Paul Stewart

The Celebrity Pastor

It was fascinating to watch Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) struggle last night during his acceptance speech at the Grammy’s. He was visibly uncomfortable receiving the award for Best New Artist, wanting to show proper gratitude but at the same time distance himself from the event, presumably, out of fear of being swallowed up by the pop culture machine. Vernon said that when he started writing music he did it not for awards or accolades but for the inherent reward of making songs. Vernon was uncomfortable because he knew that there is a big difference between being a ‘musician’ and a ‘celebrity’ - and the two do not always fit well together.

There has been much written recently about the phenomenon of the ‘celebrity pastor’ - think Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Steven Furtick, etc. In many ways this is nothing new. Even in the early church Christians were aligning themselves with famous apostles like Paul, Apollos and Cephas (1 Corinthians 3:21). We all have a natural tendency to make our leaders into idols - and leaders have a natural tendency to turn their “platform” or their personal “brand” into an idol as well.

Bob Hyatt wrote this morning about his own struggle with the pursuit of pastoral fame. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a danger to my soul in pursuing more exposure, more name recognition, more money to be made from thinking, writing, and speaking about ministry issues.”

Hyatt argues that we must separate celebrity from pastoral work. “Local church ministry should not be a stepping stone to anything, least of all to fame and fortune. It should not be easier for CNN to get in touch with a pastor than for someone in his own congregation.”

Skye Jethani helps to break down this phenomenon even further. He argues that there is more than a spiritual or psychological reason behind the rise of today’s pastoral pantheon. There is a systemic economic force at work as well. Evangelicalism is a very large business. Some estimate the total evangelical market to be over $7 billion a year. A market, just like any other, that must be sustained. Jethani points out that “This market-driven cycle of megachurches, conferences, and publishers results in an echo chamber where the same voices, espousing the same values, create an atmosphere where ministry success becomes equated with audience aggregation.” Sounds a lot like pop-music to me.

In Matthew 4 we’re told that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to to be tempted by the devil. The tempter came to him three times with three different temptations. “If you are the Son of God... tell these stones to become bread... throw yourself off the temple and have the angels rescue you... worship me and I will give you all the kingdoms and the splendor of this world.” Henri Nouwen points out that these were essentially the temptation to become relevant, to do something spectacular, and to become popular and powerful. These are the same temptations we all face in Christian leadership. Why are these temptations so potent? Because each one offers an easy substitute from the hard task of love.

Christian leadership is about love. It is not about fulfilling our need to be relevant to a market audience, it is about about giving and receiving the life-giving love of our Creator. It is not about becoming popular, it is about being rooted in a community where you can know and be known. It is not about power and control, it is displaying the same kind of mercy, humility and service Jesus showed to the world.

May we minister not for the awards or the accolades, but for the inherent rewards of serving Christ and his Church.

A Band of Natural Enemies

"The church is…made up of natural enemies. What binds us together is not common education, common race, common income levels, common politics, common nationality, common accents, common jobs, or anything else of that sort. Christians come together…because they have all been saved by Jesus Christ and owe him a common allegiance… They are a band of natural enemies who love one another for Jesus’ sake."

Quote: Don Carson, Love in Hard Places
Image: JR, Face2Face Campaign

Confession: I Am Not Hungry Enough

A Jesus Manifesto

Yesterday authors Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola posted a "Magna Carta for Restoring the Supremacy of Jesus Christ" a.k.a. "A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church."

The reason: they believe that the church today suffers from "Jesus Deficit Disorder". That the person of Jesus is being replaced by the language of “justice,” “the kingdom of God,” “values,” and “leadership principles.” 

Pretty powerful stuff.

Here are the final two paragraphs:

"If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world. We call on others to join us—not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son preeminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others."

You can read the entire Jesus Manifesto HERE. It is excellent, but seems to be pretty standard orthodox theology to me. What do you think? Has the Church today really forgotten Jesus? In what ways?

Suffering that is Apparently Bearable

“Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years, and without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.” -- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

From Fellowship to Enterprise

"In the beginning the church was a fellowship of men and women centered on the living Christ. Then the church moved to Greece, where it became a philosophy. Then it moved to Rome, where it became an institution. Next, it moved to Europe, where it became a culture. And, finally, it moved to America, where it became an enterprise." -- Richard Halverson, former chaplain of the US Senate.

Source: The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

The New Apologists

In the culture war dominated much of the 1980’s and 1990’s the church has often taken an argumentative and aggressive political posture, mainly over homosexuality and abortion. That posture led to a perception of moral and religious superiority of Christians. The posture bullied through certain initiatives, but also alienated countless people from the faith.

Recently bookstores have been bombarded by the New Atheists. No fewer than five books have appeared on bestseller lists in the past two years–Sam Harris’s The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell, Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion and now Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. These books all take a militant stance against religion, claiming that not only is faith irrational, it is harmful to society. 

While the impact of these books upon society at large is yet to be seen, I believe the Church must begin to re-evaluate the way in which we engage culture. We have to begin to flip the perception of our own superiority and hypocrisy;  take a posture of grace over judgment; and be honest and straightforward about our faults and our hope for transformation in Jesus. We must figure out how speak the Truth in love.

I believe that Tim Keller and N.T. Wright have figured out a way to do this in two of their recent works. 

In The Reason for God Tim Keller addresses the seven biggest objections and doubts about Christianity that he has encountered as pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. While in light of our current cultural moment, Keller’s head-on approach might be perceived as a bit abrasive, his arguments were solid and the questions he addressed were indeed the major objections to the faith of our time.

Personally, I preferred N.T. Wright’s approach in Simply Christian. Rather than responding to the culture’s objections, Wright points to four “echoes of a voice” - the universal cry for justice, spirituality, relationship and beauty within the human heart. He then shows how Christianity addresses each of these in a unique and powerful way and how the Church can and should reflect this in the world today.

To be honest, I have never been terribly impressed with all of the arguments for Christianity, butthe story captivates me. While there are tremendous arguments for the faith, and Keller provides some of the best, we learn who God really is only in the story of what God has done in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Rather than argue for the faith, Wright taps into humanity’s deepest longings for justice, our hunger for spirituality and relationship, and our delight in beauty, and convinces us that we are hearing “echoes of a voice” – and it is in the story of Jesus that we “recognize the voice whose echoes we have heard.”

To be fair, in the second half of the book Keller lays out his reasons for faith and takes a very similar approach to Wright. In fact, I really enjoyed the second half of the book much more than the first. I wonder if he or the publisher ever thought of reversing the order. It would seem to me that after centuries of debate the world is not primarily looking for reasons why their views are wrong, but for reasons to believe.

On the other hand, I really did enjoy the way in which Keller handled each objection. His responses were creative and yet rooted in orthodoxy. For example, the notion of God as the judge is, in our culture, one of the most difficult declarations for people to accept. Our culture likes tolerance better than judgment, or at least that’s what we like to think. Keller did well to point out that other cultures around the world, though, find the mercy of God more offensive than the justice of God, feeling that His mercy is a sign of weakness.

Keller set God’s judgment within the context of the biblical narrative. He explained that judgment is about moving the story of God’s redemptive plan forward by curbing, containing, or destroying evil. The goal is seen in Ephesians 1:10-11 where we learn that history is moving to Christ’s life filling all things. This will require the subduing of all that refuses to be filled, and this subduing is judgment. We say we don’t like judgment, but we really do, when understood in this light. We like it when ‘cancer’ is subdued so that it doesn’t spread. Most people were happy when the holocaust ended. We like it when pedophiles are contained so that they can no longer inflict their damage on young lives. So, before we get too bothered by the notion of God as a judge, we must consider the reality that most of us really do look forward to the containment of death, evil, and suffering. Such containment is judgment, and perhaps the best being in the universe to orchestrate that containment is God.

Today it is politically correct to avoid any discussion about judgment, to believe that all roads lead to the pot of spiritual gold at the end of rainbow. Keller and Wright both point out that this is not only a contradiction to the Bible, it’s a contradiction to the real world, where evil things happen at the hands of people. God’s judgment is therefore motivated by both love and justice. Containment of evil is an act of love and justice for the whole of creation, eventuating in blessing and fullness of life for all who are willing to receive it. Of course, even this argument is rooted in God’s story.

I am thankful for the New Apologists. 

Scandalous Love

I had the opportunity to teach about my all-time favorite story in our services this weekend - the parable of the Prodigal Son. Most of my thoughts were developed by reading The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen and a sermon series by Rick McKinley. 

If you'd like to take a listen go HERE.

Hope

This weekend Pastor Dave spoke about the “messiness” we experience as human beings – in our own lives, in our church, and in our world – and how that “messiness” can actually be a gift that points us to the grace of God.

Christians struggle with messiness because somewhere along the line we embraced a picture of a Jesus who would turn us into perfect people, unpolluted by the world or our own sin. But he didn’t.

For whatever reason, Jesus didn’t choose to instantly sanitize the whole lot of us.

The core of Jesus’ gospel seems to be the Kingdom is arriving. But what does that mean?

At times, Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as something present that we can experience now. Other times he speaks of the Kingdom coming in the clouds at the end of time. Well, which is it?

Scripture has us expecting an actual reign by an actual king who will bring tangible changes. Freedom from oppresses, Justice and Dignity for all people. The world will finally know the one true king.

When Jesus walked the earth he announced that the Kingdom of God had arrived, but he also explained the nature of its arrival. He said the kingdom is like a mustard seed, which, over time, will grow into an incredible tree.

He simply invited his followers to recognize the Kingdom amidst the mess, embrace it and join in with what the Father was already doing.

There are times when we seem to experience the Kingdom better than others. As I reflect on the Gospel story during the Christmas season, I am filled with much hope. However, there are other times when I question and begin to doubt everything.

I was reminded of a quote from G.K. Chesterton this week. He says that hope is much more than just a feeling; it is a virtue and a strength.

“Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all...As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” - G.K. Chesterton in Signs of the Times

As followers of Christ our hope is based on the reality of the Kingdom of God – which continues to grow and expand out of the messiness of our world.

Introduction

This is my first blog ever. I am not quite sure to begin. This feels like the first day of class when you have to introduce yourself to a bunch of strangers. How can you describe yourself in a couple of sentances? Is anyone really listening? Does anyone even care?

Well, my name is Paul. I was born in Denver, CO but spent most of my childhood in Des Moines, IA and most of my adult life in Minneapolis, MN. I am 27 years old. I have been married for six years to my high-school sweetheart (Jessica). We have one daughter (Sophia, 21 months) and one son (George, 1 month).

I named this site "Endagered Faith" because although I am the author I don't want to just blog about what I had for dinner last night and what I am watching on TV. I very much want this to be a conversation about my faith and "Christian Spirituality" at large rather than just random stories of my life (although there will be random stories included as long as they relate to my faith which I believe all good stories ultimately do).

I did not name the site "Endangered Faith" to be negative or fatalistic. I do not think that the Christian Faith is on the brink of destruction. Nor do I believe the Church of which Jesus Christ is the head is nearing extinction (although it may look very different in the near future).

I named it "Endagered Faith" because my faith is always something that I need to treat carefully. To very intentionally watch over, care for, feed and nurture. Just as ecologists would watch over and take care of an endangered species, I must keep watch over my own faith.

I hope to discuss and develop all of this further.