Tag Archives: Culture

Tata Jesus is Bangala!

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I’ve just finished reading “The Poisonwood Bible” a novel by Barbara Kingsolver about the Price family who go to the Belgian Congo in the late 1950′s as Baptist missionaries. It’s a pretty depressing story based upon the experiences of Nathan Price’s wife and four daughters… who rotate telling their story in each chapter of the book. Orleanna, Rachel, Leah and Adah (twins), and Ruth May (the youngest).

Nathan turns out to be an abusive, narrow-minded, ultra-conservative tyrant who refuses to learn anything from the Kingala culture around him, and chooses to impose his views, opinions and version of reality on the unsuspecting villagers. He yells “Tata Jesus is Bangala” to his congregation over and over, never understanding that depending on the way you say it, it means that Jesus is either precious (good), or that he is the poisonwood tree (bad). His listeners are never really sure what he means and there is never any real spiritual transformation as a result.

The female Price family members however, do learn from their Africa experiences but become increasingly alienated and separated from Nathan. Eventually tragedy strikes – which leads to the eventual sad breaking apart of the family.

Another interesting part of the book is how it weaves in the 1960′s political background of how the Congo became independent, then how the Eisenhower administration was involved in the assassination of the first Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, and how it came to support the ruthless dictator, Mobutu.

To me the book makes a strong case for the serious consequences that exist for anyone (an individual, church or a nation) who is not willing to learn and communicate cross-culturally with a sensitive, serving attitude and manner. The same consequences exist for us in today if we do not learn to be flexible and to make the transition and bridge from modernism to postmodernism.

OK! – So, Now What?

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As you know if you read this blog, I was not a supporter of Barack Obama. However, he won fair and square and will become the next President of the United States of America. I admire him, and wish him well. I will pray for him and support him as far as my conscience will allow.

My thoughts the last few days have been more along the lines of how will life, work and the living out of an orthodox Christian faith be affected in the next four years? I don’t have lots of answers yet, but here are a few others who have been thinking along the same lines, and coming up with some good early thoughts that I appreciate and find helpful.

Michael Hyatt - President of Thomas Nelson Publishers – My Four Commitments to Barack Obama

Cal Thomas – syndicated writer and columnist – Transforming Culture

Ajith Fernando – National Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka – Thoughts After the US Elections

  • In the history of the church, sometimes when she faced some challenges to its beliefs and practices, she responded with restatements and demonstrations that presented the Christian truths challenged in a more beautiful, clear, appealing, persuasive and practical light. I pray that this would be the response to possible challenges coming to our belief in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the sanctity of human life.
  • We must always battle for legislation that accords with the plan of the Creator of humanity. Surely, the Creator’s plan alone is what is best for humans. Therefore, legislators must continue their battle for social righteousness. However, no amount of bad legislation can overcome the power, the joy, the appeal and the goodness of biblical morality demonstrated in the lives of Christians. We now have the challenge of demonstrating this afresh.
  • Whether we like it or not, people in the non-western world associate Christianity with the USA. Recently there has been a growing sense among people in the non-western world that the USA is not concerned about or sensitive to their feelings, sentiments and convictions. There even has been a sense that the US thinks it is superior to others. Because of the unhealthy association of the USA with Christianity, this sense has negatively affected people’s attitude towards the gospel. Insensitivity is alien to the Christian spirit, as Christians are those who become all things to all people so that by all means they may save some (1 Cor. 9:22). Superiority is alien to the Christian spirit because this spirit springs from grace—resulting in the acknowledgment that all our merit is undeserved—and issues in Christians always in humility counting others better than themselves (Philip. 2:3).

Christianity Today – The Evangelical Electoral Map (This is interesting)

Chapter 5 – The Senior Pastor: Is He Biblical?

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I am going to jump ahead in my review of the book Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna, to Chapter 5 which is entitled: The Pastor: Obstacle to Every-Member Functioning. The reasons for doing this are many. The church that I attend is in the midst of a search for a “senior pastor.” I am the son of a “pastor.” My wife is the daughter of a “pastor.” We both come from families with “pastors” in our heritage. Many of my friends and relatives are “pastors.” There are many “pastors” that I love and respect. I have even considered becoming a “pastor” at different times in my life. At other times I have decided NOT to pursue that!

But, I am reminding the reader that I am on a personal journey to discover – if I can – what about the modern “church” is truly biblical, and what is not. This means that I have to put everything on the table ask the question if the “pastor” or “senior pastor” as we have come to understand and practice it, is actually biblical.

Very few would disagree that the “pastor” leader concept is a fundamental, biblical “must have” in the minds of almost every Protestant Christian. And within the evangelical sub-culture of which I have most of my experience, the more specific idea of a “senior pastor” is also considered sacrosanct. It certainly has been for me at earlier times in my life.

But here is the profound irony. There is not a single verse in the entire New Testament that supports the existence of the modern-day pastor! He simply did not exist in the early church. – Pagan Christianity? Page 106

There is only one verse in the New Testament where the word “pastor” is used.

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers. — Ephesians 4:1

Gulp! Not a very solid foundation for such a closely held “must have” tradition! Evangelicals are not alone. Roman Catholics have made the same mistake with the word priest. The word appears in the NT only three times and in every case it refers to all believers in Christ.

So, what can we learn from the New Testament about a “pastor?”

Barna and Viola point out that the word pastor is plural – pastors. They existed as more than one. The Greek word translated as pastors is poimen, which means shepherds. I think that we can safely assume that this is a metaphor for how they functioned in the church. Surely no one believes they were literally shepherds! If this word is a metaphor, then it does not describe an office or a title. The Ephesians verse simply mentions them, and offers no definition. Let us be clear then that we have provided our own meaning of the word based upon our own culture, and not because we have read it in the Bible.

Viola and Barna go on in this chapter to address and answer Where Did The Pastor Come From?

  • The Birth of One-Bishop Rule – Ignatius of Antioch
  • From Presbyter to Priest – Clement of Rome and Cyprian of Carthage
  • The Role of the Priest – Ambrose of Milan
  • The Influence of Greco-Roman Culture
  • Constantine and Roman Hierarchy
  • Constantine and the Glorification of the Clergy
  • A False Dichotomy – secular vs. sacred
  • The Fallacy of Ordination – Roman civil customs: Gregory of Nazianzus and Chrysostom
  • The Reformation – Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the Anabaptists
  • From Priest to Pastor
  • The Cure of Souls
  • The Pastor-Driven Church
  • How the Pastoral Role Damages Body Life
  • How the Pastor Damages Himself

In each section, an overwhelming number of footnoted historical evidences, statistics, scholarly opinions and references are provided. You must read this chapter… it is powerful.

Of personal interest was the section on “How the Pastor Damages Himself.” In this section Barna and Viola cite numerous statistics including:

  • 94% of pastors feel pressured to have a perfect family
  • 90% work more than 46 hours per week
  • 81% say they ave insufficient time with their spouses
  • 80% believe their pastoral ministry affects their family negatively
  • 70% do not have someone they consider a close friend
  • 80% are discouraged or deal with depression

I’ll stop on that one…

I agree with Barna and Viola that very few pastors have connected the dots to discover that it is their “office” that causes the underlying turbulence in their lives. “Jesus Christ never intended any person to sport all he hats the present-day pastor is expected to wear. He never intended any one person to bear such a load.”

The authors go on to describe the unique stress the church places upon pastors with the unrealistic expectations, and dictated standards we often place on them. Many factors like this come into play to produce serious pathologies for many such as: loneliness, corruption, artificiality, lack of accountability, political games, and much worse.

I know of one pastor who discovered some of these things fairly early in his “career” and thankfully recognized it and has moved on to a much better fit for his gifts and service. I know of another who has served in several churches over the years, all the while battling serious depression. It has been a few years now since he left his “pastorate” and took a break. Thankfully, God opened up a new door of service opportunity in the church that fits him and his gifts much better.

There are many more personal stories that I am unfortunately aware of that match what Viola and Barna describe. I agree with their conclusion that our modern single-pastor idea has its roots in pagan culture and has no foundation in scripture.

The church at the beginning of the 21st century needs to examine this “tradition” and see if it measures up to God’s Word. If it is found to be lacking and wanting, we need to be mature enough to abandon it and follow a more biblical pattern.

I offer one alternative for consideration… team leadership based upon spiritual gifts. I found a recent article on this topic in Leadership Journal to be very challenging and thought-provoking. Read Next & Level, an interview with Next Level Church leaders in Denver, Colorado, who after a bad experience with personality-based, top-down leadership, took a whole new approach to what is truly The Next Level Church.

The Calf Path – A metaphor for the church?

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I am quoting from Pagan Christianity? – “In this book, we sometimes refer to “the crooked path” that led the institutional church to its current form. This poem, written more than a century ago, served as the inspiration for that metaphor.”

Sam Walter FossThe Calf Path
A poem by Sam Walter Foss

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.

Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell–wether sheep
Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell–wethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because ’twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed – do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And though this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city’s crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o’er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,

And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

I would have to say that when I read this poem for the first time, it slowly dawned on me how the metaphor fit the institutional church. I believe it is the job of each generation of the church to ask the question whether or not we are creating “idols” of our own personal or cultural preferences. When I was young, the evangelical church had a hard time with accepting guitars and other non-traditional instruments to be used in church worship. They also had a hard time accepting long hair styles, and other outward cultural expressions of the times.

Today, we have gotten past a lot of that, but we don’t seem to apply the same “enlightenment” to the very foundations of our evangelical practices. Why do we not ask the question as to why there is no mention of a “senior pastor” in the Bible? Why is there no mention of “the pulpit” in the New Testament writings? Did the early church have small groups, Sunday school or adult bible fellowships? How about a youth group? If so, where? If not, why not? There are hundreds of these kinds of questions that come to my mind as I read this poem.

Which is a great segue into the title of the next chapter: “Have We Really Been Doing it By The Book?“

Depleted Ice Cap?

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According to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), almost all the allegedly “lost” ice reported by Al Gore and other global warming alarmists, has come back. The report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels. I addition, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual.

My Introduction to “Pagan Christianity?”

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I am just finishing reading a book that my father sent to me (Thanks, Dad!) and that has been one of the most challenging and enlightening books I’ve read in recent years. The impact it will have on me personally will take much more time to realize and digest because there are so many ways that this book speaks to me, and the timing is not coincidental. I’ll explain more on that later. The book is called Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the roots of our church practices. It seeks to answer the question: “Are We really doing church by the book?” It is authored by Frank Viola and George Barna, and published by Tyndale House.

Frank Viola is a voice in the contemporary house church movement, and has been gathering with organic house churches in the US for the last 20 years. He is actively engaged in planting New Testament styled churches. He has written 8 books on radical church restoration including God’s Ultimate Passion and The Untold Story of the New Testament Church [www.frankviola.com].

George Barna is the chairman of Good News Holdings, a multimedia firm in Los Angeles that produces movies, television programming, and other media content. He is also the founder and director of The Barna Group [www.barna.org], a research firm in Ventura, California. George has written 39 books including Revolution and Revolutionary Parenting.

The joint venture of Pagan Christianity? is sort of a twin to Barna’s 2005 book REVOLUTION: Worn out on church? Finding vibrant faith beyond the walls of the sanctuary, also published by Tyndale House.

Here’s an excerpt from the book jacket:
Many Christians take for granted that their church’s practices are rooted in Scripture. Yet those practices look very different from those of the first-century church. The New Testament is not silent on how the early church freely expressed the reality of Christ’s indwelling in ways that rocked the first-century world.Times have changed. Pagan Christianity? leads us on a fascinating tour through church history, revealing this startling and unsettling truth: Many cherished church traditions embraced today originated not out of the New Testament, but out of pagan practices. One of the most troubling outcomes has been the effect on average believers: turning them from living expressions of Christ’s glory and power to passive observers.

Like me, have you ever wondered:

  • Why does the pastor preach a sermon at every service?
  • Why do church services seem so similar week after week?
  • Why does the congregation sit passively in pews?
  • Why do we keep thinking of the church as a building?
  • Why are we so fixated on the idea of a senior pastor?

If these questions have caught your attention like they did to me, then you might be interested enough to visit the paganchristianity.org website and download a free introduction chapter to read. And, if that increases your interest, you should just buy the book and read it! It’s an easy and engrossing read!

The Pagan Christianity website has other resources including a downloadable discussion guide, as well as links to other articles and resources by Frank Viola and George Barna.

After I complete the final chapter: “A Second Glance at the Savior: Jesus the Revolutionary,” I intend to reread the book, and post my thoughts here on each chapter. I would welcome your comments.

“Experience supplies painful proof that traditions once called into being are first called useful, then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them or be punished.” — J.C. Ryle, Nineteenth-Century English Writer and Minister

Valencia Americano Blog

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My third son Marshall left yesterday for Valencia, Spain, where he will spend his next semester of college studying the Spanish language, history and culture. I am happy to report that he arrived there safe and sound today! Apparently he is staying near the lower right hand corner of this photo of the Valencia soccer stadium! Marshall has started a blog to chronicle his adventures in Spain, which can be accessed here: http://valenciamericano.blogspot.com

His mom, sister and I plan to visit him there during Spring Break in March.

Marshall is a Junior at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, with a double major in Business/Economics and Spanish.

Aerial View of Valencia, Spain

Another Michael Crichton Fiction Masterpiece

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As some of you know, I enjoy reading, especially good fiction. One author that I particularly like is Michael Crichton, of “Jurassic Park” fame. I think his book “State of Fear” is the best book I have read on the whole “global warming” – “climate change” controversy.

I am now reading his latest book called “Next” dealing with the whole bio-engineering, genetics and medical research ethics topic. Its fascinating how he weaves actual news and media reports into the plot and storyline. It makes his books even more interesting and educational.

He weaves a number of story-lines together throughout the book, jumping back and forth between them. It is hard to pick them up each time, but after you get used to it, it seems to be okay. The situations that characters get involved in seem very realistic and believable, which is part of Crichton’s point – this stuff is already happening and it isn’t some science fiction in the future. The fact that these issues are believable kinda scares you because you realize the incredible risks and chances we are taking as a society by not carefully facing into these issues as a matter of public policy. This is on top of the human greed and selfishness that complicates things further. Researchers motivated by the dollar, fame, power – just like the “bad “corporations, and “bad” politicians everybody likes to chastise. Well, the medical research community is no different. We’d better wake up!

I’d recommend this book to anyone seriously interested in this important topic.

Welcome to the New BirkeyBlog Website!

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I’ve redone my former birkeyblog website into a new one powered by WordPress. The old one was hosted under my Apple .MAC account using a software product called BlogStudio. This new WordPress site gives me a lot more control and access to cool new features that I’ll be adding over time.

Many of my old posts do not show up properly yet. I will be going through each one to clean up the code and make them work. Give me some time, and it will all be back, better than ever. I hope you like it!

S. Fred Singer on Climate Change

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S. Fred SingerWho is S. Fred Singer and why does he matter?

I am a subscriber to the publication of Hillsdale College called Imprimis. The latest issue (AUG 2007) arrived in the mail a few days ago. I had the pleasure of reading it last night. S. Fred Singer is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia. His list of credentials go on from there. He gave a lecture at Hillsdale College on June 30, 2007, from which the Imprimis article “Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?” was adapted.

His concluding remarks were: “We can only trust that reason will prevail in the face of an onslaught of propaganda like Al Gore’s movie and despite the incessant misinformation generated by the media. Today, the imposed costs are still modest, and mostly hidden in taxes and in charges for electricity and motor fuels. If the scaremongers have their way, these costs will become enormous. But I believe that sound science and good sense will prevail in the face of irrational and scientifically baseless climate fears.”

I wish I could be as optimistic as Fred. I wish everyone would read this kind of rational and scholarly approach to offset the hysteria in the media over “global warming.” But sadly, and to our common detriment, these voices of reason go unheard and unreported. As a result…

“Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate change, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdirection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations.“

This is the real crux of the issue for me as a person who cares about God’s creation and the people that live in it. What kind of pride (hubris) does it take to think that we can change and manipulate natural trends that have been happening for eons? Do we really think we can control everything? Are we God? I think that we think we are!

How can we tell the poor, deprived and suffering people of the world, who see us in the developed world enjoying the benefits of clean, safe, cheap abundant energy, that they can’t have it because the world is warming up? That’s what more and more of our policies are communicating to them! And often, it is the “liberal-minded” politicians who say they care about “the people” who are making these policies.

I also don’t see the Al Gore’s and the other celebrities radically altering their lifestyles to walk their talk. Instead, it looks to me like they invent workarounds like “energy credits” to appease their guilty consciences, and in the end to do nothing real to improve the situation they decry by their actions. The hypocrisy really turns me off.