To Life

You must be born again.
I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.-Jesus

Old things have passed aways; behold, all things are made new.-St. Paul

"L'Chaiim"--"to life!" The Old Testament spoke of life as an experience, not as an abstract principle that could be separated from physical existence. Life for the Hebrew was holistic, because all of life came from God, and was seamless because it had a unified center.

The Greeks, on the other hand, needed two words to encompass "life." Bios was the favored word. It meant "living" in the sense of "livelihood," and at a higher level meant "life-style" or manner of living. It had philosophical implications. What is the "good" life? How does one find the good, the true, and the beautiful? How does one lead a temperate, well-balanced life? What is the place of truth and virtue, of honor and duty? These phrases remind us not only of the ancient Greeks, but of their Enlightenment descendants, the "Renaissance men," and the southern gentlemen that were part of my own youth.

The other term for life was Zoe--a word with a more scientific nuance. It meant life, not as a value or a quantity of virtue, but life as opposed to death, animate as opposed to inanimate, flora and fauna as opposed to earth and rocks. Zoe was simply defined and discernible. Bios required exploration and was a complex concept. Bios was the preferred term when discussions about existence became serious. It was the term for philosophical speculation.

Yet when Jesus and the New Testament broke into a culture that had been under Greek influence for three hundred years, the two terms were turned on their heads. Bios at its best meant "making a living," and at its worst a dead pursuit of arrogant and self-centered man (Luke 8:14, 2 Tim. 2:4, 1 John 2:16). Zoe was their chosen word for "life," and it pervaded the words of Jesus in the Gospels. He dismissed bios as the hopeless quest of men who did not need to be reformed, or disciplined, or cleaned up--they were instead men who needed to be resurrected, brought from death to life. Jesus proclaimed the joy of an alien life, a restoration of the chaiim that flowed between God and man, between gift and thankfulness in the first garden.

Alexander Schmemann pointed out somewhere that when Jesus was crucified, all the hope that had ever been in bios died. Man at his best chose to kill God. The cross was the suicide of bios. The placard above his head represented the great cultures of his day: the power of military might and shrewd administrative ability of the practical Roman mind; the philosophical Greeks; and the peak of monotheistic revelation, the chosen ones, the apex of morality broken into ten thousand minute fragments--all conspired to destroy God in the name of saving bios. Its salvation was its death.

Zoe is the life of God in his creatures, placed in fallen man by the Holy Spirit. That is not quite saying it right. Because zoe is not an abstraction, it is a Person--God united with man through Christ in a union that was meant from the beginning. Adam lost that union when he chose to pursue the life that came from God without God--and broke the world into life as an end in itself, and life as religious duty--sacred and secular (Schmemann).

The past pulls us back into bios; the future draws us forward to zoe. Bios is spoken in the indicative; zoe uses the imperative and the subjunctive (Rosenstock). Bios abstracts; zoe is relational. Bios is a given, something into which we are born; zoe is a gift. It can only be received, not earned. But zoe can be neglected, and must be fed. Objectively, that is done by word and sacrament in the church (John 6:35), and subjectively by seeing the life of God in all things, from the glimpse of the image of God in broken people, to the utility of computer files. Zoe desires to wake the trees and give the beasts a rudimentary ability to speak (CS Lewis, Randy Alcorn). It is released, above all, by thankfulness for all things, suffering as well as pleasure.

I must admit that I have never heard (or preached) a sermon on the topic. I am afraid we evangelicals are guilty of leading people to a zoe encounter with the risen Christ, followed by a lifelong rehearsal of the rules and principles that govern the bios of the church. Or as Paul said, “having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?”. “We (evangelicals) begin with Christ” said Neil Silverburg, “and we end with Moses.” We pass out band-aids in full view of an empty tomb.

Personally, I am a bit tired after 67 years of seminars on Christian principles, how to be a man, how to adjust my finances, how to love my wife, how to raise my children, how to, how to...all commendable things, which have not been unhelpful. But my heart wants joy more than knowledge, exuberance above principles, relationship above all else.

There are, of course, dangers in what I am saying. One is that we don’t take bios seriously enough, which leads to mystical hedonism, the view that, since I am a new creation, what the “old man” does is his business. So I can let lust, greed, and rage loose, because that is not who I really am. Paul was accused of holding such a position, and answered simply with, “God forbid!” Paul also pointed out that whatever enslaves you is your true master.

The other is taking bios too seriously, or morbid involvement. I think of an old friend who wanted to ride in an ambulance so he could face “real” life. Morbid involvement is based on the fear that, if we get too enthralled with zoe, we will lose touch with the world. The truth is that zoe calls us to carry life into everything we touch. (The Jews fled from lepers lest they be made unclean; Jesus walked into their midst, touching them and overcoming their uncleanness with his own zoe.) Zoe is simply a word describing how we were originally meant to live, in love with man and with nature, and sharing with God as we go.

There may be reasons why evangelicals lapse from an exciting honeymoon to the drudgery of married life (speaking metaphorically). I think the central one is their emphasis on the work of the cross. Of course life springs, perhaps above all, from the cross. But it also springs from the incarnation, the resurrection, and the ascension. “Christ was born to die” is an evangelical mantra, and a travesty. Christ was born to live, to touch humanity, to die, to rise, and to reign forever at the right hand of the Father, and to bring us up to where he is. Those are all sources of zoe, which is another way of saying that Christ is the fountainhead of all life.

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Planetary Consciousness

The service of the land is an inexorable duty laid upon Man, and it is surprising that it was not included in the Ten Commandments. The reason must be that it was prior to the Commandments, since it was already decreed in Genesis that Adam was put into Eden to dress it and to keep it, and that Man was given dominion over the Earth and all its creatures for that purpose. In attaining planetary consciousness we come back again to this primordial commandment; we have now to dress and to keep the planet, the whole planet.

-Eugen Rosenstock, “Planetary Man”

Several years ago I stated in a blog that there is a tension, maybe even a contradiction, in my outlook as an American citizen and my outlook as a Christian. I want to pick up that theme again.

As a citizen, I am somewhere to the right of the Constitution Party. Because I affirm the doctrine of original sin (I might as well say total depravity), I believe government should be small and controlled by intricate systems of checks and balances--within by the classic balance of its own powers (judicial, legislative, etc), and without by other spheres or institutions, notably the church and the family. Add to this the balance of central and local governments. I have no doubt that the collapse of the balance of powers in our culture is on the increase, and government is no longer protector, but nanny and priest. I am delighted to see groups like the Tea Party, who are trying to articulate a building frustration. If their cry becomes articulate, there will be hell to pay for one side or the other. Big government scares me, and talk about world government raises specters that would make the Lubyanka cringe. In fact, to me the words world or planet are spooky in themselves.

And there seems to be an inevitability in the whole process. One-world market and one-world communications transcend political boundaries, and perhaps pave the way for the politicians to catch up, and open the door for the inexorable rise of anti-Christ. The solution for Rick the citizen is to hold to the past. I read somewhere that the Church of the Middle Ages saw its very existence as an inhibitor of the rise of the Beast--a persuasive argument for its perpetuation. We certainly have our Protestant, evangelical, dispensational version of the same scenario. Preach the gospel, maintain limited government, resist socialism, affirm isolationism, curtail world-wide anything, and we will not be dragged into the future horrors of the Great Tribulation. Two things stand out in this agenda: the believer and the citizen become one and the same, and the past is our hope and the future our nemesis. With those realizations, the Christian in me parts company with the citizen.

In passing, it is worth pointing out that all good things come of God, and all good things are counterfeited. One-world market and communications have brought great good for man in the sovereign purposes of God. But that is an issue for another time. My real concern is with the Christian attitude towards the future. The past helps me find and know myself among others with their own pasts, but the future is what draws me and ultimately defines me. If the future is the perfect, then it draws what is not yet perfect into itself. The eschaton will reveal who I really am, and the future man who is already born in me struggles towards it and will never be fulfilled without it. That means that the Incarnation was not only God entering human space, but the future entering human time and calling us forward. The first Coming was not just a promise, but a seed, of the second. How can I possibly want to hold it at bay?

I began this blog with a quote from Rosenstock, to which I should probably turn my attention. Here is a Christian using a term that is worthy of Hilary Clinton: "planetary consciousness." Rosenstock realized as early as the 1940's that political barriers were hazing, and that "we can no longer sacrifice ourselves to dale and grove, nor to the idol of Western Civilization, nor to upholding the schism between Western and Eastern Christendom, nor to European hegemony...." Many things of the past will die or drop off as God calls the world into the future, parallel to the transformation that occurs in each individual Christian in microcosm. Doubtless rebellious man will counterfeit God's plan. But that should not stop us from longing for the time that the lion lies down with the lamb and a little child leads us. In fact, "longing" is too weak a word. "Taking responsibility" for the earth that groans for the manifestation of the sons of God is a better term.

Taking responsibility may include thinking "green," and taking part in movements that lift human oppression, but I believe that it primarily means accepting the fact that we Christians are already part of a planetary movement known as the church. The West is no longer the model for Christendom. There are mass conversions in South America and India. There are miracles in Africa. The Chinese church is full of a power that puts the West to shame. The American church is looking for a new expression of itself (or resisting it). There is a foment going on that requires looking forward, not backwards. The future is pulling, and pulling; and it is glorious, and not our enemy.

So back to the original point: here I am, stuck between past and future, pessimism and optimism, and hoping the two resolve themselves, or flow together in a way not yet foreseen. For the time being I'll live with it.

Thoughts on Family, Sex, and Marriage

It is obvious that American culture has gone through a massive shift in family and sexual values for the last decades. It is also obvious that the church is not dealing with the changes well. She is either following the culture or looking longingly to the 1950’s and hoping to turn back the clock. Being “conservative” is merely foot-dragging. Are there any positive things she can do to strengthen her own view of the sanctity of marriage and family? Here are some thoughts.

Number One: The church can no longer depend on the culture or the status quo to confirm its faith, because cultural values and family are no longer vitally inter-connected.

In The Origins of Speech, Rosenstock took issue with most anthropologists, who believe that primitive tribes were formed by associations of family groups seeking security and protection. Rosenstock reversed this order. He believed that tribes saw the family as a necessary means of creating, first, sexual order. No man could have any woman he wanted at any time, without chaos and fighting among males. Tribes also found that incest and rape produced poor offspring. The result was the rise of family groups with taboos against incest in particular. But, second, and at a deeper level, tribes discovered that the family was the best means for propagating the values of the culture. The best citizen was also a good father, whether it was a Roman patrician passing on the rules of the Republic to his children, or an Amazonian tribesman showing his son how to artfully shrink an enemy’s head; and the culture pressured parents to fulfill this role.

I question if this connection still holds in America. Children are taught cultural values by mass media and by the public school, values which may or may not be those of their parents. I have wondered if there are initial and confirming rites in secularism as there are in most world religions, and I’ve decided that the first day of school and graduation fit the bill. Mommy takes junior to the bus and turns him over to the state to arrange his values to the cultural norm, and the state turns him loose to be a model citizen at the end of the process. I am desperately biting my tongue so as to not make a moral judgment at this point; I just want to point out that the family is not necessary to the culture for the propagation of its values. That means that defining “family” is no longer important to cultural survival. It also means that the accompanying sexual mores are not governed by survival pressures. Now the individual is free to choose family style and sexual preference without a larger societal frame of reference. This is not to say that large numbers of people will not opt for the security and commitment of family life—but it is an option, not a requirement for passing the culture's values to the next generation.

The church, therefore, must determine if the family (even more than clergy, doctrine, and programs) is still her primary means of propagating her values, and if so, how to perpetuate those values in a religious sub-culture that is voluntary. There will be very little outside support.

Number Two: The church needs to define “marriage” for its members.

The definition of marriage will be different than the culture’s, because it will presuppose the existence of God—a God who is in his triune relationship an archetype for the family, and because it presupposes a Christ who looks at his church as his bride.

If the Persons of the Trinity are committed to one another in love, and if Christ calls the church into union with himself, then marriage, as a mirror of the archetypes, is a lifelong covenant, made before God and the church. The members of that covenant will be changed and grow in love within it, until death. All covenants, by the way, have sacramental rituals that seal or validate them—from dinner after signing a business contract, to baptism and the Eucharist as the sacraments of our union with Christ. I believe that sex is the sacramental seal of marriage vows—initially on the wedding night (parallel to baptism), and repeatedly afterwards (parallel to the Supper). That doesn’t mean that sex can’t be fun, or earthy, or even fumbled. It does mean that there is a serious commitment hovering behind it. It’s interesting that the Old Testament penalty for pre-marital sex was marriage (if you’re going to act married, then so be it), while the penalty for adultery (covenant breaking) was death. This understanding of marriage and sex of course has no meaning without a sound faith in the blessed triune nature of God and Christ’s passionate love for his church. Those positive truths need to be taught and lived before young believers early and consistently. They lay a much better foundation than saying, “Don’t have sex before marriage or God will be mad at you.”

3. The church needs to take seriously Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 7:9, “It is better to marry than to burn.”

First, “burning” is not an innately evil thing to be shunned, not should it be confused with lust. “Burning” is Paul’s word for normal sexual desire. Lust is its perversion. Lust is to sex what gluttony is to eating, drunkenness to a glass of wine, and rage to anger. “Burning” is a real force that is not going to be suppressed or treated like some kind of teen-age disease in moralistic sermons.

Second, the church opts for the wrong side in the present conflict between the biological and economic clocks. In Old Testament times, these clocks were synchronized. A young man learned a trade, usually in the context of the family business, and was able to be self-sufficient at the same time his libido was peaking. This is not true today. Middle and upper class young people will be in their upper twenties before they finish their master’s, or their residency, or grad school, etc. The church consistently follows the culture and says “wait.” The church is biased against young marriages—an admission that she has not adequately instructed her children. She offers no solution to “burning.” But she will certainly cluck with disapproval if the young find ways to alleviate the pressure. This is a clear rejection of apostolic counsel. That means that the church will have to support young marriage and weave the economic clock into it, not the other way around.

The Grail

This past weekend I re-watched The Fisher King with Jeff Bridges and Robin Williams. It's one of my favorite movies. Williams plays a college professor turned into one of New York's homeless as the result of a tragedy in his life. He tells the following story, which may or may not be true to the Arthurian legend, but certainly defines the Christian ministry (and I am paraphrasing). I don't believe I can add to it:

"When the king was a boy, he went into the forest to seek his destiny. During his time there, he was given a vision of the Holy Grail, and accepted as his life's mission the quest to find it. Over the years, after many disappointments, the king became discouraged and more reclusive. It seemed he would never find the Grail, and would end his life a failure.

"One day the court fool came in the king's quarters, and being a simple man, did not see a king, but a man in deep emotional pain. He asked, 'What may I do to help you with your pain, sire?' The king answered, 'You can pour me a drink of cool water.'

"The fool reached for a cup, and filling it with water, handed it the king. As he sipped, the king suddenly realized that it was the Grail he was holding, and that it had been in his chamber all that time.

"The king said, 'I've sent my brightest and bravest men to search for this. How did you find it?' The Fool laughed and said 'I don't know. I only knew that you were thirsty.'"

The Doors (or Dancing with Runes)

The humanoids of the dry and desert planet Mortopia formed a primitive culture based on a constant quest for food and water. However, after the discovery that a life-sustaining lichen that grew on the shady side of desert rocks could be cultivated and packaged in various forms, the Mortopians evolved into a medium-status culture with some economic complexity and a small but wealthy intelligentsia. They divided their history into pre-lichen and post-lichen eras. Mortopian society stayed pretty much at the same level, with very little excitement, until the coming of the age of the Doors.

The Doors were discovered by a lad herding a flock of g'malim, a camel-like mammal about the size of a terrestrial goat. Stumbling over an outcropping of rocks, he came into a flat sandy valley with barren hills on both sides. And there they stood: two doors upright in the sand, unweathered and reflecting the rays of the large orange sun of that world. They would become the object of puzzlement and intense study for coming generations, and also the subject of much debate, division, and argument, especially among Mortopian scholars, whose opinions attracted a following among the lower classes.

The Doors were double, like French doors, meeting in the middle, with golden handles on each door. No attempt to open them or pull them apart or uproot them succeeded. They stood approximately 20 feet high and 20 feet across, each door being 10 feet wide. Whether they had been placed there, or emerged from the sand, or had been there all along in an inhospitable lost valley, no one knew. What material they were made of was unknown. The handles were on the side of the Doors facing east. The backside of the Doors had no handles, suggesting that they could only be opened from the east side. There was a plain horizontal panel midway across both doors, front and back, forming four equal sections on each side, or a total of eight sections. And each section was covered with symbols and runes.

Over time, the Doors became the domain of scholars, who erected scaffolding and ladders in order to study the raised lettering on the eight sections. The west side (or back) was found to be covered with pre-lichen runes, while the east side (or front) contained a more recent script. Translation revealed a collection of myths relating to the desert gods, interwoven with stories of a land of bright sun and green grass. There were also basic rules about living and relationships, and stories about ancient heroes and commoners who had adventures in the bright-sun world.

Scholars began to find within the sub-units of the eight major sections certain discrepancies and nuances that made them different from other sections. Schools of thought began to form around the major sections and their sub-units. Certain scholars became experts within these schools, and gathered disciples or apprentices who worked with them at the site or helped them in translation and the defense of whatever world-view the master scholar espoused. Arguments would often arise at the site of the Doors, sometimes to the point of violence, and at times among the greater population which was divided over which master to follow. This difficulty subsided when the masters and apprentices of the schools stayed on their own scaffolding and pretty much ignored all the others. The population followed suite. This uneasy peace persisted until the morning of the fateful Grand Opening.

On that particular mid-summer morning, as the sun rose to throw orange rays across the huts and scaffolding of the resident scholars, there was a loud crack, and the Doors slowly began to open, stopping a few inches apart, and leaving a gap just big enough for a man to walk through. Early risers jumped from their perches about the Doors and fled to a safe distance to watch. Others emerged from their huts to see what all the excitement was about. Bright, silver sunlight flowed from the opening, and those who were brave enough to hazard a peek saw a rich green lawn sloping down to a tree-lined river, with hills in the distance, and beyond, the hint of mountains in the mist. Some scholars fled behind the Doors, and discovered that the gap from that side only revealed the desert of their homeland. The new world could only be seen from the east side.

The whole experience was disconcerting. Some tried to push the Doors closed, to no avail. Some of the younger apprentices, who still had a sense of adventure, wandered into the bright land and did not return. Most of the resident scholars simply tried to ignore the opening and continue their work. Of course, news of this development spread, and in a few weeks pilgrims were making journeys to the Doors to see this phenomenon. Soon a small town grew up around the site, offering food and lodging to visitors, and selling souvenir replicas of the partly opened Doors and postcards showing the silver light shining across the desert floor. Occasionally a pilgrim would approach the gap and disappear into the light within—usually after being begged by family members to reconsider. The most alarming incidents occurred when one of the older scholars would lay down his notebook and stylus, climb down the scaffolding, and walk directly into the gap with a strange smile on his face.

After a few months, some of those who had gone through the doors began to reappear. But their answers to curious questions were enigmatic, and they were always in a hurry to return. Their only reason for reappearing, apparently, was to call those around the Doors to come back with them into the gap.

One was a ruddy youth with deep blue eyes, red hair, and a scattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He had been apprenticed to a master scholar who was an expert in the fourth sub-quadrant of the third sub-unit of the second section on the front side. He was approached by his master, and the following conversation took place:

“Where have you been, my boy, and what have you been doing in there?”

“I have been enjoying the light, master, and dancing with the runes.”

“You mean there is knowledge of the runes in there? You mean that you have been learning the runes and obeying them?”

“No sir. I said I have been dancing with them.”

“Too much unnatural sunlight has touched your mind, my son. You know you can’t dance with an idea or a commandment.”

“O, they’re not ideas, sir. They’re people--people who are the creaturely expressions of what the runes teach. Without them the runes are merely floating concepts. The Doors only portray word pictures of them. They come out of the woods at night and dance with us. They are teaching us, I think, to become runes ourselves.”

“The light has caused your imagination to run wild, my boy. But tell me, if you dance with runes, what do they tell you of their differences? Which rune is the true one?”

“They are all true, master. I told you they dance—a great intricate dance—and I told you they are people. How can one person be truer than another?”

‘No, son. You’ve missed the point of my question. Which one of the interpretations of the runes is the right one?”

The boy hesitated, working this question in his mind. Finally he replied, “I’m having trouble answering, master. The category ‘right’ does not apply in the sun-bright land. No one is right, no one is wrong. There is only the dance.”

The master could not compute this response, so he tried a different approach. “So…what do you do there, I mean, with your time?”

“I told you, master, we dance. Every night. The dance is so complicated that we novices move about in the outer ring until we learn the steps that will take us closer to the center. The runes are in the middle, and their differences form a unity. But we do other things. We sing. And we tell stories—wonderful stories, personal stories, stories of defeat and victory. No one thinks anyone else’s story is unimportant. The runes also tell us their stories. And we laugh a lot.”

“You keep talking about people,” said the master. “But surely there are ideas in that world. Surely you must have scholars—great thinkers who are capable of abstraction—who interpret the runes.”

“Yes, master. But only the very old enter the abstract world. In the sun-bright land abstract thought is a privilege to be earned. Occasionally a gray-beard will disappear into the woods alone, and come back days later, exchange knowing glances with others of his age, and walk away shaking his head and laughing to himself. Once I got up the nerve to ask an elder about this practice. ‘Oh my wee one,’ he chuckled, ‘One must be deep in love and joy, and know his place in the dance, before he can think the Thoughts. Abstraction is the reward of a life lived, not the basis of it. That is why it is a forbidden fruit to those too young to have learned courage.’”

At this, there was the short burst of a child’s laughter from inside the Doors. The youth looked around uncomfortably, and said, “I must really be going, master. The dance begins at twilight. But look, come with me. There are greater than I that can answer your questions.”

A look of joy, quicker than the bat of an insect wing, passed over the master’s face, but then he said, “Perhaps later, my boy. You know how important it is that I finish the research on my next dissertation. It is important that my disciples understand the intricacies of the Quest for the True Rune.”

“But the True Rune is a person!” Seeing his master already ascending his scaffold to his accustomed place, the boy walked slowly back to the gap and disappeared into the light. The conversation was over.

After that, things continued pretty much business as usual. People sporadically passed through the gap in the Doors in both directions. The scholars who worked on the front quadrants were often distracted by the light, and tried several means to cover it up. Boards hung from the scaffolding seldom worked. Finally, one of them hit upon a contraption made of wooden frames and a thick fabric curtain that could be rolled in front of the gap. It blocked the light, but allowed passage by folding the curtain aside. The only distraction after that was the unpredictable laughter from behind the curtain. Some scholars dealt with this by stuffing pieces of cloth in their ears while they worked. The ruddy youth did not reappear. The master finished his dissertation and began a new one entitled “The Quest for the Historical Rune.” It made quite a splash in scholarly circles until a rebuttal was written by a master on the west side of the doors who proved definitively that all runes were merely a projection of the Mortopian psyche.

Thoughts on Renewals--Again

I fear I am entering that phase of my life in which I merely repeat myself. This entry is another approach to a topic that I rehash and rethink every few months.

The only success I’ve had in ministry was in a charismatic fellowship. I am a charismatic. I would rather hang out with them than any other brand of Christians. I know the language and its nuances, and I remember the glory days of the 1960s and 70’s.

The miracles and excitement of those days appear to be resurfacing in our local church. But I have apparently been warped by other experiences and movements, because I have a certain reticence about it all. Some of that is native (I might as well say sinful)—the usual reluctance to answer the altar call when people are falling out under the power of the Spirit—I go forward just because I need to conquer my self-consciousness. I also have to confess a bit of envy. No one falls down when I pray for them—a mark of anointed leadership within the movement.

So there they are. Selfishness and envy. Having admitted those, let me confess an even deeper habit of standing outside the movement (both historic and current) and looking at it in a broader context—a habit that I have not yet decided is a gift, or mere judgmentalism, a worse sin that the others. I don’t know yet. Anyway, here is a rehash of thoughts about renewals that float through my head, usually on my way home from church.

First: God likes to do New Things. The charismatic movement is fifty-three years old. I remember reading about Smith Wigglesworth’s vision of the ocean: every new wave broke against the retreat of the previous one. Wigglesworth’s point was that movements often resist a new wave, and even create a reaction that brings the new forth. This is a difficult thing to bring up, because no one professes to long for a new movement more than charismatics. But the fact is that a charismatic vision for a new movement consists in a repetition of the old familiar phenomena. This is a blind spot. I remember visiting Pentecostal churches during the high days of the charismatic movement. The manifestations in both groups were similar, but there was a nuanced difference. The charismatic meetings were fresh and exciting; the Pentecostal meetings felt stale and old—“free” forms had become a learned ritual, and there was a sense of “we have arrived and sooner or later you’ll do it our way.” We need to remember that the charismatic movement is as old as Pentecostalism was when the charismatic movement broke out. It would be easy to fall into the same mindset.

I am not yet convinced that the New Thing is upon us. It may be the Emergent Church. It’s too early to tell. Right now I perceive Emergence as more of a reaction than a positive movement. It is still trying to find its voice. But whatever occurs next, it will probably contain something that offends charismatics. That is why we need to keep our eyes open and be aware of that fact. What can be newer that healing, deliverance, and salvation? Perhaps new forms, but definitely something wonderful, something outside the box. I don’t want to miss it.

Second: Renewalists describe church history in terms of renewals. That means that charismatics view the dry times between renewals as, well, evil. They are our fault. If we would pray more or be more zealous, or return to our first love, renewal would reoccur. The assumption is that perpetual renewal is normative for the church, and the lack of the normative is a human failure. I take issue with that at a personal level. My life in Christ (from my side) is more like a mountain road with high views, and low valleys without much vision past the next step (the classic kataphatic/apophatic tension). Neither the high nor the low has taught me to walk with Jesus; but their combination has. High times give vision; low time increase endurance and strength. I believe the same is true of the church. To repudiate low or “dry” times as a wasteland between the really important high points wipes out opportunities for the church to stretch her faith. It may be that the Lord is closer to her at those times than she realizes.

Third: There is a relationship between the church and culture. The first Great Awakening transformed the areas in which it occurred. Taverns emptied. The morality of those areas coincided more readily to a biblical standard. There was also a connection between the abolition movement within the evangelical community and the preaching of later Awakenings. In light of that, I have wondered from time to time how much influence the charismatic movement has had on American culture. To be fair, the Great Awakenings were revivals in which numbers of people converted to Christ, while the charismatic movement would be more accurately called a renewal within the church. Nevertheless there has been little lasting effect by the movement on government, economics, social issues (other than abortion), or the arts.

While there have been positive changes in American culture during the last fifty years, especially in relation to civil and women’s rights, my observation as a Christian is that traditional morality has declined significantly and secular humanist ethics have increasingly dominated since the 1950’s (everybody say “duh!”). It is interesting that this decline has coincided with the life span of the charismatic movement. Nothing in the movement slowed the death of biblical morality. I have a suspicion, which may get me in hot water, that there is a latent Gnosticism among charismatics that separates between Christ as Lord of my inner experience and Christ as Lord of nations and cultures. Many thinking charismatics have struggled with this conflict, and may be helped along their way to cultural change by other Christians, particularly in the Reformed camp. I hope that in the next Move of God the life of the Spirit spills out into the surrounding culture, producing not a renewal, but a Reformation.

In Defense of my Job

When I was sixty years old, I found myself out of work and looking for a job. The folks at the local probation office had mercy on me, hired me, and eventually moved me into the role of intake officer (seeing probationers for their first visit after court) and Community Service Coordinator (working with local non-profits and hooking up probationers who have been ordered community service with the proper work site). Our office deals with misdemeanor offenders who are sentenced in General Sessions (County) Court. Common offenses are DUI, Possession of Drugs, Shoplifting, and Domestic Assault. I like what I do, and I like the people I work with. They are committed professionals who care about each other and about the people that make up their case loads. However, we are not always perceived that way. More often the profession is regarded with suspicion and even contempt. Here is my response as an “outsider” who wandered into the probation office from another vocation.

A probation office is sort of like a garbage truck. Everyone wants us to do our job, but they don’t want us parked next door. We are perceived as tainted. That may be true of all law enforcement agencies—guilt by association. The equivalent would be fear of a doctor because the diseases he treats may rub off on other patients. I tried several times to get our local newspaper to do a human interest story on some of our successes, or on the service provided to the community through the work of probationers at the local food bank and rescue ministry. Whenever I called, the reporter ignored my request and began immediately digging for dirt. Apparently, only an article that fed the negative perception of our office was newsworthy. I gave it up.

The negative perception of the probation office can be summed up in three statements, to which I want to respond.

1) “I don’t have time for this crap.” Translation: “Probation is a way for local government to harass and oppress me.” The assumption behind this statement is that probation is a right, not a privilege. It has been a common practice in most counties for so long, that it is perceived this way. But in reality, probation is an alternative to 30 days to twelve month’s jail time. It allows the convicted offender to stay with his family, maintain employment, and provide some form of pay-back service to the community which he has in some form endangered. Those who complain about having their lives interrupted seldom consider the alternative. Neither, apparently, does a segment of the community.

2) “It’s all about money.” Well, in some ways, it is. Our office uses electricity, buys equipment, rents a building, and pays employees. (Case workers of any kind, by the way, are on the low end of the American pay scale. No one goes into such a profession for the money. Most of them are idealists.) All probation offices in Tennessee, whether private or part of a county system, charge probationers a fee that is set by the state Board of Probation. Some folks see this as unjust. I have had clients tell me that “the government should pay for this.” My response is, “Friend, I am the government.” In other words, if a probation office does not collect fees, it will come out of the pockets of local taxpayers. How about a referendum in Sevier County to see how local citizens would feel about that? Let me add here that there is a process for truly indigent probationers to have this fee waived by the court.

3) “My probation officer is mean.” Law enforcement philosophy in our culture has two poles: retribution and therapy. Is justice a matter of punishment, or an opportunity to change lives for the better? Most court systems and their probation offices walk the middle ground between the two. Either way, the job of the probation officer is to see that the probationer completes his court ordered obligations, which may include retribution (such as trash pick-up) or therapy (such as addiction treatment). Failure to complete obligations will result in a violation of probation, which means the probationer will be back in court and face even more severe obligations, often jail time. That means that, if the officer presses the probationer to complete his obligations, that pressure is in the probationer’s best interest.

It is also my observation that only @10% of our clients are deliberately malicious or dangerous. The remaining 90% are simply irresponsible. That means that the probation officer is a surrogate parent. The term “mean” should be more justly translated “stern.” It’s interesting that “mean” is often a child’s response to a parent who loves him enough to provide structure and discipline. Success in our office is defined by personal growth and the willingness of our clients to take responsibility. Those successes are too rare, but they provide the impetus to keep officers going. Caring probation offices provide another chance for people who missed loving parental or pastoral authority. I realize that that statement raises a host of questions about church-state-family issues, which can be discussed at a later time. My point here is that our office acts as a safety net, not only to protect the community, but to salvage lives. Thank God for some “mean” folks.