coast… primarily in the suburbs of Los Angeles. (Yes, I lived in “The O.C.” – only we didn’t call it “the O.C.” and I recognized very little of my upbringing in the TV show.)

It was in an SBC church in Anaheim, CA, where I surrendered my life to Jesus… and it was the care and love of my youth leaders at an SBC church in Yorba Linda, CA, that encouraged and nurtured my call into vocational ministry. Both were decent-sized churches (running 250-350 folks each Sunday)

So when I went to Baylor University in Waco, TX, as a college freshman, I was taken aback at my first visit to a truly large SBC church. It really wasn’t the size, though… it was the fact that the bulletin, the structure of the worship service, even the language used from the front was almost identical to the churches I grew up in 2000+ miles away.

I came to realize that many of the folks who made up my home church in suburban Southern California were transplants from Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri (my parents), and the deep South… and so they did church much like the churches they’d grown up in half a country away.

Tying All of this Together

The obvious takeaway is that we’re likely to choose the worship practices that we grew up with – whether that’s a preference for a particular type of music, the use of only 100 or so hymns out of a hymnal with 500 of them, or a reliance on a “set in stone” order of worship.

No one likes to be told they’re simply mimicking their parents or grandparents – which makes it easy to develop “spiritual” reasons for worship structures, denominational polity, certain kinds of songs… the list is endless. Just like I react badly to being accused of cheating, folks inside a church/denomination can often struggle to hear good-natured prodding towards creativity and variety as an affirmation rather than an attack.

A less obvious takeaway was the realization that part of my (mostly) positive experience with the SBC comes from being raised in churches that were Baptist in theology but not falling all over themselves to reproduce the cultural prohibitions and hang-ups that were (and sometimes are) common to SBC churches in the South. We had a band of Jesus People leftovers visit on a regular basis in the late 70s/early 80s that played rock music in the Sunday morning service… and the fact that I played D&D didn’t cause anyone to try to cast demons out of me.

Putting a bunch of southern Southern Baptists into a cultural milieu where Sunday morning church attendance wasn't expected and the surrounding community didn't automatically defer to the churches in the area was, it turns out, a positive influence on focusing on the fundamental truths of Christianity. 

When I went to Baylor and got involved with other SBC churches who were attempting to reach college students in (relatively) innovative ways, I continued to see Baptist life in terms of potential rather than limitations. My spiritual mentor was an assistant director at the Baptist Student Union – and a single woman. (Her wisdom and godliness continue to inspire me.)

As I branched out and experienced other churches in the South, I started to see the problems more clearly – racism, winking at sinful behaviors if the individual was socially or financially connected, bitter infighting and gossip, church splits, etc. – all of which we’ll talk about in the context of this series of posts. But because my early experiences had been positive, it watered down the effect of those problems on me… or at least the way I reacted to them.

That’s not only true for my relationship with the SBC… it’s also true for my experience of large chunks of the evangelical subculture. When we get to my thoughts about the book “Jesus and John Wayne” (an upcoming post in this series), I’ll be struggling with how I managed to survive all the things I took in with my faith intact.

For today, I’ll leave you with a final thought: we can’t leave our past and our experience with church unexamined. It’s playing a role in how we follow Jesus right now. It affects how we worship, how we pray, how we treat each other, and how we do life together.

Socrates is credited with saying “The unexamined life is not worth living” at the trial leading to his death… which puts a very dark spin on his words. I think stating it in the positive – “The examined life is worth living” – isn’t quite as poetic but much more applicable. 

This is the third post in a series... if you'd like to read the first two, here they are:

• #1: Reconstructing My Faith: Rocks, Dross, and Almonds
• #2: Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

Reconstructing My Faith: Syndrome, Mars, and the "F" Word

Syndrome

“Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... no one will be.”

Granted, I’m a huge Pixar movie fan – which means I’m likely to quote a line from one of those films in response to just about any topic – but this particular quote from the super-villain Syndrome in THE INCREDIBLES has been rolling around in my head a good bit lately.

And it’s really not about superpowers – instead, it’s about prioritizing doctrine and Christian practice.

So…

“Every doctrinal point & theological argument & cultural practice can be super important! And when they are all super important… none of them will be.”

Terraforming Mars

One of the biggest hits of the last decade or so in board gaming has been a game called Terraforming Mars… in which players represent different companies working to increase the oxygen level, amount of surface water, and temperature of the planet to make it ready for colonization. The game comes with a huge stack of cards with a variety of projects, actions, events, and facilities that players can use their money and resources to build and/or make happen.

Making wise decisions about what strategy to pursue is an important game skill – as is deciding what things are attractive but unimportant. For example, pumping up your ability to produce energy may feel powerful (and there are sometimes good reasons for doing so), but you have to decide whether the money spent is actually furthering your game plan or simply buffing production.

I think the same thing is true in the process of evaluating what we believe – what ideas in our belief systems are attractive (for a variety of reasons: cultural, social, inertia, etc.) but are not central to our understanding of Jesus and the way we live in light of His death & resurrection? And, more importantly, what are the key pillars that we build our faith in?

The “F” Word

That brings us to the “F” word… and, no, it’s not the one that gets your movie an R rating if you say it more than once. 

It’s “fundamental” – which, in the context of religion and spiritual truth, often gets morphed into “fundamentalism” and then we’re off to the races with performative hand-wringing and wailing & gnashing of teeth.

Though I would recoil at being called a fundamentalist because of the negative connotations that are now Super-Glued to that word, I can easily subscribe to what used to be called the fundamentals of the Christian faith:

• the deity of Christ
• the trustworthiness of the Bible
• the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
• the complete inadequacy of our works to make up for our sinful choices and behaviors
• the role of followers of Christ to share Biblical truth with love and grace

And it is those fundamentals (yep, the “F” word again) that should help me define what’s “super important” and what is, well, less important.

 

Elton Trueblood (maybe)

Years ago, I heard someone attribute the following to Elton Trueblood*:

There are things in the Christian faith that we should draw a line in the sand, stand, fight, bleed, and even die for. The trick is not to draw the line in stupid places.

We are, sadly, experts at drawing lines near boundary markers that are cultural in nature – some of which I’ll touch on in the upcoming posts in this series. Frankly, it’s easier to defend boundary markers – what says “you’re part of our tribe” or “you’re not a part of our tribe” – than it is to defend the fundamentals of the Christian faith. 

What Does This Have to Do With Reconstructing Your Faith?

Great question. Simply put, everything from here on out depends on giving proper weight and consideration to the subjects being discussed. Not every doctrinal disagreement is on the level of the deity of Jesus Christ; not every ministry practice is as key as prayer & worship. Until we (I) get that straight, it’s tempting to see everything as “super important” – and thereby make some major errors in how we treat Scripture… and how we treat other people who disagree with us.

Two notes:

1. I'm honestly not sure Elton Trueblood actually said that - or at least I can't find evidence of it anywhere. I still think it's 100% wisdom.
2. This is the second in a series of posts entitled Reconstructing My Faith. The first post - Rocks, Dross, and Almonds - is also available for you to read and enjoy.