My review of Troy Bronsink’s Drawn In is up at The Englewood Review of Books. Here’s a teaser. You’ll need to scoot over to Englewood to get all the goods:

A Christian, by virtue of the very title, is someone whose character is shaped in the process of imitating Jesus’ life, resulting in sanctification and the character of Jesus is formed in the individual. The Apostle Paul used the language of Genesis to describe this transformation by audaciously claiming a Christ follower was part of the New Creation. If emulating Jesus results in sanctification, then, according to Troy Bronsink, the imitation of God’s work at creation results in increased creativity and generative capacity.

Drawn In is Troy Bronsink’s labor of love in which he shares lessons learned along the his decades long journey of attempting to understand the creative process. Troy is a Presbyterian minister, musician, and workshop leader who has expressed his creative gifts in parachurch, emerging church, and pastoral ministry for over twenty years. He admits that process of writing this book took eight long years, in part due to arduous battle to birth a creative faith community in Atlanta. This experience resonates with his conviction in the book that the creative process is cyclical not linear.

I’m prepping for a class I’m teaching and I’ve spent the weekend visiting Genesis 1-3 are, in N.T. Wright’s view, some of the most explosive pieces of Scripture in the Bible. I’ve been reading how our creation story compares with creation accounts in other Ancient Near Eastern religions. It’s fascinating, really.

In the Mesopotamian Epics the creation of the worlds was always the unplanned result of the gods having sexual relations or as the result of a war. In Genesis, creation is a divine act of hospitality. God makes the heavens and earth and earth, specifically, is the place where he intends to pour his love out on humanity.

Work, in the Mesopotamian myths, was inherently a burden. (more…)

I wasn’t planning on a follow up post to yesterday’s thoughts on reading the Bible moralistically. However, this question was posed to me on Facebook:

“I must be a bit of a simple guy, but I fail to see the danger in looking to scripture to provide a reliable moral foundation. The bible obviously, speaks to moral issues. If it can’t be trusted to provide an accurate moral foundation, what’s the point? The fact that the desire to find moral truth in scripture has led to extreme views, positions, etc in the past doesn’t mean that the desire is flawed only that it was poorly executed. What’s the alternative? Pick and choose the moral positions in scripture that appeal to our individual sense of right and wrong? Are you suggesting that there are no moral rights and wrongs or simply that we can’t know them or that they can’t be known from scripture. I’ve generally found the position of moral relativism impossible to defend. Is that the position you’re endorsing?”

These are questions worth addressing.

The quick answer to the question is “am I a moral relativist?” is “no.” I believe in absolute truth. Synthetic a priori knowledge even. I know, I’m a caveman in that regards. I’m not questioning that the Bible is our moral authority. I was trying to address just how the Bible asserts its moral authority over us. I’ve toyed with several approaches to answer this question. Most of the approaches would require multiple posts and technical jargon that would bore even Jesus, I think.

Let me try a story (I’m not sure if this illustration is mine or if I lifted it somewhere. If so, tell me who and I’ll quickly credit the proper person) and see if that helps…

Imagine a father who gathered his family around the table each day and handed down strict marching orders for each family members. The father tells the wife to button that top button and get exactly 1/2″ of hair cut at the salon.

“A tender roast, served promptly at 6 PM this time.”

He tells the son that he must tuck that shirt in and that the B in science was unacceptable. The father hands him a list of approved and unapproved friends.

“I expect you to refer to this list during your lunch period. It’s for your own good.” 

He turns to his preschool aged daughter and scolds her for coloring outside of the lines.

“And for God’s sake, could you use primary colors? Those dark tones are depressing.” 

By now, you’ve (hopefully) developed a negative opinion of that father. “Control freak”, “oppressive”, and “abusive” all come to mind. (more…)

I  read The Hunchback of Notre Dame  few year back and I’m getting the itch to make another lap through Victor Hugo’s masterpiece. The novel is long but well worth the offer. When Hugo wrapped up his novel and doled out justice to his various villains, he assigned radically different judgments. The monstrous arch-deacon is sent falling from the height of the cathedral to his death. Hugo described the long descent in graphic detail, completely with arms flailing and bones breaking against various slopes on the way down.

Hugo handed out his other antagonist, Phœbus de Châteaupers, a far different brand of justice.

Phœbus entered the story as Esmeralda’s rescuer. The story progressed and exposed his moral emptiness.The Gypsy became infatuated with him. Phœbus was engaged to be married but looked for opportunity to lie with the wildly beautiful dancer.  Later, Esmeralda is framed for attempting to murder him. He had opportunity to exonerate her but he displayed criminal indifference. He would have had to admit his own infidelity to prove Esmeralda’s innocence.

Hugo’s pen judges Phœbus de Châteaupers concisely: “Phœbus de Châteaupers also came to a tragic end: he married.”

Hugo sentenced Phœbus to a loveless marriage. He was engaged to a socialite with the goal of using her money and status to cement his position in society. Phœbus get his wish, but there was no love in his marriage. Fluer-de-Lys noticed the attention Phœbus gave Esmeralda and became insecure. Emotional distance sprung from doubt and Fluer-de-Lys became a spiteful wife. Phœbus’ sentence was to live with the woman he hardened.

…

Phœbus is a reminder that we married people live with the spouse that we help mold.   (more…)

Last night I wanted to do something goofy and maybe romantic for Amy. She made a Facebook post about losing guitar picks left and right. I decided that I’d make her a simple craft– a clay and wire flowers in a pot. Each flower pedal would be a guitar pick.

While Amy was at band practice, I took my youngest son Cole out to gather the supplies. I was tired from a long day. The alarm went off at 4 AM. Gym at 5 AM. Then work. I felt jittery from one too many cups of coffee. Cole was inquisitive, long talking, and slow. He also developed the ability to telepathically untie his  shoes on command, a skill that he practiced over and over. When he discovered what I was up to, he wanted to make something for mom, too.

If you are a dad you know that this is not a request that you can say “no” to, not if you want to train your son to be giving to his wife someday. So duty filled in where human decency couldn’t and I gave him supplies make to something for Amy as well. This resulting on more hands-on parenting when all I wanted to do was stop. (more…)

One of my favorite books on creativity is a bit dated, but the wisdom holds up. A Kick in the Seat of the Pants, by Roger Van Oech argues that there are four phases of creativity:

Yesterday we looked a reading of Genesis 1-3 that leads to a complementarian view of marriage. We used Mark and Grace Driscoll’s book Real Marriage as a case study of this view. As one commenter pointed out, the Driscoll’s didn’t invent this position. It’s been around for centuries and, I’m sure, has been presented with different nuances.

What’s certainly true of all complementarian theology is that its rooted in a view that prior to sin entering the world, Adam and Eve were given unique roles to fulfill in their marriage relationship with each other and that these roles would be true for men and women throughout history. In their reading of scripture, the story of the Fall is, in part, the story of how Adam and Eve refused to embody these roles. For a complimentarian, then, redemption includes husbands and wives return to these Edenic roles.

I poked this way of reading the text, and suggested that there’s another way of looking at the text. For time’s sake, I’ll match these points with the Driscoll’s five points that I quoted yesterday.

1. Both men and women are “the glory and Image of God.”

(Genesis 1:26-27)

I mentioned yesterday that the Hebrew word “adam” has two translations, the proper male name, and “humanity.” The text makes it clear that God was referring to humanity here:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,^[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
   male and female he created them.

2. By naming his wife “Eve”, Adam was abusing his God given creativity. 

Before the Fall, the relationship between Adam and Eve is described in terms of intimacy and closeness. Eve is fashioned from Adam’s side. Adam doesn’t nothing to contribute to creating her. He is asleep.

His love song to his wife emphases their partnership and closeness:

“This, at last, is bone of my bone

and flesh of my flesh

she shall be called Woman,

because she was taken out of Man.” (Gen. 2:23)

The Hebrew word Adam uses for “man” is “Ish” and the word he uses for “woman” is “Ishshah.” The words sound alike in the Hebrew. Adam is celebrating intimate partnership. God has given him an equal.

It’s not until after the Fall, and the conflict that God prophesied that would arise between men and woman that Adam renamed his wife Eve. There’s a suggestion among some theologians, that Adam was abusing his God-given task of naming the animals. In his own way, Adam was making a subtle power play against the intimate partner that God gave him.

3. Adam and Eve sinned as a couple (Genesis 3).

Sure, Eve was tempted by Satan and ate first. But the text says that Adam was there (Gen. 3:6). He participated willingly. And then verses later he sins against his wife by throwing her under the proverbial bus when God confronted him (Gen 3:12). When God pronounced his judgment he judged them both.

4. The story of redemption includes returning the marriage relationship to its pre-Fallen state. 

Galatians 3:28

5. Servanthood and submission are mutual tasks.

Ephesians 5:22-30. Yes, the text uses the word “submission” in reference to the wives. And then it goes on to tell the men to love their wives as Christ loved the church, this includes servanthood, submission, and self-sacrifice also.

This isn’t an exhaustive post on the topic by any means. I’m not suggesting that complementarians as chauvinists. I’m not even suggesting that this is the egalitarian position that I hastily laid out today is the position of my church. We’ve got staff and pastors on each side of the aisle on this issue.

What I’m trying to say is that the fastest way to predict the main points of a Christian marriage book is to see how Genesis 1-3 are handled. The author’s vision life before the Fall is the direction that he or she is pointing your marriage.

In January,  I got together with some friends and worked through John Ortberg’s brilliant book “The Me I Want to Be.” One week, we explored the tension between Christianity making each of us more unique as individuals and at the same time calling us into community.

Oh, yes, there’s a tension.

Jesus, is in the business of this reclaiming us and restoring us into beautiful versions of ourselves. Ortberg uses the analogy of a mechanic restoring an old motorcycle, believing that the old rusted bike has its best years ahead of it.

We religious people, meanwhile, tend to handle each other like airport luggage handlers. This leads to the false belief that its better to lower our heads and fit in.

In spite of this, Jesus died for community. He died for many things, but good community was part of the package.

My group of friends looked at the passage in Hebrews that talked about “considering how to spur each other on to love and good works.” The author of Hebrews was concerned about Christ-followers being distracted by other things and blowing off times worship, communion, and fellowship together.

Even back then, before Cable TV and Hulu, people were still people and church was still church.

Church. Sometimes I fall into this romanticized vision of church. Flannelgraph people would hear the quitting time bell at the kosher deli and sprint to Brother Levi’s house for an evening of Bible study. Then I remember that time the Apostle Paul absolutely bored that teenager to death, so much so that the kid fell asleep, fell out of the window, and then fell to his death. If I recall, the adults did more than their share of bitching when they got together as well. The Book of Act is filled with stories of self-righteousness, racism, nationalism, legalism, and a few other -ism’s I’m not currently recalling. Maybe the audience of Hebrews heard the one about the Corinthian church where communion services had this way of turning into drunken frat parties and this one particular and mom and son earned a gold medal in taboo busting. It was enough to make televangelists blush.

As a result, enough people began to blow off church to the point where the author of Hebrews felt the need to encourage them back into the fold.

It’s hard to imagine, right?

Then there’s people. I’m not talking about “religious people” but plain just old people. You met them once or twice. People who get defensive and fight with their spouses five minutes before the first “Allelu” and choked back their hurt and anger just in time for the two-minutes of mandatory handshaking before the offering. People who want what they want. People who think that everyone has an agenda but themselves. Its seems to be that people, by definition,  are ambivalent about community. We want to be deeply known and to belong, but we aren’t comfortable with the price of admission.

A few years ago I wrote a book, Divine Intention: How God’s Work in the Early Church Empowers Us Today. In the chapter “The Church Chaotic”, I took a hard look at the conflicts found in the book of Acts and opened the books on some of the church conflict I had weathered up to that point. I was trying to answer a personal question, “Is church worth it?”  Years and more conflicts later, my answer then is still holding up for me:

“So why is the church, with its history of distorted truth, worth it? What is it about its injured members; its division, staleness, anemia, and fracases: its legalism, rigidity, and traditionalism that attracts us so? The church is worth it because the Holy Spirit is constantly working to transform it, though we may not always see it.

“God’s desire is that we join together in community despite our own personal baggage, hurts, and neuroses. Just as he did at the beginning, anytime we come together to form a quivering glob of relational disorder, the Holy Spirit nestles in our chaos. He silently works his change, planting seeds of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control in each of us. The Holy Spirit gives us a diversity of spiritual gifts,  and the way he distributes those gifts forces us to be interdependent upon each other. We are slowly changed into a new community ordered around God’s kingdom.

“Christian community is worth participating in because it is a locus of the Holy Spirit’s creativity.”

p. 109

I’m reposting this to celebrate the fact that Richard’s book “The Colors of Hope” was chosen as one of Christianity Today’s Books of the Year. Congratulations Richard! Richard is a brilliant thinker and a co-contributor to the Burnside Writers Collective. 

It’s been a while since I’ve added an installment of “I Could Learn From…” This blog column is one of my favorite since it forces me to look around at people in my life, whether local or national, and study their lives for examples to imitate. This week’s “I Could Learn From…” features Richard Dahlstrom, the lead pastor of Bethany Community Church in Seattle. I became aware of Richard through the Burnside Writers Collective, where we both contribute. Richard’s essays often capture my imagination with their intelligence and creativity. Curiosity bit me and I began to subscribe to his sermon podcasts. His second book, The Colors of Hope: Becoming People of Mercy, Justice, and Love, was released and didn’t disappoint.

The Colors of Hope is a manifesto that invites Christ followers to reclaim its mandate to be agents of redemption through our relationships, work, and hobbies. Richard’s pastoral eye provides him with a unique vantage point that sets his book apart from the rest literature on Christian living. Here’s three things I caught my eye in “Colors” that made me pause, think, and reconsider my perspective:

Those who wish to paint with hope must be observant. Dahlstrom writes about his friendship with a master painter and art teacher. One of the first tasks the painter needed to accomplish with her students was teaching them to see the detail of their subjects. It wasn’t enough to notice a shadow, the students needed to see the rich gradient of shades that made up the shadow. In the same way, we need to be sure that we’re actually seeing people as God sees them. Richard offered practical and wise ways to  notice how we label, judge, and categorize others. For me, the book provided me with a fresh challenge to see and enjoy people for who they are.

You cannot be an effective “artisan of hope” without a strong theology of suffering. So much of what passes for books on missional living reads like the transcript of a Tony Robbins seminar. Lot’s of “Rah, Rah” but light on realism. Richard acknowledges that one of the challenges of painting with hope is that life is difficult and challenges our own belief in the hope we aspire to depict. Dahlstrom writes:

“Apparently the deeper colors of pain and deprivation can spill onto the canvas of the faithful as easily as the colors of peace and contentment. Until we wrap our minds and hearts around this, we’re in danger of forever seeking to create and live in a pastel world, when what we really need is to leaven how to be people of hope in the midst of bloody colors of suffering, shortcomings, and the loss that comes with living in a fallen world. Helmut Thielicke, the great German Theologian, said that America’s inadequate theology of suffering is her greatest Achilles heel, that weakness that, if not addressed, is in danger of making her infertile.” (p. 126)

Pastor Dahlstrom goes on to outline this theology of suffering, using surprising examples from the Bible and his own life. This lesson, for me, with the year I’ve have, is worth the price of the book.

A painting is made up of thousands of mundane strokes. Again, Richard’s realism shines though. He openly acknowledges that living this type of life is often mundane. Painting with mercy, justice, and love is occurs one decision– one relational transaction– at a time. Usually, the painting doesn’t take shape until after a life time of these brush strokes have been made.

I recommend The Colors of Hope for the same reason I recommend Lamott’s Bird by Bird. In Bird by Bird, Anne pulls back the curtain and shows us what the life of a writer is really like. Richard Dahlstrom does the same thing in The Colors of Hope. By doing so he gives us, not just the ideals of missional living, but a model of what the life of an “artisan of hope” looks like.

Thanks, Richard.

The Contest is Over…

Win a copy of The Colors of Hope:

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I’ll randomly pick a winner on May 12.

FCC Disclaimer: I was provided a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher without the expectation of providing a favorable review. Thanks for caring.

Pablo Picasso famously said, “Art washes away the dust of the soul” and I believe him. It happened to me again last week. Months ago, Amy bought me ticket to a Return to Forever concert. Their album Romantic Warrior was the first jazz album I ever purchased. They sent me on a decade long journey of listening almost exclusively to jazz. Their blend of jazz and rock, and virtuosity made it impossible for me to go back and listen to the pop and C.C.M. I was taking in for a long time.

Last Sunday was not an ideal day to sneak in a road trip to Pittsburgh. I’ve been living on a ladder getting home improvement projects done for weeks. Last week our church hosted Willowcreek’s Leadership Summit and I was the onsite event manager. A sixty-plus hour work week loomed ahead. Still, we had tickets. They weren’t cheap. More importantly, this was going to be the date for our 15th wedding anniversary.

The concert was fantastic. Stanley Clarke might be the best bass player alive on the planet. He continues to do things on the bass that no one else can do. Jean-Luc Ponty joined the band for this tour and played most of the guitar leads on the violin. Chick Corea’s voicings and composition never fails to leave me breathless.

It was a long concert. Zappa Plays Zappa opened. I didn’t know their discography, but this was a fun, talented band in their own right. We didn’t leave Pittsburgh till 11:30 PM. This made for a short night of sleep before a long weekend.

Sleep deprivation usually leaves me a bit cranky but not this week. The experience of the concert and all its artistry refreshed me in ways I don’t fully understand. Picasso’s quote captures it: The concert was something like a baptism or a foot washing. Chick Corea’s spirituality takes a different shape than mine, but when I see him in concert or listen to a few particular albums of his I experience something akin to worship. Maybe it is worship. His music is the union of mathematical precision and joy and interplay that makes me think of the bliss each member of the Trinity has knowing each other.

Those are odd thoughts, I know. My bigger point is that great art purifies and restores us. It is sanctification with a small “s.” We don’t become more Christlike morally, but we share in his creativity, if only for a moment.

I also don’t want to post this but I’ve been living on that ladder and am not feeling well read at the moment. I wonder if this post reads like I’m one of the pretentious brothers from the Fraiser sit-com. But I need a reminder to not take the easiest entertainment options when I give myself downtime. I tend to watch the sitcom instead of view the documentary, read the thriller instead of Steinbeck, and listen to the three minute long hit instead of Miles or Coletrane. There’s nothing wrong with vegging. But I’d got picked up some dust along the way that could use a good washing also.

What do you read or listen to when its time for you to loose yourself in great art?