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Controversial author Shane Claiborne packs an old Baptist church in Pittsburgh to discuss a new book he co-authored called “Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals.”
Claiborne spent 10 weeks working with Mother Teresa in Calcutta, India, and has authored the book “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.”
Tim Challies reviewed “The Irresistible Revolution” last month.
Cedarville University created a stir by un-inviting Claiborne from a lecture he was to deliver at the school in February.
Claiborne has blogged at times at the God’s Politics blog. You can find out more information about him at The Simple Way’s website.
In defense of a threatened oak grove at the University of California, Berkeley, protesters have inhabited the endangered trees for 18 months now. They intend to forestall the construction of a multi-million dollar athletic training facility.
Not quite Simeonesque, but you have to give it to them for tenacity.
Sometimes God ordains that spectacular events take place in our lives. A large inheritance. Odd weather. A strange message. Our tendency is to receive such anomalies as endorsements from God to do a particular thing, even when God has clearly forbidden it.
For example, David and his men are sitting in the innermost parts of a cave when Saul, who is seeking David’s life, enters that very cave to relieve himself. This is a spectacular stroke of providence.
David’s men mistakenly infer from this that God is giving Saul into David’s hand. “And the men of David said to him, ‘Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, “Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you”‘” (1 Samuel 24:4).
David glides up to Saul in secret and severs a piece of his robe. His conscience immediately pierced, David says to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed” (1 Samuel 24:6).
David understood that God sending Saul into his very clutches was not a divine endorsement for assassination. He chose to interpret his spectacular circumstances through what God clearly desired, rather than interpreting them as what God clearly desired.
We would do well to follow his lead.
Mike Anderson from the Resurgence blog highlights Matt Chandler today, providing links to conference video and interviews. According to Mike, “You need to know Matt Chandler.”
Chandler is the pastor of The Village Church in Dallas, TX.
Here’s some background info on Chandler from Mike’s post:
“Before becoming a pastor, Matt was running a non-profit. One of his big donors asked him to interview for a head pastor position at a dying Baptist church. Matt had zero desire to accept the job—but even when he preached election, elder-lead government, and God’s Sovereignty to an old school baptist congregation—they still hired him! God has used Matt in incredible ways. The small church has grown to over 3,000 people in a few short years, planted several churches, and sends out swarms of missionaries.”
Nina Berman writes about the Nathan’s Famous hot-dog-eating contest at Coney Island in the July 2008 edition of National Geographic:
“I remember the strange ritual held each July 4 when men gathered around picnic tables and gorged themselves on hot dogs. Now the Nathan’s Famous hot-dog-eating contest is known worldwide, drawing groupies who cheer the victors. Six-time winner Takeru Kobayashi competed with a jaw injury last year. He ate 63 hot dogs (and buns) - and still came in second” (pg. 14).
Have you ever participated in an eating contest? If not, what would be your dream contest? I think I would go for macaroni and cheese.
Sometimes it’s easy for me to read over a shocking statement about God and not let it hit me like it ought. Take, for example, Psalm 135:7 - “He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth, who makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind from his storehouses.”
Now, the verse says that God makes lightnings for the rain. That’s easy enough to picture. Dark, rolling thunderheads crackling with veins of fire. But then I remember that lightning can cause terrific damage, even take a person’s life.
On August 21, 1776, a nighttime storm raged over the city of New York for three hours, accompanied by intense lightning. David McCullough relates the carnage:
“Houses burst into flame. Ten soldiers camped by the East River, below Fort Stirling, were killed in a single flash. In New York, a soldier hurrying through the streets was struck deaf, blind, and mute. In another part of town three officers were killed by a single thunderbolt. A later report described how the tips of their swords and coins in their pockets had been melted, their bodies turned as black as if roasted” (1776, pg. 156).
This means that if God makes lightnings for the rain, then he is also behind the life-taking effects of those bolts. “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Deuteronomy 32:39).
God roasts people. May that cause us to tremble. And then, may it drive us to ponder the sizzling rage Jesus endured in our place on the cross.
Peter tells us that the heavens and the earth that now exist are stored up for fire (2 Peter 3:7).
Some would use this to justify not caring for the earth. It’s a sinking ship, after all.
Can you think of other situations where we care for things that won’t last?
History is one of God’s kindnesses. Through reading it he allows us to rehearse our futures a thousand times over. Consider, for example, 1 Timothy 6:6-7: “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.” In one sense, I have not yet experienced the end of verse 7 (”we cannot take anything out of the world”). But in another very real sense, I have.
During the winter of 1776, British and colonial forces were at a standoff. The redcoats were cornered in Boston while the ragtag American army encircled them around the perimeter. Finally, in a surprise move in early March, George Washington ordered his troops to set up defenses under the cover of night at nearby Dorchester Heights. Seeing that the colonial army had the unexpected upper hand, the British packed up shop and sailed away, bringing a number of civilians with them who were loyal to their cause. The hasty exit forced many to leave valuable belongings behind.
A man named Reverend Henry Caner reported his losses. David McCullough tells his story in the book “1776“:
“As rector of King’s Chapel, the first Anglican church in Boston, the Reverend Caner was the leading Church of England clergyman in Massachusetts and a greatly respected figure among all denominations. He had been rector for nearly thirty years and lived alone in a small farm house close to King’s Chapel, at the corner of School and Tremont streets. In his account of ‘goods left in my house at Boston, March 10, 1776,’ he listed, among other items: ‘a handsome clock,’ two mahogany tables, teacups and saucers, ‘one rich carved mahogany desk and book case (with) glass doors,’ pictures of the King and Queen ‘under glass with rich frames,’ a pair of brass andirons [used to hold up logs in a fireplace], ‘a fine harpsichord,’ 1,000 books, a barn and ‘appurtenances,’ a cow and a calf” (pg. 100).
When I read an account like this, it puts skin on a text like 1 Timothy 6:7 and I am reminded once again to not store up for myself treasures on earth, where ships and military stealth force me to leave them behind.
The harpsichord stays, Johnathon. The harpsichord stays.
Susan Wunderink from Christianity Today interviews Tim Keller on his book “The Reason for God” and how he approaches doubts that people raise about Christianity:
“Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and cofounder of the Gospel Coalition, is behind some of the most ambitious — if not the most radical — efforts to reach urban professionals. Now he’s expanding his ministry in book form, with the publication of The Reason for God, which moved its way up to number seven on The New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.
Keller’s book tour, hosted by the Veritas Forum, has attracted 6,000 attendees to universities around the country. Many readers are saying that the book provides satisfying answers to the questions that churched and unchurched people commonly raise about Christianity. CT assistant editor Susan Wunderink sat down with Keller as he passed through Chicago.”
Here are some of the questions Keller answers:
- Are the doubts that believers face the same doubts that unbelievers face?
- Why have you avoided using arguments from intelligent design in your apologetics?
- Do you hear a lot of “I can’t believe in Christianity because I believe in science”?
- The recent Pew study talked about changing patterns of belief in America. Has that affected your apologetics ministry?
Check out the book’s website for more information, as well as a reader’s guide, study guides written by Redeemer’s pastors, and some select sermons.
Joe Carter has an insightful post today called “Six Thoughts about Jesus.” He wrote it in response to those who would ask why he doesn’t mention Jesus more often, since he runs an evangelical blog. Here is his answer:
“Over the years people have asked me why, since this is an evangelical blog, I don’t mention Jesus more often. My usual glib answer is that I prefer not to name-drop just because I’m on a first name basis with the Creator of the Universe. I also take offense at the implication [that] my sole mission as an evangelical blogger is to end every post with an altar call.
While it’s true that I don’t casually use the name of Jesus, I believe that, like Flannery O’Connor’s South, this blog is ‘Christ-haunted.’ Still, there is a time to talk about Jesus more directly. Since I think about him constantly, I often have questions, concerns, surprises, opinions, and–on rarer occasions–insights, about Christ. Here, for instance, are a few thoughts I’ve had.”
If you have time, I’d encourage you to stop over and check out his few thoughts. They are refreshingly perceptive.
Sometimes when we are in the wilderness of despair, we default to praying for a change in circumstances. New job. New roomates. New ministry. New city.
I wonder if it would be better, sometimes, to pray that God would create the miracle of refreshment within the distressing context.
In other words, rather than praying that God would transport us to the water hole, maybe we should ask God to call forth a pool in the desert.
“When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is non,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valley.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.”
Isaiah 41:17-18
My wife has been telling me about one of her favorite cartoons for some time now. It’s a 1956 Disney short called “In the Bag.” Well, last night she finally got me to watch it. I’ll admit. It’s pretty cute. It offers visual commentary on park conservation, workplace management, and survival of the fittest — all in one 7.5 minute span. Smokey the Bear even makes a guest appearance! Add to the mix suspense, peril, and a blazing swing choreography, and we’ve got a clip that’s a hit for all ages. Enjoy:
BBC News carries this report today:
“Since 2003, 64 people have been arrested for publishing their views on a blog, says the University of Washington annual report.
In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.
More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report.”
The specific offenses? “Arrested bloggers exposed corruption in government, abuse of human rights or suppression of protests. They criticised [sic] public policies and took political figures to task.”
The article ends by saying, “The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US.”
I find it amazing that twenty years ago, this article would have been virtually unintelligible. Blogging is certainly unique in that it has distributed the power of the press into the hands of the individual (at least with more accessibility than would have been possible before). However, the age-old principle is just wearing new clothes: information is an explosive commodity.
In his book “The Gospel and Personal Evangelism,” Mark Dever advocates holding together three qualities in sharing the gospel: honesty, urgency, and joy. If you leave any one of these out, you will end up promoting either a deficient message or a deficient attitude. Here is what he writes:
“…there is a certain balance that we want to strive for in our evangelism, a balance of honesty and urgency and joy. Too often we have only one, or at best, two, of these aspects rather than all three. The balance is important. These three together most appropriately represent the gospel” (pg. 55).
He adds later, “Honesty and urgency with no joy gives us a grim determination (read Philippians). Honesty and joy with no urgency gives us a carelessness about time (read 2 Peter). And urgency and joy with no honesty leads us into distorted claims about immediate benefits of the gospel (read 1 Peter)” (pg. 60).
May God make us a straight-shooting, clock-watching, winsome people.
This time of year, our neighborhood is teeming with ice cream trucks. Each one playing a different song. Each one pawning its chilly wares. I have wondered on more than one occasion how the drivers maintain their sanity. I think hearing 800 tin-can repetitions of “It’s a Small World After All” during the course of the day would just about do me in. But that’s just me.
How about you? What are some less-than-appealing jobs you have either had or heard of?
And the list is short, according to Seth Godin in a very helpful post. In fact, if it’s not a business, a house, an education, or stocks, he suggests you pay cash. The only thing I would add to Seth’s advice is to take the million dollars he projects you could accumulate over twenty years and give most of it away. After all, if you’re in Jesus, you already own everything (1 Cor. 3:21-23).
Here’s what Seth says:
“If I could only share one piece of personal finance advice to grads or to just about anyone, it would be this:
Only borrow money to pay for things that increase in value.
It’s a short list: your business, your house and your education, mostly. Stocks if you’re smarter than me. That’s pretty much it.
If you have credit card debt, you’re in big trouble. Your bank account has a huge leak in it, and it’s getting worse. Hence the urgency.
If you have credit card debt, that means that every time you spend money (even cash), you’re borrowing money to do so. And so, if you’re going out to dinner or buying a new pair of shoes, you’ve just broken the single most important rule of personal finance. You’re spending borrowed money on stuff that is decreasing in value.
This is an emergency. It’s an emergency because every single day you wait, the problem gets worse. A lot worse.
My suggestion: Go to defcon 1, and do it immediately. Shift gears to live well below your means. That means:
No restaurants
No clothes shopping
No cable TV bill
No Starbucks
It means:
Take in a tenant in your spare bedroom
Carpool to work
Skip vacation this year
Eat brown rice and beans every night for dinner. Act like you have virtually no income.
The result? You’ll save $5,000 to $20,000 a year. Send all of it to the credit card company. Do this until you’re debt free, the faster the better.
There. Now you’re rich. Now you get interest on your savings instead of paying the bank. Twenty years from now, this emergency action will translate into perhaps a million dollars in the bank, depending on how much you earn and how serious you are.
You can thank me then.”
I just finished reading George Marsden’s biography of Jonathan Edwards last night. I’ll admit, at some points it was pretty tough sledding (down a fairly long hill, too….it’s a thick book) but I am so thankful to have read it. Marsden does a masterful job of interpreting Edwards’ life in Edwards’ own terms. I found it to be very encouraging. My admiration of Edwards - shortcomings and all - is even greater than before.
Toward the end of the book, Marsden relates a study published in 1900 which compared the descendants of Edwards with the offspring of one of his corrupt contemporaries:
“The work, published in 1900, contrasted the character and intelligence of 1,200 descendants of one of his [Edwards'] most dissolute contemporaries to those of 1,400 of Edwards’ heirs. The descendants of Max Jukes, a New York Dutchman whose name the researchers changed to protect the guilty, left a legacy that included more than three hundred ‘professional paupers,’ fifty women of ill repute, seven murderers, sixty habitual thieves, and one hundred and thirty other convicted criminals.
The Edwards family, by contrast, produced scores of clergyman, thirteen presidents of institutions of higher learning, sixty-five professors, and many other persons of notable achievements” (pg. 501).
I think this contrast embraces something of what it means for God to visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children (Exodus 34:7) and to bless the generation of the upright (Psalm 112:2). This is not to say that there are no exceptions. After all, Edwards’ grandson, Aaron Burr, Jr., was the famed bad apple who killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Nor is it to say that God cannot raise up children for Abraham from the stones of a wicked ancestry.
Rather, what we ought to hear in a report like this is that we should so pray, so study, so delight in Jesus that, should God be pleased, we will breed a herd of holiness for generations to come.
Reading this story in World Magazine (June 14/21) reminded me of Abraham Piper’s tireless bout with his buck-toothed antagonists:
“Curators at a popular open-air museum in Helsinki, Finland, have asked patrons to stop feeding the squirrels. The rodents, they say, are now eating away at the display houses, barns, and cottages that make up the outdoor museum of traditional Finnish culture. ‘Squirrels run into the buildings through open doors, they nibble on the museum textiles and make holes in the walls,’ museum conservator Risto Holopainen told the AFP news service. Holopainen said the squirrels come for food handed out by people visiting the 87-building museum, but stay for gnawing on roofing tiles and other parts of the structures.” (pg. 17)
Minneapolis…Helsinki…what’s next? If someone suggested the bushy bandits were bent on worldwide domination, I wouldn’t bat an eye.
I thought it would be good today to explain why I chose the title “The Fool’s Gold” for this blog. I began the blog on April Fool’s Day, which explains part of it. Here is a fuller unfolding of the title, taken from my very first post:
“The main purpose of the Fool’s Gold blog is to promote thoughtful, winsome engagement with various facets of culture in the name of Jesus. This goal may expand or contract like a pair of lungs, but I hope the process will always be life-giving.
Why the name Fool’s Gold? I’ll give three reasons, and none of them have to do with geology or deception:
1. I’m bad with dates.
My memory is a bit like a month-old razor: sharp in some spots, but painfully dull in others. I once read an article in National Geographic about a woman with an encyclopedic memory. On any given day, while blow-drying her hair in the morning, she would rehearse what she had done on that particular day in years past.
I’m not like that.
To supplement this deficit, I figured it would be helpful to coin a title that would serve as a memory cue should anyone ever ask me the precise date I started this blog. You never know when the question might come up on Final Jeopardy. I’d hate to let Alex Trebek down. Being that today is April Fool’s day, it seemed fitting to include a portion of the phrase in the title. Fool’s Gold sounded like a better option than April Showers, so it stuck.
2. I need to be reminded to flee folly.
The Bible is stuffed with descriptions of the fool: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Proverbs 14:1 ESV). “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (Proverbs 28:26 ESV). Particularly relevant for blogging is Proverbs 18:2 (ESV): “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” I need the constant warning that, apart from God’s grace, I will reject God and prefer self-sufficient grandstanding. I hope the name Fool’s Gold will sober me to this danger.
3. I need to be reminded to pursue folly.
The message of Jesus Christ crucified is foolishness to many. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:20-25). The message of a murdered Savior is folly to the world, but it is this fool’s Gold.”
Charles Spurgeon explains that, just as a mother cannot kill her child (assuming, for the sake of argument, a virtuous mother), so a sinner cannot come to Christ unless the Spirit draws him. Listen to what he writes:
“Now, the reason why man cannot come to Christ, is not because he cannot come, so far as his body or his mere power of mind is concerned, but because his nature is so corrupt that he has neither the will nor the power to come to Christ unless drawn by the Spirit.”
He then illustrates what he means:
“You see a mother with her babe in her arms. You put a knife into her hand, and tell her to stab that babe to the heart. She replies, and very truthfully, ‘I cannot.’ Now, so far as her bodily power is concerned, she can, if she pleases; there is the knife, and there is the child. The child cannot resist, and she has quite sufficient strength in her hand immediately to stab it to its heart. But she is quite correct when she says she cannot do it. As a mere act of the mind, it is quite possible she might think of such a thing as killing the child, and yet she says she cannot think of such a thing; and she does not say falsely, for her nature as a mother forbids her doing a thing from which her soul revolts. Simply because she is that child’s parent she feels she cannot kill it.”
Justin Taylor mentioned that ChristianAudio.com is offering “Pilgrim’s Progress” as their free audiobook for the month of June. If you haven’t had a chance to download it, I would highly recommend it. It’s probably my favorite book. I downloaded it before going on a 12-hour road trip to Ohio, and listening to it again was like visiting an old friend. Unfortunately, my battery ran out after a few hours of listening, so the nostalgia was lamentably short-lived. I’m eager to continue through the story as I have opportunity.
Here are six reasons I love Pilgrim’s Progress:
1. It was written in prison.
Bunyan wrote at least the first part of the allegory while he was imprisoned in a jail in Bedford, England. It adds grit to the tale that may not have been present had he written it in his study.
2. It is doused with Scripture.
Pilgrim’s Progress is stuffed with so many Scripture citations and allusions that listening to it for a time has the effect of washing my soul in the Word.
3. Bunyan is a poet.
Here is a sample. Christian, the main character, spends the early segment of the narrative weighed down with a heavy burden until he comes to a hill where stands a cross. On seeing the cross, the burden falls off his back and rolls down into a sepulchre (tomb) at the bottom of the hill. Christian explodes in metered praise:
“Thus far did I come laden with my sin,
Nor could aught ease the grief I was in,
Till I came hither. What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?
Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me!”
4. It demonstrates that truth must not only be described, but painted.
This is one way Scripture is applied to the heart. Paul describes conversion in Romans 6 as a change in bondages and then writes, “I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations” (verse 19). Allegory is a biblically-warranted accommodation to the limitations of human nature. Bunyan employs the medium masterfully.
5. It addresses virtually every temptation a believer can face in this age.
Legalism, sloth, fear, greed, lust, despair. You name it, it’s there, and it’s described in such a way as to give backdoor pastoral counsel for the storm-tossed soul.
6. It’s older than the United States of America.
It’s good for me to get outside of my contemporary context and hear sound words from an older saint’s pen. It helps to guard me from infatuation with trendiness.
This is from a restaurant in Budapest, Hungary. Our team had a long layover here on our way to Syria about a month ago, and we figured we’d go into town and see what we could see. We stopped for dinner and before we could say “I can’t believe I’m in Budapest!” we were met with this platter of shimmering cutlery. I’m glad I had my camera, because I was tempted to let my noodles grow cold just so I could stare a little longer.
If your feeling ambitious, try this arrangement out on your next dinner guests. You may just spend the evening in silent wonder.
The winner of the June 2008 book giveaway is Amber Flindt! My wife and I are visiting family in Ohio, and I had my mom draw the winner from a ball cap. It has been a truly intergenerational event.
Here’s some info about Amber:
What do you do during the day?
During the day I’m a teacher. Today I made my colorful classroom walls white and bare. I packed some boxes bound for the Americas. I gave an ESL lesson to a Cameroonian who asked if he could kiss my hands.
What’s your favorite book?
One book I never get tired of reading is John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life.
Check back next month for another free book. Do you have any suggestions for what you would like to see offered?
**P.S.** You can check out Amber’s blog at www.lettertotheworld.wordpress.com.
This month I’m giving away a free copy of “God’s Smuggler” by Brother Andrew. I was planning to give away another copy of “Do Hard Things” but they were out at the bookstore. Anyway, “God’s Smuggler” is the autobiographical account of Brother Andrew, founder of Open Doors International, who smuggled Bibles into Communist countries during the Cold War. I referenced another version of the book in the 12 Briquettes for the Barbecue of Missions series a couple weeks ago.
Here’s how it will work. Between now and midnight tomorrow (Tuesday, June 3 Central Standard Time), send an e-mail to thefoolsgoldblog@gmail.com. In the e-mail, include your name, the name and address of your blog (if you have one), what you do during the day, and the title of one of your favorite books. I will then randomly select an entry, and e-mail the winner to ask for his or her mailing address. The winner will be announced sometime on Wednesday, June 4.
From the back of the book:
“Told it was impossible to minister behind the Iron Curtain, Andrew knew that nothing was too hard for God. Crossing ‘closed’ borders, he prayed, ‘Lord, in my luggage I have Scripture I want to take to Your children. When you were on earth, You made blind eyes see. Now, I pray, make seeing eyes blind. Do not let the guards see those things You do not want them to see.’ And they never did.”
