Del Birkey

My father is dying.

Those are words I did not expect to be saying and thinking and feeling at this point in my life. I am 55 and my father is 76 and in otherwise good health. Last week he had a stroke that has robbed him of his mind and the ability to communicate verbally. He is currently on a ventilator with feeding tubes and IV’s, some of which we as a family will very soon need to decide how long to continue with.

Dad is a committed follower of Jesus Christ. He has spent the largest part of his life in Christian ministry doing youth work, pastoring churches, teaching and studying the Bible, writing and thinking about Christian topics, issues and theology. He is not without faults and failures, but he is a man whose legacy is one of growth and change as he trusted and followed his Master… Jesus Christ.

I am proud to be his son, and to have learned about who Jesus is from him (and my Mom) since I was a little boy. My concept of God as my Father, and Jesus as my Savior and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life have been in large part formed by this man… listening to him, and watching him live out his life. Needless to say, his life has had a significant impact on me. I am going to miss him.

Yesterday I was reminded of some foundational truths that Dad taught and exemplified in his life, as I read to him aloud out of the 8th chapter of Paul’s letter to the Roman church as found in the Bible:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, as I look into the future with the high probability of life without Dad physically present, it is good to know that neither of us will be separated from God’s love, nor will a physical separation between us be very long in the grand scheme of eternity. You see, there is a very real thing called Hope, that is based upon the above words being True. Christians believe that Jesus is real and that he actually is GOD (as he claimed to be) and that He exists today and the words recorded in the Bible are actually True. We gamble our entire lives and future on that fact. As Paul said, “…if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.”

So, as I watch my father in the process of passing from this life into the next, I am even more convinced that what he believed and lived and taught me is ultimately True… not less true. His dying does not make me believe less because I see HOW he is dying. His example in life and during the process of dying increases my Hope and Trust in Jesus as Lord. His Lord becomes my Lord even more.

Dad is an example of a life well-lived for Jesus Christ. I can only hope to live a life half as well. I pray that I will be able to leave a similar legacy when my days are up.

Here’s what he says about what we typically do on Sunday morning:

“Let’s call this was it is: spiritual eroticism. And those who are good at it can be called spiritual erotics.”

That’s kind of audacious!

Check it out over at CT’s OutofUr Blog: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/05/scot_mcknight_c.html

Uncle Screwtape and Toadwood his Scribe

I had an opportunity to go and see FPA Theatre Company’s production of C.S. Lewis‘ “The Screwtape Letters” a week ago. It is playing at the old Mercury Theater at 3745 N. Southport in Chicago. It stars Max McLean (who also co-adapted the script) as “His Abysmal Sublimity Screwtape,” and Karen Eleanor Wight as “Toadpipe,” his demonic personal secretary and scribe.

C. S. LEWIS (Author) (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably the most influential Christian writer and apologist of his day. He published The Screwtape Letters in 1942 wherein he presented a humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils named Screwtape and Wormwood. He used the book to deal with moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace.

Here is C.S. Lewis’ own INTRODUCTION:

I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence, which I now offer to the public, fell into my hands.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true, even from his own angle.

There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.
C.S. Lewis
July 5, 1941

The production is an excellent synopsis and a faithful portrayal of the book and the timeless spiritual concepts and ideas set forth by C.S. Lewis. I think the reader of his book, or the viewer of this production will be presented with ideas and concepts that if faced honestly, can lead to a deeper understanding of what it means to live a life based upon the Good, which in many cases can lead one to a personal life of faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

The Screwtape Letters

Dinesh D'Souza

The November issue of Imprimis, the monthly newsletter of Hillsdale College, features an article adapted from a speech delivered by Dinesh D’Souza. Dinesh is a conservative author, thinker and speaker who worked as a policy analyst in the Reagan White House. His articles currently appear in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, The New Republic and National Review to name a few.

His speech draws heavily from the research he did for his latest book called: What’s So Great About Christianity.

Dinesh uses the example of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence to connect the dots between what American’s believe about “self-evident” freedoms, and the roots of that idea in Christianity. He further strengthens that connection through writings of Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and others.

In contrast to the earlier Greek and Roman democracies, Christianity contributed a much higher view of human life, worth and dignity that radically affected slaves, women and children, and in more recent years, African-Americans for the good.

When it comes to our own history as a country, the First Great Awakening set the religious and spiritual groundwork for our nations Independence. Historian Paul Johnson writes that the War for Independence was,

“inconceivable… without this religious background.”

Likewise, John Adams wrote,

“What do we mean by the American Revolution? The war? That was no part of the Revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The Revolution was in the hearts and minds of the people… a change in their religious sentiments.”

Dinesh points out that Christianity played a vital role in establishing a new concept of freedom based upon it’s assertion that humans are created in God’s image and are moral agents, with the ability/responsibility to be the architects of their own lives.

In conclusion Dinesh points out that it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said that the ideas that formed Western civilization were based on Christianity and that if we remove Christianity, the ideals will also fall. Nietzsche also warned that with a decline in Christianity, new and opposing ideas would arise.

We see this decline happening today with the redefinition of family, marriage, the revival of eugenics, and even arguments for infanticide. These are all signs of the gradual extinction of the foundational principles that uphold human dignity.

I agree with Dinesh that if we cherish the distinctive principles of Western civilization – no matter what our own personal religious views – we would do well to better understand, appreciate and respect, rather than denigrate our Christian roots.

Debbie Birkey tutoring at Breakthrough Urban Ministries

Yesterday, our local Oak Park paper, The Wednesday Journal, contained an article about my family’s involvement at Breakthrough Urban Ministries, in Chicago’s west side Garfield Park neighborhood [Link to Pouring Love, Breaking Through article].

The article was very well written by Abigail Cramton, who reported the topic with balance, intelligence and clarity. It featured many quotes by my wife, Deb, as well as Josh Hawkins photos of her and our son Noel tutoring some kids from the neighborhood. Kathryn, myself and our other sons are mentioned, as well as other friends (Cindy and Mo Russo) who also serve and volunteer in this ministry.

This kind of service is not a big deal for us Christians to be doing! Most of our neighbors would never do something like this… and they don’t. Yet, Christians do these things regularly and often, and are still too often perceived as being uncaring, separate, uninvolved, hate-filled and politically conservative. The same paper that featured this article often portrays us that way.

“Modeling and teaching service to others is one of our responsibilities as parents. The same way we are servant leaders to our kids, we want them to be servant leaders in their own worlds.” – Debbie Birkey

What I am most proud of is that we can be a part of breaking down the stereotypes that many in Oak Park have toward evangelical Christians who attend our church – Calvary Memorial. I think that this article more accurately and clearly communicates the worldview that we hold to and practice. I am all for breaking down and challenging those myths and barriers that many of our Oak Park neighbors have. I am for clearly presenting and modeling the teachings and example of Jesus by serving others, caring for the poor and oppressed, freeing slaves and prisoners, and declaring the good news that we can be reconciled with God.

Yes indeed, I am very proud of my family!

Arloa Sutter also commented on this article yesterday in her blog [Link to Blog Post].

Cover: The Faith of Barack Obama

I recently finished reading The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield [Thomas Nelson, publisher].

I agree with Mansfield’s introductory book premise that understanding a man’s religious vision and personal faith will illuminate how he will lead. To Mansfield, Barack’s faith uniquely positions him as a “healer” and prophetic conscience for our nation, on the level of Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, William Wilberforce and others.

The pertinent question, then, is what IS Barack Obama’s faith and religious vision and how will it inform his leadership?

Although Barack professes to have a personal relationship with Jesus (the historical object of Christian faith), this book reveals little about how Barack’s faith is rooted in that relationship. To me the book reveals his faith to be more rooted in traditions, ethics, black liberation theology and an attractive community life that fits with his personal values, rather than in a personal submission to the God-man, Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in Scripture.

As Mansfield observes, Barack’s faith is in a belief that “Christianity is but one religious tree rooted in the common ethical soil of all human experience.” For Barack, “there are many paths to the same place.”

According to Mansfield, Obama “is the product of a new, post-modern generation that picks and chooses its own truth from traditional faith, much as a man customizes his meal at a buffet.”

I also find it enlightening that his religious vision and faith is guided, not by revealed truth, but by doubt. “Doubt is at the heart of Obama’s religion. Indeed, it is not going too far to say that for Obama, doubt is a form of worship.”

Mansfield moves from these quotes and statements to his conclusions in the last chapter. That religion, to Barack Obama, “is transforming, lifelong and real. It is who he is at the core . . . While Americans are used to religious insincerity from their political leaders, Obama seems to be sincere in what he proclaims. It was his faith that gave him the will to serve in public office and the worldview of that faith that shaped his understanding of what he would do once he came to office.”

“Obama’s faith infuses his public policy, so that his faith is not just limited to the personal realms of his life; it also informs his leadership.”

In what way will a faith rooted in doubt and customized at will inform leadership? Every person must wrestle with doubt, but do doubt and uncertainty qualify a person for leadership? What does it say about our times and culture that our most admired individuals are those who cannot affirm what they believe? That not knowing truth is valued above knowing truth? If doubt is a form of worship for Barack Obama then our country’s infatuation with Barack Obama belies an infatuation with doubters and those who readily admit that truth is unknowable.

We would all do well to remember the famous and timely words of C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a good moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

In conclusion, there is much to admire about Barack Obama. He is gifted and able in many areas. I commend him for his many good qualities, and respect the hardships he has overcome, and hope that many will emulate the positive choices he has made in his life. But on the question as to whether or not his faith as presented in this book makes him more attractive to me as a leader and presidential candidate, it does not. Rather, the faith of Barack Obama is deeply concerning to me–for him as a person, and for our country.

Unlike Mr. Mansfield, I do not see Barack Obama as a prophet, ready to heal the wounds of our nation. Rather, he is a brilliant politician, a winsome, sincere and transparent communicator, who is seriously confused about the object of his professed faith.

Even though I disagree with the conclusion of this book, I would recommend it to anyone seriously following the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama and the critically important choice ahead for our nation on November 4th.

Authors Frank Viola and George Barna record that a shift occurred in the late second and third centuries when Christians began reverencing their dead. Christians began to meet in two places… their homes and the cemetery. They picked up the pagan practice of having meals to honor the dead. Their original intended purpose was to honor the memory of the martyrs.

It became their belief that to share a meal at the cemetery, honored their dead brothers and sisters. Since the bodies of the “holy” martyrs were there, the idea of it being a “holy space” also developed. They eventually copied the pagan practice and erected small monuments over these spaces.

In Rome, the Christians started decorating the catacombs (underground burial places) with Christian symbols. The authors point out an interesting fact that the cross as an artistic reference cannot be found prior to the time of Constantine. Thus art became associated with sacred spaces.

Around the second century Christians started venerating the bones of saints, regarding them as sacred and holy. This gave rise to relic collecting.

Later in the second century, we see how the Lord’s Supper was changed from a full meal shared among believers, to a stylized ceremony called Holy Communion. By the fourth century the bread and wine produced a sense of awe, dread and mystery. As a result, some eastern churches put a canopy over the altar table, and later rails to separate and reinforce the idea of it being holy, separate and only for the holy persons (clergy) to handle.

So now we see more clearly how Christians developed sacred spaces, places and objects, as well as the beginnings of a sacred priesthood. During all of this, they also began to assimilate the “magical mind-set” common in pagan thinking. All of this prepared the way for the man who would be almost single handedly responsible for changing the meaning of the word church.

I think the sad part is that many of us in the evangelical world are perceived to be reactionaries – and justly so – for extreme examples like this. It really irritates me and gives us all a bad name.

Weep and Enjoy!

Coming out of the story, the authors state that:

“As startling as it may sound, almost everything that is done in our contemporary churches has no basis in the Bible.” And that “precious little… maps to anything found in the first century church.”

Questions We Never Think To Ask

It was the Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BC) who invented the Socratic method also known as the dialectic. He believed that truth is found by dialoguing and relentlessly questioning a particular issue. It was his habit of doing this – especially of long held traditions – that eventually got him killed for “corrupting the youth” of Athens. He was not alone. Many others have given their lives for similar reasons including Isaiah, John the Baptist and Jesus. Many thousands more have been martyred over the centuries for asking hard questions in pursuit of truth.

Christians today are typically encouraged by our leaders to believe, think and behave in certain ways. We are encouraged to read our Bibles, but usually through a particular lens of tradition (Baptist, Reformed, charismatic, etc.). We are taught to never challenge those traditional teachings, or if we do, to run the risk of being labeled heretics, be shunned from leadership or membership, or be accused of fomenting disunity, and leading God’s people astray. (I Randy, have personally seen and experienced some of this over the years.)

However, at this point in the chapter, Viola and Barna issue an amazing statement to all those who feel their rebellious spirits (including mine) rising to the surface. “We do not stand with you. Our advice: Either leave your church quietly, refusing to cause division, or be at peace with it. There is a vast gulf between rebellion and taking a stand for what is true.”

Instead, the authors invite the reader to ask the tough questions about why we do the things we do, and to discover where those traditions came from. Most Christians that claim to know The Book, and order their lives by it, have have never really explored this topic, and are not conscious of the non-biblical roots of many things that are often passed off as “Christian.”

A Terrifying Invitation

So, Viola and Barna invite the reader to the “untrodden path.” The path of asking tough questions. They claim that as you read their book, you will be surprised at how little of our modern ideas and practices of doing church are actually from Jesus, the Apostles or the Scriptures. Most of it was lifted right out of pagan culture. We think of pagans today as those who practice no religion at all, but the early Christians understood them to be polytheists, who followed the gods of the Romans. It was this brand of paganism that dominated the world at the time of Christ and into the 4th century, during which many of its elements were absorbed by the church. Two other periods stand out as times of great influence on our current church practices: The Reformation, and the Revivalist era in the 18th and 19th centuries.

In this book, chapters 2 – 10 will each trace a currently and widely accepted church practice. Not only will each chapter reveal where the practice originated, but more importantly, how it hampers the healthy functioning of Christ’s body (the church) today.

“Warning: If you are unwilling to have your Christianity seriously examined, do not read beyond this page. Give this book to Goodwill immediately! Spare yourself the trouble of having your Christian life turned upside down.”

The authors rephrase this warning in a couple more ways. If you are in the institutional church, this book may lead to a crisis of conscience. If you tend to resonate with Christian experience outside the institutional church, you may be encouraged as you discover that history and Scripture may stand with you more than you knew.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

As you know by now, if you are reading this blog… I took the challenge and plunged ahead with the rest of the book. I would have to say that I am at heart more of a rebel, and tend toward a questioning and analytical mind. This is why I ended up outside the institutional church in a “house church” during the 1970′s and into the 80′s. This is where I first experienced and came to appreciate “body life,” “small groups” and “contemporary worship.” I have often reflected on the events that lead to this development in my life, and can see how God used it to draw me to Himself. Otherwise, I fear that I was headed toward a rejection of Christianity and the church due to some very negative experiences I had witnessed within it.

After marriage we ended up at a small urban church (without a building) for a number of years, and then we migrated back into the more institutional church as our kids got older. We have been fairly happy in it for over 10 years. However, in the last couple of years I have sensed a new restlessness and dissatisfaction with some of the negative sides of it. Change is so very hard, long and difficult. The typical hierarchies of leadership I have seen to be unhealthy and damaging to people. It is very difficult to foster a new vision for being the church in a community that needs the church to be all that God intended. I am worn out with all the programs and activities required for involvement.

And so, given these inner urgings, this book is tapping into my roots and the experiences I once had in a more organic and non-institutional church setting. It is igniting a hunger and a fire to regain what has been lost, and to reshape it within the urban culture I find myself in at the beginning of the 21st century.

It was Francis Schaeffer who said that,

“Each generation of the church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.”

I believe this why the book Pagan Christianity? is so important. It raises the foundational questions and issues that the church must face if it is to communicate the gospel in the language and thought forms of current post-modern and post-Christian America. All we need do is look at Europe, the birthplace of the Reformation, to see what will happen if we don’t.

Helping to lead “contemporary worship” in a 1973 house church