R3: radical, revolutionary, different

If you’ve been reading R3 for any length of time knows that I’m a huge fan of Erwin McManus.  So when I was approached by his publicist about reading an advance copy of his latest book, I was thrilled.  But I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive.  What if I didn’t like the book?  What if I had to say a bunch of bad things about it?  What if I had to come up with a third question that started with the phrase ‘what if’?!

That concern only grew as I had a hard time figuring out what to say about this book.  So much of it seemed familiar: the influence of The Barbarian Way, Chasing Daylight, and Soul Cravings is obvious.  But I’ve already read those books.  I already get that way of thinking.  I’m already on board. 

There’s no question Erwin’s writings have had a profound impact on my life.  The Barbarian Way helped bring me into a relationship with God.  While Chasing Daylight forced me to be bold, and was a  major reason this site was launched.   But when I read Wide Awake nothing immediately jumped out at me.

“Sure it was good.  But it wasn’t brilliant.” I told myself.  “What am I getting out of it?”

But that view changed when I was, of all places, at the gym.  I have no idea what caused the light bulb to go on.  Maybe it was sheer exhaustion.  Or maybe I just was looking for an excuse to stop exercising.  But in one moment everything crystallized.

Wide Awake isn’t so much about me and my dreams, but about other people and their dreams.

As I mentioned, I already get Erwin McManus.  And for the last few years I’ve been doing much of what he talks about in Wide Awake.  But what I hadn’t been doing is helping other people live out their dreams.  I had no framework for even recognizing that people were searching for their dreams.

Wide Awake changes that.

It gives me a way to relate and communicate with people about their dreams. 

At it’s core Wide Awake is about identifying the dreams God has for us, and then learning to live a life that makes those dreams a reality.  Considering most of us probably can’t even identify a dream we want to live, that’s no small task.

Since that moment at the gym, I see just how many people are sleep walking through their lives (myself included).  When I hear people talk about their unfulfilling jobs I no longer think in terms of job satisfaction, pay raises or a career change.  What I realize people are saying is that they long to live a different life.  They want to wake up, but they don’t know how.  And so they feel trapped.

When I hear that story of loneliness, I no longer have to say, “gee, I’m sorry to hear that,” because I have nothing else to offer.  Now I can offer them some hope.  I can talk about the potential in their lives, and the dreams that God has created them to live.

No matter how spiritual we are, it’s funny how we still take a consumerist attitude toward God.  I wanted Wide Awake to benefit me.  I wanted a blueprint of how to live the life of my dreams.  What I got was a road map of how to help other’s achieve their’s.

And you know what?

That’s letting me live out my dreams.

Orthodoxy.

What a strange title for a book.

I mean, it doesn’t sound very revolutionary.  It doesn’t sound very radical.  I’ll admit, it does sound different.  But probably not in a good way.  So what made GK Chesterton call his “autobiography” of faith “Orthodoxy“?

The answer is the same as why R3 focuses on God’s revolutionary, radical, and different nature.  In short, orthodoxy is the most radical thing we can experience - if it’s from God.  Or as Chesterton says, “the orthodox Church never took the tame course or accepted the conventions; the orthodox Church was never respectable.” (Orthodoxy, p. 93)

I bet you didn’t expect that when you saw the word “orthodoxy”!  That’s okay.  Neither did I.

But that’s how God works.  He does the unexpected.  Sometimes he works in ways that at first don’t seem oblivious.  And yet when we look back we realize everything made perfect sense.  That’s where I found myself when reading Orthodoxy.  There were just certain things that didn’t make sense about Christianity.

On the one hand the Bible says that we should love our neighbors and be willing to give up our lives for them.  But at the same time we’re told that the world is broken and defective.  That it’s not how it should be.  So why, as Christians, should we work so hard to fix something which can never be fixed?  Wouldn’t it be better to just pick one philosophy and hold to it?

Life would be so much easier if we could just love people without working to fix problems.  And it would be easier still if we could just give up on the world and say, “I don’t care.”  But that’s not where God asks us to be.

So how do you find a balance?

The world’s answer is that we need to find a balance between the two.  That the solution is somewhere in the middle.  That we should love some people, but not everyone.  And that while the world isn’t perfect, it’s not really that bad.

Let’s face it, that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea.  Isn’t compromise a good thing?

But compromise is not the answer Christianity offers.  It says the tension itself is what’s important.  That when you try to create balance what you’re really doing is losing something important.     

That’s why Christianity can say radical things like “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”  On the surface it sounds crazy.  How can you separate the two?  Shouldn’t we have some sins that are “bad, but acceptable” (e.g., stealing food because you’re starving), and other sins that are “beyond redemption” (e.g., murder, rape)?

“Christianity came in here as before.  It came in startlingly with a sword, and clove one thing from another.  It divided the crime from the criminal.” (Orthodoxy, p. 87)

Orthodoxy, when it’s about God, is startlingly revolutionary. 

“The criminal we must forgive unto seventy times seven.  The crime we must not forgive at all…We must be more angry with theft than before, and yet much kinder to thieves than before.”  (Orthodoxy, p. 87)  It’s out of this answer that we find how we’re supposed to live our lives.  And it’s out of this answer I began to understand how Christians can say things that seem so obviously contradictory.

Now when I look back at my questions, I see they aren’t contradictory at all.  I see that we really can hate the sin, but love the sinner because I don’t need to somehow balance them.  Instead they are two things that are fundamentally separate.  And it’s in that “separateness” that we find our answers. 

This is an idea that applies across Christianity and applies to courage, sacrifice, life.  It’s no wonder that an orthodox church doesn’t take a tame course. 

Sometimes we need to know “not only that the earth is round, but [know] exactly where it is flat.” (Orthodoxy, p. 90)

Things have been pretty serious around R3 the last few weeks.  But God isn’t just about seriousness and contemplation.  He’s also about enjoying life and having fun.  He is the one who created pleasure after all!

Which is why I decided to watch one of my favorite “documentaries” on a “so-called” church.  It’s 7 minutes long, but it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen on the internet.

So kick back, relax, and enjoy your weekend.

What does it look like to live out a life of faith? 

That’s a question I’m always asking myself.  In fact, that’s really the whole purpose of R3. 

The more I look at God, and who he is, the more I realize we shouldn’t hide.  That we shouldn’t be afraid of acting boldly.  And that includes hiding from our failures and weaknesses.  In other words, a major part of being Christian is being open and vulnerable.  It also means admitting that we aren’t perfect and that we don’t have all the answers.

For some this seems to come naturally.  They can admit the challenges in their life.  I find this difficult to do.

It’s a problem I share with the people who lived in Corinth during the first century.  They were becoming increasingly prideful and “righteous” in how they viewed themselves.  Sadly, I can all too often relate to that.  So Paul rather bluntly addressed the issue saying, “We [the apostles] are fools for Christ, but you [the Corinthians] are so wise in Christ!  We are weak, but you are strong!  You are honored, we are dishonored!”  (1 Corinthians 4: 10)

Paul is pointing out that the pride and arrogance are the exact opposite of how Christians should behave.  He offers a different way of living, saying, the apostles “have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men.” (1 Corinthians 4: 9) 

We’re not to put up fake barriers and to pretend we’re better than we are.  Because a true Christian is open with his or her life.  We’re vulnerable in front of the whole universe.  And here I am afraid of what people think of me!

This is why I find the blog Longing for a Holiday at Sea so encouraging.  It manages to be both bold and vulnerable.  It has that balance Paul implies.  Vulnerable, because it discusses difficult topics and personal trials.  Bold, because it focuses squarely on God’s grace and mercy.

The entire blog serves as an encouragement to people who are suffering and struggling.  It shows, in a very real way, that even in our struggles God has compassion for us.  In a book called The Grand Weaver, Ravi Zacharias demonstrates that God cares about our disappointments.  Our disappointments matter to him.  And this is surely reflected in Longing for a Holiday at Sea.  

Perhaps the thing I enjoy most is the encouragement I receive from reading this blog.  It teaches me that I can actively seek God, and have questions.  It shows that I can be imperfect, but still loved by God.  And those are lessons worth remembering.

Gabe Lyons came up with a crazy idea to actually study people’s opinion of Christianity.  He wanted more than anecdotal stories, he wanted some evidence.  To do this he enlisted the help of David Kinnaman of the Barna Group.  Their research led to a book entitled unChristian.     

But if you’ve been reading this blog for the last few days, you’re not surprised that unChristian is my “book review” this week!

unChristian has had a profound impact on me in a short period of time.  It’s really shaped the way I look at interacting with the world. It’s made me more sensitive to how I talk about God, and how I interact with people who don’t share my faith. 

Some people are looking for an excuse not to believe in God, and when we set a poor example, we’re only supplying that excuse.  But I’m not sure there’s much we could do about that.  If you’re motivated to reject God, you’ll find a reason.

What’s concerns me more are the people who are open to God, but because of our arrogance, pride, and general unpleasantness, we push them away.  And this is the thrust of unChristian.  The book shows just how strong of an impact we have on “outsiders” (their term for people “outside” of the church).  It’s filled with information, statistics (mostly percentages), and a ton of ‘hard truth’.

As I was reading it I couldn’t help but relate this back to my own life.  The book lays out six areas where Christianity is seen as unfavorable to the world.

We’re…

1.  hypocritical
2.  too “salvation” oriented
3.  antihomosexual
4.  sheltered
5.  too political
6.  judgmental

Too many of those areas touch close to home.  I’m often too quick to judge, and too slow to listen.  I’m quick to criticize, and slow to act.  I’m quick to point out flaws in others, and ignore my own mistakes.

And each time I do that, I run the risk of pushing someone away.  That’s the message I take away from this book.  That’s what I want to remember as I go into the world. 

One of the things that drives me (and therefore R3) is my own faith journey.  I had to learn who God was the hard, lonely, and painful way.  And  once I did, I found myself asking, why no one told me who Jesus really was.  Not the hippy version.  Not the wimpy version.  But the bold, dangerous, courageous, loving, and forgiving Jesus. 

Sometimes I send an unChristian message without realizing it.  And that’s something I need to find a way to change.  I can come up with a lot of excuses why – I’m tired, I’m lazy, it’s too hard, it’s too dangerous.  But are those really good enough?  Are those excuses Jesus would have used? 

I can’t always control what another person hears when I speak.  But I can be more aware of the message I send.  And how I act. 

As a Christian I should run to someone who is suffering, not holding back because they don’t believe what I do. 

By my unofficial, and highly unscientific estimation the Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren is a hugely popular book.  I believe the exact number of people who have read it is, a lot.

But not me.  I avoided it.

I saw how many people have read it, and I’ve heard people talk about it so often I thought it would be best to steer clear.  Don’t ask why, it doesn’t really make any sense to me either.  But all that came to an end when I found a copy for $4 at a used book sale.

What I read makes me understand why it’s such a popular book.  Purpose Driven Life sets you on a 40 day journey to better understand yourself, and you’re relationship with God.  While I disagree with some of the first few chapters, I was blown away by two major themes I saw in this book: 

1.  We are all called to change the world, even if that’s only one person or one city.  God expects great things from us.  Not because he’s a task master or over bearing, but because he knows just how amazing we can be.  No one knows our potential like God.  He also knows exactly what we can handle.  And because of that he has big plans for us.

2.  We should focus on the eternal.  No one denies that life gets busy and hectic.  It’s easy to misplace our priorities and start chasing after things that don’t matter.  Sometimes we even intentionally choose to go after a career or family instead of God.  While a lot of the things we emphasize in our life are good, they all fall short of the importance of how we spend eternity.

Purpose Driven Life really highlighted the fact that living with the future in mind changes how you see the present.  If the only thing we’re living for is a new job, a new car, or the perfect family we will be devastated when we don’t get promoted, can’t afford an upgrade, or our family has problems. 

When you live your life thinking about the impact you can make for all time, a lot of our fears seem pretty insignificant.  After all, what’s a little criticism or rejection when you can impact someone forever?

God created us for a reason, and while we can certainly go through life without living out our purpose, it seems like we’d be missing out on something. 

Just because life is short, doesn’t mean we can’t change eternity.  And I find that exciting.

One of my favorite games on Who’s Line Is It Anyway? was ‘Questions Only.’  A game made up of nothing more than asking questions. 

“How are you?”

“Are you talking to me?”

“Who else would I be talking to?”

“How should I know?”

 You get the idea…right?  *cough**cough*  It was probably the only game on that show I felt like I could hold my own.  I think, in some small way, this game captures how I think. 

What does that mean?  How does that work?  Where can I find that?  How does this relate?  Questions are constantly running through my mind.  It’s not that I like to ask questions.  Frankly I find it a little annoying.  But it just seems to be part of who I am.

Now there’s a problem with asking questions.  Sometimes you find an answer.

That’s where I was when I suddenly realized I was a Christian.  For a long time I had been asking questions about who God was.  What if the Bible is true?  What does this mean for my life?  How does my behavior need to change?  Does it need to change?  How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

You know, the important issues.

And I was content just to ask questions.  But as the evidence continued to mount in favor of God being real, I knew I faced a decision.  If God is real, then my life needed to change.  It just didn’t make any sense to believe in him and not change my habits and lifestyle.  If I wasn’t willing to change based on new information, why ask the questions in the first place?  Isn’t that what a good scientist would do?

So when I finally accepted that the Bible was an historically reliable document, and that God was real, I knew it meant radical change in my life.  Some habits developed quickly.  I was more compassionate towards people, I started going to church regularly, I developed a few friendships where I could freely discuss God, and what he had done in my life.  I also started reading as many books as I could, and listening to as many podcasts as I could. 

Others took more work.  Having empathy towards people, loving my enemies, sharing my faith with non-Christians.  These were (and are!) hard for me to do.  Learning to live life as a Christian is truly a life long process.  And some days it feels like a slow process!

Over the last few years I’ve found two things that seem to work really well together: reading the Bible and writing down my thoughts.

1.  Reading the Bible.  For me, reading the Bible was a chance to confront some of the questions I had.  I was surprised to learn that many of the stereotypes I had of Christianity were quickly dismissed.  I learned that the “angry God” of the Old Testament never existed.  And I learned that there’s no such thing as “hippy Jesus.”  Instead I saw that God showed more patience with people in the Old Testament than I ever would have.  And that Jesus was a radical, completely challenging society. 

Without reading the Bible for myself these things never would have sunk in. Because no one sat me down and explained it, when I reached these conclusions on my own, it had a powerful effect.  It’s hard to argue with your own conclusions! 

2.  Note Taking.  As interesting as these revelations were, they wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful if I hadn’t written down my thoughts.  Or as some people call it, “journaling.”  I don’t because that sounds kind of lame.  I prefer to call this “research” or “note taking.”  <insert Tim Allen grunting here>  

Writing down my thoughts helps me keep track all of the things I’ve learned.  When I write something I’m a lot more likely to follow through with it.  But interestingly, and perhaps more importantly, I can go back and see how God has acted in my life.  So many things I wrote about a year or two ago have happened.  So many of the things I struggled with or didn’t understand, have resolved themselves.

If I hadn’t written these things down I never would have remembered them. 

Do you have to do these things to be a Christian?

Of course not.

But you would also be missing out a great opportunity.  What kind of amazing things is God doing in your life that you haven’t noticed because you’re too busy to look around?  What kind of patterns of behavior are keeping you from him, that you might have seen if you had kept track of your thoughts?

So go ahead, ask questions.  You may be surprised by the answers.   

Some movies stick with you.  They make you think long after you’ve seen the ending.  That’s how it is with Cloverfield. It seems strange that a monster movie would have such a strong impact on me.  But I can’t stop thinking about it. As with any good movie it makes you think about your own life.

Before I go any further I want to warn people that there may be some spoilers here.  So if you don’t want to know anything about this movie, then you might want to skip this post.

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Okay, now we can move on.  After watching Cloverfield I was left thinking about a few things.

1.  The movie involved sacrifice.  Not in the traditional Hollywood way.  The characters you saw in the movie weren’t action heroes, they were ordinary people.  But they chose to stick together and try and save a friend - even thought it may cost them their lives (and even though most of them didn’t want to go).  There was something intense about that.

When I watch Arnold Schwarzenegger or Chuck Norris I know they are going to survive.  After all they’re the Terminator or Walker Texas Ranger.  But an ordinary person?  That has “monster food” written all over it.

As I watched them roam around an abandoned, monster infested New York, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “would I have been willing to do that for someone?”  I would like to think so, but to be honest, I have no idea.  And I think if I’m really honest…I probably wouldn’t.

How hard must it be to know you’re going to die, but still act?

That’s one of the things that strikes me about Jesus.  He knew exactly what he was going to do.  He knew that by following his path he would die.  And he knew better than any of us, exactly what that would mean.  And yet he still did it.  He still went through with it, suffering one of most painful ways to die.

Cloverfield reminds me that I don’t think about that sacrifice enough.  I don’t consider what that cost God, especially when I’m busy being selfish and needy.

2. We don’t have much time to act.  Cloverfield opens up with a group of friends and family celebrating.  It’s just a bunch of people who are living out an ordinary day.  But their lives were destroyed and they never saw it coming.  I think this is the most shocking aspect of the whole movie.  We simply don’t know when tragedy will strike, and by the time we realize it, it’s probably too late.

No one believed a 500 foot tall monster would go on a rampage in NYC.  Just like we never believe we’ll die in a car accident, or of a heart attack.  Characters in that movie said and did things because they thought they had time to make it right later.  But they didn’t.  And that regret ate at them.

There’s something insidious about that thought process.  Because sometimes death really is a long way off, and we never act because we procrastinate.  We assume that because we have all the time in the world we’ll use that time to make things right.  But so often we don’t.

Cloverfield manages to catch both sides of that thought.  And it haunts me.

God calls us to take action, and almost always it’s to act now.  Very rarely does God ever ask someone to act in the distant future; when God asks us to do something it’s to fill an immediate need.

I don’t want to leave this world knowing that I never got around to doing something God asked of me.  Just like I don’t want to live my life for word counts and blogs, I also don’t want to live a life that is empty of accomplishments for the Kingdom.  I want to be able to look back and say, “Yes.  I seized those divine moments.”

Tomorrow is that day that may never come.  So I choose to embrace today.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me CS Lewis was brilliant?!”

That’s pretty much what I think when I pick up one of his books.  I’ve gone my entire life not understanding what people saw in this CS Lewis guy.  I had read the Chronicles of Narnia and enjoyed them.  But even as a kid I knew they were “simplistic.”  I could never quite figure out why he held such appeal for Christians. To be honest I thought they were latching onto the guy because he was famous.  Little did I know how wrong I was!

Mere Christianity is my second book by Lewis.  And I now fully understand why he’s been important to so many Christians.  Lewis is a master of words, and is able to explain complex Christian theology in a simple and relate-able way.  Every sentence in this book is packed with importance and significance. 

The title of the book is a bit confusing to the modern ear.  And until I started to read the book, I didn’t fully understand what that title was trying to convey.  In essence he really wrote a book that could be called ’simple’ or ‘basic’ Christianity.  In a way this is God 101.  But don’t let that fool you, there is more information packed into this book than most dense academic works.

Mere Christianity is broken into 4 sections.  Each dealing with an aspect of what it means to come into a relationship with God.  In section one he outlines some clues to the existence of God.  Section two discusses what Christians really believe.  Followed by how Christians should behave, and what it means to be a Christian.  The fourth section, which is probably his most ambitious, is an attempt to explain who God is - namely the Trinity (Jesus, God, the Holy Ghost).

Very few writers are more quotable than Lewis.  But that’s not the most striking part of Mere Christianity.  Lewis is a master at using examples to explain his points.  He has a way of taking a complex concept (e.g., the Trinity) and giving simple explanations that really crystallize the concepts for the reader.

Lewis holds a special place for me, because he’s one of those writers that disproves the idea that to believe in God you need to turn off your brain.  As I explore his writings I continue to realize that God wants us to use our brains as much as our hearts. 

The Golden Compass is set to hit theaters this weekend to much fanfare.  And it’s not just Hollywood Hype that’s driving this movie’s appeal.  If you follow the news at all you’ve probably heard that many Christian groups are encouraging people to avoid this movie. In a way that’s understandable.  You see, the whole point of The Golden Compass (and the two following books) is to debunk Christianity.  The author of the books, Philip Pullman has said as much in various interviews.

Well I’m going to suggest something different.  I say if you are interested in this movie, you should go watch it.

We are not, in any way, helped by avoiding things of this nature.  There are three good reasons why:

1.  Christianity has withstood centuries of literal, physical, attack from groups throughout history (e.g., Romans, Communists, Barney the Dinosaur – okay, maybe not Barney).  Christianity has done quite well in these cultures.  So I think God will be able to handle a Hollywood movie.  

2.  But more than that, God wants us to ask questions, because questions deepen our faith.  Every question I’ve had about Christianity has ultimately strengthened my faith.  When I search for an answer, I find that something amazing happens: I move closer to God.  Not because I’m talking myself into something, but because God is always willing to give us proof of who he is.  Because of this, I’ve found an answer to virtually every question I’ve ever asked.  Even when I don’t find a perfect answer, I’ve learned that there is an answer out there, I just don’t know it!  God wants us to know him, and the only way we can really do that is to engage our brains along with our hearts.

3.  Those of you who consider yourself Christians already, ask yourself this, “how do you intelligently discuss a movie you’ve never seen?”  How do you help your friends understand how God differs in real life from the god of The Golden Compass if you’ve never seen it?

I consider the Da Vinci Code one of the greatest opportunities Christians have had to share their faith.  What better way to enter a discussion about God then when someone comments on him!  I wonder how many opportunities were lost because people refused to watch a (mostly bad) movie.

So I say if you want to watch The Golden Compass go for it.  If you aren’t a Christian ask yourself “what questions do I have?” and “Does the movie accurately represent who God is?”  Then search for answers.  If you are a Christian, go see it so you can talk intelligently about it when someone you know brings it up.  And maybe you can help someone find those answers.