Migration

WordPress is beginning to feel dated, stale, and doesn’t reflect where I’d like to move in my online content publishing. At the risk of alienating you, my wonderful reader, I am moving my new content to a new location on Tumblr.

There, not only will you get the occasional musing about spirituality, but some other (and therefore more frequent) content, including:
– Tweets
– Photos
– Videos
– Spiritual thoughts
– Movie reviews
– Video game reviews
– Music reviews
– Audio posts
– Other content when the whim hits

No, it really isn’t that this blog is a failure at all. I am approaching 9,000 views, had 24 yesterday, and can’t seem to understand why. But alas, my blog, I say goodbye.

http://bradmeyerlive.tumblr.com

Mental Racism

Humans seem to have a hidden inclination to attempt to exclude others. I suspect that it has to do with insecurity, but have no way of proving it. Disregardless of how this insecurity plays out, the primary way of covering it up is to seek ways to have others esteem the self.

One of the easiest ways people seem to find to create this esteem is through racism. We often believe racism plays out in profoundly external ways, which is very true. History is riddled with icons and images that have become images that remind us of racism.

Ku Klux Klan

Jackie Robinson

Dr. Martin Luther King Junior

So we proclaim that since we aren’t as bad as those who fought for or against those in these conflicts, we must be on the right side of this issue. Racism is an issue that is alive and well today, but I think its battlefield has shifted in some ways.

America is known as the “melting pot,” which means people from other cultures and countries are welcomed here. Given this status as a nation with openness towards others, it is remarkable to me that we still have racism exist not so much in overt actions or words, but in our thoughts. Consider these scenarios:

• A person sees a Caucasian (white) person and thinks, “white rich snob” or “I’ll bet he hates me for my skin color”
• Person sees an African-American (black) person and thinks, “I’ll bet he’s a drug dealer” or “He probably has an STD.”
• Person sees a Hispanic (Latino) and thinks, “He probably isn’t legal” or “I’ll bet he doesn’t have a job.”

This scenario can be played out in a variety of ways and including ethnicities I did not list. The truth is, these sort of generalized thoughts and statements about people are racism. It is judging a person not by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin.

Friends, let us work together to do away with this awful practice. It often goes by a different name.

Prejudice.

Church History

Yesterday, I completed a rather lengthy survey of church history from the Apostles to the 1900s. I wrote a curriculum for teaching the basics of church history to teenagers over 7 one hour classes. Having completed this textbook, I have many observations about what I don’t know about Christianity.

1) I know very little about centuries of the church, namely in the Middle Ages. I went into the study of the period between Constantine (4th century) and Luther (16th century) expecting to find a nugget here and a story there. Something inside should have sounded alarms when 1200 years, or over 30 generations of people sat nestled in this period. The truth is, there are many people within this time period who contributed fascinating thought and effort to ensure a genuine faith arrived here for me. Chief among those who interested me were:

• Peter Waldo – 12th-13th century reformer who was excommunicated for his beliefs. Had he been born 300 years later, we would lump him with Calvin & Luther.
• Pope Gregory VII – monk who reluctantly became pope and ushered in many ideas and traditions that formed Christianity more than most would imagine

2) The Church is much bigger than I imagined. Having been more thoroughly introduced to the concept of the Greek Orthodox Church, its history, and its focus, I am floored that an entire worldview about Christianity exists without my knowledge. Whether or not its use of icons, the iconclast controversy, and the veneration of worship spaces is legitimate is not the point. Our American eyes present us with a lens than causes us to read and relate to the Hebrew and Greek Testaments in certain ways. For those in the Eastern/Orthodox Churches, the lenses are very different. Perhaps embracing a more global worldview isn’t such a bad idea. They definitely knew/know how to build a building.

3) Catholicism, while imperfect, has many elements today’s Protestant expressions are missing. There is something powerful about being able to convene a council of global church leaders to make a decision to thwart a heresy. As a result of schisms, protests, church splits, and more, we don’t have 1 pope – we have millions of popes (and a laity who progressively believe they are popes as well). It is unhealthy to assume we are all an authority about a faith with such a rich and critical heritage. At some point, to decrease the effects of the plethora of heresies floating around, some measure of authority or unity of authorities would do us a lot of good.

4) The Inquisition was worse than I thought. For those not up on this, the Inquisition was the Church’s response to heresies or those who refused to convert to Christianity. The sentence for the trials was eventually execution, a black eye for our history, to say the least. Its ugly twin, the Crusades, was also awful. The desire to execute Jews, Muslims, and even other Christians to politically take land is what I would call a great adventure in missing the point.

5) 19th Century theology was vast. I have been scarcely introduced to high criticism of Biblical text, though I am certain I will learn much about it. I will spare you the details about this, but just know that there is much more to the Holy Text than meets the eye.

The Cycle of Revolution

There is a cycle that takes place when major shifts in individuals,  systems, and cultures are realized. The cycle appears to be universal, though its expression varies greatly by those involved and the terms of the upheaval. It is not always completed, though it appears that it eventually will happen. This is a mere postulation to consider.

Phase One: Rebirth
In this phase, a new reality has emerged. Most are pleased with its arrival, as it trumpets the end of a previously experienced system. Not all are thrilled with the change, but at this phase in the cycle, their attempts to shift the change are mere exercises in vanity. The new reality is present and active.

Phase Two: Routine
The full experience of the new reality has arrived, complete with all its good and bad. It is presumed to be normal and the way things should be. There are few if any critics, as the system is still new enough for little irritation to exist.

Phase Three: Rumblings
The few perceptive begin to realize the flaws in the routine. These are those with imagination, who are looking for more than good enough. These are the avant garde, but they are rarely those who express their awakening through prose. Rather, these are often the poets, artists, and prophets who first express themselves through the language of slant. As Emily Dickinson penned:

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

So the artists imagine a world with the mold on the walls of the status quo washed away, leaving a refreshing new system of creativity. These on the bleeding edge of society must find ways to awaken a spirit of energy in the masses that cuts their numbness with the blade of improvement. Satiation begins to be realized by the masses who had indulged in the cup of the realized consciousness.

Phase Four: Rebellion
Having been awaken by the artists, a rumbling of uneasiness begins to spill over. Dry bones connect. Sand castles are washed away. Red Seas are crossed. Speeches of dreams are uttered. The masses become pregnant with promise. Marches of frustration begin. Defiance is the new cool. Voices get louder. Violence may erupt as fear of never tasting change begins to become overbearing. The anthems of the artists are hoisted onto the tips of everyone’s tongues as the masses are awakened to the reality of a new imagination.

Meanwhile,  not everyone is blowing with the winds of change.

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who would profit by the old order, only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new. — Machiavelli

Every Revolution has enemies who have no desire to see their empire of reality crumble. From the very birth of rumblings by the poets, they have done all they can to hush and silence the dissenting opinions through threats, negotiation, and violence. Now that the artists’ message has become effective, its adherents are enemies of the status quo. Soldiers are summoned. Prisons are filled. The sword is raised to threaten the masses to succumb to the fist of power the masses previously granted them.

Many lower their voices or quit what appears to be a mere rebellion. This the breaking point for the movement. Have they been awakened enough to ignore the royal scepter of the king, or will they settle back into the routine that they had so despised?

Phase Five: Revolution
Rebellion is not enough, for the people have imagined the fruit of their labor and believe the opportunity cost is too great to nestle back into the system their kings demand. Uncertainty is the tone of the movement as they officially storm the status quo and dismantle it. The artists who led to their awakening are met with a choice: become the leaders of the new order or fade into obscurity. The gatekeepers of the previous era are in shambles: some on trial, some imprisoned, some hanging from a noose in the town square, some assimilating, some grabbing for a piece of the new fruit under the guise of joining in with the new system, and few still uttering accusations that the new order is illegitimate. The rebirth has happened. And the cycle begins again.

Thanks to Walter Brueggemann for the inspiration, and the thousands of artists who are awakening the masses to the reality of Caesar’s system.

Sandcastles

A popular children’s church rhyme trains kids to recite the basic details of a parable of Jesus with stanzas declaring:

The wise man built his house upon a rock (3x)
And the rain came tumbling down

The rains came down and the floods came up (3x)
And the wise man’s house stood firm

The foolish man built his house upon the sand (3x)
And the rain came tumbling down

And the foolish man’s house went crash!

So we quaintly say that the rock is the Bible and the sand is when we don’t base our lives on the Bible. This is easy and makes us feel safe, but is this really what this means? The context of the verse in Matthew 7 might indicate otherwise:

²¹ “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. ²² On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ ²³ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’ ²⁴ “Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

As Christians, it is really easy to conclude that a person who has the most robust ministry, largest attendance, biggest crowds, most infamous miracles, most exciting delivery, and best expressions of spiritual gifts must be the person who knows God the best. This the person who has the strongest foundation. After all: why would God bless his or her ministry if they didn’t?

This notion, according to Jesus, is flawed. Instead, it is little more than a sandcastle, constructed of a substance that can easily be exposed or damaged.

It is the business of kings to convince us that their sandcastles will last forever. It is the business of prophets to introduce sandcastles to their biggest enemies: oceans of reality.

The reality is that Christians who devote their lives entirely to spritiual gifts are spending their lives chasing fruit. While fruit tastes good to others and can look delicious, fruit is not an end unto itself. Rather, fruit is intended to come as a result of constructing a more sure foundation for the house we are building.

It is easy to continue to build our sandcastles, impressing the multitudes that the beach is the safest place to dwell. Worse yet, we can fall into the trap of manipulating others to come dwell in the sandcastles as if we are not only good craftsmen, but shepherds. The person who delivers such promises faces three judgments for this herding:

1. The tree that bears this fruit will be chopped down (Matthew 7:19)
2. On judgment day, despite reminiscing about their many miracles, they will be told that Christ never knew them (Matthew 7:23)
3. Their sandcastle will crumble with a crash (Matthew 7:27)

Christians must first have a relationship with God. Not an objective relationship where they know of God, but a relationship that affects us. Christians who presume to understand God’s preferences, but have never been stunned by his preferences, are in danger of expanding a mansion with numerous bedrooms that will crumble when a wave of reality washes it away.

Formation by Worship

Church services across the world, as well as across history, take different forms. Some are flowered with large doses of shouting and dancing, while others are characterized more by a solemn atmosphere and are intentionally contemplative. At the same time, some of the most formative parts of church services are what those in the audience are invited to say out loud.

Some traditions have utilized a call-and-response format to have everyone participate in liturgies. Many Protestant churches (mine included) follow a format with particular speakers one-at-a-time, while the attenders will speak primarily when they are singing songs of worship. If this is the case, the words we sing are critical, as they are to be the declarations of the values and pursuits of the community.

While I cannot attest to being a worship leader, I believe that the messages of the songs worship leaders select are possibly more formative for members of a church than the message that is verbally spoken. People in this culture of illiteracy tend to remember the arts much easier than they remember a spoken or written word. Singing involves more senses for the lazy who opt not to study or memorize, and thus, it is more likely to form a person’s pattern of thinking much faster.

Need proof? We speak often of the phenomenon of a song getting “stuck in our heads,” or “ear worms” as researches call them. This isn’t just an odd thing – researchers at Dartmouth University have published incredible findings about this. Songs are trigger a part of the brian called the “auditory cortex.” Dartmouth learned:

When they played part of a familiar song to research subjects, the participants’ auditory cortex automatically filled in the rest — in other words, their brains kept “singing” long after the song had ended.

Certain songs get stuck in people’s heads for different reasons, though the primary reason, according to many researchers, is that the song contains thoughts that our brain is trying to suppress, but is unable to shut down. The melodies, rhythms, and meanings continue to play like a skipping record.

For the worship leader, the ability to have the themes of the Kingdom of God etched in the brains of worshippers can be incredibly formative. Couple this with something even more incredible: Those in the service aren’t just hearing the songs – they are also (presumably) singing them, as well. The use of multiple senses at once is a slam dunk way to cause a person to remember something more and to be formed by it much faster.

It is for these reasons that worship leaders must choose their themes very carefully (as, thankfully, ours do). Music (and perhaps video) has replaced literature as the dominant way our culture is formed. We must harness this fact in order to present an alternative culture for Christians to engage to reform God’s good world into what He had in mind from its foundation.

Agnosticism’s Questions

I have a lot of grace for those who are agnostic, that is, unable to commit to believing in a god. There are rational reasons to believe that life doesn’t amount to much other than life, itself. People are born, they live lives with more questions than answers, and they die. Some die of incurable diseases, some of old age, and some in wars that ultimately cause more problems than they fix. In the midst of humanity’s suffering and pain, how can there be something more spiritual than physical?

It doesn’t help that America’s de facto religion, Christianity, isn’t always as loving as advertised. Why would an agnostic look for answers to questions from people who claim to know everything? By nature, agnostics want people to not understand everything.

Fortunately, some Christians attempt to live lives that don’t default to this life of contradiction. Some even go so far as to attempt to respectfully find answers to some of these questions, in branches of Christian thinking like theodicy. The truth is, not all of the agnostic’s questions have flawless answers. Even more revealing is the truth that not all Christians’ questions have flawless answers. In fact, sometimes we have more questions having bought into the Bible’s life-narrative than one might expect.

Christians have answers to questions most questioners fail to ever question. In fact, the Bible takes time in what historians say is the very first portion written to introduce some of these questions. They are delivered by a man named איוב (Job) who was truly having the worst day of his life. In the midst of going crazy, he begins shouting questions about the injustice to God. In a surprising twist, a tornado shows up and begins asking Job questions. The Bible says God was highly involved in the tornadic activity and asked Job questions only God could probably answer like:

• Who set up systems of measure?
• Does rain have an origin?
• Who put the ability to have wisdom in minds?
• An ostrich has wings that she waves proudly, even though they have no purpose
• How do horses prance so powerfully?
• How did hawks first learn to fly?

The questions seemed endless. Perhaps we can think of some more.

• How is the sun exactly the right distance from Earth?
• Humans are self-aware but other animals are not. How?
• Dogs seem to naturally desire to serve humans
• The human blood stream is a very long and complex system
• Lightning is extremely amazing to watch
• The hummingbird’s wings are amazingly fast – its as if he can hover in place effortlessly

It is very difficult to consider all these intricate systems of color and sound and order without asking the question, “How?”

I would respectfully offer my answer – the Christian God is the God of wonders.

Lamentations

I recently listened to a speaker take several hours to relate how the book of Lamentations relates to everyday life today (this one message, for example). I could not help but nod my head at many points, but shake my head in dismay at others. Let’s be honest: Americans have lost the ability to grieve and weep. Let’s be more honest: We don’t usually like it when people grieve and weep.

Rembrant - Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

Tradition says that several hundred years before the birth of Christ, a prophet named Jeremiah nestled into a cave to spend time alone. There, “The Weeping Prophet” spent an agonizing time sobbing with pen in hand, writing poetry to attempt to make sense of a disaster of earth-shattering and life-altering proportions. He begins:

Oh, oh, oh… How empty the city, once teeming with people.
A widow, this city, once in the front rank of nations,
once queen of the ball, she’s now a drudge in the kitchen.

And later:

Jerusalem remembers the day she lost everything,
when her people fell into enemy hands, and not a soul there to help.
Enemies looked on and laughed, laughed at her helpless silence.

Jerusalem, who outsinned the whole world, is an outcast.
All who admired her despise her now that they see beneath the surface.
Miserable, she groans and turns away in shame.

Jeremiah had easily one of the most difficult ministries of any person in history. He recognized a series of sins and faults of Israel and with groaning, put words to it.

Elsewhere in Scripture, we see other instances of people weeping and expressing their grief in outward ways. Ezra ripped his clothes. Jesus wept. Job went on a verbal tirade, then witnessed God, Himself, go on one of his own. Jeremiah’s entire book has several gut-wrenching prayers and muses about things not going well. Most of the lesser known books of prophecy are that way.

Fluoxetine, aka Prozac, aka Happy Pills

Americans have an addiction to happiness and entertainment, myself included. We must constantly have something to push, watch, or hear. Most Americans would rather take a happy pill to make them happy for the rest of their lives than know how to deal with human feelings. This makes for very productive lives, but lives of suppressed feelings. People can go decades without grieving major life changes like injuries, deaths, and shattered dreams without allowing their emotions to have their time to settle. Its much easier to watch a movie with someone grieving than to grieve ourselves.

What’s more damaging is our inability to help others to grieve. There is nothing worse than having someone there to listen to us grieve something that cannot be fixed, but they keep saying that “everything will be okay” or try to “fix it.“ I’m not going through anything right now, but if I were, that’d be the last thing I’d want to hear.

In a person’s darkest hour what they need more than answers is someone to help ask the questions. A person who will sit in silence and not feel the need to “move things along.” A person who promises to bring dinner every day to ease things. A person to babysit the kids. A friend who will cry, too. Weeping is not for girls – weeping is for humans.

When we encounter someone else in their darkest hour, we should shut off our cell phones, toss our watches, and pull up a chair. Jeremiah’s laments would have been a whole lot easier if it were a cave for two.

When we encounter the worst day of our lives, we should not be afraid to spend time alone sobbing. Its okay to ask a lot of questions and not have a lot of answers. Its okay to protest injustices. But we must remain steadfast with our convictions that God is a good God, who knows what it is to suffer both as a human and having created humans who derailed His plans through sin. God is acquainted with grief, for He has suffered.

Need a way to open up to God? Try brutal honesty – He likes it.

Pledge of Allegiance

Perusing some friends Facebook profiles, I am happy to say that I have friends on both extremes of the political spectrum. The truth is, there is room for gray areas more than the most outspoken critics liberals and conservatives are willing to declare. Disregardless of one’s political opinions, there are significant problems with the viewpoint most Christians employ when describing their allegiances. Derek Webb’s “King and a Kingdom” assists with this issue:

The truth is, I am both an American and a member of God’s Kingdom. I am not an American Christian, I am an American and and a Christian. The difference in one conjunction is massive, as my first allegiance is not to patriotism, stars and stripes, a Constitution, or elected officials. This system of government, however dazzling its foundation may or not be, is secondary.

By opting to be a Christian first, my ethics, political opinions, and viewpoints of current events should be subjected to the ethics, opinions, and viewpoints presented by the Church and Scripture. I am not a Republican, a Democrat, a Whig, a Reformer, a Libertarian, or any other flavor of platform. These each have platforms that, while each including some measure of truth, are not the expressed opinion of Christendom. Liberalism and conservativism are not necessary (though are not sin) for the Christian. These are both worldviews just as much as Christianity is a worldview, and therefore, are not necessarily a requirement to be a Christian. It is acceptable to study Scripture thoroughly and have views that are the same as another worldview, but any resemblance to a particular party or worldview are a coincidence.

Many Christians find their worldviews by following various entities, but border on making these their Gospel. Radio personalities like Hannity, Limbaugh, and Maddow should not be our only source of truth. Television entertainers such as O’Reilly, Cooper, and Olbermann can be consulted for opinions, but are not to be viewed as truth. Bloggers such as Huffington, American Thinker, or Savage are entities that, if they are not primarily pushing God’s Kingdom instead of a particular worldview, are not our only source of truth. Politicians such as Obama, McCain, Pelosi, Palin, and Gingrich will never be the saviors, gatekeepers, or builders of God’s Kingdom regardless of their rhetoric. Most of them are running for re-election more than their beliefs, anyways.

The ethics of the Kingdom are often in direct opposition to what we initially want them to be. We are conditioned from birth to have a certain worldview about economics, war, and other areas by our environment. This conditioning makes it difficult to truly allow God’s ethics to penetrate what we believe to be truth. Issues like torture, privacy, pregancy, are all subject to the Kingdom of God (though with room for gray in a lot of situations).

America is not the Kingdom of God. In fact, 96% of God’s good Earth is comprised of non-Americans. God is building a global Kingdom of people whose allegiance is not to Britain, Israel, Palestine, Russia, Brazil or America. This nation, this Jesus nation, wants to restore God’s creation to its original goodness, from people to planet. And my first allegiance is to this Kingdom, now and forever.

Deicide

The April 1966 edition of Time Magazine lives in infamy for its bold title: Is God Dead? The cover is on many lists of the best magazine covers of all-time, and for good reason. It pulls at the heartstrings of many and forces us to ask questions we’d rather not ask.

The truth is, at one point, He was. Dead.

It is hard to fathom just how twisted humanity must be to assassinate God, Himself. To think ourselves self-sufficient enough to eradicate the very God that gave breath to our lungs was the pinnacle of the pride of mankind being exposed in the most grotesque of displays.

Deity sprawled across a wooden beam as humanity challenges Him by mockingly saying God couldn’t even save Himself.

An ancient portion of the Jewish text called the Torah had a portion that read:

לֹא־תָלִין נִבְלָתֹו עַל־הָעֵץ כִּֽי־קָבֹור

תִּקְבְּרֶנּוּ בַּיֹּום הַהוּא כִּֽי־קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים

תָּלוּי וְלֹא תְטַמֵּא אֶת־אַדְמָתְךָ אֲשֶׁר יְהוָה

אֱלֹהֶיךָ נֹתֵן לְךָ נַחֲלָֽה׃ ס

Ever so haunting are those letters. God’s own law used against Him by humanity, so that every person who is placed across a tree is cursed.

Make no mistake about it. Jesus was executed for political purposes. The idea that the Jews might have a new emperor was threatening to Romans. But the Jews were more haunted by the idea that a Messiah wouldn’t wipe out the Romans to set-up a political Kingdom so they could get revenge. They couldn’t wrap their mind around God not being their flavor of perfect. The Messiah they had spent years inventing wasn’t real.

God, Himself, had killed their idea of God, Himself.

It seemed an injustice and a fraud for this mere Nazarene born in rural Bethlehem to allow people to call Him King of the Jews. This wasn’t the king they’d craved. He had just let them beat Him with no measure of retaliation – what kind of a King does that?

God had a funeral. He was given burial spices even as a newborn. He was placed in a tomb with a boulder to seal to entryway. A soldier of the occupying political regime was placed before the tomb. They said it was to guard the tomb, but perhaps the imagery was the greater intention. The Romans had conquered another potential insurrection by slaughtering an innocent. Once again, the Pax Romana (Peace of Rome) remained. Peace through death. Yet another successful crucifixion.

The light of the world – blown out like a candle.