This We Believe and The Wesley Study Bible

Bishop Will Willimon wrote This We Believe, The Core of Wesleyan Faith and Practice as a sort of companion for Abingdon’s The Wesley Study Bible. I didn’t purchase or write about The Wesley Study Bible when it was released last year because, honestly, I have a few Bibles already. However, Willimon’s book caught my attention and, as it was designed to be read alongside the study Bible, I figured I better pick up both.

This We Believe is a pretty useful book all on its own. Willimon, heavily referencing scripture and the writings of Wesley, lays out a very clear synopsis of Methodist Doctrine. I have a lot of respect for the clarity and simplicity of the Bishop’s explanations. As an ordained Elder, I had to write an examination that covered some of the cores doctrines and these are some difficult concepts. The beauty of this work is that, without watering them down, the author has made these concepts readable and understandable.

The explanations are explicitly Wesleyan. I think it would be clearer to say that they are explicitly Methodist which I think makes this an excellent resource for the United Methodist Church. Covered in the book are key doctrines of the Trinity, the reign of Christ, the Holy Spirit, our understanding of scripture, the concept of salvation and a clear definition of the “Church.”

One could easily read This We Believe without a copy of The Wesley Study Bible. What you would miss is a great chance to tour this amazing resource. Throughout his book, Willimon gives reference to the resources within the study Bible – mostly to small sidebars in the study notes called “Wesleyan Core Terms.” There are around 200 of these throughout the study Bible covering issues of doctrine and Christian living through a distinctly Wesleyan lens. They cover some fairly core doctrinal topics like faith, salvation and grace; some Wesleyan particulars like Christian perfection and intineracy; and some distinctive Methodist concepts like character of a Methodist and General Rules. These alone make this an amazing resource for United Methodists. As Methodists, we believe that we read scripture in conversation with reason, experience and tradition. This study Bible gives us instant access to, not just the tradition of the interpretation of the texts as with most study Bibles, but also to the core doctrines of our faith tradition that speak to how we live out those interpretations. I need to spend some more time with The Wesley Study Bible, but I believe it may become one the recommended study Bibles for our core Bible studies like Disciple and New Testament Survey.

Back to This We Believe. I highly recommend it to United Methodists who want to have a better understanding of our Wesleyan faith: the core doctrines that guide our faith and practice. This would be a great small group study. There is a leader’s guide available. I am looking at my calendar for 2011 to see if I will be able to offer it.

Peace,

will

Re-Alignment

I took my truck in for an oil change a couple of weeks ago and had the dealer check the front-end alignment while it was there. I felt it was a little off. Turns out it was off, way off. In my experience, unless you have some kind of accident or hit a really nasty hole or bump, alignment tends to slowly get out of adjustment. It is one of those things that I don’t really notice until it is fixed. But I realized what I was doing more and more as the months passed was steering more and more to the right as my truck tried to go my and more to the left. This wasn’t really good for me or the truck. At some point, alignment can get so far off that it actually get fairly dangerous to drive the vehicle.

But this isn’t a post about auto mechanics. (Though if it were, my Dad would be proud. He spent his early adult life as a General Motors mechanic and then fixed aircraft during the Korean War.) This is a post about my spiritual life and perhaps yours. I am officially on vacation much of this month. For me, vacation isn’t just about some fun time away; it is about re-creation and re-alignment. This year it is especially important. I have fallen into the pattern of taking most of my vacation and comp time and renewal time all at once in the fall. Last year I did this but also snuck away for a couple of long weekends during the year to tide myself over. This year, I never really did that. I pretty much went full-steam from last October to this October. The only break I took was for a couple of surgeries and even then I got back to work as soon as the meds wore off.

What I realized, as I got closer to this vacation time, was that I had gotten way out of alignment. Just like I don’t notice the gradual changes in my truck when I drive it almost every day, I don’t notice the gradual changes in me when I work almost every day. Fortunately, I don’t think I am fatally out of alignment, but I could use some correction. There are a couple of things I notice when I really check in on myself. (Put myself in the shop to keep up the rapidly tiring metaphor.) One is a misalignment of priorities. And this is a big thing. It affects how I spend my time and energy, what I worry about, what I focus on. When I step back and take inventory, I am not always pleased at what I put first or how I handled the stuff I put last. There other thing I notice in my misalignment is that just like in my truck, I am steering way too hard. When I am out of alignment, I am out of alignment with God’s will for my life. When I am aligned and refreshed and connected, the path at times may be difficult, but it is fairly clear to follow. When I am overtired and overspent, I am constantly correcting and over-steering – working way too hard because I am not driving on the right path.

Let me try another analogy. Ever driven on the beach? (For my environment loving friends – yes you are right, we should really keep our cars off the beach but this is just an analogy.) Have you driven on the part where the sand is pretty deep? And have you ever tried to stay in the ruts that are already there but found that the stance of your car or truck is just a little wider or narrower than the ruts? It is this horrible constant steering in and out of the ruts. But when, all of a sudden, you hit a section where your wheels fit, you don’t even really have to steer. Just keep your foot on the gas and likely those ruts will lead you right to the next beach access road.

So that is what I am trying to do on my time off: get my wheels back in the ruts (the ones made by God) and get myself back in alignment. That might entail some reading, some writing, some sleeping, some praying, some hiking and who know what else. I will just try and follow the track.

peace,

will

No one said there would be a quiz!

Okay, so I have been largely absent from the blog and the rest of the online world for a while now. Basically, I scheduled my vacation a little too late in the year and I have been limping along trying to get to a break. I am a little behind the curve on writing about this piece from the news. However, it too closely ties into the purpose of this blog to completely ignore it. A recent phone survey by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public life showed clearly that Americans don’t know much about the Bible, Christianity, other world religions, famous religious figures and the rules about religion in public life.

This has been out for a little while, so instead of my summarizing, follow a couple of these links and then come back here.

Basic Religion Test Stumps Many Americans - New York TimesDon't know much about religion? You're not alone, study finds - Belief Blog @cnn.com

Could You Repeat the Question? - Chuck Colson on The Christian Post

Okay, welcome back. Big shock, right? Not really. Let's set aside for a moment the issues of other world religions; protestant Christians really don't know a lot about their own faith and their own book. Two questions arise right off the top: who is responsible for this and why does it matter?

This seems really obvious, but clearly it is not: If American Christians don't know the most basic tenants of the faith, it is the because of the failure of the Church. Really. Who else's failure could it be? This is exactly why I am so committed to systematic discipleship, speaking to people's hearts and minds about the basics of the faith and how we are to live them out. The mainline churches have been especially guilty of just assuming people know the basics. When people come to our congregations, we need to assume that they don't know the Bible, they don't know the basic doctrines and they don't know the heritage of the faith. If they already do know, fantastic! I little review never hurt anyone.

More importantly, why is this so important? Isn't it more important that people know Jesus in their hearts than know about Jesus with their minds? They are both important and here is why: We live in a complex and broken world. As Christians we are often called to speak to the brokenness in our world in terms of our faith in God. Too often, we just don't know what we are talking about. Let me use a very current example. Here in San Antonio, there were recently two tragic suicides of high school students from two local schools. In such moments of tragedy, grief and confusion, Christians have a word of hope and peace to speak. However, what we found is that Christians didn't know what word to speak and were sometimes speaking the wrong word. Christian denominations differ on their understanding of the theology of suicide. However, United Methodists have a view. The Social Principles in our United Methodist Book of Discipline (par. 161) state:

A Christian perspective on suicide begins with an affirmation of faith that nothing, including suicide, separates us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39). Therefore, we deplore the condemnation of people who complete suicide, and we consider unjust the stigma that so often falls on surviving family and friends.

We encourage pastors and faith communities to address this issue through preaching and teaching. We urge pastors and faith communities to provide pastoral care to those at risk, survivors, and their families, and to those families who have lost loved ones to suicide, seeking always to remove the oppressive stigma around suicide. The Church opposes assisted suicide and euthanasia.

It is important to note that these words are contained in the Social Principles which do not represent church law but represent our efforts to wrestle with complex social issues and be faithful to scripture.

Interestingly, the view about is not the view that if often expressed by United Methodist who often share the belief that suicide results in a clear condemnation to hell. Often people who do express that view have trouble explaining why they have that belief or where, biblically, it comes from. While suicide is a complex and tender topic and raises a number of theological questions, a United Methodist familiar with his or her theological heritage can be a voice of hope and peace in the midst of tragedy. But only if they know what they believe. (My friend and our Director of Youth Ministries who has recently by in the midst of this topic has written clearly and eloquently on this topic. You should read his blog post on the topic: The Lord Bless you and keep you.)

This is a just one example of many. The point is this: it doesn't matter how we do on a quiz or survey. That is not the point. However, this latest report is symptomatic of a lack of understanding of our faith. And understanding our faith is an important part of living it out in the world. At University, we are working hard to teach and equip people through our Pathway to Discipleship. Yet we know that this is just part of the solution. I hope that as week seek to clarify and improve our instruction at University, the Church universal is continuing to consider how we teach the faith and pass it along to a new generation.

peace,

will

Review: O Me of Little Faith

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you might notice that I don’t offer a lot of overly critical book reviews. Let me tell you why. I only really bother to post about books that I like and that I think you might like to read. So, if there is a book that I think carries a lot of literary or theological flaws, I usually just don’t post anything about it. There are plenty of places on the internet to read thorough, critical reviews. Just not here.

That is my preface to writing another glowing review. I just finished Jason Boyett’s, O Me of Little Faith. And as you might expect to hear, given the preface, I loved it. I ordered this book when it first came out but my wife stole it from my amazon box and drove me a little crazy as she lay in bed reading it and laughing out loud. She was laughing because this is indeed a funny book but it is about a most serious topic: doubt. As a pastor, people speak to me about doubt in tones more hushed than the ones that they use for speaking about breaking commandments. Boyett does us all a service by loudly proclaiming that doubt is at the core of his struggle to be a faithful disciple. Right on the back cover of the book, he proclaims, for even the bookstore browser to see:

I have been a Christian for most of my life. But there are times – an uncomfortable frequency of times, to be honest – when I’m not entirely sure I believe in God.

There always seem to be a caveat in my reviews and recommendations. Here is one for this book. If the above quote offends you or makes you nervous, you can skip this book. (Though it might actually do you a lot of good to read it.) However, if it leaves you thinking to yourself, “Oh thank you! I am not the only one!” this book might be worth a little bit more than the $10 you will shell out for it. (Unless you pay $12.99 for it. But really, you are still paying full price for books? But then again, it really would by worth even that.)

I just can’t say enough how much I enjoyed the book. As a man who spent 27 years as a seeker and spends his time helping people to grow as disciples, it was refreshing to hear an honest account of one who has some serious questions about God, scripture, prayer and the life of a Christian – but still does his best to take that “leap of faith” and trust that he doesn’t have to have it all worked out in order to live a life with God.

You can read more about Jason Boyett at jasonboyett.com. You can follow him on twitter: @jasonboyett.

Peace,

will

Heartbreak and Discipleship

My wife and I recently experienced what was likely the most heartbreaking moment of our lives so far. We have been fostering two very young children for about 8 months and a couple weeks ago we dropped them off with Child Protective Services to be cared for by a member of their family. While we pray that this setting will be good for them, there is still a giant hole in our home and family. Even in the midst of my own grief, I can’t help but look at things theologically and analytically. I have noticed three basic types of reactions from people when they hear about this.

One is to not see it as that big of a deal. After all, they weren’t really our kids and we knew that they might go home someday, right? And, perhaps, this is what is best for them, right? To that I respond, try pouring all our love and care into two human beings for eight months, changing their diapers, rocking them to sleep, convincing them they are loved, reading them bedtime stories, comforting them when they wake up screaming, living with them 24/7 as a part of our your family… and then say “it is not that big of a deal.” Truly it is heartbreaking. It is like losing a family member.

The second response comes from those who get that. Their response is somewhere along the line of “That is why I could never do that. I just couldn’t handle the heartbreak.” To these folks I am grateful that they understand. However, I also respond to “I just couldn’t handle the heartbreak” with “Either can we.” We are not wired in some way that enables us to process grief any faster or easier than anyone else. We are also not wired in a way to just “be okay” letting them go. But despite this, we entered into this life of possibly temporary parenthood fully aware of the possibility of heartbreak. Why?

I center my morning prayer around a little book called This Day, A Wesleyan Way of Prayer by Laurence Hull Stookey. Stookey writes on the first day of the month order:

Jesus told his followers to take up the cross daily. Contrary to common belief, the cross is not just some burden or challenge in life we cannot escape and simply must endure (such as chronic disease or being unable to find work.) Rather the cross is something we can evade, but nevertheless take it up willingly, even amid misgivings. In Gethsemane Jesus reluctantly yet willingly accepted the cross that was presented to him; thus he defined his own instructions and set the pattern for discipleship. (Stookey, This Day, Abingdon Press, p. 27)

Sometimes we decide to do something even if we can’t handle it, even if it will break our heart.

There is a third response. There are a number of people who sort of get it or realize that they don’t actually get it at all. They know it is a big deal for us but maybe they don’t understand the motivation or reasoning behind it. Those are the friends who look us in the eyes and say, “I’m sorry.”

I am getting close to the end of 39 years on the planet. I have spent only about 12 of those as a Christian. One of the most profound lessons I have learned as a follower of Jesus is that things that hurt are not necessarily bad. That is a really counterintuitive lesson. We are taught from birth to avoid pain. Pain is sometimes a signal that something is bad for us. But Jesus turned that around. He tells us in Luke Gospel (Chapter 9 vs. 23-25)

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?”

A number of people have asked me already, “Would you do it again?” Of course we would. We need time to heal and assess but, in 2009 there were nearly 16,000 children in foster care in the state of Texas. Another 9,000 were placed outside their homes but with relatives. (http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/documents/about/Data_Books_and_Annual_Reports/2009/5CPS.pdf) These children cry out of a safe, stable, loving place. When children cry out, God hear them and so should we. Thousands of children in the state are awaiting adoption, waiting for a family to call their own, waiting for someone to convince them that they are worth loving. Their hurt is clearly more than mine.

In the midst of my own sense of loss, I ask you to consider, what is God calling you to do even if it might hurt, even if it might be frightening, even if you are not sure how you would handle it?

Much grace and peace,

will

Quick Review – The Unlikely Disciple

I am going backwards through my list of recently read books. I finished Kevin Roose’s The Unlikely Disciple, A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University a couple of weeks ago. I almost skipped posting about it but it has been sitting on my desk staring at me. Roose’s book was the most entertaining thing I have read so far this year and that is just part of it.

Here is the premise: Kevin Roose, a sophomore at Brown University and a budding journalist decided to spend a semester at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. Roose grew up with Quaker parents but had never lived the life even close to that of an evangelical Christian. For a pretty much agnostic young man from a liberal university this was about as big of a switch as one can make while staying in their native country and still speaking the same language. The point of this experiment was to write a book, but here is what makes the whole thing interesting: he didn’t go in as a detached, undercover observer. He decided, in order to do it right, he was going to have to throw himself fully into the life of a Liberty student. He lived in the dorms, followed the rules, went to prayer group and engaged fully in his classes. The result was some amazing writing, some incredible insight into some of the most religiously conservative Christians in America and a little bit of transformation in the life of the author. You will have to read for yourself to see the extent of the transformation but I can’t overstate the power of the fact the he allowed himself to experience life at Liberty. It would have been pretty easy to watch from a distance and critically deconstruct the students, faculty and ideology of the school. Instead, we see a much more nuanced, gentle treatment. It doesn’t leave out the bad but it allows us to see the good, especially in the hearts and minds of the students who may be flawed but are trying to be faithful.

It seems I am often warning people about the books I read, in that some might find them offensive. I need to give that warning again. Conservative Christians might be offended by Roose’s experiment and his analysis of views and practices that some hold hear. Extreme liberals might be offended by the grace he offers those who believe radically different things. This is exactly why I recommend the book. The author quotes an interesting statistic early in the book when he cites that 51% of Americans don’t know any evangelical Christians. That says as much about 51% of Americans as it does about evangelical Christians. There is a great deal of divide and misunderstanding and this book may be one piece of a very large bridge. And even if it is not, it made me laugh out loud.

peace,

will

Review - When Christians Get it Wrong

I just finished an advanced copy of Adam Hamilton’s When Christians Get it Wrong. I really like Adam Hamilton’s books for one main reason: while Hamilton is not one to break much new ground, he has the gift of writing with exceptional clarity. I rarely read his work and think “I had never thought of that.” Instead, I read it and think, “I never thought to put it like that.” I have to think that this is what has made him such a successful pastor; he has the ability to take complex and controversial ideas and clearly and lovingly explain them.

So here again, we have another book on how negatively Christianity is perceived and how Christians need to accept some of the blame for that and more importantly do something about it. David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyon’s book UnChristian seems to be the leader of the genre but a little snooping on Amazon will show you that there are a number of Christians talking about what is wrong with Christianity. (See also Dan Kimball’s They Like Jesus But Not the Church, Jason Berggren’s 10 Thing I Hate About Christianity or the movie Lord Save us From Your Followers.) I have read a number of these and they all have some fascinating insights. What I like about Hamilton’s treatment is what I already mentioned: he makes it clear, he makes it understandable and he delivers it in a way I think people will be able to hear.

The book stems out of a conversation Hamilton had with a young man who had some strong negative perceptions of the Christian faith. He covers five main areas of perception: Christian behavior, science and politics, other religions, the problem of evil, and homosexuality. In each of these he clearly lays down some challenges – that we might have more than a perception problem, we may have a behavior problem and even an understanding problem. He offers some thoughts on widening our understanding and changing our attitudes. He also shows some examples of what it looks like when we “get it right.”

I will be honest, like some of his other work, this one will rub some folks, including readers of this blog, the wrong way. When you hit politics and homosexuality and call for some repentance and correction, someone will not agree. In the clarity of his writing does not leave a lot of room for interpretation – which is a good thing – unless you don’t agree with him. While it may not leave room for interpretation, it is good teaching and so it leaves room for learning and growing.

I hope people read this book. It is written at a level clearly appropriate for lay people. My review copy came in at around 85 pages so is the perfect length for Sunday school classes, small groups and reading groups. I look forward to it coming out so that I can read your comments.

Peace,

will

*disclosure note, Abingdon Press provided an advanced copy of the book to me, at no charge, for review.