Passing God’s test or commands of love?

As children, many of you probably sang the catchy tune, with fun hand motions, of the wise man building his house on the rock and the foolish man on the sand. The song conjured in my mind a house built on a beach—a dumb thing to do. When I have read the text in Matthew or Luke I bring that childhood image with me and, frankly, give little attention to the short parable. Recently, I saw it differently, but before I get to that, another song.

One evening my wife, Lynn, and I started singing songs from our youth-group past; one led to another. I found myself signing:

Do you ever search your heart 

as you watch the day depart 

Is there something way down deep 

you try to hide 

If this day should be end 

and eternity begin 

when the book is open wide 

would the Lord be satisfied? 

Is he satisfied, is he satisfied 

is he satisfied with me 

have I done my best 

have I stood the test 

Is he satisfied with me? 

Our daughter Julia, who was visiting, disbelieving, asks, “You sang that? What did that do to you?”

 It is a song about not falling short, measuring up. What is the character of this God? What is the purpose of commands given by this God?  Evaluative tool, a test. Julia was right, a bad song, toxic, but in another way not outlandish, normal. It displays a common view of the relationship between humans and God.

The parable of two housebuilders comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. What happens if we combine the song from my childhood and the song from my youth and read the parable in light of those songs? The point of the parable becomes: don’t be dumb and ignore God’s commands. Watch out; you better measure up! 

When referring to the commands in Jesus' sermon, many people refer to the upside-down nature of the Kingdom of God. True, Jesus’ commands contrast the ways of the world. But if we only look at the upside-downness of the content of the commands, we have not done enough. Let us also recognize the radical contrast between the God giving the commands and the typical religious ways of thinking about commands and God.

Joel Green, commenting on the commands of the sermon on the plain, describes them as “Practices determined by the gracious character of God”  (The Gospel of Luke, 280). A gracious God loves enemies, calls us to do the same; a gracious God is forgiving, calls us to do the same; a gracious God gives without expecting something in return, calls us to do the same.  

The commands are gracious in another way. Because God loves us and loves others, God gives these upside-down kingdom commands.  Jesus’ exhortations come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Now let us turn to our parable of the two housebuilders in Luke 6. What is the key point? Jesus says, “I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them” (6:47). The emphasis is on obeying, putting the words into practice. But perhaps the most important word in this verse is “me.” Who is calling for the actions? Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Now back to my childhood image, is this parable about a person doing a dumb thing, building on a beach? It helps a bit that Luke's version doesn't say "sand," but even more helpful is to bring the lens of loving upside-downness to the parable.

“That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house” (Luke 6:48-49).

One dug deeply to get to rock. The second person is not doing the ridiculous thing. He does the lazy thing. The ground looks ok, solid enough. He hopes it will work.

Listening and not obeying may appear to be ok. One might think, “Why obey these difficult, strange commands? I’ll be ok.” Jesus says, "no, don’t be fooled. You are better off obeying.”

The one telling the parable loves us. Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Based on the song of my youth, what would motivate me to obey? Fear of falling short and not satisfying God’s standards. How about based on gracious ethics? Obey because floods will come, better to be part of a loving, caring community.

To say they are loving commands does not mean they are easy. Like the hard work of digging deep in the dirt, they are challenging but worth it.

Out of love, Jesus calls us to obey the commands of Luke 6.

From the security of God’s love, we are called to love those hard to love, even enemies –who might that be for you?

God has given us so much; we are called to share from what we have received, to give, to lend without expecting a return.

As forgiven people, we are called to forgive. Who might God be calling you to forgive?

God receives us with a warm embrace, does not look down on us judgmentally. Jesus calls us to do the same in this sermon. What are judgmental thoughts he might call you to let go of?

Jesus’ words come out of love and longing for the flourishing of all.

Exhorting Ourselves and Exhorting Others, Part 2

Students struggle to write an exhortation in a centered way. If one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way.  As I read their papers, I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. How to change that internal conversation?

Two months ago I wrote of the importance of washing away the toxins of religiosity that attach themselves to internal directives through regular showers of words of God’s unconditional love. This month I will briefly share what I have observed when I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.

As a first step in this process I started paying more attention to my internal commands. There were a few “should” or “oughts.” What most caught my attention, however, was the paucity of internal imperatives. For instance, I do not actually give myself a command, “Mark, go to jail and lead a Bible study.” Or, “Mark, you should write a check to put in the offering at church.” I just do those things. I suppose I could consider my daily activity of prioritizing tasks a form of internal commands, but command language tends to only show up around the margins of that. Not, “Mark, you should get ready for class” I don’t have to tell myself that; but more probably, “Mark, you should respond to that e-mail that has been sitting in your in-box.”

I had not expected this, but a significant part of my experiment was inserting actual command language where it was totally lacking. (I couldn’t link an indicative to a command, if there was no command there.)

I intended to link indicatives of God’s action to all my commands. Some came relatively easily, “As we have received so much from God and the people of God, let us share with others. Write a check.” And I found myself using one, or a variation of it, repeatedly in different situations. “Having experienced liberation from shame through Jesus’ loving embrace, invite others into that experience.” Yet, I did not easily find linking indicatives for most commands. That is not to say, however, that the experiment failed. Let me bring you into one experience to give you a sense of its fruit.

Monday evenings presented me multiple opportunities for this exercise. We have a small non-profit, Vida en Shalom, through which we raise donations to support small grassroots ministries in Honduras and Peru. Monday evening is the time my wife Lynn and I set aside to work on Vida en Shalom tasks. We start by talking over what is calling for attention, saying things like: “I need to send the monthly report to our treasurer.” “One of us should respond to Arely’s e-mail.” “I will send money to Gustavo.” “It has been awhile since we wrote to donors.” “If there is time, I will call Doña Ena.” I made some attempts at linking these commands to an indicative of God’s action but did not get much further than a: “You have been loved, love others.” 

Soon, I found myself putting less effort into making those indicative linked commands. I did, however, continue to work at connecting the commands to God and discipleship. I found myself asking, “Mark, why are you doing this?” Why do you give your Monday evenings to this? And more specifically, why this particular Monday-evening action? And I started asking “why?” not just when there was an actual command like on Monday evenings, but at other times as well—like during my bike ride to the county jail, preparing for a class, or turning on my computer for a morning of working on my book on centered church. I would reflect on why and then articulate a command that included a sense of the why. Each time I did that I felt like my roots were reaching out, connecting to rich composted-soil. Reflecting on the “why,” even if just for a moment, brought additional energy, an added sense of purpose, and a more intentional connection with the Spirit of Jesus.

So, what happened from my experiment? A bit of what I expected, toning down a some “shoulds” and a few moments of reframing that flowed from indicatives of God action. But most prominently, the fruit was, first, an awareness that so much of what I do is like being on autopilot. It is on my to-do list and I do it. And then, secondly, the fruit was the enriching benefit that flows from reconnecting those tasks and activities with their source, God, my commitment to the way of Jesus, and experiences that have shaped me and my convictions.

This was my experience. Yours will likely be different. I invite you to try the experiment. Review the few paragraphs on different kinds of indicatives in this blog, apply them to your internal conversations, and see what fruit it brings.

Exhorting Ourselves and Exhorting Others

Shaped by bounded group religiosity many people experience behavioral exhortations in Christian settings as life-draining—the weight of “oughtness” pressing down on their being. Fear of the shame of not measuring up fills their being. A fuzzy-church approach responds by toning down the commands or avoiding them altogether. A centered-church, committed to transformation toward Christlikeness, must include exhortation. Yet it must do so in a way that does not lead to what is experienced in a bounded church. Not an easy thing to do—especially if the people listening to the exhortation carry bounded-church ways in their beings. I dedicate almost two hours of class time to working on how to do this. Then I have students write an exhortation. They turn in their best effort; I give feedback; they revise and hand in a final draft. As I wrote a year ago, I have made significant improvements to my teaching about giving imperatives (commands) rooted in indicatives of God’s action. Even so I was sobered and discouraged after reading students’ first drafts a couple weeks ago. Only one student came close to doing well. Their papers reminded me that if one has a lifetime of hearing exhortations given in a bounded context of conditional acceptance and peppered with “shoulds” and “oughts” it is difficult to even imagine another way. Then I had the thought, “what if the way we exhort others reflects our internal conversations—how we tell ourselves what to do and not do?” Perhaps students’ papers reflect not just what they have heard in bounded churches, but how they talk to themselves internally. I invite you to reflect on your internal exhortation language as I share some of what I observed in mine.

The most problematic internal exhortations are voices that explicitly state “You should do X to demonstrate to God and others that you are a good Christian,” and add “If you do not do X you risk rejection by God and your church. How could you call yourself a Christian if you don’t? But, just think how positively people will think of you if you do it!” Yes, let’s work to strip that conditional judgmental language from our internal conversations.  It is clearly not of the Spirit of God.

Yet, in these days I have noted that most of my explicit internal exhortations are what I might call naked imperatives. Simple statements like: “Mark, it would be good for you to do X.” Or “Mark, this person needs help, do X.” Today I do not experience these simple naked imperatives as conditional statements that threaten me with guilt and shame if I do follow through. Yet, I remember when they were not so benign, the words have not changed but my experience of them has.

For instance, I think back to 1984. After four years in Honduras I was moving to Syracuse NY to work as a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Where to live? Others involved with InterVarsity recommended I look for an apartment near the university. Made sense. But voices within me said, “Mark, it would be good for you to live among the poor on the bad side of town.” I had just spent four years living out a bounded approach, evaluating missionaries by whether they lived with the poor or isolated themselves in nice houses behind large walls in neighborhoods of the wealthy. The internal voice did not make explicit statements about gaining, or losing, acceptance depending on where I lived. Yet I imagined the badge of honor I could wear if I was on the right side of the line drawn by activists—myself included. In the end, I opted to live a few blocks from Syracuse University, but not without some shame.

Why the difference? Why would I experience the same naked imperative so differently today than decades ago? What this says to me is that, once we eliminate explicitly problematic wording, the most important thing in our internal conversations and in our exhortations to others is not the words themselves, but what we bring to the words. In Syracuse in 1984 there was a lot of bounded religiosity in my being and a sense of God’s love being conditional. That influenced how I heard the naked imperative. Therefore, what is needed is what I call “religion undermining indicatives.” As I describe in chapter two of Religious No More, Jacques Ellul portrays religion with an upward arrow ↑ because our natural tendency is to think we must do things to earn God’s acceptance. Ellul uses a downward arrow ↓ to communicate that Christian revelation, the God of the Bible, is the opposite. Any indicative statement that points to the primacy of God’s loving action challenges our religious tendency and reinforces the gospel ↓ arrow.

What do these statements of God’s grace and loving initiative do? They clothe the naked imperatives with loving acceptance and warm invitation. The truth is that we do not actually experience commands as naked. I called them naked in the sense that they neither have explicit words of conditional religion nor explicit words of God’s love. It is just the imperative, like: “Mark, write a letter to that inmate.” Or “Mark, take a break and go talk to your neighbor.” We clothe the commands. In 1984 I wrapped that naked command in robes of bounded religiosity and a God of conditional love. Even though just months earlier I had read Jacques Ellul, confessed my religious ways, and experienced God’s grace in new and profound ways, the reality was that there was still a lot of bounded-church religion in my being. Those were the clothes I most naturally put on the naked imperatives. Today I clothe them differently. How did the wardrobe change happen?

Through reading Ellul I had discovered toxin in my system. Two things combined to make the clothes I put on those imperatives toxic—a religious concept of God and a bounded-group approach to Christianity. I later realized that it is one thing to discover you have toxins in your system, another thing to flush them from your system. I decided to pour into my being sermons that countered a religious concept of God and repeatedly emphasized God’s loving initiative. I read and re-read books of sermons by Karl Barth.[1] I listened to Earl Palmer and Robert Hill sermons. I kept at it, for a few years, until I sensed the level of toxins had diminished significantly. My default way of hearing internal exhortation had changed because my concept of God had changed. I urge you to do a flush of toxins as well. Today I would add to the list of sermons to listen to: Debbie Blue[2] and Grace Spencer.

Pouring in the good news of the God revealed by Jesus Christ will aid in diluting our internal religious tendencies. Think of it as a general shower. Yet, there will remain parts within us especially entrenched in their view of God as a judgmental, religious God of conditional love. What I think was most effective in changing the clothing I put on naked imperatives was intentionality in bringing those parts into Jesus’ presence. When I felt fear arising in my being; when I felt the threat of being found on the wrong side of a line; I would invite those shamed parts to rest in Jesus’ embrace. Not just a general cleansing, but a very directed injection of religion undermining indicatives.

This is ongoing work. I continue to need to hear the good news of God’s loving initiative, in general and directed ways. I end this blog with words that served as a toxic cleanse for me in recent days. As I read them, in the first case, and sang them, in the second, it really did feel like something cleansing and life-giving poured into my being. May it be the same for you. Read them slowly, let them sink in. Especially invite resistant or doubtful parts to trust that this is true.

This is the last paragraph from the revised version of current student John Drotos’s ethical exhortation:

See this is the beauty of the gospel; that God did not choose to stay distant and far but choose because of his great love for us to come near as the 12 and 72 spoke of.  Do you know that you have access to the world’s greatest gift?  The unfailing, intimate, reconciling love of God.  Can I urge us now to lean into this love today?  Give this love a chance.  A love that doesn’t keep a record of wrongs but is always present, close, and ready for us to turn to it.  A love that can heal our greatest hurts and pain.  A love that if allowed in will transform us and never leave us the same.  Can we then as a response to this love become a people who live transformed by it?  Sharing it with all those we know, near and far.  Can we then because of this love reveal Jesus to a hurting and broken world?  Revealing Jesus through our actions and words.  I believe the answer to this and more is yes, because of the great love that is at work within us.  Now as we leave would we be empowered by this love to share the good news with others that the kingdom of God has come. 

Former student Rebekah Townsend led worship at an event I attended. The songs she chose overflowed with religion undermining indicatives. Again, let the words of two of the stanzas sink in.

In my Father's house

There's a place for me

I'm a child of God

Yes I am

I am chosen not forsaken

I am who You say I am

You are for me not against me

I am who You say I am

(Oh) (Yes) I am who You say I am[3]

Next Month, part II of this blog. What I have observed as I set out to apply internally what I teach students to do externally in their exhortations, to link commands to words of God’s action, like: having been loved by God, love others.

[1] Karl Barth, Deliverance to the Captives, Reprint edition (Wipf and Stock, 2010); Karl Barth, Call for God: New Sermons from Basel Prison, Revised ed. edition (Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd, 2012).

[2] A book of sermons: Debbie Blue, Sensual Orthodoxy (Saint Paul, Minn: Cathedral Hill Press, 2003).

[3] “Who You Say I Am,” by Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan.

Let’s use More Indicatives! (but not all indicatives are the same)

Seeds of this blog, part 1: A good sermon, but…. The sermon provided helpful advice and exhorted the listeners to take important action steps. There were a few lines about Jesus as an example to follow, but no indicative proclamation of God’s action that would enable this behavior. No words of God’s grace. I left the sermon thinking “people need to do better at including more indicative;” then it changed from “they” to “we need to do better.” A few days later I humbly recognized that my class that week was like the sermon—lacking in indicatives. I decided, “I want to write a blog to encourage the use of more indicatives about God in preaching, teaching, and conversation with others.”

Seeds of this blog, part 2: Who should be given the low grade, the students or me? I advocate for following Paul--when exhorting include more indicative than imperative. I qualify this by saying that talking about Jesus as an example, although technically indicative, is not an indicative that undermines our tendency to experience ethical exhortation as bounded group religiosity. Yet, when I read the last batch of ethical exhortation assignments I found that most all their talk about God was God as an example. Then I had the thought, “maybe it is not them, maybe it is me; maybe I am the one who deserves the low grade. How can I explain this better?” Humbling, and even more humbling that it took me 20 years to see this. So, for students who have heard my lecture on offering exhortation in a centered, non-religious way, my apologies. Please consider this as an upgrade to one section of that lecture. Others, feel free to listen in. Hopefully if what I have said so far feels a bit foreign what follows will clarify.

Ethical Exhortation: Learning from Paul

Because of human religious tendencies and because of their experience of bounded group religiosity, many people will experience commands in a religious way. The fuzzy solution to this is to avoid making imperative statements about things we are called to do. What is the centered  alternative? How can we exhort people to action, give imperatives?

In Religious No More I quoted Robert Hill who observed that, “Paul was ever answering the question of what we should do by saying something first about what God has done” (143). In more technical terms: Paul’s imperatives flow from his indicatives. Before defining those terms further it might be helpful to experience and feel the difference between an exhortation without indicatives and an exhortation rooted in an indicative of what God has done. Listen to these brief examples (3 minutes each).

To speak or write in the indicative mode is to indicate or point.

General Indicative

The vast majority of the Bible is indicative, giving information about God and humans. A common use of general indicatives in exhortation is to use God as an example. It is fine to do this; to, for instance, point to Jesus as model of loving enemies, but this type of indicative does nothing to undermine bounded group religiosity. Like any “naked” imperative, people easily hear it as an “ought” that they must comply with to meet the standard, to be in. Therefore, our exhortations must include other types of indicatives as well.

Indicatives Linked to Imperatives

Bounded group religious thinking is: if you do X then God (or the church) will respond by giving you Y. We can turn this religious thinking on its head and undermine bounded group judgmentalism when the call to action is linked to an imperative of what God has already done:

- forgive as you have been forgiven

- having been loved by God love others

- having tasted the gift of reconciliation with God and inclusion in God’s family let the ripples

 of that reconciliation flow by reaching out to others.

I often use the word “flow” in relation to these linked indicatives. They make clear that, what we are called to, flows from what God has done. They often have an indicative statement of who we are because of God’s action, and the imperative calls us to live out who we are. We see this in the following line from an Earl Palmer sermon:

“You are loved, love one another. Live out the grace that has happened to us.”

The linking of an imperative to an indicative pours sand into the gears of religion. It is much harder to hear Palmer’s exhortation as something you must do to get on the right side of a line. Sometimes, as in the above examples, linked-indicatives have clear statements of God’s action and the response called for. There are, however, variety of ways of stating and linking. Take for instance this example from a current student, Natalie Reinhart “Can you imagine the possibilities that could emerge in your family, friendships, workplace, schools, if we responded to our enemies through our own experience of God’s mercy and grace?”

Linked indicatives and imperatives are not always short and in the same sentence. For instance, the first eleven chapters of Romans are indicative. Paul points to the reality of who God is, he describes the human reality of alienation from God, and he indicates how God has responded to that reality. After eleven chapters of the indicative mode he begins chapter twelve by saying “Therefore.” Based on what he has indicated and pointed to he now turns to discuss ethical actions—imperatives linked to the previous 11 chapters of indicative.

Empowering Indicative

Linked-indicatives make clear that God’s action precedes our action. They still, however, can leave people feeling burdened by the difficulty of the challenge. Empowering-indicatives point to the possibility of living out what we are called to do because of what God has done. One of my favorite songs that we often sang at Amor Fe y Vida church states:

“Porque tu Dios es amor tu puedes amar” (Because your God is love you can love)

It is not just: God or Jesus show us what love is, but God’s love enables us to love.

Empowering indicatives not only point to how God enables what is commanded, they often add a sense of invitation—of promise and possibility. Feel that in these examples of empowering indicatives I lifted out of exemplar exhortations from former students:

“God has reconciled with humanity; because of Christ, reconciliation with each other is possible. Our restored relationship with God and the power of the Spirit allows us to do the impossible in the face of our enemies. He is making all things new!” Grace Spencer

“The transforming Spirit of God, living and active in our midst, empowers us to embrace, bless, show hospitality to, offer kindness to, those persons afflicted with the same malice that crucified our Lord…that would have us crucified.” Brad Isaak

The following two contain both linked-indicatives and empowering-indicatives:

 “Take hold of His hand as He offers you a freedom that you have never before known. You have no need to live in the shame of deception but are free to speak openly and honestly. Therefore, I urge you to speak with the authority of the truth, because you can! Choosing to speak the truth will become less a decision and more an outpouring of Christ working from within you; so, let your honestly come from your feelings laid bare and know that in the love of Christ, you will blossom forth into the person that you have been made to be!” Bryan Taylor

 “You are loved and forgiven. Be who the Spirit has empowered you to be. Be who you are. Love.” Heather Loewen

Religion Undermining Indicative

As I describe in chapter two of Religious No More Jacques Ellul portrays religion with an upward arrow ↑ because our natural tendency is to think we must do things to earn God’s acceptance. Ellul uses a downward arrow ↓ to communicate that Christian revelation, the God of the Bible, is the opposite. Any indicative statement that points to the primacy of God’s loving action, even if not linked to an imperative, challenges our religious tendency and reinforces the gospel ↓ arrow. Therefore, in an exhortation, statements about God’s unconditional love and grace help prevent people from experiencing the command as bounded group judgmentalism. Let us, as we prepare Bible studies, sermons, and classes ask the question: What am I doing in this exhortation to undermine the default arrow ↑ of religion and to prevent people from hearing what I am saying as bounded group religiosity?

In response to that question, quantity matters. Take note, in Romans Paul has 11 indicative chapters before four chapters of ethical exhortation and ends the letter with indicative words. In Galatians after four and a half chapters of indicative Paul turns to the imperative mode in chapters five and six, and then ends with religion-undermining-indicatives. Why does quantity matter? Because of our natural religious tendency, one short statement of God’s grace is not enough to overcome it. Many sermons are the opposite of Paul. They speak much more about what humans ought to be doing than about what God has done. Paul spoke first about what God has done and spoke much more about what God has done.

Let us follow Paul’s example! Use linked-indicatives, empowering-indicatives, religion-undermining-indicatives—and use more indicatives than imperatives.

See the ethical exhortation section of the website for exemplars of exhortations that use the above types of indicatives well.

From Sabotage to Collaboration: A Factory’s Dramatic Shift from a Bounded to Centered Approach

Guest Blog by Nathan Hunt

Back in the ‘70s, one of Frito Lay’s production plants received a rash of angry letters from customers with same bizarre complaint: their potato chips had obscene messages written on them. As leadership in the company assessed the situation at the plant, it quickly became obvious that this was just one more symptom of a very unhealthy workplace. “The climate at that plant was toxic. Supervisors there were using the traditional ‘progressive-discipline’ system for all violations, serious or trivial. They eagerly wrote up troublemakers in an attempt to run off malcontents. Every employee who received any disciplinary contact was considered a ‘troublemaker;’ his performance was attentively watched with the goal of finding sufficient evidence of misbehavior to whisk him through the discipline system and out the door” (Grote, 1). Plant managers had fired 58 of their 210 employees in the past eight months, convinced that harshly punishing any minor break from “the rules” was the best way to improve their employees’ quality of work. Not surprisingly, it had done exactly the opposite. All this led to pent up frustrations, staggeringly low morale and the desire to somehow “get back” at their managers for being such jerks. In that spirit, one unnamed employee decided to take matters into his or her own hands and started writing the obscene messages on potato chips.

How do you fix issues as systemic as these? They could not just throw out or ignore all policies and rules. The company still needed to function efficiently and productively to stay in business. Dismissing these necessities would bankrupt the company and undermine any ability to accomplish their mission. Nonetheless, Frito Lay’s dysfunctional system for dealing with their employee’s mistakes and deviances was clearly at the heart of the problem.

They made a radical decision. Supervisors would treat employees like human beings worthy of respect. Frito Lay stated, “We created a system that focused on insisting that people take personal responsibility for their choices of behavior and conduct--a system that reflected our belief that every one of our employees, even our ‘troublemakers,’ was a mature, responsible, and trustworthy adult who would respond that way if we treated him that way” (2). Management learned to stop penalizing employees after every little infraction. Instead, they worked to cast a compelling cultural vision of what a true Frito Lay employee is like: honest, hardworking, supportive, etc. Deciding to work for Frito Lay was also a personal decision to value and embody those characteristics

A manager would remind the employee that they had decided for their self to live out Frito Lay’s values—it was something they personally desired to be. Together, the manager and employee would explore what barriers were keeping the employee from living up to their values, look for creative solutions and place the responsibility for those actions on the shoulders of the employee. If he or she continued to fall short of the company’s values, the employee would be given a paid day off. The day off was an opportunity to reflect on what the person wanted for their self and who they wanted to be. They could either return and live out the vision of the company or resign with the manager’s blessing. The decision was in their hands, and at all stages the goal was to cultivate everyone into the best possible person—not weed out the “troublemakers.”

After two years of using this approach, terminations at the plant dropped from 58 in an eight-month period to 2. Camaraderie returned among employees and with their supervisors. Production increased. “The plant was transformed” (24).

Christians and churches all over the world are attempting to transition away from the legalistic patterns that historically marked our approach to “sin.” Our religiosity and boundary making has embittered many of our own and alienated many more watching from the outside. Far too many proverbial “curse-word-covered potato chips” have been shipped out into the world by well-meaning congregations.

In reaction to our judgmental past, the temptation is to toss all the rules and standards out the window. It feels much more loving to listen to the sirens of American culture and remake ourselves into a fully open and unilaterally tolerant club, accepting everyone exactly as they are. However, a moment of reflection reveals that this approach also falls short. Just like Frito Lay, the Church has a mission. Theirs was making potato chips efficiently and profitably. Doing so required a particular caliber of employee, doing their very best to live out the company’s culture of excellence. The Church also has a mission. We have been called to be a worshiping and serving community, glorifying God and building for his Kingdom of shalom. Doing so requires people striving to model their life after Jesus.

A centered set approach to discipleship is not an “anything goes” paradigm, blithely disposing of the high ethical standards Jesus established through his teaching, ministry and self-sacrificing death. Rather, it asks us to dispose of the arbitrary rules that create unhelpful boundaries for determining righteousness, acknowledging that these do more to undermine than facilitate the Church’s collective quest for holiness. It asks us to shift from enforcing standards through the threat of punishment, to calling Christ-followers to take responsibility for their behavior accompanied by others offering loving support.

In place of rules and boundaries, we are called to gaze at the impossibly lofty vision of Christ on the cross and continually challenge one another to press toward him. We are called to treat people like adults who do not need carefully delineated rules and punishments to keep them in line. We are called to respect the dignity of each person. Doing so means allowing some to choose the journey and others to reject it, always ready to welcome them back with grace and point them toward Jesus.

What are ways the case study informs your thinking about and practice of a centered approach?

Postmodern Christians, We Have a Problem (Or Two)

Guest blog by Dallas Nord, Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary student, farmer and writer.

Here’s the situation: We are millennials. We grew up, came of age, and entered (or are entering) adulthood all within a postmodern society. That’s important—and perhaps problematic—if you’re a Christian. If you’re a millennial Christian like me, then you probably don’t really love the ways that Christians and the church have behaved, how they’ve read Scripture, or how they’ve engaged society and politics in recent years (or in recent centuries!). Why not? Well, it has something to do with the transition from modernism (key words: reason, proof, objectivity, universal truth, etc.) to postmodernism (key words: culture, context, subjectivity, diversity, relative truth, etc.) that has been happening over the last few decades in our part of the world. Young folk like us who are accustomed to this postmodern landscape are far more comfortable with uncertainty, ambiguity, and diversity than our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were. While these older generations (who grew up, came of age, and entered adulthood within modernism) have trouble accepting ideas, lifestyles, and beliefs that seem to contradict their own, our generation is actually pretty good at being generous and accepting of those who differ from us. We recognize value and validity in each person’s experience and the beliefs that emerge from those experiences. We think it is a bad idea to hate people just because they’re different, and we think it’s a really good, Christlike idea to love everyone no matter how different from us they may be. Props to the millennials for figuring that one out! (Ok, so we’re not the first ones to figure out the whole “love everyone” thing, but we certainly say it louder than generations past.)

However, we may have a problem. Actually we might have two problems. Well ok, we have lots of problems, but I’ll only address two of them here. First, those modernist, older folks that call themselves Christians but don’t seem to be following the same Jesus as us—we don’t like to allow them the title of “real Christians.” That title we reserve for people like us who truly care about social ills in the world, who value ethics over doctrine or tradition, and who know how to be nice to people who are different from us. Aside from the fact that this causes us to be mean to “the mean Christians,” this posture assumes that we can judge who belongs to God’s people and who doesn’t. Karl Barth—the most important theologian of the twentieth century[1]—argued that there have been multiple bases by which some Christians have tried to discern who the “true Christians” among them were. Some tried basing it on sacraments like baptism—if you’re baptized, you’re “in.” Others tried basing it on holiness or morality—if you don’t screw up, you’re “in.” Both of these were misled, Barth says. While we cannot know with certainty who is like chaff and who is like wheat in God’s eyes, we can know with certainty that Christ’s redemptive act is as much for them as it is for us. Barth writes,

But when we believe in Jesus Christ, presupposing that we are in the community which is before us and that we live with it, we are required to accept as a working hypothesis that other members as well as ourselves can be holy and not unholy; not on the basis of their own thought and will and action, but in spite of the doubtful nature of all human thought and will and action, as those who are separated by the Lord of the community and therefore genuinely, as real Christians.[2]

So even though those old, stiff-necked modernists in our church are old, stiff-necked, and modernists, we do not get to exclude them from the body of Christ. This should be easy for us—we are all about inclusion, not exclusion—but it is terribly difficult to uphold that virtue when it comes to our own people.

Speaking of inclusivity, that leads us to our second problem. It seems that in our effort to be loving and to embrace everyone no matter what, we have sacrificed our ability to truly speak into each other’s lives. When we take postmodernism’s tolerance virtue to its extreme, we become unable to call our friends (and ourselves) away from certain ideas or behaviors (in church we call this “repentance”) and toward better ways of life (maybe we can call this “salvation”) because to do so would seem intolerant or unloving. We are a generation that is really good at affirming others; we know how to say “Yes.” We have trouble, though, ever saying “No.” In reaction to modernism’s failure to embrace others in love, we have chosen to err on the side of silent acceptance. Again, I’m pretty sure that this is better than outright hatred and rejection, but if we truly want to love our friends and neighbors, won’t we want what’s best for them? Sometimes while saying Yes to them, that Yes will need to include a No. At least, that’s what Karl Barth said.

I think Barth is right. Just take a look at Jesus. I’m sure most of us millennial Christians would affirm that Jesus is a Yes kind of guy. He didn’t reject anyone, even if they were unclean, poor, foreigners, liars, traitors, racists. He’s the very person that inspires our loving embrace of all people! And rightfully so. Notice, though, that he also wasn’t afraid of confrontation. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explicitly says that his kingdom is for the poor and the vulnerable and the outcast. That’s a pretty big YES! But he doesn’t leave it at that. He still has words of admonition: don’t be angry at each other (Mt. 5:22a), don’t insult each other (Mt. 5:22b), don’t give into lust (Mt. 5:27-30), don’t act violently (Mt. 5:35-42), love even your enemies (Mt. 5:43-48), etc. These are the Noes. But recognize that these are not bad ideas. These are all good ideas for better living. Jesus only gave a No within a larger Yes. Now think about the disciples—especially Peter. Jesus gave each of them a big Yes when he called them to be his followers and friends. All along the way, though, he was calling them out wherever they were failing or missing the point. Despite those moments of rebuke, however, they never felt rejected by Jesus. They kept on following him (except for Judas I suppose) and continued his mission once he was gone.

This should be a model for us as we dialogue with our neighbors and friends. We should lovingly embrace each one of them—certainly!—but let’s not be afraid to encourage real transformation in their lives when needed. A “Yes” without a “No” is just a “So What.” A loving Yes will want the best for the other and will include a No to the things that are not life-giving for that person. Sometimes we will need to say to our friends, “I’ve experienced this new way of life in Jesus and have given up [insert old way of life here]. I think you would find it refreshing and life-giving as well.” Were there things that you felt called away from once you started following Jesus? Name those things and explain how life was better as you left those things behind. When I began to encounter Jesus in a meaningful way, I felt compelled to give up my aspirations of wealth and “success” as popularly defined. I totally rerouted my college and career direction in search of a more service-oriented lifestyle. And that has made life so much fuller for me. Based on that experience, I can suggest a similar repentance and transformation in other’s lives.

Today, my wife and I like to borrow a line from Wes Anderson’s film, Moonrise Kingdom. In the film, Suzy tells Sam that she wishes she were an orphan. Sam, an orphan, responds, “I love you, but you don’t know what you’re talking about.” Suzy pauses briefly, then replies, “I love you too.” Sam’s response to Suzy’s insensitive remark is a No within a Yes. It is a loving rebuke. And it is effective. Suzy gets it. She hears and feels the No, but it is the Yes that she feels most deeply and responds to. So while we probably shouldn't use Sam’s words exactly, we should carry the spirit of them when we need to communicate a No to our friends. Let the Yes be so true and so meaningful that the No is understood as an act of honest love.

In sum, if we want to be embracing of all people, then that will include embracing our modernist brothers and sisters in the church. Even when we speak a No to their actions, attitudes, or theology, let’s be sure we situate it within the Yes of affirmation to their membership in the body of Christ. And if we want to be good neighbors to our fellow postmodernists, then we cannot be afraid to include a No with our Yes as we engage them in relationship. To give only a No to the church and only a Yes to our friends is to fail to love on both fronts. Let us be people of love on every front.

[1] If you don’t know who Karl Barth is, Google him after reading this. For now just know that he was a brilliant preacher and theologian who didn’t really love the whole modernism thing either.

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, 699.