Vacuuming for the Kingdom

Whatever Christianity is, it is not a philosophy in the traditional sense of the word. Although Christians should be interested in ideas and truth, the Christian faith cannot be reduced to just another "idea" or "ideology". Christianity is ultimately about a community's witness to the very real and historical person of Jesus Christ. You may doubt Christ's authenticity, but you have to admit that Christianity is unique in this regard.

Practically, Christianity's concrete and non-philosophical nature can be quite frustrating. If you're anything like me, you find it easier to talk about love and justice than actually practice them. In the Christian faith, you think about love and justice... but you also have to practice them. This means you can't stay in the ivory tower. You have to come down to everyday life and exercise your faith in very practical ways.

This week, my wife and I had a guest over to our home. All day, on a theoretical level, I thought about the nature of hospitality, why Christians were called to do it and how ultimately God was hospitable with us.

But then my wife reminded me that I had to vacuum our dirty floor in order for our guest to feel welcomed. This, she reminded me, was an integral part of being hospitable.

Believe me! It was much easier for me to contemplate hospitality then to actually practice it.

Hospitality: A Sign of Contradiction

I've just begun to read a new book by Christine Pohl entitled Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Tradition.

I'm reading this book at the start of my first week as the pastoral intern at Redeemer Sugarland.

One of the things that I appreciate and admire about my friend/mentor/pastor Brad Wright is his incurable desire to cultivate community and "make room" for people in his life through the embodiment and enactment of hospitality. I would go as far to say that Brad embraces a hermeneutic of hospitality. Although he hasn't articulated this to me in these exact words, there is a sense in which he would say the best way to "read" the Christian story is (a) as a narrative in which God is opening up his Kingdom to strangers and outcasts to meet with them in communion and (b) that you can't really understand Christianity without practicing hospitality.

That said, I want to follow in Brad's footsteps. As St. Paul once wrote, I want to "seek to show hospitality".

But I don't want to be naive. I know hospitality is a form of death-to-self. It can be joyful but it is not always glamorous.

I'd like to end with this quote that really stuck out to me:

"A community which embodies hospitality to strangers is a sign of contradiction, a place where joy and pain, crises and peace are closely interwoven"

- Jean Vanier

Doctrinal Righteousness

“[Roman] Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a Protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride.”

- Herman Bavinck

Herman Bavinck is my favorite theologian. I think this is my new favorite quote.

The Dilemma of Belief in the World of Today

"Belief appears no longer as the bold but challenging leap out of the apparent all of our visible world and into the apparent void of the invisible and intangible; it looks much more like a demand to bind oneself to yesterday and to affirm it as eternally valid. "


- Pope Benedict XVI

This is is a great quote from a brilliant thinker as to why so many people today adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion. This is a difficult barrier for the minister of the gospel today.

What Hath Rome to do with Westminster?

"To be sure, the response of faith to revelation, which God grants to the creature he chooses and moves with his love, occurs in such a way that it is truly the creature that provides the response, with its own nature and its natural powers of love"

Hans Urs von Balthasar

This is a beautiful summation of the tension of God's initiating grace and our authentic response to the gospel from a brilliant Roman Catholic theologian.

your story

an open letter addressed to you

ruffled, broken, bent on the table

good news, bad news, you just don’t know

pregnant expectation attacks your stomach

the clock hand is now moving slowly


the paper in your hands is rough

the words are small

piercing your eyes with emotion

you taste excitement once again


paradise warped into wasteland

then stunned back into something beautiful

freedom strangled by the heat of idolatry

beauty, justice, relationships

the vandalization of shalom; the triumph of grace

from a garden-park to a holy city

This is your story

Pneumatological Compassion and Mindfulness

Lately, I've been listening to podcasts of Krista Tippet's Speaking of Faith (American Public Media) on my iPod. This is a very stimulating and engaging forum of religious discussion. 

As a religious studies minor, and a lover of ideas, I want to stay in touch with all the "current" religious movements even after I leave the University. 

As an amateur follower of Francis Schaeffer, I really want to learn how to authentically listen to those of different faiths. As a Presbyterian, I am very good at destructing arguments and immediately pointing out when someone has gone theologically astray.  I do a poor job highlighting the beauty and truth (even if it is a partial truth) of other world religions. 

One of Krista's guests was Karen Armstrong. Armstrong considers herself a "freelance Monotheist". Armstrong is a Monotheist drawing from the various resources of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. When asked how these three religions could coexist, she pointed to the theological virtue of compassion. She believes that compassion is the one thread that runs through these three "historical" faiths that prohibits them from blowing each other apart. She concluded her interview by stating that compassion is the greatest of all religious impulses. 

Krista Tippet has also interviewed Thich Nhat Hanh.  Hanh is a world renowned Zen master. He has had a countless influence on many people (including Martin Luther King). For Hanh, the greatest religious impluse is "mindfulness". Mindfulness for Hanh is a calm and melodic "being in the moment". He believes that if different religious leaders would take the time to understand the sufferings of the "other" and practice mindfulness, we would see far more peace in the world. 

As a Christian, I believe compassion and mindfulness are indispensable. While I appreciate Armstrong's and Hanh's insights, I have to disagree with them on an important level. Throughout their entire conversations about compassion and mindfulness, they never mentioned God or even an "outside force" that could help cultivate compassion or mindfulness 

in human beings. This is really one of the reasons why I am a Christian. Most (if not all other religions) have beautiful ideals and ethical standards that I (on one level or another) am attracted to. My problem is that I can't muster enough will power or "calmness" to produce these religious impulses. 

My Christian faith stems from my desperateness and utter dependance. It is only in the Christian tradition that you have an outside personal force (the Holy Spirit) breeding these religious impulses in ones heart. I'm too anxious to be mindful . I'm too selfish to be compassionate. But I believe in a pneumatological mindfulness and compassion. It is the Holy Spirit that moves in us to cultivate a desire to sit still (mindfulness) and authentically listen to the "other" (compassion). I think this is why Christianity has never called these virtues impulses. They aren't a result of our spontaniety. Instead they are fruit. They can only grow when we are rooted in Christ and empowerd by his Spirit.