A Comedian Take on Religion and Jesus

I ran across John Fugelsang who gives a progressive Christian view of religion and Jesus.  I much prefer a comedian's take on issues than the more combative debate forms.

Who wouldn't want to vote for a guy who was a peaceful, radical, non-violent revolutionary; who hung around with lepers, hookers, and crooks; who never spoke English; was not an American citizen; anti-capitalism; totally anti-death penalty; anti-public prayer (Matthew 6:5); but never once anti-gay; didn't mention abortion; and was a long-haired, brown-skinned, homeless, middle-eastern, Jew?

Only in America can you be Pro-Death Penalty, Pro-War, Pro-Unmanned Drone Bombs, Pro-Nuclear Weapons, Pro-Guns, Pro-Torture, Pro-Land Mines, AND still call yourself 'Pro-Life.'

·         Loving the Second Amendment while opposing the NRA is every bit as natural as loving Jesus while opposing Westboro Baptist Church.

·    Jesus never called the poor 'lazy,' fought for tax cuts for the wealthiest Nazarenes or asked a leper for a copay.

·         People get God and religion confused. I think God is a bit too hip to join any of his unauthorized fan clubs.

·         My mother was an ex-nun, and my father was a Franciscan brother, so I grew up believing in Jesus the way anyone would believe in Mom's first husband.

·         Blaming Obama for Iraq violence is like blaming Daniel Craig because Octopussy sucked.

*     America doesn't have an abortion problem - it has an unwanted pregnancy problem, and an abortion symptom.

The Mark Noll Conference

You have heard the old adage, "Kill two birds with one stone."  I got to knock off my bucket list two dreams in one event.  I have always wanted to visit Notre Dame University and I have also always wanted to meet Mark Noll.  I went to the Mark Noll retirement Conference which was literally a whose who of Evangelical church history scholars.  I met people like Martin Marty (90 years old and was like a rock star at this event) and George Marsden and David Bebbington as well as people like Jonathon Wilson.

The most divine appointment of the whole conference for me was not meeting Mark Noll although it was a precious moment.  The divine appointment for me was to meet an Evangelical man turned Catholic I met at this conference.  His love for history, the Catholic Faith, his love for great Christian biblical scholarship, and his Christ-like humility was such a breath of fresh air for me as well as a kindred spirit. The sweet beauty of the Holy Spirit filled the air during our long conversation.

Besides, NDU wining and dining everyone making one feel like a King or Prince (Kudos for this Catholic school) but there was a very enlightening conversation and discussion on the future of evangelicalism. David Bebbington shined the brightest in this conversation but the panel of top notch Evangelical historians were all excellent.

I also heard many concerns by the younger Evangelicals that they did not like how Evangelicals were tied to politics or particularly Trump.  They were frustrated by the lack of diversity and circle the wagons approach by too many Evangelicals today while also lamenting of being tired of the political correctness and shaming and blaming of white males for every injustice in the world. 

These young Evangelicals lamented how too many older Evangelicals are still taking a one dimensional approach to the Bible as well as being too often anti-science.  Some of these young Evangelicals were asking, "Why should we stay?" which maybe reveals a greater crises among Evangelicalism than the way the media has tried to tie Evangelicals to Donald Trump.  If Evangelicals start losing some of their best and brightest among the younger generation, Evangelicalism will truly reap the whirl wind in the future.

There is a rise of atheism in America as well as many Evangelicals turning towards Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism to find spiritual renewal of their fragmented Protestant faith.  Hope on the horizon may be younger Evangelicals coming from the southern parts of the globe to evangelize the west which could possibly renew Evangelicalism for the future?  Time will tell whether there will be promise or peril for the Evangelical future?

Thank God for New Voices

There are a few younger writers, at least younger than me, that I find their books not only exceptionally clear and well thought out but provocatively challenging.  Here are my top ten:


1.  Joshua Ryan Butler The Skeletons in God's Closet and The Pursuing God. Please give us more books like these.

2.  Jonathan Storment How to Start a Riot and Bringing Heaven to Earth.

3.  Brian Zahnd Water To Wine and Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God. 

4.  Morgan Guyton How Jesus Saves the World From Us.

5.  Danielle Shroyer Original blessing and Where Jesus Prayed.

6.  Shane Claiborne The Irresistable Revolution and Executing Grace.

7.  David Zaslow Jesus the first Century Rabbi and Reimaging Exodus.

8.  Robin Meyers The Underground Church and Spiritual Defiance.

9.  Peter Hiett's book (all excellent)

10.  Michael L. Brown books

Whom should I be grateful too? We have killed God

There are texts of terror that not only make those outside shudder but those inside the church squirm as well.  What do we do with all the violent portrayals of God or God's people saying God told us to wipe out whole groups of people and to spare no one?  Where is the mercy and love in that? What ever happened to justice and morality?

Even more problematic is either "people of the book" (the Bible) who either condone violence against others (of course, never to myself, family or people I personally care about) or give biblical "rationales" why God can morally wipe out humanity (like the flood story) much less anyone God simply wants to destroy at any given moment. Doesn't the Bible call Satan or the Devil the thief who comes to rob, steal, kill and destroy.  What happens when religious devoted followers of God worship a deity who looks and acts very similar to the Devil? What is a Christian or follower of Jesus to do?

Here are a few examples to consider especially in the onslaught of so many people today either abandoning the Christian faith or making Christianity the current whipping poster boy of today's warfare rhetoric culture.

1.  Greg Boyd's books The Crucifixion of the Warrior God or his more popular reader friendly book Cross Vision deals with an early church model of Christ centered reading of the whole Bible in light of these difficult passages. Does God accommodate himself to human language and descriptions and people's cultural conditioned perspectives seems evident to many when one reads the Scriptures carefully and reflectively.

2.  There are many "massacres" in the Bible that are simply described, not prescriptively condoned by God.  Even when the Israelites think they are justified in taking severe action against there enemies, and even say they are doing God's bidding, does not necessarily mean they are always carrying out God's will.

3.  The language of total destruction is a an ancient warfare rhetoric.  We killed them all is often used as an exaggerated "hyperbole." How can it be that the Amalakites were "utterly destroyed" or the people of Canaan when they keep showing up in large groups later in the Scriptures?

4.  The Scriptures focus is on driving people out of the land rather than killing them off. People have read scriptures in such wooden and literal ways that we often miss the bigger issues the texts are trying to convey to the modern reader.

5.  Lastly, Like G. K. Chesterton used to suggest, there are many people who ways of reasoning and viewing Scripture is simply to undermine and do away with it. Atheists and secularists will often say on the one hand, how can God use violence against people in so many unjust ways.  I can't believe in a God who uses violence.  Then they will turn around and say, why doesn't God stop evil? I can't believe in a God who doesn't stop evil.  No matter what happens, God loses in every scenario. Then we apply our own inconsistent views on violence by saying the Nazi's using violence was wrong but the Allies against the Nazi's using violence was right.

Our own moral veracity comes from God or one's Judaeo-Christian ethics but we have killed God and now each of us have our own arbitrary ways of deciding who should live and who should die.  We have killed God and now there is no one to save us or deliver us from ourselves!