Welcome to this week’s edition of “The Sunday Seven.” As always, this post is all about sharing some of the more interesting news and insights that I have encountered throughout the week, as well as a little humor meant to lighten your day. Hopefully, as you scan the links, you’ll find a little something here that will peak your interest and give you pause to think. Enjoy! Continue reading
So what does the leadership of a highly visible mega church do when it begins to feel the pressure mount in the aftermath of a questionable course of action?
A week and a half ago, Harvest Bible Chapel took its next step in trying to answer this question by inviting only the men of the church to a special Sunday night “prayer meeting.” According to multiple sources, when the men arrived at the church, it immediately became clear that this was going to be more than a typical “prayer meeting.” Amidst a heightened security presence, the attendees were advised to turn off all phones and/or recording devices, shortly before being advised to report anyone seen using such a device to the security. Continue reading
Mars Hill Church. By all the “measurable” standards promoted by the Church Growth Movement, it stands as one of the towering monuments amongst the 1300 Protestant megachurches presently dotting the landscape of this nation. With a weekly attendance of over 12,000 people gathering on fourteen different campuses in four different states, it’s lead pastor, Mark Driscoll, has become something of a “rock star” amongst the evangelical faithful. His sermon podcasts generally exceed 100,000 downloads per week; he authors New York Times best-selling books on the subject of marital sex; and he does media tours and interviews on popular daytime shows such as The View. As I said: “rock star.” Continue reading
“In the late 1940s, the United States government commissioned William Francis Gibbs to work with United States Lines to construct an eighty million dollar troop carrier for the navy. The purpose was to design a ship that could speedily carry fifteen thousand troops during times of war. By 1952, construction on the SS United States was complete. The ship could travel at forty-four knots (about fifty-one miles per hours), and she could steam ten thousand miles without stopping for fuel or supplies. She could outrun any other ship and travel nonstop anywhere in the world in less than ten days. The SS United States was the fastest and most reliable troop carrier in the world.
The only catch is, she never carried troops. At least not in any official capacity. The ship was put on standby once during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, but otherwise she was never used in all her capacity by the U.S. Navy.
Instead the SS United States became a luxury liner for presidents, heads of state and a variety of other celebrities who traveled on her during her seventeen years of service. As a luxury liner, she couldn’t carry fifteen thousand people. Instead she could house just under two thousand passengers. Those passengers could enjoy the luxuries of 695 staterooms, 4 dining salons, 3 bars, 2 theaters, 5 acres of open deck with a heated pool, 19 elevators, and the comfort of the world’s first fully air-conditioned passenger ship. Instead of a vessel used for battle during wartime, the SS United States became a means of indulgence for wealthy patrons who desired to coast peacefully across the Atlantic.
Things look radically different on a luxury liner than they do on a troop carrier. The faces of soldiers preparing for battle and those of patrons enjoying their bonbons are radically different. The conservation of resources on a troop carrier contrasts sharply with the opulence that characterizes the luxury liner. And the pace at which the troop carrier moves is by necessity much faster than that of the luxury liner. After all, the troop carrier has an urgent task to accomplish; the luxury liner, on the other hand, is free to casually enjoy the trip.
When I think about the history of the SS United States, I wonder if she has something to teach us about the history of the church. The church, like the SS United States, has been designed for battle. The purpose of the church is to mobilize a people to accomplish a mission. Yet we seem to have turned the church as a troop carrier into the church as a luxury liner. We seem to have organized ourselves, not to engage in battle for the souls of people around the world, but to indulge ourselves in the peaceful comforts of the world.”
The excerpt above was taken from David Platt’s New York Times Best-Selling Radical, and can be found on pages 169-171.
Having just received a copy of David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, I am already anticipating that it will make my top-10 books of 2012. Here, are the opening few pages for your consideration. If they capture your imagination, be sure to purchase the book. It only gets better.
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“The youngest megachurch pastor in history.”
While I would dispute that claim, it was nonetheless the label given to me when I went to pastor a large, thriving church in the Deep South — the Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. From the first day I was immersed in strategies for making the church bigger and better. Authors I respect greatly would make statements such as “Decide how big you want your church to be and go for it, whether that’s five, ten, or twenty thousand members.” Soon my name was near the top of the list of pastors of the fastest-growing U.S. churches. There I was … living out the American church dream.
But I found myself becoming uneasy. For one thing, my model in ministry is a guy who spent the majority of his ministry time with twelve men. A guy who, when he left this earth, had only about 120 people who were actually sticking around and doing what he told them to do. More like a minichurch, really. Jesus Christ – the youngest minichurch pastor in history.
So how was I to reconcile the fact that I was now pastoring thousands of people with the fact that my greatest example in ministry was known for turning away thousands of people? Whenever the crowd got big, he’d say something such as “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” Not exactly the sharpest church-growth tactic. I can almost picture the looks on the disciples’ faces. “No, not the drink-my-blood speech! We’ll never get on the list of the fastest growing movements if you keep asking them to eat you.”
By the end of that speech, all the crowds had left, and only twelve men remained. Jesus apparently wasn’t interested in marketing himself to the masses. His invitations to potential followers were clearly more costly than the crowds were ready to accept and he seemed to be okay with that. He focused instead on the few who believed him when he said radical things. And through their radical obedience to him, he turned the course of history in a new direction.
Soon I realized I was on a collision course with an American church culture where success is defined by bigger crowds, bigger budgets, and bigger buildings. I was now confronted with a startling reality: Jesus actually spurned the things that my church culture said were the most important. So what was I to do? I found myself faced with two big questions.
The first was simple. Was I going to believe Jesus? Was I going to embrace Jesus even though he said radical things that drove the crowds away?
The second question was more challenging. Was I going to obey Jesus? My biggest fear, even now, is that I will hear Jesus’ words and walk away, content to settle for less than radical obedience to him. In other words, my biggest fear is that I will do exactly what most people did when they encountered Jesus in the first century.
That’s why I’ve written this book. I am on a journey. But I am convinced it is not just a journey for pastors. I am convinced these questions are critical for the larger community of faith in our country today. I am convinced that we as Christ followers in American churches have embraced values and ideas that are not only unbiblical, but that actually contradict the gospel we claim to believe. And I am convinced we have a choice.
You and I can choose to continue with business as usual in the Christian life and in the church as a whole, enjoying success based on the standards defined by the culture around us. Or we can take an honest look at the Jesus of the Bible and dare to ask what the consequences might be if we really believed him and really obeyed him.
I invite you to join the journey with me. I do not claim to have all the answers. If anything, I have more questions than answers. But if Jesus is who he said he is, and if his promises are as rewarding as the Bible claims they are, then we may discover that satisfaction in our lives and success in the church are not found in what our culture deems most important but in radical abandonment to Jesus.
A recent report issued by the Barna Group in November of 2011 has turned up some interesting findings related to church size and the nature of an individual’s theological beliefs and actions. This study, which was based upon interviews of more then 3000 church-going Protestants, has revealed that individuals who attend large churches are more likely to adhere to orthodox Christian beliefs than those that attend churches with 100 or fewer adult attendees.
Please click to enlarge the image.
More interesting still were the findings related to behaviors and church size. According to the report, “on seven of the eight behavioral measures, attenders of large churches were substantially more likely than those of small churches to be active. (These included behaviors such as attending church in the past week, reading the Bible in the past week, volunteering at their church in the past week, etc.) The average difference related to these seven behaviors was 17 percentage points.”
So what do you think? Do these findings surprise you, or is this what you already expected to be true?
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* “Born again Christians” were defined as people who said they had made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that was still important in their life today and who also indicated they believed that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “born again.”
** “Evangelicals” meet the born again criteria (described above) plus seven other conditions. Those include saying their faith is very important in their life today; believing they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians; believing that Satan exists; believing that eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works; believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth; asserting that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches; and describing God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today. Being classified as an evangelical is not dependent upon church attendance or the denominational affiliation of the church attended. Respondents were not asked to describe themselves as “evangelical.”
In recent days, the politics of Uganda have once again captured the attention of the global audience, as lawmaker David Bahati has sought to introduce a bill into the National Assembly that would call for homosexuals to face life imprisonment for their crimes. Three years ago, a similar bill, which also included the death penalty for certain sexual acts, was voted down when pressure from the international community was brought to bear on the largely “Christian” nation.[1] But according to Bahati, “This is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa.”[2] In an interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Bahati went on to say: Continue reading
When the history of the 20th century American church is finally written, one name is likely to stand out as more influential than almost any other name from that era: Robert H. Schuller. In addition to founding the “Hour of Power,” which is the longest running “evangelistic” television program in the world, he was also the architect of a new style of preaching that de-emphasized teaching on the subject of sin in favor of teaching that “Jesus met needs before touting creeds.” As the ministry began to experience unprecedented growth, the “Crystal Cathedral” was erected as a new base of operations for the expanding church. At the time of its completion, Schuller has this to say: Continue reading
There is a heated controversy brewing in the evangelical world – one that has the power to fundamentally alter the shape of one of the most influential churches in the Chicagoland area. The roots of the controversy stretch back to 2011 and the birth of an idea called The Elephant Room. Put simply, the premise behind this event was to gather various leaders both from within the church and from outside of it to discuss “the most Christ honoring ways of building a church.”[1] The event was recorded, simulcast and eventually sold in the interest of reaching and influencing the widest possible array of Christian leaders around the globe. Continue reading
The Division of the Church at the Time of the Great Schism in 1054 AD.
Yesterday afternoon, at the request of an old friend, I began a series on the subject of theosis, Oswald Chambers, and Chamber’s conception of “Christian Perfection.” If you have not read the first post, I would highly suggest that you take the time to do so now, for without reading the first post, you will not understand what is being discussed in the remainder of this series.
Once I finished the first post, it became clear to me that many people might make the assumption that theosis (or deification in the Latin) was largely an Eastern theological construct. And because we, as evangelicals, do not tend to be overly conversant with our sisters and brothers in the East, we might be tempted to dismiss this as a “heretical” idea, much as we often flippantly lump certain Roman Catholic beliefs under the heading of “heresy.” So today, I want to briefly unpack the evidence that deification is taught by the Roman Catholic Church, and then I want to conclude with an important question that I believe Protestants must be able to answer.
Let’s start with a brief overview of significant Catholic figures that have taught on this subject. The Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches did not occur until 1054 AD. So, when it comes to understanding theosis and/or deification, both the East and the West appeal to the same body of early Church Fathers, such as Ireneaus, Athanasius, Clement of Alexandria, Cyril of Alexandria, Basil the Great, etc… But the question is, after the split, did the Roman Catholic Church continue to teach this doctrine?
The answer, quite simply, is yes. In the Western Roman Catholic Church, the major figures that continued to teach on this doctrine include: St. John of the Cross in his Dark Night of the Soul and Ascent of Mt. Carmel, St. Teresa of Avila in her Interior Castles and even, more importantly, St. Thomas Aquinas, the “Catholic Doctor,” in his Summa Theologica.[1]
Perhaps, more significant than all of the aforementioned teachers of this doctrine, is the fact that deification is still taught in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is used to indoctrinate Catholic believers worldwide.[2] Consider the following excerpts:
CCC Article #460: The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”: “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”
CCC Article #759: ”The eternal Father, in accordance with the utterly gratuitous and mysterious design of his wisdom and goodness, created the whole universe and chose to raise up men to share in his own divine life,” to which he calls all men in his Son. “The Father . . . determined to call together in a holy Church those who should believe in Christ.” This “family of God” is gradually formed and takes shape during the stages of human history, in keeping with the Father’s plan. In fact, “already present in figure at the beginning of the world, this Church was prepared in marvelous fashion in the history of the people of Israel and the old Advance. Established in this last age of the world and made manifest in the outpouring of the Spirit, it will be brought to glorious completion at the end of time.”
CCC Article #1999: The grace of Christ is the gratuitous gift that God makes to us of his own life, infused by the Holy Spirit into our soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. It is the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism. It is in us the source of the work of sanctification: Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.
CCC Article #1988: Through the power of the Holy Spirit we take part in Christ’s Passion by dying to sin, and in his Resurrection by being born to a new life; we are members of his Body which is the Church, branches grafted onto the vine which is himself: [God] gave himself to us through his Spirit. By the participation of the Spirit, we become communicants in the divine nature. . . . For this reason, those in whom the Spirit dwells are divinized.
As you can see, theosis or deification is not merely an Eastern construct. Rather, both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church have historically taught this doctrine from as early as 200 AD to the present. This, of course, leaves us with a rather significant question. At the time of the Protestant Reformation, when Luther initiated the split from Rome, the issues largely centered around the abuse of the papacy and the issue of justification. Put simply, Rome was teaching that salvation is contingent upon both justification and sanctification, while the Protestants wanted to put the entire burden of salvation upon the act of justification alone? The issue here is that Protestants have always maintained that they were the true heirs to the apostolic teachings, while Rome had been the one to go astray. But when you examine the subject of theosis or deification, which is intimately tied to salvation, justification, and sanctification, it would appear that many Protestants are making a break with all branches of the historical Church. And the question that must be answered is this: if both the East and the West have taught theosis and deification for 2000 years, are we to believe that only in the last 500 years have Christians properly understood salvation? And if so, what does this mean about the clarity of Scripture? And what does it mean about the giftedness of the pastors and theologians that were working prior to the Reformation?
[1] In 1999, A. N. Williams released The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas. This book attempts to find common ground between the East and the West through their shared belief in the doctrine of theosis and/or deification.
[2] An online version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be found at: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/index/g.htm
