Jonathan Martin

 My blog may well be too erratic to have any sort of “best of.”  

And of course I am not generally a topical sort of writer. But when I penned some thoughts on the church’s response to the death of Osama Bin Laden, I hit a nerve. I have neither before nor since had anywhere near this level of reaction to anything I’ve written–from all kinds of people all over the world.  Some broke my heart–like the man who said he would have become a Christian a long time ago if he knew there were Christians who thought this way.  Or the man whose father was an Iranian terrorist, but is now an evangelist in the US–and how devastated he had been by the reaction of fellow believers to the developing story.  And of course, some were positively scathing.  So I’m revisiting these posts here in full, Osamagate Parts 1 and 2. My sense is that even though we are well past this particular news story, we are nowhere near beyond the broader questions all of this raised for the church and the world.  

On Sunday nights, I go to bed about the same time as your average 6-year old. I was reading myself to sleep by 9pm after preaching Revelation all weekend, and thus didn’t hear anything about the death of Osama Bin Laden until Monday morning. And in true 21^st century fashion…I actually found out via social media. A self-proclaimed news junkie, hearing major news by way of Facebook and Twitter first felt a bit like a personal defeat, but no matter.

Of course by the time I was reading all of this, there was a bit of stir already within the Christian community as to what extent it is appropriate to celebrate anybody’s death, even a profoundly evil, murderous man. I did not read anything where anybody I knew personally said anything indicative of “real Christians are all pacifists, Bin Laden should not have been killed, this is a terrible thing, this is a sad day for the world.” What I did read—consistently from people from the Renovatus community especially, was reluctance about the idea of celebrating Bin Laden’s death with glee and dancing. Folks who felt that literally screaming and shouting over any death felt unsettling, even eerie to their Christian convictions. These were not soft-headed, soft-hearted, buy the world a Coke and sing Kumbaya hippie kinds of responses (No “all we need is love, people.”) From a Christian perspective, Bin Laden was not only a troubled and sociopathic individual but a lost human being headed for divine judgment. I can’t imagine much of anybody who did not breathe a sigh of relief that to see the legacy of evil of this man cut short. I can’t imagine much of anybody who isn’t glad to see some level of closure to the ongoing saga relatives of people who died on 9/11 have endured. I felt the relief, I felt the closure.

But to express in some measure that the Christian response should at the very least be somewhat measured and sober in tone, acknowledging that the entire cycle of violence Bin Laden symbolizes is a product of a deeply broken world…to acknowledge that the job of the Church is to love our enemies into the kingdom rather than rejoice over them giddily because of the cross of Christ, is apparently controversial. I must confess to being perplexed by this. And of course when Christians appeal to Scripture in some capacity, the trump card is immediately played: How would YOU feel if your mom was killed on 9/11? Other variations of this response whenever Christians attempt to talk about how we ought to respond to violence in the world demonstrate remarkable, er, creativity, along the lines of: “what if your grandmother was gang raped—what would you do?” “If your family was chopped into tiny pieces and someone burned down their house and then urinated on the ashes—WHAT WOULD YOU DO?! WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!” (There is always an implicit “BOOM,” at the end of this question—like I’m dropping the mike on you, sissy.)

Let’s be very clear: I have a REAL temper, and I am not saying this in a life-relating, I’m really just one of the boys preacher kind of way…I am telling you the truth. I have felt like resorting to violence in matters so mundane as being cut off in traffic while attempting to merge onto 277, or trying to talk to Christians who resort to quandary ethics from 1974 in conversations about morality instead of deeply engaging Scripture in a meaningful way. Given such weakness, I make no claims as to what I would or would not do if “the worst thing” happened in my life. God help me.

But of course I am a follower of Jesus, which means my job is to reflect in a disciplined way on the implications of the cross of Christ for how I view the world in any and all circumstances. Thus how I feel or don’t feel, what I would do or not do, is not the ultimate question. The question is, what does a cross-shaped life call for? What does it look like, in the words of Revelation, “follow the lamb wherever he goes?”

In this day and age, to believe both that the cross of Christ is the atoning sacrifice for sin and the only way of salvation AND that the cross of Christ provides the example for how I conduct myself in the world is apparently odd indeed. Because only conservatives care about salvation and only liberals care about following the lived example of Jesus. If I hear one more variation of this false choice from one more person, I am going to slap the living—no I won’t, I am going to have to return to the cross again.

So let’s talk Scripture. Yes, there are many passages in the Old Testament that celebrate the demise of an enemy—and people worked their Strong’s concordance for the first time perhaps in many moons to find them yesterday. David celebrates even the babies of his enemies having their heads dashed against the rocks. There are many examples of raw, authentic prayer where David lashes out at his enemies. The Israelites celebrated when Goliath’s head was cut off. On the other hand, there are many OT references floating around since yesterday like Ezekiel: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezekiel 33.11)

An impossible scenario, right? We just keep playing Bible arm-wrestling and whoever can line up the most texts wins–we will out proof text each other. You’ve got your references, I’ve got mine—we are post-modern people and we will pick the texts we like the most. Hippie Christians vs. UFC Christians, whoever makes it out of the steel cage. The problem of course with all of this is that the full expression of God in humanity is in the person of Jesus Christ. His teachings, contrary to a lot of popular fundamentalist study Bibles, are meant to be applied seriously. The Sermon on the Mount is the magna carta of the kingdom of God, not a list of suggestions, idealistic teachings about the millential reign, or a mere attempt to demonstrate that “nobody can really follow the law anyway.” The cross of Jesus Christ judges and relativises the way we think about violence and power, and sets the agenda and the posture for any and all Christians of all generations: “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Do I think you need to feel bad for having a desire for justice, a desire for closure, or for feeling good that a bad man won’t be able to bring death and destruction to this world anymore? No. Do I think it is okay to rejoice or glory in any human’s death? No. This side of the cross, we only get to glory in one death. This is not a peculiar position, a doctrinal quirk, a novel way of looking at things. This is what the world looks like for people who believe the world definitively changed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what it looks like to take the cross seriously and to bring every other thought and emotion under its shadow.

I wouldn’t bother to write about this at all if I simply thought that this was all about this one evil character and this was a one-off affair. The problem is, I am convinced this is part of a larger trend in American Christianity, where the kingdom is being divided from the cross, the theology of the crucified God (as pertains to salvation) is being detached from the example of the crucified God (as it pertains to daily life), where the Church is being divided into “conservative” and “liberal” instead of the only categories that exits in God’s economy: faithful or unfaithful. I am convinced that we aren’t doing a good job of blessing our enemies, and I’m not talking about Bin Laden. There is an increasingly pious justification for an us vs. them posture that is about conquering the enemies of the cross rather than laying down our lives for them. And that, not some genetically engineered Russian in a Left Behind book, is the spirit of antichrist.

When those in the Church think their brothers and sisters are weak, sentimental and soft for taking the words and example of the head of the Church seriously, the movement is in trouble. The people I know who are living out our command to be peacemakers in volatile parts of the Middle East, unarmed save for the gospel, are the most courageous people I’ve ever met. If you follow the logic far enough of where a lot of people are trending, you would almost get the idea that people like them or even Jesus Himself was a weakling for allowing His life to be taken instead of calling down the angels of heaven. When the reality is, the cross of Jesus redefined what strength and courage means forever—we conquer by sacrifice. This is not just for Jesus—we too will overcome the evil one only by “the blood of the lamb, the word of our testimony, loving not our own lives even into death.”

For the last 2,000 years, we haven’t been living in an Old Testament battle epic against the Amalekites, we’ve been living in the kingdom of the one who told Peter to put away the sword. We are indeed at war, but it is not with flesh and blood but principalities and powers, cosmic forces of darkness in high places (Ephesians 6). We do indeed taunt an enemy, but that enemy is death and hell—the foes that Jesus disarmed, stripped and publicly ridiculed in front of the whole universe through His death (Colossians 2.15). This is not advanced Christian theology—this is gospel 101. The terror of the Son of love dying on the cross is more terrible than any act ever perpetrated by any terrorist, and indeed the sting of all other earthly terrors has been swept up in this death. The worst thing that could ever happen in human history has already happened—and God already conquered by resurrection. The death and resurrection has already changed the world, and all other lives and deaths are only a footnote to that. I think I’m on the verge of writing in tongues, if such a thing were possible.

But I’ve said more than I meant to, because the truth is I was deeply encouraged by the responses I read from the Renovatus community. Sometimes we might be tempted to wonder if it is possible to craft a whole community around the gospel in such a deep and thoroughgoing way that an entire congregation is conditioned in a counter-cultural way, so that the very inclinations of their hearts have been altered. Can such a thing happen? Is it possible for a Christian community to be odd in the world again? Is it possible for God’s people to set apart by a holiness that is incomprehensible to the world again? Could the gospel become odd in a land saturated with religion?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

For a taste of this, I offer without names remarkably consistent comments/quotes offered up by the Renovatus community and friends of the Renovatus community. They spread like wildfire without any instigation or commentary from me. I’m proud of them. There is diversity in nuance among these responses, but the common threads are pretty clear. I’m thankful for your peculiarity, Renovatus:

I will never celebrate the death of an enemy. I will not dance like a fool at the so-called “justice” of it. I mourn for the deaths both at his hands and ours. Maybe this is a sign that the Christ in me is greater than the fear that permeates our culture and world.

I mourn the people lost on 9/11 and will never ever forget that horrible day. my heart still aches to think about it. but another man’s death doesn’t make me want to celebrate at all.

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

I am proud of friends and family in the military, who sacrifice so much in obedience to politics they have no control over, who do their best to protect us and keep our borders safe. I grieve for a world that is lost and look with hope towards a world that will be. The death that really changed the world happened over 2,000 years ago.

There was only one man’s death that changed everything, and we celebrated that a week ago. (Or lack of death, really!)

Maybe I am a complete weirdo, but even though I am glad that Osama bin Laden is gone as a threat, and even though I think this kind of military action is sometimes necessary, it is hard for me to celebrate the death of any man, especially in light of what eternity may mean. It’s more sobering to me than a moment of celebration.

I celebrate justice and not death. I also support our troops and they deserve the honor.

Sorry guys, but I just can’t get excited about people dying, regardless of who they were or what they did.

Does it not strike anybody else as kind of disgusting for a crowd of kids in D.C. to be singing the “Na Na Na Na” song right now?

I mourn the loss of a strong life-force today, a misdirected boy who grew into a destructive man. Who can celebrate at the death of a lost human?

As a Christian I believe in justice but it deeply saddens me that we can become excited over a dead man (Osama Bin Laden) who never accepted Jesus as Savior.

Osama bin Laden is dead. And I am glad justice has been met. But as a Christian, I cannot rejoice over the death of my enemy. Be careful Church.

It’s a dangerous thing when humans get an appetite for blood. I’m happy for the relief this will bring to the military families that have sacrificed so much, but I don’t want to ever be on the side yelling “Crucify Him!” My bloodlust is satisfied at the table of Eucharist, and I am thankful for the mercy shown to me. I have not received the justice I deserve, thank God.

Part Two:

I’ve been overwhelmed by the positive responses I’ve received about yesterday’s piece on what I labeled (with tongue firmly in cheek) as “the Christian response to Osamagate.” I’ve heard wonderful things from folks from all over the country who felt it struck a chord with them, and for that I am grateful and humbled. Well at least, there was mostly positive feedback. I heard that a good friend of mine linked the story to an unofficial message board that some folks in my native denomination use to talk about church, culture and, um, other stuff for which I would have no category. I know a number of folks who have participated in some level of something akin to dialogue on this site over the years whom I love and honor respect, and consistently speak words that inspire and provoke the Church. So I don’t want to take away from that. That said, I have generally stayed away from the forum because I historically found the level of discourse to be devastatingly stupid—to the point to where I actually felt myself getting dumber when I would look at it. I am open, of course, to changing my opinion about such things. But I glanced over at a few of the responses last night and got a great chuckle, as the boys did not fail to disappoint.

In response to the entry, the responses included “Perhaps you guys should plan a memorial service and a day of remembrance for your fallen hero” and “You are right…we have misjudged Osama…he has done no wrong.” I was impressed by the nuanced, articulate responses which so incisively cut to the chase and engaged the blog piece, which clearly stated that “Osama is awesome and we should, like, totally not hate on him—peace and love!” That was PRECISELY what I said. It would be tempting to say that they didn’t read the piece, but that would be unfair…as such responses don’t show evidence of people who read at all. But this one response from my drive-by caught my eye: “if you’re going to advance theological positions like this you have a connected obligation to break them down into practical application, beginning to end. With respect I’d like to ask you to start with 9/11 and go from there with practical application of this theology and specific things the US should have done in response. I don’t intend to disagree or argue, I just want to see how it works because I can’t envision it.” Okay, that remark is not dumb at all. Practical application of this theology and specific things we can do? I’ll be your huckleberry. But only in context of the strategy of the Church—which is all I addressed to begin with.

As I grow deeper in my convictions regarding the vocation of the Church to be cross-shaped peacemakers, I do in fact find the most common objection to be: “this stuff is just not practical.” Especially given the number of people who are just counting down to Armageddon and waiting for the fireworks to begin, such work can even seem like an impediment to the return of Christ. (More on that tomorrow) But of course, “what do you really do with this” is a perfectly good question, an important question.

For starters? I don’t recall making any judgments or suggestions about what any governments of any nations should or should not have done about anything. I would be in over my head. I wrote to the Church about the Church’s posture towards the world. Yesterday’s post was about not allowing ourselves to get caught up in the spirit of the age, keeping the posture of our hearts in line with that of Jesus Himself to His own enemies. Since there is no atrocity in human history, from crusades to holocaust to 9/11, that were any worse than human beings killing God, and yet His response was “Father forgive them for they no not what they do,” I felt that Christians should be careful that we keep our hearts in check. There are many other potential Bin Ladens in the world, and we have to avoid a root of bitterness that would keep us from doing our job well. There can be no enemy in the world that we do not love.

As to how it is done? Well, my whole adult ministry has been lived under the influence of my spiritual grandmother, Sister Margaret Gaines, who showed me firsthand how one life lived faithfully in a Palestinian village can change the temperature of one small part of the world—how the gospel can be lived with grace and truth to Muslim neighbors. (The more people enlighten me, the more I regret all the time I’ve spent being shaped by her tears and stories—there are so many e-mail forwards I could be circulating, inflammatory news commentators I could be listening to, and message boards I could be posting on! I feel so naïve now.) There is enough I could share about her life as strategy that I could write a book about it.

Unlike Sister Gaines, I don’t feel called to become a full-time missionary to the Middle East, but at Renovatus we’ve adopted Beirut as our international mission. Coming off my second trip there in the last two years just two weeks ago today, I saw God do astonishing things there. As you may know, the US has upped the travel advisory and stated that no US citizen should travel there right now. With all the upheaval in the region and the growing presence of Hezbollah there, a lot of people discouraged us from going. But we went—and I’m so glad we did.

Last time I preached in Beirut, I preached in a large open-air celebration in downtown Beirut. The believers have such a good relationship with the Muslims in that area, they allowed us to preach in the center of the city right in front of the largest Mosque in Lebanon. It was remarkable—we saw so many come to Christ. This time, we were in a large indoor theater, where again saw many come to saving faith. I couldn’t believe the level of openness and receptivity to the Gospel. One of the most moving stories was when a Muslim woman came down to the invitation in tears, wearing a burqa. Given her family situation, she could not bring herself to invite Christ into her life that night. But she wept as she asked us to pray for her. She said while I was preaching, she felt something she had never felt—and she used words that were not in the sermon at all: “I feel like I need to be cleansed from the inside out!” That has haunted me for weeks.

Additionally, the local believers in Beirut—who have really had to struggle with the whole media spectacle over the US pastor burning a Quran (which has greatly hindered their relations with Muslims there)—worked it out for us to visit some key political leaders. We met with the ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Lebanon (as you probably know, Saudi Arabia is still closed to the Gospel). We told him that the actions of that pastor does not reflect the heart that American Christians have for the Muslim world and that we loved their people. Remarkably, we were able to embrace him and pray for him in the name of Jesus Christ. (this pic is from that visit)

We ended up sharing the same sentiments with the head of the Lebanese military court and praying with him. Totally unexpected, we were invited to the Presidential Palace to meet with the President of Lebanon himself, where we were also able to share our love for their people as representatives of the body of Christ in America. We were able to pray over Him as well. All the major Arab news outlets picked up the story and footage was broadcast all over the Middle East. (Pic is our team from Renovatus and our Lebanese friends with the President in the Presidential Palace)

Nothing we did was remotely noble or heroic—it was a 10-day trip just to support an amazing work God is doing on the ground there with or without any of us. The heroes are the ones who are navigating these tensions on a daily basis and living faithful lives in front of their Muslim neighbors. But as a practical strategy, I can propose these ideas from my time in places like Beirut and Aboud:

1. Get to know a Muslim and love and serve them really, really well.

2. If and when you do get such an opportunity, don’t say insulting or condemning things about their religion. Listen a lot, serve with humility and without agenda, and when the Holy Spirit gives you the opportunity—share how the love of Jesus has transformed your life.

3. If you have the means, travel to the Middle East where you can get connected with local believers there and learn about what they are doing firsthand. If you can’t do that, find a work you can support with both prayer and finances.

“You mean that is all?” I know, it doesn’t seem impressive as a strategy, does it? Alas, I feel like I’m giving antiquated and outdated ideas at best. Sure, the courage of a handful of faithful people seemed to turn the world upside down (in the phrase of Luke in Acts) in the first century, but that’s when the world was safe for Christians. They didn’t have to deal with enemies of the cross or people who wanted to harm them, and are thus an inadequate model for us. Going to people you do not know armed with nothing but the power of the gospel and the love of Jesus Christ had pretty mixed results at best. I mean really, what did the stuff this Paul person did in Rome ever really accomplish? And that whole thing of Philip going to the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8—it was just one Christian living out his calling in relationship to one guy! People act like one redemptive relationship could turn around a whole continent or something.

Today’s complicated world calls for new strategies. Instead of being careful to make sure the tone, tenor and content of our message to the world is full of love, compassion and blessing even and especially to those who would harm us, we should embrace the kingdom tools of fear, suspicion, anger and inflammatory rhetoric. Given the clear failure of the early Church of wearing down their enemies with relentless love, we’ve got to get into the 21^st century. After all, we’ve got Armageddon to rehearse for! No more talk of this idealistic cross business. This is a time for pragmatism, not fairy tales.

But wait a second…the question addressed how a nation should have responded after 9/11. How would this theology have played out there? How should I know? I never said anything about how nations should deal with other nations, I wrote about how the Church should be the Church—how we have to be careful not to harden our hearts in rejoicing over the death of our enemies so we will keep a spirit of love and sacrifice towards them; how we must be obsessed with loving them instead of beating them. That is the only thing I’ve got a strategy for, and somehow I think the stakes are significantly higher in this discussion than any nationalistic strategy. It seems to me the most important thing the Church can do for the world is to be really good at being the Church. And if that doesn’t work out…sorry, I’ve got nothing.

But perhaps it seemed I neglected the post 9/11 side of the question… That’s because nothing that happened on 9/11 changed anything about the Church’s strategy. We’ve only had one strategy since (depending on whose calendar you are using, give or take a year) around the year 33, and we cannot alter it no matter what beautiful or terrible things happen to the world around us. Practical strategy post 9/11? I do have one thing. We have to take off our shoes when we go through airport security now, so post 9/11, I might recommend you leave for the airport a little earlier than you did pre 9/11 when you are on your way to go see what the Spirit of God is up to in the Middle East.

My disclaimer about my book list is that they are not all written in 2011, this is simply a way to reflect on what I’ve read this year regardless of when the titles were written.  To narrow things down a bit, I’m doing only non-fiction that has really shaped me this year.

On the fiction front, I will say in brief that my international travel to places like Beirut and Kenya early this year gave me the opportunity to finally read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series this year, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Over the Christmas break, I got to finish King’s 11/22/63, which might be the most sheer fun read of the year for me.  John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany completely astounded me.  In its spiritual power, I would put it on an elite shelf of novels like Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Frederick Buechner’s Godric, two of my favorite books.

Also worth mentioning is that I’ve discovered some wonderful new study resources this year.  During my Revelation series, I was able to snag an advance copy of the forthcoming commentary from my dear friend and teacher Dr. John Christopher Thomas of the Pentecostal Theological Seminary.  It’s a remarkable work (and it was such an honor for us to have him at Renovatus this year to share his work with us directly.)  The commentary will be out in 2012, and I’ll let you know as soon as it hits.  His wonderful commentary on John’s epistles (from the Pentecostal Commentary series) was also enormously helpful this year.  I also revisited Richard Bauckham’s beautiful Revelation commentary this year as well, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, and fell in love with it all over again.

So that’s a snapshot of the fiction and commentaries. But without further ado, my four favorite books read in 2011:

1.  Alone Together: Why We Expect More of Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle

Every once in a while, it feels like God Himself drops a book in my life that alters my perspective on society/culture in a defining way.  Last year, that book was Chris Hedges’ Empire of Illusion.  This year it was Alone Together, from MIT Professor and psychologist Sherry Turkle.  I had not grasped the extent to which our technology is changing our brains until now.  Nor did I understand the extent to which the technology that is meant to bring us together is actually driving us further apart.  While it has no explicit frame of reference for church, the implications of this book for religious life in general and Christian communities in particular are enormous.  Her book has been especially helpful in how I will frame my forthcoming book Prototype in cultural context.  I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

2.  Preacher King: Martin Luther King and the Word that Moved America by Richard Lischer

First of all, Duke professor Richard Lischer is a freakishly good writer (as demonstrated by his marvelous memoir of his early life as a rural pastor, Open Secrets, which I adore).  His treatment of King’s preaching is utterly unique in the large canon of work devoted to King, and fascinating on so many levels.   I’m quite passionate in my study of preaching as a craft and discipline.  And I can honestly say no book has shaped/challenged/informed my own understanding of preaching as much as this one.  Lischer argues that since most treatments of King’s preaching are based on his published manuscripts, they have been toned down and flattened from their black context (stripped of colloqualisms, emotion, and power).  Thus he works directly off extensive audio of King’s preaching previously ignored.  While it’s a book about his preaching, the insight into King’s life and thought are just enormous—I think it has to be on the same shelf as the most definitive MLK biographies even for those who are not as interested in preaching per se as I am.  But that said, I’ve told every preacher I know that they simply must read it, and I continue to.

3.  The Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning

If you’ve read any of Manning’s work before, nothing in this book will necessarily strike you as new.  Maybe it was all I’ve learned this year about the Fatherhood and maddening love of God, maybe it was just that the stories Manning tells this go round are uniquely powerful—but this one just hit me right between the eyes.  It’s a slim volume, can be read in a couple of hours, but potent.

4.  Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle

Those closest to me can attest that I don’t cry easily.  But man, this book tore me to pieces.  Boyle, a Catholic priest in the most violent, gang-ridden district of Los Angeles, is also the founder of Homeboy Industries, which places gang members in legitimate jobs. It’s chock full of beautiful stories of people coming awake to the love of God, discovering their belovedness smack dab in the middle of their brokenness.  The whole book is so full of the power and scandal that is the love of Jesus that I almost want to say, if you want to know what I believe about the nature of the gospel—read this.  Given the context, the language is raw, but I can’t imagine anybody walking away from this book and the profanity being what they talk about.

It has become a bit of a tradition for me to blog a list of top ten movies at the end of every year.  I don’t know that anybody is particularly interested in what pastors think about movies.  You might say that I should stick to what I know.  But my dirty little secret is that I might know as much about movies as I do about theology, for better or for worse.  And with such compelling films with explicit faith themes as Of Gods and Men and Tree of Life out in 2011, there’s even more intersection than usual between my vocational and leisure interests.

So here it is, my non-authoritative but definitive lists of top ten films of 2011.  Here are my disclaimers: Since I’m not a full-time movie critic, there’s a lot of films that probably would warrant real consideration that I just haven’t gotten around to.  That list would include Hugo, The Artist (which just came to Charlotte), The Descendants, and one of the year’s most anticipated movies for me personally, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which is still only in major cities.  I think my love for documentaries might muddy the waters a bit, but again not being a full-time movie critic I wouldn’t have enough docs to warrant a separate list.  So know in advance I’m collapsing apples and oranges into the same place.

So here we go:

1.     Of Gods and Men

It’s a good year to be a preacher and filmgoer.  For me, the elegant French Of God and Men from Director Xavier Beauvois sits on top of a highly elite list of the most beautiful spiritual films of all-time (that for me would include such luminaries as The Mission and The Apostle).  Based on a true story, it chronicles the lives of monks in Algeria who must decide whether or not to stay or flee from their small village under the threat of violence from Muslim extremists.  Very rarely does this kind of 100 proof gospel make it into the artistic bloodstream in the US.  Not only do you have a powerful embodiment of the non-violent way of the cross and  blistering images of divine love in context of human terror, but an equally vivid depiction of the very human doubts and fears that plague even great people of faith.  The scene where the actions of the terrorists are juxtaposed with the liturgy of Christmas Eve is jaw-dropping.  The extended sequence celebrate their own version of the last supper with the music of “Swan Lake” playing behind them, lingering on the wrinkles of their haunted faces, is one of the most powerful sequences in the history of cinema.

  2.    Tree of Life

Either you love it or you hate it.  There is no in-between for Terrence Malik’s sweeping magnum opus, not only among critics but among my most immediate friends.  No summary of Tree of Life could do it justice, but it is in essence the story of Jack O’Brien, played as an adult by Sean Penn, as the eldest son of a troubled Texas family.  Brad Pitt gives possibly the best performance of his career and certainly my favorite male performance of 2011 as his rigid but complex father.  But the story on the surface is only a tiny fraction of the film’s enormous ambition, which dares to place these small fragile lives in cosmic perspective.  It is as much a poem or even a prayer than it is a film.  There were many audiences who famously walked out during one of the film’s more artistic sequences.  For my part, I found the film to be as straight forward as many found it to be obtuse.  Visually and emotionally, it’s just stunning.  I stayed in the theater at the Manor so I could hopefully be done crying when the credits were done.  I do not think Malik, for as overtly spiritual as the film is, intends anything evangelistic, but I can only tell you that I could have given an altar call when the movie was over.

3.     Midnight in Paris

It’s one of Woody Allen’s best late career films by a country mile.  A romantic comedy set in Paris, this time Allen applies the same sort of reverent attention to detail he normally gives to New York.  The central conceit of the film would be criminal to give away, so I’ll avoid saying too much about the plot.  What’s interesting about this utterly charming movie is that it is both penultimate Allen in that it does all the things he has always done best—in its absurdity, charm, high brow wit, and Owen Wilson channeling Allen himself as the lead—and yet may be the most accessible entry yet to those who are not Allen  fans.  When we left the theater, I said the reason I go to the movies at all is in hope of a film with this much magic.  It’s gorgeous, and I can’t think of a single kind of person in my life who would not enjoy it.

4.     Into the Abyss

Werner Herzog’s talents as a filmmaker and documentarian are practically superhuman, as attested to the fact that I am placing two of his documentaries on the list from the same year.  This time he’s exploring a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, raising the question of both why people kill and why a state kills. It features remarkable footage of 28-year old Michael Perry just days away form execution.  He gives as much time to the families of victims though, which is what this makes his treatment of the death penalty even-handed and not overly preachy.  His conversation with a state executioner who’s overseen over 100 Texas executions was worth the price of admission.  And always attentive to the faith issues raised, I was overwhelmed by the articulate, humble passion of the Death row chaplain on display in the film’s first 10 minutes.  It’s haunting. 

5.     Take Shelter

Take Shelter is a film that works on a lot of different levels.  Because it so well captures the sense of heightened paranoia that is the marker of our cultural milieu, it works as a sort of eerily relevant metaphor for our times.  But it works equally well on a superficial level.  While too serious to be considered a popcorn thriller, the sense of dread, foreboding and suspense is Hithcock on steroids.  On a technical and visceral plane, I can’t think of any other film that so successfully makes you feel the anxiety of the lead character (played to perfection by Michael Shannon in easily one of the year’s best performances) as he has terrifying visions of a forthcoming apocalypse.

6.     Page One: Inside the New York Times

It’s a sprawling, fascinating story with a whole host of fascinating characters, and really a number of different storylines.  For all the ways it is well crafted though, what elevates the film’s importance is how well it functions as a broader depiction of where and how we are making the full transition into the digital age, and how both individuals and institutions attempt to move forward without leaving the best bits of the past behind.  That might sound heavier than I mean it to, as the truth is the movie is brisk, fast-paced and a lot of fun to watch.

7.     Tabloid

Errol Morris is one of the great storytellers of our time, across any medium.  I’ve had a great time delving into the backlog of his great documentaries this year.  But none have been as fun (or as salacious-while a doc, so note some of the content is strong) as this bizarre account of former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney, accused of kidnapping her former Mormon lover and manacling to a bed for a weekend of passion in England.  From there forward, she stole tabloid headlines, from battling the kidnapping charge to, years later–appearing in the press for having her dog cloned?!  Morris never patronizes his eccentric subjects, though McKinney may be his most eccentric yet.  Tabloid is bitingly funny, deeply strange, and brilliantly told.

8.     Margin Call

This may well be the best movie you haven’t seen in 2011.  Despite a heavyweight cast including Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci , the most poignant film related to the 2008 financial crisis seems still oddly under radar.  That’s unfortunate, because it packs a wallop.  The ever-reliable Spacey gives one of his most nuanced, well-rounded and memorable performances in years (bordering on Oscar worthy).   It’s provocative in its account of Wall Street greed and corruption, and certainly is a film with a lot to say.  And yet for as sickening as we might find some of the things we see on screen, the characters are so rich and so human that it hardly feels like a mere statement.  Hardly an action thriller, the palpable suspense of it’s 12-hour construct (set just hours before the Wall Street crisis broke) and real pathos is noteworthy.

9.     Ides of March

I may have an undue bias towards Ides of March, since this is the kind of understated political drama (and quintessential Fall release) that I am always going to be game for.  Both Clooney and Gosling (in a remarkable year) are exceptional, with a killer supporting cast featuring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Marisa Tomei.  It’s a great outing for Clooney as director, as it really the pacing that ultimately makes this slow burner work so well.

10.  Cave of Forgotten Dreams

I could have flipped a coin between the really solid Moneyball (go Aaron Sorkin!) and a second Herzog documentary for the same list on the same year.  But ultimately, the lyrical quality and reverence of Cave of Forgotten of Dreams make it such a unique theatrical experience I could not help but include it here.  For all the hate out there for big studio, gimmicky 3-D, here’s an elegant use of the technology that almost singlehandedly redeems the medium.  My only complaint being, as it is well documented that new 3-D projectors are significantly less bright than any of their counterparts, the lack of vivid color when I saw this in Colorado this summer was almost criminal. But its undeniably beautiful.

Honorable mentions:

Thor (a much better addition to the Marvel Comics film canon than this year’s Captain America, in my opinion), the excellent documentary Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop (which I have recommended to preachers for its implicit critique on what the stage/spotlight does to a performer), Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol  (first-rate thriller and wildly inventive action sequences), X-Men First Class (some of the most fun I’ve had at the movies this year), and on the same tier: both Source Code and Adjustment Bureau (both perhaps imperfect but highly entertaining sci-fi genre entries).

I will resume my day job now (well, after I post favorite albums and books in the coming days!)

This is the time of year when we celebrate the mystery of God embodied, of the word made flesh.  The scandal of incarnation is still the defining feature of the Christian gospel.  In that spirit, while it was not written for Christmas per se, I have loved this little prayer from Stanley Hauerwas’ Discerning Time. He actually wrote it for a wedding between two graduate students.  But as it so well captures the mystery of our embodied God, it has become a sort of Christmas meditation for me.  After all, the fact that God took on flesh means so much for how we love “our bodily friends across generations.” In Hauerwas’ words, the incarnation of Jesus helps deliver us from our tendencies to “body denying silliness.”  I hope you like it:

Lustily you love us, Mary-born Lord.  Embodied, you would not

Have us be etherealized spirits.  Rather, we find that we are bodies

All the way down.  But, are our bodies the picture of the soul?  That

You have taken on our flesh surely entails that whatever more we

May be, the “more” is not more than our bodies.  But, our bodies

Beacon death…and love.  Without bodies, we could not desire

One another or you, but those same bodies become pain-filled

And wrinkled.  How extraordinary!  I am growing old.  In fact, I

May already be old.  I somehow had not noticed.  Save me from

The silliness, the body-denying silliness, to which the old are

Tempted.  Help me, help us, behold bodily friends across

Generations, so that we might be for the world confident lovers

Who can say, “Until death do us part.” 

Amen.

This is a piece I wrote for a publication called The Evangel a few years ago.  It has the unique distinction among things I wrote a few years ago as being one I still more or less like.  I was reflecting on these same sentiments earlier today (Christmas Eve), the marvel of the unobtrusive birth of a child turning the world on its ear with little fanfare at the time.  The way the birth is not only blessing but in a sense judgment on all of our notions of human power.  I hope it speaks to you. 

The significance of Jesus being born into human history is so overwhelming that when we reflect on the Christmas narrative, the scene in the manger eclipses everything else.  It is easy to imagine the whole world standing still for a few hours as God-in-flesh was birthed in a manger—like time stopped and all the earth seemed to revolve around this cataclysmic event.

But the world didn’t stop spinning, it went right on with its business, and in the grand scheme of things it was barely a decent cell group that perceived that anything out of the ordinary was going on.  The greatest event in humanity’s history occurred—God’s Son entered the realm of time and space, and this magnificent arrival took place in a real context.  Luke frames that for us right at the start: “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…”  So the story begins–not just a spiritual one–but a cultural story and a political story, a story that deconstructs everything about human notions of power and authority.

The Christmas occurrence is not just about Bethlehem, it is about everything and everybody.  It is about “principalities and powers”—New Testament language not only for demons, but for earthly powers.  The Son of God was born into a people, an ethnicity, a government, a planet—full of greed, pain, oppression, and constant struggles for “power,” whether religious or bureaucratic or militaristic.  The arrival has implications for all of those things, and for all of the people who aspire to them.

For the marginalized and the outcasts, it meant the world had turned upside down in their favor.  The birth of Jesus into poverty and stench was a subversive event that called into question everything that was assumed about the way the world had always worked.  For thousands of years, it seemed the pendulum of power mostly swung towards the wealthy, the powerful, the elite, the advantaged, the attractive, and the strong.  The Christ child born into putrid circumstances signaled the end of all of that, and offered a sneak preview of the proclamation that was to come through Jesus as an adult.  That is, that God’s kingdom has arrived, the God movement is here, and all the has-beens, poor, grief-stricken, and otherwise infamous sinners are going to get the breaks now.

They weren’t the only ones the story applied to.  The implications were as tangible for Caesar Augustus and Herod as they were for the misfits!  But Incarnation had a very different meaning for them.  For them it meant, “Your days are numbered, your authority is false, your power is negligible.”  For the powers of the age, Jesus’ age, Incarnation was a word of judgment—it said “Time’s almost up” to all want-to-be and would-be authorities.

We will celebrate this event all over again this year, and rightly so.  We will focus on the manger, drink some eggnog, and enjoy the serenity of the scene of wise men kneeling meekly at the feet of a burping baby on a Hallmark card.  We will sing old songs that will nourish us as gently and contentedly as Mary’s milk was to the tiny baby.  But we also will do this in a specific context, and the Incarnation will have as much to say to our culture and to our powers as it did in the original event.

Will the peace and safety of the scene keep us from seeing the world turned on its ear?  Will we understand that this event still calls the world, and certainly the powers, into question?  We could name our powers, but there isn’t space here.  Ask about them, and we always find that they are called legion, for they are many.  Consumerism, military might, advertising, media—their power is called into question in light of the Christ child.  Preachers and pontiffs, film stars and fundamentalists, republicans and rock stars—line them all up in their fineries, and see the colors drain out of the whole lot of them in comparison to the glorious child.  So small, so humble, so helpless—and yet the most powerful life form ever to take a drag of oxygen in our atmosphere.  God had arrived, and He changed all the rules of power.  Luke two preaches the sermon of the beatitudes before Jesus was able to control his vocal chords.  The Word was flesh and blood before speech could be uttered; the illustration came long before the text.

The trouble is, it didn’t look like anything changed to the powers.  Augustus kept on Ceaser-ing, and Herod kept on maneuvering.  Sure the Christ event wasn’t entirely under Herod’s radar, but by the time he finished slaughtering innocent children it affected him more like a rock skipping across a lake than a tidal wave about to hit the mainland.  The world went on about its business, as did the people who inhabit it, as certainly did the people who run it.  Nothing changed on the surface—the papers didn’t even mention anything about angels teaching worship choruses to sheep herders.

Yet things had changed, and the word of judgment had been spoken whether the powers accepted it or not.  The jury isn’t out anymore, the verdict has been rendered: God is definitively on the side of the powerless, the humble, and the needy.  Get on board with Him and you will be alright, oppose the weak ones who bear His affection and you will step in front of a cosmic train.

The signs of this reality are no more conspicuous now than they were then.  The Gap will be a big winner this holiday season, not Jesus.  But just as surely as Herod, Augustus, Jews and Romans were all stripped of their glory in light of the Christ child, so will all other authorities.  Everything and everybody who ever has had or will have any claim on power will face the truth that before Jesus, all powers are brought low and all the low are brought high.  Believing the Gospel means I believe that this Jesus and the truths He brought with Him have won the day, whether I see it or not.

The first advent taught us that the pendulum has swung to the humble in Jesus, the second advent will prove it before all.  The call of the Christmas story is to accept the rule of the Servant-King before the results are made public, and to receive His reign with gladness and simplicity.  For those that do, the scandalous truth of the narrative is that the powers are already disarmed—they just don’t know it yet.

Since I just signed my first book Prototype with Tyndale, it will of course be a while before its actual release, and therefore subject to plenty of changes.  I by no means want to overdo posting excerpts of it here, but wanted to pass along one short passage from chapter one that I think really captures the intimate vibe I hope the book will create.  I want it to be an intensely personal book to read and experience, which means I hope both to allow the reader well beyond the veil of my own heart and make it behind the veil of their own.  I think this little section speaks to that desire–I hope it connects with you!  From chapter one:

By now you know a little about me.  But before I move on, I’ve got a few questions for you:

What is your name? 

Where did you come from? 

Where are you going? 

Who are you…really? 

I apologize for being so forward.  I know we’ve barely met.  I don’t mean to be intrusive.  But if you read books the way most people do, this is already a pretty intimate thing we are doing.  Best as I can tell, people read books most often in bedrooms and bathrooms, the spaces we are most likely to have our defenses down.  We read in tight places, cramped into uncomfortably small seats on overcrowded airplanes, perhaps enclosed a little more snugly by the false privacy of headphones in our ears.

Since you are statistically likely to be reading this in an intimate space, I thought I would cut the formalities if that’s okay with you.  Let’s skip the appetizers and the foreplay.  Because while this is a book about God and a book with a lot of me in it, this really is a book about you.  It’s a book about what you hope for, what you are afraid of, who you are and who you might become. It’s a book about identity and a book about your future.  I’m not squeamish about you reading this in the bedroom or the bathroom, because it’s a book about being human in all the ways that Jesus was and said we could become.

I know it’s a little early for us to disrobe our souls, but your life is too important for me to waste time on social graces.  If we are going to say anything truthful about God, surely we have to tell the truth about ourselves first.   So I’ll ask the question again: Who are you?  And what is your name?  For Christ’s sake, please don’t answer me like this is a facebook profile.  As in, “Here is where I went to college, here are my favorite movies, here are my favorite bands.  I like to fish, to hunt, to play video games, to go scuba diving, to listen to Jay-Z.”  I didn’t ask you about your hobbies.  You are more than the sum total of your interests.

I asked who you are. 

I don’t think I’m overstating the case when I say that most of us live in a perpetual identity crisis.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of voices competing for our attention, voices telling us who we are and who we ought to be.  It’s why I think most of us fumble like its our first middle school dance when we are asked a question as direct as “who are you?” It’s not just that it’s an intrusive question, or that its difficult to sum up who we are within a few sentences.  I think most of the time, we honestly don’t know.

But what if it were possible to know who we are…really? What if it were possible to hear the name we had before the world was made?  What if it were possible to be so really and truly and fully alive—so fully human—that no matter what might happen to us, we would have no reason to be afraid?

Preachers speak about God for a living.  But to actually believe that you speak for God is another matter entirely.  People who believe such an absurd and seemingly self-aggrandizing thing are usually a little crazy—it’s a necessary part of the job description.  For those of us that believe such a thing is possible, there’s a word used to describe the phenomenon of the Spirit of God descending on a human to proclaim a message through human lips: “the anointing.”  I used to try to avoid this word because of its overuse in my particular tradition.  But it has a rich history, not only in the practice of anointing with oil in the Old Testament or anointing for healing in the New Testament, but a particular use in the epistles of John to describe the empowerment of God’s Spirit.

In the past year, I have learned a lot about the promise and the peril of God’s anointing.  I have no qualms about sharing any of it with you, save the fact that my way of talking about it might seem a bit mystical.  But when you are talking about the hand and unction of God resting on human vessels, however mundane the vessels might be and however foolish an act preaching may be, it is a mystical act.  So I will risk talking about the anointing as a mysterious, fearsome thing because it is the only way I experience it or know how to speak of it.

The anointing of God is a power that His Spirit gives, but it cannot be confused with the Spirit.  The anointing is a gift and attribute of God, but it cannot be collapsed into God Himself.  The gifts and calling of God, according to Scripture, are without repentance.  God gives them and does not take them back, regardless of a person’s maturity or immaturity, obedience or disobedience.  This is helpful to know, because otherwise operating in the anointing can be confused with having God’s absolute approval and endorsement of any sort of behavior.  I am ever aware of the fact that operating in the anointing of God does not necessarily mean I am walking in intimacy with God.

Perhaps the strangest and most difficult dynamic to describe in all of this is learning that the anointing can be a dangerous thing.  My friend Jim likes to tell me, “If you aren’t careful, the anointing will run off and kill you.”  I have to remind myself of this on a regular basis, and work really hard at being an authentic human being between the times I feel powerfully used (or anointed) by God.  It is the only way to keep my sanity.

Jim’s words always make me think of a favorite passage in Frederick Buechner’s novel about Jacob, Son of Laughter.  In an especially vivid chapter describing what it meant for Jacob to steal his father’s blessing away from his brother, Jacob says that for all of the years of estrangement from his brother and father, for all the long years he was a slave to Laban, “The blessing was more terrible still.”  In this crucial passage, you can substitute the word “blessing” with the word “anointing” and know just about everything I believe to be true about what it to have a gift of divine speech:

When the camel you’re riding with runs wild, nothing will stop it.  You cling to its neck.  You wrench at its beard and long lip.  You cry into its soft ear for mercy.  You threaten vengeance.  Either you hurl yourself to death from its pitching back or you ride out its madness to the end.

It was not I who ran off with my father’s blessing.  It was my father’s blessing that ran off with me.  Often since then I have cried mercy with the sand in my teeth.  I have cried ick-kh-kh to make it fall with a sob to its ungainly knees to let me dismount at last.  Its hind parts are crusted with urine as it races forward.  Its long-legged, hump-swaying gait is clumsy and scattered like rags in the wind.  I bury my face in its musky pelt.  The blessing will take me where it will take me.  It is beautiful and it is appalling.  It races through the barren hills to an end of its own.

I by no means think that only preachers understand the anointing of God.  There are other gifts that are both blessing and curse.  In any and every case, gifts are not signs of God’s approval or disapproval, they are neutral and thus can be handled appropriately or inappropriately, with care or with cavalier disregard.  Understanding the anointing in this way both guards the recipient of the gift (i.e. the preacher) from pride, and those who are beneficiaries of the gift (the listener) from overly idolizing the preacher.

To keep the anointing from running off and killing me, there are only a few things I know to do.  Keeping close, real friends who are not so blinded by the gift as to not see me is one of them.  Laughter, particularly at my own expense, is equally critical.  There is nothing more toxic for anointed people than to take themselves too seriously.  And finally, to speak honestly of the highs and lows of walking in the anointing, to tell the whole truth of it, is absolutely necessary.  It allows me to celebrate the beauty and mystery of being used by God and the real power I experience in those moments, without detaching them from my own brokenness.  I am both more powerful and more fragile than I could ever possibly conceive.  That is what it is to be anointed—given a gift you can steward but cannot control, a gift that neither enhances nor destroys your humanity.

Whatever it is that you’ve been anointed by God to say or to do, hold it delicately and do not hold onto it too tightly.  For God’s anointing is first and foremost gift, and handling it well demands that you handle it loosely.

After a lot of conversations, meetings, deliberation and prayer…I’m thrilled to announce that I agreed to sign with Tyndale House Publishers today for my first book, Prototype (tentatively subtitled a guide for liars, dreamers and misfits to become human)!

With the help of my tremendous agent, David van Diest, we’ve been exploring our options for awhile.  But ultimately, Tyndale won me over with their heart for ministry, their sense of community and mission, their creativity, and their belief in the message of my book.  Okay and to be truthful…their deep dish Chicago pizza may have pushed me all the way over.  I’m excited about working with Jan Long Harris and the team there!

There is so much God has done in us through Renovatus, and it feels like the time is right to release that message into the kingdom and the culture on another level.  I couldn’t be more thrilled about partnering with Tyndale to bring this big message–this new way of being human, to the world.  I’ll certainly be eager to share more about the forthcoming book.  But in the meantime, here’s a small taste of what’s ahead:

“Who are you…really?”

 It’s the most difficult, intrusive question we will ever be asked.  Though we live in a world of relentless self-expression, so few of us know who we really are.  We know our hobbies and interests—the kind of stuff you put in a facebook profile.  As in, “Here is where I went to college, here are my favorite movies, here are my favorite bands.  I like to fish, to hunt, to play video games, to go scuba diving, to listen to Jay-Z.”  But the question is not “what are your hobbies?”  We are more than the sum total of our interests.  The question is a more primal one: “who are you?” 

 Its not overstating the case to say that most of us live in a perpetual identity crisis.  We have access to an unprecedented amount of voices competing for our attention, voices telling us who we are and who we ought to be.  It’s why most of us fumble like its our first middle school dance when we are asked a question as direct as “who are you?” It’s not just that it’s an intrusive question, or that it’s difficult to sum up who we are within a few sentences.  I think most of the time, we honestly don’t know. 

 But what if it were possible to know who we are…really?  What if it were possible to hear the name we had before the world was made?  What if it were possible to be so really and truly and fully alive—so fully human—that no matter what might happen to us, we would have no reason to be afraid? 

 The premise of this book is that Jesus came as the prototype for a whole new way of being human; that is in fact possible to become human in all the ways He was and said we could become.  It is possible to break away from the relentlessly monotonous trappings of modern life and become someone else. Curiously enough, in becoming something you’ve never been, you may find that you end up being more yourself than you were before. It is possible to find your place in the resistance movement of liars, dreamers and misfits that are re-shaping the cosmos and overthrowing the world.

 It is the assumption of this book that resurrection life wants to come barreling down on you, that God’s future wants to break into your present, and that you can live a life of such alien gentleness that people around you might actually become a little afraid of what’s happening to you.

Step-by-step, Prototype explores what it would mean to become somebody else. Not to become superhuman, just fully human in all of the ways Jesus said we could. We see how we could learn how to depend on others in authentic human relationships in a world where we are so cut off from authentic communication. We see how we could learn how to touch and receive touch in a world where we are profoundly alone and isolated. We learn the practices that the earliest Christians believed would help us grow and develop in this new way of being human. We learn how life-altering resurrection power is revealed to us in shockingly mundane places and situations.

I’ll certainly keep you updated as to what’s coming in the months ahead-thanks so much for your support, friends! It’s an exciting time.

I wanted to share a personal treasure with you.

Stanley Hauerwas, professor at Duke Divinity and an important influence in my life and ministry, released his memoir in May, Hannah’s Child from Eerdman’s. When he was still working on it, he allowed me to read a copy of the rough draft. In that version, he had a lengthy section where he described his experience of coming to Renovatus in 2008. It didn’t make that final draft of the book–but in all honesty, having that in Microsoft Word on my computer is one of my greatest treasures. I had no idea until I read it how much his visit to Renovatus meant to him. And since I have been so marked by his work, his response was unbelievably powerful for me.

I have told friends and family about it, but few have read it. But I’ve been thinking for awhile of putting it here for the benefit of the Renovatians. I thought it would encourage you to read what he felt and experienced in his time here. But this is just between us, okay ? The text is as follows:

The good news, moreover, is even as I grow older the young seem attracted to the work to be done. The work they think needs to be done, moreover, they think has at least been partly indicated by my work. I give as an example Jonathan Martin. Jonathan is a student in the Divinity School who pastors a church in Charlotte, North Carolina with the unlikely name of “Renovatus.” The name is even more unlikely because Renovatus is a church of the denomination in the Pentecostal tradition of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee. Pentecostals are not known for Latinizing the names of their churches. For those who might be curious, the designation Cleveland, Tennessee is necessary because without that geographic locator the church might be confused with the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana. The Church of God, Anderson, Indiana is not a Pentecostal church.

I was not sure what to make of Jonathan on our first encounter. What are you supposed to think about a pastor from the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee who thinks it is crucial for his work that he be able to take my course in Catholic Moral Theology? I have the view that the ecclesial convictions that shape the understanding of the church in Pentecostal churches share much with Roman Catholicism, but that is a view peculiar to me. I do not expect members of the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee to share that view. But Jonathan was so sure it was a course he needed. I let him in.

Having grown tired of taking students through the debates between the conservatives and liberals in Catholic moral theology, I decided to have students in the course actually read Thomas. So I began with Pinckaers’, Sources of Christian Ethics, to give them a background to read Thomas. I set the course up to climax with McCabe’s work. Jonathan seemed to drink up everything we read and, in particular, McCabe. What a strange world. A Pentecostal studying at a Methodist seminary located in the center of a very secular university writes a paper utilizing the understanding of language, developed by one of the most interesting Catholic moral theologians of our time, to illumine the apocalyptic character of the work of the Holy Spirit. Is God great or what? I could not help but be drawn to such an interesting young man.

Renovatus is a “church plant” that meets in a public school in downtown Charlotte. Jonathan had a number of his people read the commentary I had written on Matthew. He asked if it might be possible for me to come to the church one Sunday during the summer to respond to questions his congregation might have. I am always ready to reinforce the idea that it is a good thing to buy and hopefully even read one of my books, so I was happy to accept Jonathan’s invitation.

I did not know what to expect. The church meets in an auditorium. A band, a quite good band, plays on the stage. The service consists primarily of prayer and singing. The words of the hymns are projected on a screen. The way the people at Renovatus worship is a long way from the Church of the Holy Family. How they worship at Renovatus is not my style. But these people were so genuine I almost forgot my feelings of not knowing how to join them fully as they praised God.

We then came to the point of the service set aside for me to respond to questions. Before I began Jonathan read some remarks he had prepared to introduce me. I was stunned. He got it all just right. It is a moment you think, “I can die and go to heaven.” That this Pentecostal in Charlotte, North Carolina so clearly “gets it” means others now know how to go on. The end seems really to have come giving us a new beginning. This is what he said:

I am a third generation Pentecostal preacher. My grandfather grew up just a couple minutes away in a little house on North Davidson Street and attended Duncan Memorial Methodist as a child. He didn’t become a Christian until well into his 20’s. He had met a pretty girl named Nellie who said she wouldn’t date sinner boys. Next thing you know he was converted in the sweaty fervor of the 15^th Street Church of God, and his life was never the same. A Charlotte police officer, he came into the station one day and turned in his badge and gun, saying he had been called to preach—though he hadn’t yet booked a single revival.

He has been dead for 27 years now, and I am a product of the same tent revival kind of fervor, planting a church with an extraordinary group of folks here in Charlotte 2 and half years ago. I am thankful for my heritage, thankful for all I have been taught. But found myself lacking in many ways to articulate what it is we most deeply believe about the church (pretty important to establish as a young church planter). I have found myself spending countless hours reading the work of a Methodist theologian from Duke University’s Divinity School. And as the product of a renewal movement—I have found myself renewed, like no other time in my adult life, from the remarkable work of this theologian. How does one make sense of this?

After grappling plenty with how to explain the significance of Stanley Hauerwas for myself and this young church, I was almost agitated to see this influence explained so concisely by Samuel Wells in his book on the theological ethics of Hauerwas, Transforming Fate Into Destiny. Where I was born the son of a Pentecostal preacher in Lincolnton, NC, Wells, now the dean of Duke chapel, was born in England and became a fourth generation Anglican preacher. The impact of Hauerwas’ work so mirrored my own it took me aback. Let me read a section from his introduction:

“Since my father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all Anglican clergymen, few expressed surprise when I sensed a call to join the family business. As I began to work out the implications of this vocation, I realized that I had lost confidence in the capacity of the church to follow Christ today.

The loss of confidence was expressed in three ways. First, in an obsession with apologetics: I became one of those whose concern to see all come to faith had, in MacIntyre’s phrase, given the world less and less in which to disbelieve. Second, in an uncritical commitment to social action: since the Church was not bringing the kingdom, I sought to join anyone who looked like they might be. Third, in a quest for personal experience: the habits of the Church seemed to hamper as much as help my soul’s search for a direct experience with the living God.

When I read Stanley Hauerwas’ The Peaceable Kingdom I realized what had happened. Reading Hauerwas made me see that God genuinely intended the Church: and that the resources for its renewal lay in the habits and practices it had neglected. The theology that I hoped would help me change others had succeeded in changing me…I have written this book because I believe that the writings of Stanley Hauerwas offer the Church an invitation to renew its confidence and restore a true sense of identity.”

That is exactly the trajectory I found myself on. First in hoping to become an educated Bible thumper, a fundamentalist who could intellectually wrestle people into the faith. As a good Charlotte boy, where our greatest export is Nature Boy Ric Flair, I think I had something in mind of a spiritual/intellectual figure-four leglock that could force the infidels to submit to belief. Finding these approaches (“Ten ways to prove the Bible is true without ever using a Scripture”) ultimately unsatisfying, I too became restless with the apathy and indifference of the church to transform the world through acts of justice. Uncritically then, let’s just find something good to do and get busy—without any context or framework to make “good works” intelligible. Finally, I came to believe that any shortcomings in my faith were surely do an impoverished experience—so being a disciple became a matter of chasing down the Spirit, running frantically and chaotically from one campmeeting or revival to another trying to hunt down God.

For Stanley Hauerwas, being a Christian is not a matter of believing the right ideas or propositions about God, nor a matter of simply being nice to the neighbors and co-workers, nor chasing down the thunder and lightning of Mt. Sinai (the place where Moses met God). For Hauerwas, to become a Christian is to learn the practices of a faithful community, what he would call a community of character, from a people committed to worship Jesus Christ in all things. This is a truthful community, a disciplined community that has a shared tradition, a faithful story that guides them and ultimately transforms them into people of virtue.

The language of virtue in Hauerwas’ work has captivated me. Growing up in the church tradition that I did, they taught me that God didn’t just want to deliver us from self-destructive behavior, didn’t just want to save us from sin, but that God wanted to change “your want to.” If I remembered that sanctification language at all, I think it was with a bit of condescension. For Hauerwas, that is exactly what this truthful community will teach us how to do—to live lives of virtue and holiness that come from the inside-out. But this is not an abstract or mystical act. It is as real, sweaty, earthy and practical as learning how to lay brick, a craft Hauerwas learned from his own father. Through learning the practices of a faithful community committed to follow Jesus together, disciples become so deeply embedded into the story of the community that it becomes their own story, that their practices become their own practices, its language becomes their own language.

This church so elegantly and yet so plainly described by Stanley Hauerwas is not a conservative fundamentalist church that has taught us to retreat from an evil world into the “soul,” where the primary objective becomes the conversion of the inner self. Nor is this church the activist church, who would blandly reduce the gospel to nothing more than calling the world to social change through acts of kindness, without any context or story to make those acts intelligible.

This church is a radical alternative to both the left and to the right, a church “that exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief.” It is a living, breathing visible community of faith, a particular people with a particular story, the church that is in itself God’s gift of new language to the world. This is the church that has understood that salvation is not static, but life on the road. This church, to quote from one of my favorite essays of Hauerwas’, a moving theological reflection on Richard Adams’ classic Watership Down, is a “story-formed community.” Like the rabbits of Watership Down, Christians depend on a narrative to be guided. As the rabbits learned to rely on the oft-repeated story of their famous prince, this Christian community “depends on the narrative of a prince who was defenseless against those who would rule it with violence. He had a power, however, which the world knew not. For he insisted that we could form our lives together by trusting in truth and love to banish the fears that create enmity and discord. To be sure, we have been unfaithful to this story, but that is not reason to think it is an unrealistic demand. Rather it means we must challenge ourselves to be the kind of community where such a story can be told and manifested by a people formed in accordance with it.”

You know, I think I finally figured out how a Pentecostal preacher’s kid could resonate so much with the theological project of a Methodist bricklayer’s son from Texas. Men and women like my grandfather read the book of Acts in the New Testament, and were seized by this vision of what it meant to be the church, empowered to be Christ-like disciples full of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. They read these ancient words from Acts 2 about the sound of a rushing mighty wind, they read about tongues of fire that descended onto the early believers. They read about the gift of new languages, a gift that both captivated the crowds but also confounded them—they saw these disciples spilling out of the upper room, their speech and behavior so affected that they assumed they were drunk. The gift of God’s new language was at first unintelligible to the world because it came in such a violent, catastrophic, we might say apocalyptic way.

As Peter got up to preach the first sermon of the Spirit-empowered church, he said “These men are not drunk as you suppose, seeing as it is only the third hour of the day. They have been filled with the Holy Ghost.” Peter saw this as a fulfillment of an apocalyptic promise from Joel chapter 2, which envisioned a time when “sons and daughters will prophesy, old men dream dreams and young men see visions, male and female bondslaves speak the word of God.” The same text that promised this lovely vision is couched in violent, apocalyptic language—the text that promised dreams and visions also anticipated “blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come.” Joel’s prophecy, re-interpreted in and through the Spirit, was nothing less than that the Spirit would bring a new way of existence by disrupting our time. That’s what an apocalypse does, it disrupts time—a phrase Dr. Hauerwas is fond of.

And if there is anybody who knows what it is to have time disrupted by Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has been used both to bear witness to God’s new language to the world called church…and also a man who has provoked crowds and brought controversy and bewilderment, it is Stanley Hauerwas. He is not drunk as you suppose. Like those early disciples and like my grandfather, his time has been disrupted by the Spirit of God. And he continues to call us to put down our badges and our guns to speak the word of God. About as subtle as the apocalyptic imagery of Joel, he has been stirring up the holy imaginations of sons and daughters of the church, young and old, to dream dreams and see visions. I don’t know if this is good news to you or not, Dr. Hauerwas—but it turns out you are quite Pentecostal.

It is my honor to welcome to Renovatus a faithful witness to the peaceable kingdom of Jesus Christ—Stanley Hauerwas.

Hearing Jonathan narrate his life through the story he had learned from me could not help but remind me all that has happened in my life because I am Hannah’s child. It has been more than fifty years since I said to Brother Zimmerman I would do what God wanted me to do. That declaration has brought me to places I did not know existed, or could have even imagined might exist, when I made that fateful commitment at Pleasant Mound Methodist Church. Even more important I have been drawn into the lives of others who have enriched my life beyond my wildest expectations.

I was writing Hannah’s Child when I came to Renovatus. I was flooded with gratitude for the life I have been given as I listened to Jonathan. I am from the working classes. I had a mother and father who loved me and God enough to make it possible for me to leave their world. I went to college to be mentored by a man as if I were his son. I have been sustained by academic institutions without which the narrative of church life Jonathan finds so hopeful would not have been made articulate—at least by me. I have been surrounded by friends who have upheld me through hard and good times. I have been officially and unofficially a member of churches where I have, however hauntingly, learned to pray. I have been given good work to do. I have a son and a wife who love me.

I know quite well that many find stories like mine (and Jonathan’s) bizarre. Even worse, some under the influence of modern accounts of what makes us human may think that our lives can be explained. We come from classes that could not know enough to know being Christian makes no sense. Christianity makes no sense intellectually. What about science? Christianity makes no sense economically. You really are not to want “more?” It makes no sense socially. Christians do seem to come from the “not well connected.” Those shaped by such explanatory modes assume, given the story I have told, they can understand why some of us are Christian. We are Christians because given “where we came from” being a Christian worked out pretty well for us.