If the church were Christian . . . .

“While many denominations claim to be growing, the largest group in American religious life is the disillusioned – people who have been involved in the church yet see few similarities between the church’s life and the person of Jesus.  In the midst of elaborate programming, professional worship teams, and political  crusades, they ask, “Is this really what Jesus called us to do?”  - Philip Gulley 

Building on my previous blog ‘Into the Spiritual Wilderness’, so begins the flyleaf to Philip Gulley’s book “If the Church Were Christian – Rediscovering the Values of Jesus’, (2010). Diana Butler Bass, author of 'Christianity for the Rest of Us’ endorses the author’s effort as she declares “In an age of shouting, Gulley gently points out the flaws in the church while opening ways to practise Christian spirituality with greater integrity.  If the church were, as Philip Gulley envisions here, people would be knocking down our doors to experience God’s love.”

In this blog I have deliberately ‘borrowed’ Mr. Gulley’s ten chapter subheadings each beginning with “If the Church Were Christian . . . . . and  inserted my own or personal observations which you can read here.  While it was not my intent to usurp Mr. Gulley’s writings, which are much more elaborate and definitive, but simply to express my own thoughts and ideas in answer to each of these ten headings.   In that way I would ask each reader here to consider how they in-turn might answer each item according to their own and particular understanding.  In so doing Philip Gulley’s book can become an inter-active exercise toward building Jesus’ greater inclusive Kingdom here on earth.  

If the church were Christian, Jesus would be a model for living, not an object of worship.

The Gospels (see esp. Luke 9:1-6) are quite clear as to how we are to preach the Good News. Note that Jesus reminded his disciples to take nothing with them but only preach about the Kingdom of God and heal the sick. Nowhere do we read in the scriptures that this task should demand an exclusive membership to a particular religion or more precisely to adopt his Jewish religion. Jesus does not demand that we must follow and accept any fixed dogma or doctrine. Instead the role of a true disciple is merely to invite others to follow or imitate the life of Jesus.  We worship (praise or adore) whenever we imitate Christ.      

If the church were Christian, affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness.

Again and again the gospels remind us that God is more interested in our potential than our sins. There are no sins from which we cannot be forgiven whenever we are willing to ask. Jesus came to heal our brokenness and said that he came to save the sinner not the self-righteous.      

If the church were Christian, reconciliation would be valued over judgment.

Many of us were taught that we are somehow separate from God. Yet, we would not be here if God the Creator of all things and matter were not present in ALL people. Jesus came so that ALL - not some - may be reconciled with the Father. God’s judgment has everything to do with restoration and being filled with God’s unconditional love, not with punishment.

If the church were Christian, gracious behavior would be more important than right belief.

God reads hearts not minds.  As Kingdom people we must learn to accept people where they are not where we would have them be.  Right actions will lead us to right beliefs. All life is about change - nothing in our expanding universe remains static.

If the church were Christian, inviting questions would be more important than supplying answers.

Faith is a gift from God – not from a religious institution. “Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.” – Brené Brown.  Faith is not a mystery to be defined but rather a mystery to be experienced  and addressed to our own unique and personal needs and questions.

If the church were Christian, encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity.

"We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race." – Kofi Annan

“Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” -  Albert Einstein

If the church were Christian, meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions.

Then Jesus said to them, "The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.  Mark 2:27

 If the church were Christian, peace would be more important than power.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” - John 14:27

If the church were Christian, it would care more about love and less about sex.

Jesus said “I came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it”. The question Christians should ask is, “fulfil it with what?”  And they would know that we need to interpret the law with our hearts, not our heads.  

If the church were Christian, this life would be more important than the afterlife.

Many Christians may have been mistakenly taught that they had to earn their way into heaven. If that were so, then none of us would make it.  However, God so loves the world that he cannot share his heavenly realm without every one of his Creations for even a minute. When we come to realize God’s unconditional love in this context we can truly begin to live our life in the present without fear of the future.

In addition to Mr. Gulley's insights into all of these ten observations, his book includes a special chapter dedicated to 'Discussion Questions' to help readers explore and evaluate each chapter.  You can visit Philip Gulley's website here. 

How to Really Evangelize

Daniel Everett with the Pirahã

In his 2008 book ‘Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes’ (Vintage Press) Daniel Everett recounts the astonishing experiences and discoveries he made while he lived with  a small tribe of Amazonian  Indians in central Brazil.

Daniel L. Everett arrived among the Pirahã with his wife and three young children hoping to convert the tribe to Christianity.  Everett quickly became obsessed with their language and its cultural and linguistic implications.  The Pirahã have no counting system, no fixed terms for colour, no concept of war, and no personal property.  Everett was so impressed with their peaceful way of life that he eventually lost faith in the God he’d hoped to introduce to them, and instead devoted his life to the science of linguistics.  Part passionate memoir, part scientific exploration, Everett’s life-changing tale is a riveting look into the nature of language, thought, and life itself.

As a representative of the Summer Institute of Linquistics (SIL) missionary Everett believed that the most effective way to evangelize indigenous peoples was to translate the New Testament into their language.  Since SIL also believes that the Bible is literally the word of God, then, it is reasoned, the Bible should beable to speak for itself.  But efforts to convert these peoples where for naught.  The Pirahã were not interested in his message or Jesus.  As Everett later relates:   

“I had gone to the Pirahãs to tell them about Jesus and, in I my opinion at that time, to give them an opportunity to choose pur­pose over pointlessness, to choose life over death, to choose joy and faith over despair and fear, to choose heaven over hell.

If the Pirahãs had understood the gospel and were nevertheless rejecting it, that was one thing. But perhaps they had not understood it. This was a strong possibility, since my speaking ability in the Pirahã language was still far from native.

On another occasion during that first period with the Pirahãs, I felt I understood their language well enough to give my own story about why I accepted Jesus as my savior. This is a common practice among evangelical Christians, called ‘giving your testimony’.   The idea is that the worse your life was before you accepted Jesus, the greater the mira­cle of your salvation and the greater the motive of unbelievers in the audience to accept Jesus too.  Obviously, this is tempered by the missionary’s desire to convert people to his or her own concept of truth, but worse things are known and the relative effect of proselytizing varies from people to people.  

However, as Everett was to eventually discover that the Pirahã believe only what they see, saying:

“Sometimes they also believe in things that someone else has told them, so long as that person has personally witnessed what he or she is reporting.  The Pirahãs live purely in the present the way the early Christian mystics discovered and recommended many years ago. Everett eventually came to question “Is it possible to live a life without the crutches of religion and truth?” and responds “The Pirahãs do so live. They share some of our concerns, of course, since many of our concerns derive from our biology, independent of our culture (our cultures attribute meanings to otherwise ineffable, but no less real, concerns). But they live most of their lives outside these concerns because they have independently discovered the usefulness of living one day at a time. They simply make the immediate their focus of concentration, and thereby, at a single stroke, they eliminate huge sources of worry, fear, and despair that plague so many of us in Western societies. They have no craving for truth as a transcendental reality. Indeed, the concept has no place in their values. Truth to the Pirahãs is catching a fish, rowing a canoe, laughing with your children, loving your brother, dying of malaria. Does this make them more primitive? Many anthropologists have suggested so, which is why they are so concerned about finding out the Pirahas' notions about God, the world, and creation.”

Everett finally suggests to his readers

“But there is an interesting alternative way to think about things. Per­haps it is the presence of these concerns that makes a culture more primitive, and their absence that renders a culture more sophisticated. If that is true, the Pirahãs are a very sophisticated people. Does this sound far-fetched? Let's ask ourselves if it is more sophisticated to look at the universe with worry, concern, and a belief that we can under­stand it all, or to enjoy life as it comes, recognizing the likely futility of looking for truth or God? The Pirahãs have built their culture around what is useful to their survival. They don't worry about what they don't know, nor do they think they can or do know it all. Likewise, they do not crave the prod­ucts of others' knowledge or solutions. Their views, not so much as I summarize them dryly here, but as they are lived out in the Pirahãs' daily lives, have been extremely helpful to me and persuasive as I have looked at my own life and the beliefs that I held, many of them without warrant. Much of what I am today, including my non-theistic view of the world, I owe at least in part to the Pirahãs”.

Yes, this is a true story about a missionary who set out to exploit an uneducated and primitive tribe deep in the jungle of the Amazon and find a people who practiced their beliefs as Jesus taught nearly two thousand years ago.  When Daniel Everett emerged after nearly two decades with this tribe it was he who was  evangelized instead.  As a result he painfully discovered that his original beliefs no longer served him but at the terrible expense of his and family and friends because he no longer shares their foundational beliefs.   

But before we judge him we must consider what missionaries did for hundreds of years previous in their attempt to convert the so called pagans in the world.  How many aboriginals were separated from their religion and families worldwide in the name of Christian evangelization?   What pain and suffering was put upon these innocent victims that are only now being recognized?

Finally, we must ask ourselves “what is evangelization really about?”

  Jesus tells us “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mat. 28:19-20).   Jesus evangelized simply through leading by example.  And for us it must begin just like Jesus by recognizing that the life we live is not about us but by allowing God to live his life through us. Only in this way can we be fully equipped to serve others by healing the sick, bring the dead back to life, heal those who suffer, drive out demons, feed the hungry, etc., etc.,   It is really that simple!  When we set out to evangelize others it will be good to remember that God meets us where we are – not where others would have us be. Perhaps in that way we too we will experience a renewed understanding of what it means to evangelize.