Here’s a vintage ad I saw iin the Skepchicks blog Mother’s day post

NT Wright (Christian) and Bart Ehrman (agnostic) just completed a ‘blogalogue’ on Beliefnet called Is Our Pain God’s Problem?

I was encouraged to see each of them being friendly and respectful. I resonate more with Bart Ehrman’s comments which isn’t surprising given my own viewpoint (almost atheist).

I wish there had been one more response from Bart Ehrman so he could have answered this final question from NT Wright:

Why, granted your view of the world, should we bother? Why not ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die,’ and thank our lucky stars that we can do so? The other side of the coin of ‘the problem of evil’ is, after all, ‘the problem of good’: if there is no God, no good and wise creator, why is there an impulse to justice and mercy so deep within us? Why is there beauty, love, laughter, friendship, joy? How do you then tell the difference between Ecclesiastes and Sartre? The Bible of course has some answers to those questions. But I’d be interested to hear yours.

Christianity Today is hosting an online conversation between Collin Hansen (Reformed Christian) and Tony Jones (Emergent Christian): Emergent’s New Christians and the Young Restless Reformed

So far four parts have been posted. As best I can tell it’s still ongoing. I like this question Tony Jones asked at the end of part four:

One more question for you: I’ve been reading some of the young, Reformed bloggers write about our conversation, and one sentiment has stood out. Several have written that my affirmation of God’s sovereignty, the inspiration of Scripture, and the Atonement is not good enough. “What does he really mean?” they ask. “I don’t think he really means what I mean!” So, I ask you, do you think that any affirmation of the historic, creedal beliefs of Christianity by an Emergent will be good enough for the young, restless Reformeds?

I’ll be interested to see how Collin responds to that.

Again I’m pleased to see friendly respectful dialog between two people whose beliefs differ significantly (even though they’re both Christians).

So often people talk with each other about those with different beliefs. That often results in misperceptions and wrong stereotypes being promoted on instead of corrected. When people talk with others who have different beliefs, they have the opportunity to correct misconceptions about themselves and learn which of their perceptions are wrong. It’s such a good idea. I wish more of it was taking place and I’m pleased to see it wherever it’s happening.

I’m interested by who’s absent from the charter signatories as well as who’s listed. I’m pleased to see Erwin Lutzer signed it (I went to his church for 12 years).

Edited to add: here’s a couple of minutes of audio comments by Os Guinness about the origin and purpose of the Manifesto

I haven’t read it all yet - it’s long - but from what I’ve seen and heard so far I think it’s a step in a positive direction.

I like this, near the beginning

Too many of the problems we face as Evangelicals in the United States are those of our own making. If we protest, our protest has to begin with ourselves.

And this

the Evangelical message, “good news” by definition, is overwhelmingly positive, and always positive before it is negative. There is an enormous theological and cultural importance to “the power of No,” especially in a day when “Everything is permitted” and “It is forbidden to forbid.” Just as Jesus did, Evangelicals sometimes have to make strong judgments about what is false, unjust, and evil. But first and foremost we Evangelicals are for Someone and for something rather than against anyone or anything. The Gospel of Jesus is the Good News of welcome, forgiveness, grace, and liberation from law and legalism. It is a colossal Yes to life and human aspirations, and an emphatic No only to what contradicts our true destiny as human beings made in the image of God.

I appreciate that they clearly separate themselves from Fundamentalists.

The fundamentalist tendency is more recent, and even closer to Evangelicalism, so much so that in the eyes of many, the two overlap. We celebrate those in the past for their worthy desire to be true to the fundamentals of faith, but Fundamentalism has become an overlay on the Christian faith and developed into an essentially modern reaction to the modern world. As a reaction to the modern world, it tends to romanticize the past, some now-lost moment in time, and to radicalize the present, with styles of reaction that are personally and publicly militant to the point where they are sub-Christian. Christian Fundamentalism has its counterparts in many religions and even in secularism, and often becomes a social movement with a Christian identity but severely diminished Christian content and manner. Fundamentalism, for example, all too easily parts company with the Evangelical principle, as can Evangelicals themselves, when they fail to follow the great commandment that we love our neighbors as ourselves, let alone the radical demand of Jesus that his followers forgive without limit and love even their enemies.

I appreciate this, from the section We must reform our own behavior

We call for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life.

Here’s an excerpt I like from the section The Way of Jesus, not Constantine

As this global public square emerges, we see two equal and opposite errors to avoid: coercive secularism on one side, once typified by communism and now by the softer but strict French-style secularism; and religious extremism on the other side, typified by Islamist violence.

At the same time, we repudiate the two main positions into which many are now falling. On the one hand, we repudiate those who believe their way is the only way and the way for everyone, and are therefore prepared to coerce others. Whatever the faith or ideology in question communism, Islam, or even democracy, this position leads inevitably to conflict.

Undoubtedly, many people would place all Christians in this category, because of the Emperor Constantine and the state-sponsored oppression he inaugurated, leading to the dangerous alliance between church and state continued in European church-state relations down to the present.

We are not uncritical of unrestrained voluntarism and rampant individualism, but we utterly deplore the dangerous alliance between church and state, and the oppression that was its dark fruit. We Evangelicals trace our heritage, not to Constantine, but to the very different stance of Jesus of Nazareth. While some of us are pacifists and others are advocates of just war, we all believe that Jesus’ Good News of justice for the whole world was promoted, not by a conqueror’s power and sword, but by a suffering servant emptied of power and ready to die for the ends he came to achieve. Unlike some other religious believers, we do not see insults and attacks on our faith as ―offensive‖ and ―blasphemous‖ in a manner to be defended by law, but as part of the cost of our discipleship that we are to bear without complaint or victim-playing.

And from the final section

We urge those who share our dedication to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed to join with us in working to bring care, peace, justice, and freedom to those millions of our fellow-humans who are now ignored, oppressed, enslaved, or treated as human waste and wasted humans by the established orders in the global world.

(Edited to add: originally I wrote Virtual Treehouse but Beth just reminded me with a smile that it’s Virtual Teahouse :))

Christine Wicker’s provocative new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church, was released last week.

I asked Christine a few questions about her book and her own beliefs.

Christine, in what way is the Evangelical Church in crisis?

I’ve posted a sampling of the statistics from the first part of my book on my website. More come in every day and I’m adding them to my site as I hear about them.

In the second part of the book I look at attitudes and behavior and why it’s all happening.

That part of the book is not getting much attention from critics, but evangelicals who really care about the faith, and not merely the institution and their image of power, are reading those pages more closely than the first part of the book. They already know the faith is in trouble.

Mainstream evangelicals are so busy attacking me for even suggesting that they aren’t the robust winners they think themselves to be that they’re ignoring all the reasons the country is rebuffing them.

Was this the book you intended to write?

No. I intended to write a story about how great megachurches were. They are great. They’re astonishing.

I was happily lauding that type of faith for what it gives believers. I’d finished two or three grueling re-writes and sent the final book to my publisher, when I realized I’d written the wrong book.

I should have known that years ago. Sources kept telling me that the evangelical movement was in trouble. But evangelicals have always cried wolf, and I didn’t believe them.

Then the results of the Southern Baptist Million Baptism Campaign came in. The Baptists spent more than a million dollars, did a big national road trip and walked neighborhoods all over the country. But they baptized fewer people than the year before.

That forced me to re-consider something else I’d learned but left out of my book. A megachurch consultant had given me pretty good proof that megachurches are facing big trouble.

I put the million baptism failure and the megachurch troubles together and started digging.

It was all there. Most of it gathered by evangelical churches themselves. Just waiting for someone to look for it.

Are you an evangelical?

I was saved at nine, but I would have said no until a few weeks ago.

Then Christianity Today educated me about the good standing of nominal evangelicals, and I realized that I’d been too fastidious. So now I’d say yes, why not? With this new book, it will be to my advantage to be an evangelical.

Here’s the kind of evangelical I am:

1. I haven’t been to church for anything but work, weddings or funerals in more than 30 years.
2. I don’t read my Bible. I suspect Bible-based doctrines encourage people to put self at the center and call it God.
3. I don’t think my beliefs are important to God. He probably regards them the way I regard my dog’s beliefs. I love my dog, but I don’t look to him for great depth.
4. I rarely pray for others. If God isn’t moved by the pain around us, he isn’t like to do anything on my say-so.
5. I often think believing in God is absurdly optimistic and can’t do it.
6. I’m pro-choice. I think misogyny is the true heart of anti-abortion laws. The idea that women might wise up and stop being the servants of life rightly terrifies us.

   But it shouldn’t. Because they won’t. As a former Catholic priest who teaches at Marquette University puts it, women have kept humanity going all this time. We can trust them to decide when a child ought to be brought into this world and when it should not.

7. I believe gays and lesbians should have equal rights and equal respect.
8. I never try to save anyone.
9. I never give God the glory, at least not aloud.
10. I think everybody’s religious ideas are as good as mine.

And I sure am happy to be back in the fold.

What responses have you had to the book so far?

Christianity Today was pretty snarky about it. But Jim Henderson, Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, Spencer Burke, Todd Hunter, Diana Butler Bass, Diane Winston at USC, James Dunn, who is a legend among traditional Baptists, and others endorsed it.

So it must have something in it worth looking at.

What are you hoping this book will achieve?

I hope it will set free and embolden the majority of American Christians who’ve been silenced and ignored since the religious right’s ascendancy.

I hope it will cause reporters to be more bold about challenging the religious right. My greatest wish for my own profession is that it would help journalists re-fashion how they do news.

I hope it will allow people who are developing their own spiritually without any sponsorship — because people are doing that everywhere — to speak up and enter the national conversation.

I hope those evangelicals and other Christians who know in their gut that something like this is happening will be encouraged to admit that what they call Bible-based is merely their interpretations of Scripture. Then they could re-think those interpretations and perhaps be a more potent force for good.

I hope to kill the idea that so-called Bible-based approaches are the only ones that work. That approach locks most Americans out of Christianity and every day they are more locked out because the world is moving further from the honor-based, tribal society that such Bible-based approaches favor. The last parts of the book deal with why so many of us can’t “get saved” in the old fashioned way.

At the same time, there are stories of wonderful faith in the book, I hope those stories will help outsiders understand that the most conservative brands of evangelical faith attract smart, sensitive people of sound mind and good hearts. This type of faith can help people live good, secure, happy lives.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Writing this book was a miserable experience. I had to face a lot of anger and fear in myself and in my former evangelical friends. But it’s helped me. I no longer have those flash points of anger and despair that evangelicals used to inspire in me. It’s good to be rid of them.

Jim Henderson gets most of the credit for that. When I started this book I was still scoffing at his approach. I didn’t think it could work. I still thought he was employing some evangelical trick, a crafty new way to collect scalps.

But his honesty and openness worked some kind of magic. It changed how I think about myself and the value of Christianity.

Our conversations have given my passion for Jesus’ teachings, which I hardly recognized myself, an outlet and a voice. He allowed me to see that I could be a good, thoughtful, honest, caring person of conscience who didn’t set myself apart from others as “the saved one” and still have community with people who follow Jesus.

When he first told me this, I couldn’t even contemplate such a thing. I found it alarming, slightly distasteful, and at the same time, appealing. I wanted to stop my ears or at least be strapped to the mast so I couldn’t be overwhelmed and crash on the rocks.

But the idea is growing on me.

It galls me to admit how right he turned out to be. I’m frightened by it. But I comfort myself by imagining that he would say, “That’s all right. You’re wise not to get too close. You might get burned again. It’s okay to set limits. It’s okay to be yourself.” Those ideas are radical to me, but I like them.

A few years ago I started resistance training. I was persuaded into it by hearing how wonderfully good for me it is. The resistance of lifting moderately heavy weights strengthens my muscles and bones - it’s excellent physical exercise. Resistance training is quite popular - meaning, lots of people do it for the health benefits, not, lots of people enjoy it.

Spiritual engagement always involves resistance (see note below on ’spiritual’). I think this may have been what Jesus meant when he said (according to the Bible) “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.” I think he was pointing out, it will take effort – resistance – to live this way.

Many choices in my life involve resistance. Doing something different from people around me when I know they won’t understand. Helping someone in need when I could just walk on by and no-one would ever know except me (and God?) Persevering when I could rationalize that I’ve done enough already. Letting go of anger and moving on when my anger is justifiable and being kind to someone who was not kind to me.

I remember times looking after sick children when I was sick too and would rather have had someone looking after me! That’s my personal image of resistance. I expect some other mothers reading this might agree!

Resisting in one area helps me resist in others. If I resist my desire not to exercise, I find the rest of my life is less out of control. (If you’re looking for reasons to exercise, add this to the list!)

Resistance training is not easy or fun at the time: that’s why I’m not very consistent about doing it. But afterwards (once I’ve recovered) I’m glad I made the effort. I have a sense of accomplishment and my body feels more alive.

If I’m losing the will to resist, I go look for other people who understand the value of resistance. We can commiserate with each other, encourage each other and congratulate each other on each successful act of resistance. And if it’s crazy to resist at least I have some crazy friends doing it along with me!

note: for me, ’spiritual’ is a metaphor for anything humans do which causes them to live up to their full potential as human beings.

A month ago my doctor decided I should go on Remicade based on the condition I’m in. My symptoms are inconvenient rather than dishabilitating, but they’re at a level where they’re likely to lead to serious internal complications if an effective treatment isn’t found.

It’s taken a few weeks to get Remicade approved by the insurance company, but they did agree to it on Monday and my first IV infusion is scheduled for tomorrow.

This has to be administered by a 2-3 hour IV infusion because it’s a protein. Proteins taken orally get broken down if it went through the digestive system. After the first three treatments it only needs to be done every 8 weeks. (Another similar treatment - Humira - involves injecting myself every other week but I’d rather have an IV every eight weeks)

Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease caused by the body fighting against itself. That results in a lot of inflammation that isn’t present in healthy people. Remicade binds to the substance which controls the immune response. That suppresses the immune system response and the inflammation goes away. If you’re interested you can read more about it here.

It’s expensive because it takes several months to make - it has to be ‘grown’ from mouse cells. Or something like that. That’s what the manufacturer’s blog says.

Controlling unwanted inflammation by controlling the immune system response is good except when you get sick and need an immune system response. I won’t be looking forward to the first time that happens.

By the way, I’m still interested in knowing if diet helps but so far I haven’t been able to determine if it does and my doctor’s recommendation is, let’s get you better, then you can experiment with diet if you like. Although she also wants me on this long-term so the symptoms don’t come back. And if you go off it it might not work if you restart it. So I’m not sure how all that fits together with experimenting with diet.

I was scared of going on strong drugs (or biologic therapy) because of the risks but I think I’m pretty much reconciled (resigned?) to it now.

Remicade seems to work well for a lot of people with Crohn’s Disease. I’m hoping I’ll be one of them!

Anne Van Dusen did a wonderful job of organizing this event. There were about 25 of us: the Alban and Congregational Resource Guide staff and about 20 visitors. Two thirds of the visitors were from out of town. There were about the same number of men and women and the ages ranged from about 30 to 60. There were journalist/writers, priest/minister/pastors, technology professionals and researchers. The group felt diverse but there was no racial diversity - it was 100% white. I’m sure this was a ramification of who was there rather than there being any attempt to avoid racial diversity. But it would have added an interesting element had we not all been white.

Most of the people there were associated with mainline denominational forms of Christianity. Some as a personal vocation; some as writers/technology professionals/researchers whose work involves them with it. Andrea, the journalist taking notes to produce the guide based on yesterday is a former Christian who has converted to Islam, but I only knew that because someone mentioned it to me one on one on Monday evening. (And because she did mention ‘in my Mosque’ once) In one of the breaks I told Andrea I’d just heard Ingrid Mattson and was very impressed.

There were two evangelicals there: David Ambrose, pastor of spiritual formation at Bridgeway Community Church in Indiana and Jeff Kivett, who also attends there and owns a media company. As soon as they said anything it was clear they were evangelicals, because they’re very excited about a video site they’re working on which will answer spiritual questions. They said they weren’t quite sure why they were there, so I suppose, like me, they didn’t know anything about the Alban Institute before they got the invite. Their video site is certainly a good application of web 2.0 (to see a preview, click on the Just TV link on their church site). I think they’re crazy, not because they’re evangelicals but because they got a 4:30 a.m. flight on Tuesday instead of going out the night before. Even the people from New York came the night before. They were friendly guys who thanked Anne, the organizer, for the opportunity to be there.

I was sitting next to Rick Lord, an Episcopal rector who recently ventured into blogging. His blog is A World of your Making. He shared about how blogging and being on facebook has led to interesting interactions he wouldn’t have had otherwise. He also said, what really makes his week is having someone say to him on Sunday “I read your blog”. I enjoyed talking with Rick and I’m hoping he was kidding about banning me from commenting on his blog :). I think he gets the prize for blogging the event first - he already had a detailed post up about it yesterday evening! Go check out Rick’s summary of the event - it’s excellent.

I also enjoyed meeting and talking a little with two other mainline church leaders: Jan Edmiston, a PCUSA minister and Liz Hasen, an Episcopal priest who no longer has her own congregation and now founds and runs eMinistry. Jan blogs at A Church for Starving Artists..

I was very pleased that the group included several smart thoughtful professional women. The main presenter was a woman: Heidi Campbell, a professor at Texas A&M whose specialties are Computer Mediated Communication and Practical Theology. She has done a ton of research over a number of years. Her series of presentations nicely summarized the history of doing religion online: the opportunities, the challenges, the criticisms, how it has developed since it started and where it’s going.

She had some great comparisons. She talked about the changes in media; from linear to database, so now the ordering is flexible and there is no ‘right’ order; from ‘a window on the world’ to ‘a control panel’; from static to navigable. She went through the arguments against online community and showed they weren’t borne out by research. Online community is a supplement not a substitute for face to face community.

Heidi used examples throughout - one interesting one was ‘church of fools’, a short-lived project by ship of fools, very innovative for its time. It was an online service, presented in audio, I think, not video, but with a basic graphic image of people in a cathedral which would include your avatar if you signed up in time. Heidi said the services were rather boring so it didn’t work well - also why not use a more innovative graphic than the grey cathedral? - but there were very interesting conversations before and after the service in the crypt.

Heidi’s blog is When Religion meets New Media. It looks like she’ll be writing about yesterday soon.

Brian Brunius was the other presenter, but he didn’t have a formal presentation like Heidi. He talked about how he didn’t know anyone in his parish and never went to mass. One day he was included on an email from the parish and because of that a number of people asked him to be their facebook friend. He got to know them and now if they invite him to events at church he often goes. So, web 2.0 got him connected with his parish. There’s a facebook group page for the parish set up and maintained by a college kid. He tried to get it approved of by the parish authorities but after some back and forth of them wanting something unacceptable to him on the page, it remains unapproved of. Brian lives in Manhattan and his block has about 17,000 people on but he doesn’t know them apart from those he’s met through facebook.

Brian asked to see examples of what others are doing with web 2.0. He invited the guys from Indiana to demo their video site. They gladly did. It has video answers to questions and also ‘what God thinks’ videos - all of these seem to be of Dave speaking. There are also ‘real stories’ of various people sharing about how God helped them in some way or other. It certainly is neat use of web 2.0 technology and I was glad to hear the site will accept comments and have people available to respond. So it’s not just one-way. On the other hand the content didn’t seem at all attuned to the world of people who like internet video sites. It was very modernist: “what God thinks?” Answers? If the content is not innovative, then no matter how innovative the technology, it won’t hold peoples’ interest (in my opinion). Anyway perhaps I am wrong and multitudes will be saved through this site. And whether I’m wrong or right Dave and Jeff were decent friendly guys and maybe I’m just jealous because I don’t have a site that’s all cool videos :).

Brian also asked Jeremy, who works (worked?) with him at PBS, New York, to talk about his new community blog. Jeremy is as excited about this as Dave and Jeff are about their video site. Jeremy hasn’t actually set the blog up yet but plans to very soon. His vision is that it will be a faith/religion version of metafilter, a community blog which many people belong to and post short announcements on. Jeremy says any news is on metafilter.com before it hits the news media outlets. Jeremy promised he’d be actively soliciting all of us to join his blog and post on it.

Near the end, Anne asked if anyone else wanted to show what they’re doing with web 2.0. Helen Mosher showed people the Episcopal Cafe and revgalblogpals sites, both of which she’s involved in. She’s a social media strategist and avid blogger. Helen’s blog is here: helenmosher.com .

There were interesting comments and questions throughout the day. A number of people agreed with Brian about how facebook had helped them connect. In response to how people seek others like them online and sometimes are more successful at finding them online than offline, John (with the Congregational Resource Group, also involved in a social justice group) said church/the Body of Christ should be more than groups of people who are like each other. He said he’d be bored if that was all it was and didn’t Paul talk about different types of people in the Body of Christ? I really liked John because he seemed very kind.

People talked about the generation gap - how young people are totally into web 2.0 and older people don’t use it and don’t seem to want to, because it’s too hard for them to learn. How can that gap be bridged? Another topic was, there are limits to what you can do online. Sacraments cannot be taken online. People who develop online relationships generally want to meet those people face to face.

I need to think about how what was said relates to Off The Map’s online presence. Heidi shared a lot and there wasn’t time to process what she said and everyone else’s comments yesterday.

I appreciated being part of this event - I’m very glad I was invited to participate.