The Church's One Foundation

This year--appropriately on Pentecost--marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Barmen Declaration, a document drafted by theologian Karl Barth and adopted by the Confessing Churches of Germany in 1934 as a confrontation of accommodationist religion and totalitarian government in fledgling Nazi Germany. The document is short and inextricably linked to the details of the day, but it's nonetheless been embraced worldwide as a historic confessional statement, rightly establishing where the church's source of strength solely lies and the boundaries that God has ordained for human government. Here's an excerpt of this brief statement:

The Church of pardoned sinners . . . has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience, with its message as with its order, that it is solely his property, and that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction in the expectation of his appearance.

To a government and cultural movement that desired to be as totalizing in its worldview as it was in its claims to power, the confessing churches of Germany appropriately shouted "Nein!" We are not the property of governments even of our own making; we are children of the God who made us, and we're to live and move and have our being as such. It begs the question, Who needs to hear this from me today? Where do I need to testify this today?

Echoes in the Sound of Static

Over Memorial Day weekend I helped staff a retreat for the high school students at my church. I've gotten to know several of them over the years, helping at junior high retreats or serving as a confirmation sponsor, that sort of thing. This retreat was somewhat accidental--for the youth director, a last-minute need for an extra adult male (and I am nothing if not extra adult), and for me, a weekend with no fixed plans. So Friday evening I found myself driving four teenagers from the western suburbs of Chicago to southwestern Illinois, with a front-seat view of cultural shifts happening right under our ears.

There was a time--I remember it--when part of the adventure of a road trip was finding something to listen to. You'd rock out to your favorite radio station till you got too far from home, then you'd scan frequencies, listening for something good. Along the way you'd learn bits and pieces about the region you were driving through: radio stations along the Canadian border report weather conditions in degrees Celsius, not Fahrenheit; the deep South has lots and lots of radio preachers; Iowa likes classic rock; and so on and so forth. Of course, you might have thought ahead and brought along your favorite CDs or cassettes or 8-tracks, but those were often last resorts. You were on a trek, both literally and sonically.

That time has come and gone. Having embraced the insights of Andy Crouch's <a href="Culture'>http://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/book.pl/code=3394">Culture Making,</a> I often look at an iPod and see a cultural artifact. Among the many things that the shift in music culture from physical product to data file management makes impossible, or at least more difficult, is the end of the aural pilgrimage--that parallel auditory tourism described above that accompanied road trips of yesteryear. There was a time (I remember it) when a carload of travelers would scan the airwaves, looking for a coherent frequency broadcasting something intelligible to sing along to or be edified by. That time has come and gone. Now we hit the road searching for static.

We search for static because with supplemental technology the iPod can broadcast onto unused airwaves. Even this technology is slightly outdated, actually; my carload of kids was devastated to learn that I didn't have a USB port to plug their All American Rejects/Nickelback/Anberlin/Black Eyed Peas playlists directly into my car's sound system. Fortunately for them, one kid was used to such archaisms as a 2002 Hyundai Elantra GT; he had brought a port with him, which we plugged into the cigarette lighter. A quick scan for sufficient static, and all of a sudden: "Boom Boom Pow."

I am--how can I put this?--not a Black Eyed Peas fan, and one of the kids in my car failed his weekend challenge to convince me that Nickelback has talent. I, incidentally, had a carful of my own CDs, and it was my car, after all; but after playing one song from my archives I was unceremoniously evicted from the DJ's seat.

I suspect there's something developmental about musical taste; some day far into the future one or more of these kids will probably be muttering under their breath about the cookie-cutter noise that the adolescents in their lives are making them suffer through, about how these audio androids could stand a little exposure to the artistry of songs like "Peanut Butter Jelly Time." I think about that and laugh a little. But I hope I'm wrong; not about their musical comeuppance but about the death of the road trip listening tour. You don't necessarily find great rewards as you search unfamiliar airwaves, but there's reward in the searching, I think. And in any case, there's something sort of pathetically postmodern about searching for static. I'll bet a radio preacher somewhere in the South is yelling about it right now.

I'm Not Overreacting!!?!!

The swine flu--pardon me, H1N1 flu--buzz reminded me of a tendency we seem to have in America: overreaction. In other words, it doesn't take much for panic to set in. Now I realize that people did die from swine flu, and I'm not in any way making light of that. My heart goes out to families who lost loved ones to the infection. However, the very, very large majority of the America public was never in danger of dying from it. Every day on the news for about a week or a week-and-a-half, though, swine flu was the top story, with new statistics, updates about school closings and reopenings, and opinions from medical doctors who didn't know any more about it than anyone else did. Mostly, they just told us to wash our hands.

That did not do much to assuage people's fear or stop our sometimes hypochondriatic imaginations, however. If I cough twice, we wonder, should I go to the emergency room? No, the "experts" would say. Watch for multiple flu symptoms--and wash your hands. Should we stop eating eggs, in case there were also pigs on the farm where the chickens were raised? Well, no, that's most likely not necessary. Just wash your hands. Should I disinfect my whole house every day when my child gets home from school? You can--but you don't need to. Just wash their hands, and yours.

It's not just illnesses, though; we overreact to plenty of other things as well. A report comes out that pomegranates are good for us, for example, so we put them in everything: salad dressing, tea, juice, yogurt, body wash (in case our skin cells can absorb their goodness). We don't like how we're treated, so we sue. Our sports team loses--or even wins--the championship game, and we riot.

I don't mean to blame America. To some extent, overreaction might just be part of being human. It's certainly been happening for a long time. Jesus' disciples, for one, were not immune to it. Case in point: When a Samaritan town didn't welcome Jesus, James and John ask, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" (Luke 9:54). Luke writes that Jesus "turned and rebuked them," and then they all moved on to another town. I was thinking of this passage during the swine flu hysteria, and feeling grateful that people couldn't just call down fire from heaven. If we could, there would perhaps be no pigs left on earth--and maybe just a big ashy crater where Mexico used to be.

In any situation, there are multiple ways to respond. Luke's story about James and John gives us a sharp picture of that: Jesus is unfazed by the Samaritans' response to him, but James and John want to call down fire from heaven and destroy them. Would they have, if Jesus hadn't been there to stop them? We don't know. But it's likely that, at some point--probably while the village was still smoldering--they would have realized they chose the wrong response. Oops.

Responding well to something is hard; it takes discernment. It doesn't mean we never react strongly to things, of course. Jesus did that often. The difference was that he knew when strong reactions were appropriate and necessary; he knew who to react strongly to, and when the timing was right to do it. Take the Pharisees, for example. He called them some pretty strong names. But he wasn't overreacting, because his reaction was appropriate to the situation. Knowing their hearts, he called out their hypocrisy, their pride, their refusal to do justice. He was confronting in them what tears his kingdom down instead of builds it up.

He reacted strongly to positive things as well. In Matthew 8, a centurion's faith in Jesus' power to heal his servant from a distance leaves Jesus "astonished." He also praises a widow for offering her last two coins at the temple, and a sinful woman for anointing him with expensive perfume.

It seems to me that Jesus reacted strongly to two types of things: what destroyed his kingdom and what built it up--to pride and dishonesty and injustice on the one hand, and faith, justice and sacrifice on the other. His responses, then, can help us know what's most important--what's worthy of a strong reaction. I think overreaction comes when we react strongly to something that isn't worthy of a strong response. Like, perhaps, swine flu. Should we take precautions? Absolutely. Wash your hands. But should we fear for our lives? Probably not. Dwelling on it too much will most likely only increase our fear and tempt us to try to take control of the situation somehow, instead of focusing our energy and thoughts on trusting God more deeply in the situation.

As Jesus' followers, we look to him to show us what's worthy of our response. Sin--other people's and our own--is one thing worthy of a reaction; it's serious, and deserves a serious response. Though we can't judge hearts and are not to condemn people, it's entirely appropriate to express anger over injustices like sex-trafficking and to weep and wail over death caused by gang violence, or over our own hardheartedness that has kept us from reconciling with a family member. Jesus confronted the Pharisees directly; we take our anger at sin to him, trusting him to one day make things right, knowing he hates sin too, and listening for how he wants us to respond. In this way, we react strongly yet appropriately, without overreacting. Moreover, when we do feel led to confront someone else's sin, we're able to do so with humility and grace and truth, as a friend angry at how the sin is hurting the other person and as a guide who can point the person back to the abundant life that's free from sin's grip.

And then, on the flip side, we're to celebrate and point out examples of deep faith, love, compassion and justice. These are the things should make our eyes light up, the things that are to astonish us, more than new technology or high scores in video games or incredible plot twists in our favorite television series.

I suspect that, when we focus on the truly important things, pomegranates--while still good and healthy and wholesome--will lessen in significance. I also suspect that, as others see us following Jesus' model in what we respond strongly to, they'll notice. And Christ's kingdom will spread.

And pigs everywhere will thank you.

Secrets, Secrets Are No Fun . . .

Good thing Kady Bram is continuing as our guest blogger here at Strangely Dim, seeing as we haven't had a new post in nearly a month. Here Kady, a student at Northwestern College, reflects on the common practice of keeping secrets. Tell all your friends . . .

 

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What is your deepest or longest-kept secret? The one you want to hide forever, the one you need to tell but are afraid the world might implode if you did? I learned from my first grade teacher the necessity of keeping certain secrets after a classmate of mine wet his pants in the middle of a reading lesson. I never spoke a word of that story to anyone . . . until several years later, around high school graduation time. Funny how secrets, no matter how small, tend to stick with us.

 

Ours is a culture of secrets, a world in which we stock our free-time with entertaining television like CSI and Desperate Housewives that thrive on the intrigue of hidden, juicy secrets and the drama that unfolds when those secrets are revealed. We may enjoy hearing about the secrets of others, but having our own secrets shared with the world can be uncomfortable at best because secrets are often accompanied by a sense of personal shame, and shame demands we protect ourselves. So we hide our regrets and hope that no one ever finds out.

 

What was it that initially bound our culture to its nature of secrets? Perhaps, ironically, it was and is our societal commitment to individualism. As independent individuals, we compartmentalize everything--even the burden of our secrets. We hoard them in a place that no one else is ever allowed.

 

We have a lot to learn from the first ever secret-keepers--Adam and Eve--whose humanity we share and whose mistakes we perpetually repeat. We, like they, take some forbidden fruit and eat it, and the enlightenment that follows fills us with panic, regret and shame. We keep--sometimes even fiercely protect--our secrets deep and dark, even avoiding acknowledging them to ourselves, so that we can live life without facing our shame--choosing instead to accept a sense of fear that drives us to bury our secrets deeper. God, of course, knew all about Adam and Eve's sin--their secret regret--and patiently offered them the opportunity to confess their mistake. But they tried to cover themselves and the evidence, effectively erecting a barrier of blame between themselves and God. Secret shame becomes visceral, a living part of our sinful nature that, even today, we doggedly maintain.

 

We pretend that each of our secret regrets is uniquely bad, and therefore must be carefully guarded from the knowledge of those around us. The truth, however, is that we share a history of secrets like we share a need for oxygen. That frail, shameful framework of our humanity can lead us to the other thing we share--our common need for freedom from our secret burdens, freedom attained when we confess our shame openly and welcome an intimate friendship with a common Savior, the one who shows us the Way, who is the Truth, and who gives us Life.