jonathan stegall

Recently, I’ve been reading Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change.

I have also read The Secret Message of Jesus, which is meant to be read as a companion volume. If you have not read The Secret Message of Jesus, feel encouraged to click the link and pick it up, as it is on sale for $6.99 at Amazon.

In any case, as I have been reading Everything Must Change, I have found much to be challenged by, to remember, to share with others, and to allow Jesus to shape my life by. Most of the things that he presents are at least familiar to me, if not things that I’ve thought, prayed, discussed, taught, been taught, and been convicted by. Often, though, he expresses these things in ways that I have thought but not expressed, or have forgotten, or particularly in ways that bring up new implications for my life.

As an aside, there is a review of this book that Jonny Baker wrote several months ago, and it is worth reading. Jonny Baker is one of the people that is most aware of what God is doing in Western culture, and he has a brilliant mind and spirit. The post indicates that much of the thinking is already established in the U.K., although it is certainly radical in the United States. Brian McLaren has an insightful comment on the post, as well.

The strength of this book lies in the insights that it presents into what powers the world, especially America and those who are impacted by the American Empire, and in the insights that it presents into what Jesus has to say to that power. The “framing story” that Jesus offers really can and should change everything, in my life and your life and in the ways we interact with the world around us.

There are countless examples and quotations (and misquotations) floating around on the internet, and a quick search will bring up many of them. But there are a few things that have really shaken me, and inspired my imagination.

Communism, [Rene Padilla] says, specialized in distribution but failed at production. As a result, it ended up doing a great job of distributing poverty evenly. Capitalism, he says, was excellent at production but weak at distribution. As a result, it ended up rewarding the wealthy with obscene amounts of wealth while the poor suffered on in horrible degradation and indignity…

The twenty-first century began in the aftermath of the defeat of Marxism. The story of the coming century will likely be the story of whether a sustainable form of capitalism can be saved from theocapitalism [the religion-like seeking of prosperity], or whether unrestrained theocapitalism will result in such gross inequity between rich and poor that violence and counterviolence will bring civilization to a standstill, or perhaps worse.

There is an amazing amount of depth in that paragraph. and it helps introduce the “suicide machine” and its systems that this book is attempting to deconstruct. Certainly it is not an optimistic statement, but the book is constantly balancing it with statements like this:

If we believe, the decadent and self-indulgent West can be converted from overconsumers to creative stewards, from empire builders to community builders, from sex-obsessed and self-indulgent couch potatoes to people like Graciela, Luiz, and Leticia and their family - who along the way through their life, discover a magnificent vision and a sacred mission that give their lives unimagined meaning.

And this is the kind of statement that challenges everything about the way I live, and inspires my visions about the way I want to live. This is the kind of thing that makes the book a valid challenge to those of us who claim the story of Jesus.

Recently, I have been reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs. The book’s goal is to explain the unique opportunity that exists in our time: to eliminate extreme poverty in the world. Extreme poverty, in this case, is defined as the 1 billion+ people that live on less than $1 US per day.

Now. The book spends significant time looking into various problems that the poorest countries (mostly in Africa) face, from disease to geographic limitations to Western meddling and all kinds of other things. Aside from looking at the problems, it tries to look at real, practical, possible solutions.

One of the most frustrating, from an American perspective, is described like this:

The problem is the complete disconnect between the extent of the initiative [a 2002 aid program created by the Bush Administration] - $5 billion more per year by the third year - and the needs of the poor countries (on the order of $100 billion more per year between 2006-2015 to meet the Millennium Development Goals) and with the commitment of the United States to make “concrete efforts” to target 0.7 percent of GNP [the amount that has repeatedly been agreed upon as aid needed from developed nations]. The $5 billion represents less than 0.05 percent of U.S. GNP. Even more startling, not a single penny of the Millennium Challenge Account had been disbursed by late 2004.

This quote occurs in the context of a chapter that discusses the unanimous opinion that there is a link between aiding economic growth and U.S. national security. It looks into the pragmatic reasons that it is a good thing for us to give aid to help countries get out of extreme poverty.

Throughout the book, a common theme remains that United States foreign policy in the past couple of decades (both Democratic and Republican administrations) has been very good at talking about foreign aid, and very bad at doing anything about it. As defense budgets have risen, aid budgets have fallen, and it is easy to observe that we are not getting more secure.

Times like ours are contrasted with things like the Marshall Plan, in which our country realized that aiding the recovery of Europe, which included foreign aid over 1.0 percent of GNP. Leaders of our country at the time were well aware that an economically progressing Europe would lead to a more secure United States.

Many of the chapters in this book cover things that (should) evoke brokenness and compassion on the part of people in wealthy countries, and should contribute to action. The Millennium Development Goals can make and are making a difference in the world, as businesses and individuals contribute to the transformation of African villages.

But the saddening part is that governments are not contributing in any meaningful way, especially ours. Statistics and surveys show that we as American citizens believe that our government does far more for the poor in foreign countries than it does, and that we would support even more support than we think there is. It’s mind-boggling. While this is not surprising to learn, it is difficult.

As I’ve said, I have been reading unChristian, written by David Kinnaman of the Barna Group. I just finished it, and want to look at it as a whole.

First of all, I highly recommend the book. It’s worth reading, regardless of one’s situation, knowledgebase, outlook, etc. At Revolution, various people in leadership decided to read it, as we deal on an immediate and intentional basis with the opinions that outsiders to the church have of Christianity and of Christians.

The book’s audience

Second of all, once one decides to read the book it’s a really good thing to know who its audience is expected to be. It is written, mainly but not exclusively, with people that are already evangelical Christians, and most likely not part of the Mosaic or Buster generations.

With that being said, it is not really written to people who are well-acquainted with what is going on between the church and culture in our time. It has much to say to them, but much of it will be stuff that is already known.

The book’s value

I feel like people in the target audience could be shaken by this book, and that they should be shaken by this kind of information. I think it could serve as a bold call to repentance and change in the church.

However, anyone who reads it can and should get a lot out of it. There are great stories, there is great information, and there is a powerful heart being expressed. Consider the following:

We don’t please him [God] by pretending to be perfect or by taking offense at outsiders; we please him by making Jesus real to people, even those that don’t like us. This is how we start to shift way from unChristian faith. We halt our vain efforts to preserve self-image and start trying to be agents of restoration through self-sacrifice and in blessing the lives of outsiders. This is what pleases God.

This is a gripping statement, regardless of one’s current position, and for me it really helps sum up the value and the point of the book. It convicts and inspires me just as much as it should convict and inspire the pastor of a suburban, 100+ year old church.

In evangelical Christianity, there is a concept that was fairly common during the 20th century called the “Roman Road.” Essentially, a Christian who is speaking to someone (who may be) far from God will present several single verses from the book of Romans, in an attempt to show the hearer several points about God, and about him or herself. It attempts to show:

1. God’s creation as evidence
2. universal human sin
3. the death of Christ to address human sin
4. the need to believe in one’s heart, and confess with one’s mouth, the person of Jesus and his resurrection from the dead

Common usage

If the hearer assents to these things, typically the speaker will lead in “the Sinner’s Prayer,” in which the hearer will tell God about his or her new belief in the above points, and ask for forgiveness of sin.

This technique has been very common in certain denominations, and in certain methods of evangelism by those denominations, including youth ministry, door-to-door ministry, and public “street ministry.” Its effectiveness over the last century (roughly) is debatable.

Issues

There are a number of issues with trying to reach people this way, both theological and methodological. In method, obviously the main issue is that it doesn’t work very well. It depends entirely on a conversation that occurs without nuance. It depends on the hearer accepting every point in succession.

And, of course, it typically depends on a lack of relationship. Not necessarily a lack of caring, because many people who have used this method do actually care about people. But having a relationship with someone makes an actual conversation about spiritual things move in a different way. They just don’t follow that kind of process.

Theologically, it devalues the context of what is going on in Romans. Romans is an amazing book. In various times in church history when the established church has entirely lost its way, revolutionaries (Martin Luther, Karl Barth, etc.) have re-discovered Romans and the message of the immanent grace of God.

But Romans is not written to people that don’t know God. It’s not written to people that are not interested in whether he is there, or what he has to say. It’s written to people that are already following Jesus. It’s written to teach them about the nature of the God they have met.

Consider the issue that that raises. For example, if someone tries to lead me through a succession of the platforms of the Republican Party, but I’m a liberal Australian, is that going to have any relevance to me? More unfamiliar still, what if a conservative Australian wanted to explain their platforms to me? Like most Americans, I don’t even know the names of Australia’s political parties (now that I mention it, I’ll have to go look it up). People who get the Roman Road treatment probably don’t agree with our theology. They won’t care about our platforms.

I’ve been reading unChristian, which of course does look at the methods we use to communicate God to people. It recounts the effects that our methods have on people through large amounts of data. These methods include the Roman Road, as well as any number of other things, and they include the way we interact with people on a normal basis as well. These things don’t work. They come across as judgmental, shallow, and irrelevant, or worse. They make people feel that Christianity does not care about them, and that it just wants them to agree with it.

We are not known by our love, and because we are not known by our love we are missing the point.

Occasionally, things occur to me that are fairly obvious, but have never really hit me before. Today, one of those hit me.

As humans, we are much harder to please than God is. People are finicky, inconsistent, utterly strange creatures, and pleasing all of us with anything at all is entirely impossible. Pleasing even one of us on a consistent basis is incredibly difficult.

The horror of our lives is that we spend them running around in agony, desperately trying to find people who will be pleased with us, desperately trying to appease those who are not pleased with us, and then on top of it all we who believe that God’s opinions of us matter feel like we are an utter disappointment to him.

Imagine that. I spend days, from time to time, in the belief that no one is happy with me. During those days or moments, my emotional well-being is depending on a person, or people, who will probably have a different opinion of me in the next few minutes. And typically, I am one of those people who are blessed (or cursed, depending on how you look at it) with relative indifference toward the opinions and whims of people around me.

Contrast this with the ways that I can be, and already am, pleasing to God. Several months ago, I read TrueFaced, a book that contrasts our constant attempts to force ourselves to please God (which do not please him) with simple, but ruthless, trust in God (which does please him). Part of it says this:

We will never please God through our efforts to become godly. Rather, we will only please God - and become godly - when we trust God.

Really let that sink in for a minute. We will only please God when we trust him. That’s it. It’s that easy. Everything else comes from that.

There doesn’t have to be any more running around in circles between people who are angry with or disappointed in me for all kinds of different reasons. There doesn’t need to be any more constant shame at my failures to live up to the standards I place on myself. There doesn’t need to be any more legalistic bondage under which I place myself in an attempt to appease my creator.

I please him. Right now, I make Jesus happy. I trust in his acceptance and love for me, and that makes me righteous. That puts my character, right now, squarely in the process of being formed into his.

Recently, I finished reading The Wal-Mat Effect. It has been a thoroughly gripping and unique read, unlike any other business book I have ever read.

I read a decent number of business books. I enjoy a lot of the ones I read, especially the ones that really examine culture. The impact of business on culture, the impact of culture on business, ways to do business better, and so on. Many times, they are incredibly relevant to theology, ministry, and the church as well as business.

The Wal-Mat Effect does not have a surface relevance to these things. On the surface, it sets out to examine Wal-Mart and its impact. The impact that it has on business: its own business, the business of its competitors, the business of its suppliers, and the business of the rest of the world.

The reason that this is so gripping is that it reaches to the way Wal-Mart impacts me, in my shopping, my ways of spending money, my expectations of what things should cost, and the ethics and decisions of my financial life.

It seems that this is a bit dramatic, but after reading throughout the book about the scale that Wal-Mart has, and its power and influence and insistence on secrecy, it feels that the book’s impact is entirely justified. I want to recommend it.

Consider the following:

It’s time to do two things: To acknowledge in public policy terms that there is a difference between a $10 million corporation, a $100 million corporation, and a $100 billion corporation. We need to acknowledge that scale matters. And we need to start a fresh process of understanding by insisting on a level of information from megacorporations that they will vigorously resist providing. As with other shifts in corporate accountability, we can be absolutely confident that as soon as the new era of megacorporation transparency is in place, not only will we benefit, but the companies themselves will benefit.

There are many people who are aware of what this transparency, if it ever comes, will reveal about Wal-Mart. The interesting thing is that it will reveal much of the same about companies across the spectrum of large American business, from Target to Starbucks.

What I am interested to learn is whether or not this kind of knowledge will change us. Will more people make informed decisions about how, when, and why they shop? Will there be more real choices, with real differences, available to the consumer?

Craig Gross of xxxchurch.com writes The Gutter. I’ve followed his ministry for some time, and admire the places he goes and the things that are accomplished through him.

This book is a great introduction to ministry outside of the methods that are typically considered to be normal. It strikes me as though it is written to Christians who are in a comfort zone of some kind. Maybe they are Christian college students, or part of traditional churches, or whatever.

The book is designed to show some things outside of that comfort zone. There are some amazing stories and brilliant thoughts, regardless of what comfort zone a person might fit into. Everyone has a comfort zone.

There are several things that really gripped me.

Imagine what must have been going on in her mind [here, he is referring to the woman in John 8 who is brought to Jesus after being caught in adultery]. Maybe that’s a difficult request, but I’m not asking you to imagine yourself as a scantily clad adulterer. I’m asking that you think about being a person who has missed the mark, maybe for the hundredth time. Someone who has a perpetual problem with that thing that always trips them up. Not necessarily committing adultery or even having sex, but something else. Something like (this is where you fill in the blank with whatever secret sin you may or may not have, the one you never talk about. You know, that thing.)

I don’t think this necessarily expresses the depth of the situation where the woman found herself (or where many people find themselves after encounters with Christians today), nor that it is supposed to, but I think this is a brilliant way for us to engage with these kind of thoughts. To teach us to think about ourselves along those lines.

I believe that if we are ever to become people of reconciliation, we have to learn how to see ourselves differently. Much of the issue with the way Christians see the rest of the world, which I want to talk about with unChristian in the near future, is derived from how we see ourselves. So many of us see so much of the world as scum because we see ourselves as so amazing. As being better than the gutter, and better than the people in it. None of these, if one really sits down to think about it, are true at all.

With part three of This Beautiful Mess, I decided to write a post about the rest of the book by section, rather than by chapter. This is mainly because of lack of time to read while not sitting in doctor’s offices, or in front of monitors that don’t work. I mean come on, I don’t even have time to design this website.

So in part three, Rick McKinley begins to apply his ideas of the kingdom to the way it plays itself out in the world. He stands against the all-too-common idea that the kingdom of God is all about waiting around for death so we can sit around in heaven.

As a personal aside, I don’t like thinking about heaven. At various times in my life, because I’m a nerd, I have sat down to think about it. To think about a time period that never ends. I don’t like the idea. It freaks me out. In the way that quantum physics will freak you out if you sit down to think about it.

In any case, the only times that the idea of heaven really strikes me is when I have significant encounters with the presence of God. Then, I can point at something that is tangible to me and say to my self, “Self, that’s what heaven is like.” And that’s a great thing. But that’s not the kingdom of God, or at least not all of it; the kingdom of God is bringing those things into the world, and that idea is part of the core of what God is doing in our culture with things like the emerging church.

So, in this section, which is the last section of the book, there are a lot of stories about the people of Imago Dei, and the causes they are part of and the people they touch. And this is what it’s about: they are taking the relationship they have with Jesus, the knowledge they have gained of his heart, and taking it to the poor and the marginalized, and to all the hurts of creation. While being willing to sacrifice, share, and try to learn how to “strategically suffer” and learn from those who do strategically suffer in order to do so.

The part about strategic suffering is what grabbed me. One of my favorite books of all time is called The God Chasers. It spoke, and continues to speak, to me in ways that few books have. In one part, there is a discussion about the Western church, with all of our facades and selfishness and consumerism and struggles for useless political power, compared to the church in the rest of the world.

The rest of the world faces countless issues. Pain and suffering and torture and death. Some of it is caused by us in the West, and some of it is not. Even as it faces these issues, though, it is not stagnant. Culture in the two-thirds world is changing. It is moving into a post-colonial age, and parts of it are skipping the modernism that has so bogged us down in the West. This is a powerful thing for the message of Jesus, and for the power of God to move in the church.

But in that discussion in The God Chasers, there is a part where world leaders who strategically suffer for the Cross pray for us in the West.

The idea, there, is this:

They see our arrogance toward the rest of the world, our addiction to pleasure and comfort, our culture of sensuality and excess, which make it hard to fathom many of Christ’s teachings - they see these not as evidence of superiority, but of disadvantage and poverty. They mourn our deep losses and have told us that they pray for us about these very things.

They pray for us in our affluence, because in our affluence we are poor. We don’t get it. We are so busy fighting for the Constitution to fit with our theology that it doesn’t occur to us that we might gain something if we lost our power and our sense of superiority. If we learned how to suffer with others.

When I was in college, I had an English teacher that told us regularly to, “Take on the pain of the world every day.” This touches me every time I think about it, and it’s an amazing thing to try to grasp the power of that statement. To try to be changed by it.

For many years, George Barna has been one of the favorite authors quoted by evangelicals. His surveys and studies are generally regarded very highly.

In the last couple of years, he and his organization have begun to look into things like the emerging church (the general emerging church, not necessarily Emergent Village), house churches, the absolutely dismal perception that non-Christians have of Christians, and the pagan roots of much of modern Christianity. Most of these things are examined from an American perspective.

One of his organization’s recent books is called unChristian. In the near future, I’ll be reading this, and hope to write a post, or a few, about what is being said. From what I’ve heard from the book, it’s worth the urgent attention of the American church.

Of course, feel free to discuss the book, should you come across this post.

Brennan Manning is one of my favorite authors. When I was in high school, I read Ragamuffin Gospel for the first time. It changed my life. I re-read it every once in a while, teach from it, recommend it, and occasionally give it to people. It’s an amazing book. Since then, I have been amazed by this man’s words and thoughts.

Over the holiday, I was able to read Ruthless Trust, which was also written by Brennan Manning. I was lent the book some time ago, and had been unable to find the time to read it for a while.

Sometimes, when it takes me a long time to read a book it is just me being lazy. Maybe most of the time. But sometimes, I think there might be a purpose in it. This was one of those times. I needed a book like this. Right when I read it. It is another life-changing book, and it’s one that I will need to read again to really grasp the impact that its message can and should have on my life.

In essence, its message is about how a life can develop raw, authentic trust in Jesus. I was spoken to by a lot of things in this book, but I’ll provide this excerpt that especially grabbed me:

“Alas, another form of tainted trust is dishonesty with Jesus. Sometimes we harbor an unexpressed suspicion that he cannot handle all that goes on in our minds and hearts. We doubt that he can accept our hateful thoughts, cruel fantasies, and bizarre dreams. We wonder how he would deal with our primitive urges, our inflated illusions, and our exotic mental castles. The deep resistance to making ourselves so vulnerable, so naked, so totally unprotected is our implicit way of saying, ‘Jesus, I trust you, but there are limits.’”

I find it difficult to make myself vulnerable. I tend to be skeptical and cynical to a fault, and at times this extends itself to my relationship with Jesus. Things like this remind me of how important it is that I do not hide. That I examine myself, and honestly question whether I’m wearing a mask when I approach Jesus.

It’s also incredibly important that I evaluate whether I’m wearing a mask when I approach others. When followers of Jesus hide their struggles behind a mask of self-righteousness, or of hiding what is really happening, we are treating each other, and especially those who have not yet met Jesus, in a terrible way: denying them the freedom that is available to them, to become unprotected before the heart of God. We make it our message that it is not acceptable to be messed up when we come to the crucified God. That God is not interested in us unless we can wear the smiles and quote the slogans of institutional religion.

When we come to believe this, we are building walls between us and God, between us and ourselves, and between us and everyone else. Brennan Manning remains, in every book of his that I’ve read, one of the best at tearing down these walls and healing the wounds that they cause.