Contemplative Christian » Church and Life http://contemplativechristian.com Grace and Presence in Prayer Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:56:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Contemplative Perspectives on Christian Politics http://contemplativechristian.com/contemplative-perspectives-on-christian-politics/ http://contemplativechristian.com/contemplative-perspectives-on-christian-politics/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 04:10:19 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=1164
In America, it’s either very easy or very difficult to be a Christian…it all depends on how you vote.   Christian political thought in America has been influenced by Evangelicals for as long as I can remember.  I’m 36 years old, and didn’t really start thinking about politics until I was 25 or so…and didn’t start caring about politics deeply until this last election cycle.  For years, I just thought as I was told.  I inadvertently bought into the idea that as a depraved sinner, I couldn’t very well be trusted to think for myself on political issues.  There’s too much at stake in the culture war, they’d say.  Babies are being murdered and the gays are trying to take over our country and recruit our children.  Sound a little crazy?  Well, it is.  It wasn’t too often that leaders would come out and say it like that, but the hysteria is real…the paranoia more rampant than you might believe. People really believe this stuff.

The religious Right has successfully programmed a whole generation of Christians to believe that we are in an End Times struggle against Evil, represented by a Satanic Democratic Party.  It’s the good conservatives against the evil liberals, and our very salvation is wrapped up in which team we’re on.  When my wife and I decided to vote for Obama this last election, we lost friends and found a family relationship seriously strained.  It was as though we were murdering babies ourselves.  It doesn’t matter that in voting we were following our pro-life convictions, choosing a candidate and party we felt might finally change the conversation about an ethic of life in America.  It doesn’t matter that as followers of Christ, we felt convicted of the need for change, for balance…for a different direction.  I don’t write this to make a political statement, but simply to illustrate the point that as people of God, we are not defined by our relationship with a political party or system of thought within the Church…but by our relationship with Christ Himself.  Who are you to say that I’m not following His voice, even when in doing so I vote differently than you?

It’s a very interesting time to be a young Christian in America, for there are many others who find the old divisions and stale arguments largely irrelevant.  I think there is a movement toward contemplative spirituality within the developing church.  In some ways, this movement is apparent within the Emerging Church, the term given the interesting change within the church in recent years…across denominations.  But really, it’s bigger than that.  There is a fundamental difference between a spirituality based on relationship with God (grace-based) and spirituality based on rightness before God (shame-based).   In grace-based spirituality, we become intimately aware of our own smallness, and the largeness of God’s capacity to love.  In shame-based spirituality, we are caught in the cyclical struggle to maintain control of where we stand with God, to maintain our position as keepers of knowledge about God.  The former can accept unknowns and gray areas.  The latter is often defined by black and white thinking.

In the early years following my lifestyle conversion I became a fan of Francis Schaeffer, whose logical arguments for Christianity and large vocabulary appealed to my pride.  I wanted knowledge.  I wanted to convince and be convinced, to be sure and to be able to communicate that to any who would doubt me.  I adopted the defensiveness that defined the evangelical mindset, and become drawn into a need to defend God.   Schaeffer’s writing and the following it drew played a part in creating the conservative backbone of modern evangelicalism.   What’s so interesting is that his son, Frank Scaeffer, who played an important role in his father’s work, is now a fed up, fired up critic of the modern evangelical church.   Once active in the movement, he’s now a voice warning of the dangers of fundamentalism of the Christian kind.  Check him out at The Official Website of Frank Schaeffer.

In my long-winded way, I guess what I’m saying is that contemplative Christianity…a spirituality of Christ defined by prayer and mystical union…is an answer to fundamentalism and it’s shame-cycle.  I read an article a while ago about conflict in an Islamic country, where the fundamentalist Muslim majority was seeking to silence and control the Sufi minority.  Sufis are the contemplatives, the mystics, of the Islamic worldview, and have historically (in this context at least) been peace-seekers, where the majority has continued to wage war and control.  Its interesting to see the same dynamic play out in so many contexts.  Mysticism challenges black and white thinking, just as Christ challenged the black and white thinking of the religiously certain of his time.  The reaction to Christ was violence.  We see the same today.

When your world is built upon tightly controlled rules and systems, then you fight to protect your control.  The story of the prodigal son illustrates the dynamic beautifully. The oldest son had his world fairly well under control…he had earned his fathers love and respect with hard work and dedication.  When the prodigal son returned home and was received with such joy…the love given away for free…the brother’s response was anger.  We cannot control God.   Yet, when the worldview of conservative Christians is challenged, even if challenged by undeniable logic (such as proof the earth is older than 5000 years) the response is anger and defensiveness…if you’re not with us, God is not with you.

Its a difficult time and an exciting time to follow Christ in America.  There are hints of change, hints of new life beginning to emerge as a new generation comes of age.  The last election sent a message, as did the public disgrace of some powerful Evangelicals, that the vote-getting machine of the Religious Right is losing steam.  There is an opportunity for a new Christian voice to emerge, one that truly seeks to be “peacemakers”, to recognize those that are hungry and hurting among us, to call out for an ethic of life across circumstances…one rooted in devotion, not control…wisdom, not knowledge.

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]]> http://contemplativechristian.com/contemplative-perspectives-on-christian-politics/feed/ 4 Favor http://contemplativechristian.com/favor/ http://contemplativechristian.com/favor/#comments Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:17:43 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=1203
I’ve heard a lot of talk in Christian circles of earning the “favor” of God…this idea that if we’re good, if we tithe, if we ask for it in prayer (you have to ask confidently, though), we’ll earn cosmic points toward that raise or promotion at work, some random check in the mail, or be raised up relative to others in some way.  If I earn it, God will give me favor over others less deserving, those who don’t quite measure up, who don’t send in as much money as I do, or pray as forcefully as I do, or some other baloney.

In Luke 1, the angel Gabriel said to Mary, mother of Christ, “Mary, do not be afraid, you have won God’s favor,”   Perhaps she sent money to the historical equivalent of a televangelist.  No, I think this idea of favor is another thing altogether.   The rest of Mary’s story was one of great sacrifice and burden, hardly what today’s preachers promise.  What I hear today is if your heart is in the right place, God will make your life easy and give you money.  Contrast that with the life of Mary.  Despite her burdens, however, she is undoubtedly “blessed among women”.  Her favor was the grace of being Christ’s mother, and the Mother of humanity.  Our favor is also grace…and it’s not earned, it can’t be.  It’s not about us.  I like Richard Rohr’s take on this:

“The word favor doesn’t say anything about the recipient.  Favor says something about the one who is doing the favoring.  So it’s really not saying anything about Mary.  It’s saying something about God’s election of Mary.  She is one who is the absolutely perfect receiver, and refuses to play the “Lord, I am not worthy” card that had become normative in most biblical theophanies.  She just says, “Let it be done unto me” (Luke 1:38).  She lets God do all the giving.  Her job is just to receive such perfect giving.

God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good. God does not love you because you are good; you are good because God loves you. ”

-  Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, p 178

As a Protestant (though I’ve begun to question this label, as I have most others), I’ve tended to ignore Mary or trivialize her.  But, I recognize a maternal gap in my Christian experience.  I think as I’ve considered her pure response to God’s love and election, I’ve begun to recognize a call to listen.  I need a mother…I’m an angry Christian in an age of strange, narcissistic, even dangerous American Christianity.  Perhaps this mother, our Mother, is urging me to let go of my anger and really accept grace…to let life and the experience of it “be done unto me”.  I don’t know the implications of this, or what this should look like…thought I know deeply my call is to accept even those who have done hurt or harm in the name of Christ.

I am good because God loves me and calls me His son…I have His favor.  If I’m good, knowing too well the dark recesses of my own heart, then I must confess my own narcissism, for I’m quick to point out the faults of others.  Sometimes what we need to hear is heard best in the soft tones of a mother’s voice.

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]]> http://contemplativechristian.com/favor/feed/ 0 The Good News? http://contemplativechristian.com/the-good-news/ http://contemplativechristian.com/the-good-news/#comments Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:20:48 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=1183
I’ve been thinking about grace lately, as I begin a new chapter in my career journey.  For years I’ve worked with families in crisis, primarily with the homeless…and these folks know a thing or two about grace.   If you’re beat down and full of shame, to be looked in the eye and told you matter is liberation.  When I’ve taken families into shelter and begun to work with them, inevitably the single factor affecting change in their lives is unconditional love.  It changes things.

The church is supposed to be about unconditional love, but if I were to ask 10 people on the street what first comes to mind when they think of church, I’ll bet that’s not it.  What’s going on here?  The gospel is supposed to be good news.  If what we’re calling good news is the last thing people want to hear, then it’s not good news.  Well, some would say, it’s only good news to the predestined, or it’s only good news for those who believe correctly.  It turns out if you’re on the other side of the tracks, its very bad news indeed.  Hellfire and brimstone, in fact.  Something doesn’t add up.

The whole concept of grace throws this on its head.  God’s acceptance of us has nothing to do with us…it comes to us with no consideration of our merit.  We cannot earn it or screw it up.  If we could earn it or screw it up, it wouldn’t be grace.  It certainly wouldn’t be good news.  It cannot be something some people have and others don’t.  Grace is unconditional…that means without condition.  This is what sets Christianity apart from the rest…the idea that God is forever turned toward mankind, a lover who walked to the edge and beyond in pursuit of His sons and daughters.

The choice lies in whether we can bring ourselves to turn toward Him…to be seen as we are, laid bare, and embraced.  Many deeply doubt their own worth, and cannot accept this kind of love.  Many deeply doubt love itself, and are wary to open themselves to trust.  I think God reserves His deepest compassion for these…those who don’t choose Him, who cannot choose Him.  These, who are often ostracized, judged or argued with by defensive Christians, are the prodigal sons, for whom God would drop everything and run down the road to embrace, tears of joy streaming down his face.  Perhaps there are some of these reading this now.  Come home…His arms are raised, not in anger, but in compassion.

I am a mess.  Yet, in my Father’s eyes, I am perfect and accepted completely.  So, maybe I’m not a mess after all.  I am willing to take the chance, and live from a place of freedom…from my own disappointment with myself, from the judgments of others, from being alone.  Grace is an invitation to live in the moment, in the embrace of the present.  It’s an invitation to enjoy the shared experience of reciprocal love we enter into when we lay back in the arms of God.  God is a lover.  Do not be afraid.

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]]> http://contemplativechristian.com/the-good-news/feed/ 2 Presence http://contemplativechristian.com/presence/ http://contemplativechristian.com/presence/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:21:03 +0000 admin http://contemplativechristian.com/?p=1095
I’ve spent a good deal of time thinking about what it is to be in relationship with Christ. I’ve even spent a lot of time writing about relationship with Christ, giving the unsuspecting reader the impression I’m some sort of expert on the subject.  I’ve gone to church and heard sermons about relationship with Christ, listened to tapes or watched DVDs on the subject and had countless conversations with others.  I’ve read books, blogs and organization websites, pamphlets, booklets, position papers, bulletins, tracts, magazines and treatises.

All this talk about relationship with Christ…as though it were something to be attained or sought after, researched or discovered, understood or somehow earned.  All that energy and talk, much of it self-serving and all of it meeting some unmet need, misses the point entirely.  What am I thinking?  What I seek I already have.

It’s been an interesting process leaving church and spending a prolonged period of time without a local church community. It’s been nearly a year now, and its taken this long to shed the skin of talk-driven spirituality.  I used to go to church looking for some magic words from a pastor, words that might touch something deep in me and help me get closer to God.  I would share this experience with peers, all of us using the comfortable language of earnest, missional Christianity, talking each other into relationship.  Prayer was the same – flowery language, words carefully chosen, a deep desire to meet the needs of the person or group one was praying with. It was for them, or for me, or for God.   None of this is bad, but it was empty in many ways.  For them, for me, or for God…but lacking Presence.

I never experienced God’s presence then like I do now…or rather, His presence hasn’t changed, but now I’m quiet enough to notice, quiet enough to rest, quiet enough to listen.  Words don’t get in the way like they did.  It’s hard to explain, though I find the everyday wonder of my marriage gets closest to touching it.  My relationship with my wife has deepened most profoundly in the quiet realm of our unspoken communication.  In an embrace, we are one.  In the undefined, unspoken bond of trust and commitment between us, we are one.  We are one, and we don’t need to say that to be that.  It doesn’t need to be defined, examined or studied…we just enjoy it, and it gives us life.  It is so interesting that the vision of relationship with Christ most widely used in the bible is the marriage.  Presence…oneness.

The Christian life is life…it doesn’t need to be dressed up or defined.  God is.  He is with us in all we do and all we are.  I think if I’ve learned anything, I’ve learned this is the hardest thing to grasp and live out.  I want to earn it, so I can lay claim to it.  I want to need it, so I can grasp it tightly.  The bare reality is that God simply is, and there’s nothing I can do to earn His love or screw it up.  As Phillip Yancey writes, there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less, and there’s nothing we can do to make Him love us more.   It just is…His love just is.

Those moments when I wrap my head around this make me want to cry.  In some ways, the tears are tears of loss…for life is terrible sometimes, and there is very often no comfort to be had.  Those who suffer more than I know this intimately.  Yet, the tears are also tears of joy…for in the midst of it all, I am known…I am home where I am.  In the midst of the bitter-sweetness of life, I am home in the untouchable embrace of God…who is the essence of relationship, eternally embraced and embracing, Father, Son and Spirit.

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