Another evangelical acquaintance asked where in the scriptures are Christians called to be humanized and reported a quick Google search showed “humanising” being not a particularly Christian thing. Perhaps the Google algorithms found more examples of fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity’s record of dehumanizing the gospel even though admirable pockets of evangelicalism still engage in humanitarian enterprises. The challenge to expose the humanizing motif in the Christian scriptures prompted me to review my post-evangelical journey of thirty-plus years with the figure of Jesus.

The lack of explicit references to the humanizing focus of the gospel in the Christian scriptures is not unique when it comes to claims of scriptural support for beliefs in the Christian faith tradition. There are many things those who claim the identity of Christian do that are not explicitly called for in the scriptures. For example, there is no call for Christians to construct buildings and call them churches and plant them all over the planet. But it is something of an obsession in the Christian tradition. It grew from seeing adherents of other religious traditions erecting places of worship and Christians wanting to compete (despite fairly strong hints in the early New Testament writings for followers of Jesus to not create communities of faith dependent on man made artefacts as the focus of the worshipping community). But, churches in buildings have a history of doing much good so the tradition continues. More confounding are the many things that are explicitly called for in the scriptures that Christians do not do – like communities of faith sharing their resources to ensure all members enjoy prosperity and do not experience poverty.

When it comes to the claim that the gospel presented by Jesus was mostly about humanising people, I start at the beginning of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The creation story consistently emphasises that humans are made in the image of the creator. The humans created were judged by the creator to be the perfect expression of humanity due to their unimpeded relationship with their creator. The story of the fall is a description of the perfect humans being seduced into believing independent, self-preservation was the point of life (the serpent’s tantalising offer) rather than the communal care of all people to enable them to experience the humanity with which the creator imbued them.

Over the next few thousand years, according to the Old Testament scriptures, people identified as prophets continually called those who claimed to follow Yahweh to return to treating all people as human and stop treating some (or many) of them like animals to be used and abused for personal gain and preservation. In other words, the call was to humanise others to enable people to have an experience as close as possible to that of the first humans before the fall.

When the prophet project manifestly failed to bring people back to the creator’s vision of humanity, the New Testament scriptures announce a new strategy. The use of the terms “new creation,” “new Adam,” “son of God,” and “oneness of Father and Son” indicate the presentation of a repeat, perfect expression of humanity from the creator. This expression provided a perfect example of humanity for people to follow through his uninterrupted communion with the creator. Moreover, it included the ability to lead all humans to be engaged in becoming better expressions of perfect humanity and helping others become the same through entering into closer communion with the creator.

When we read the stories about Jesus’ sayings and actions in the gospels in this light, we see him explicitly and deliberately opposing the beliefs and acts of the Judaist religious tradition the prophets had called out that had dehumanised many in their communities through deprivation, exclusion, marginalisation, and dogmatism. The theme of Jesus’ words and actions shows a strong commitment to provision, inclusion, incorporation, and openness to other perspectives on previously non-negotiable beliefs. One of the strongest calls for followers of Jesus to be engaged in the enterprise of humanising others and themselves is in Matthew 25:31-46. Here Jesus as the judge is portrayed as excluding from eternity in the presence of the creator those who simply believed the right things but dehumanised others. Even those who appeared not to believe the right things but manifestly engaged in Jesus’ humanising enterprise were welcomed into eternity.

The lack of results in a Google search on “humanizing and Christianity” is bewildering. There is a reasonable body of literature that argues somewhat compellingly that authentic following of Jesus produces the truest form of humanism founded on an understanding of a creator whose desire was to create perfect humans with whom to have a meaningful relationship. However, this is one perspective on what the gospel is and there are many more that make sense also. I prefer this perspective but accept that it does not make sense for everyone who claims the identity of Christian. They are welcome to whatever perspective enables them to explain why they call themselves Christian. I no longer claim the identity of Christian and prefer to identify as a humanizing follower of Jesus – but that is just what makes sense to me.

These otherwise disparate communities rally under the banner of ‘fair’, ‘free’, and ‘united’ appearing to hold as supreme the values of fairness, freedom, and unity. But are these Jesus’ values?

The fairness being broadcast seems to imply equal opportunity and agency to do what is best for them when it comes to vaccinations, isolation, movement, mask wearing, and distancing. It employs a utilitarian ethic of what is best (or at least good) for the most people using a value of fairness synonymous with equality. But doing what is best or good for most people is always going to be unfair for someone. What’s more, doing what is best or good for most people will always create inequality for those in the least people group.

There is a logical inconsistency in this approach. My application of a value of fairness/equality will be based on what I believe is fair for me and people like me. But other people will have a different belief on what is fair for them and people like them.

I have a range of morbid conditions that require constant surveillance by those who, because of their knowledge, experience, and training, know how to treat and manage my conditions. Is it fair that some health professionals who maintain my health might lose their jobs because they refuse or choose not to be vaccinated? No. Is it fair that I, with compromised health, should be exposed to unvaccinated health professionals and risk catching a virus that could cause irreparable damage to a few organs already susceptible to harm? No.

A utilitarian ethic based on fairness/equality seems illogical and unworkable in this situation.

The cry for freedom seems to be a call for anyone to be allowed to go anywhere they want to do anything they want whenever and however they want. The rhetoric of “Nobody tells me what I can and can’t do” uses an ethic of rights – a right to do what they think is right for them and people like them. Again, there seems to be an internal, logical contradiction in this approach.

Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is mostly about freedoms to be, freedoms to experience – not freedoms to do. Limitless freedom to do anything creates limits on those whose freedom to do what they believe is right is limited by my belief in doing what I think is right. One person’s expression of unlimited liberty is another person’s experience of unwelcome restriction.

READ: Protecting What We Have

In my work, our standard operating procedure is to form communities of staff and clients that meet at least weekly to encourage, inspire, educate, and humanise each other. Right now, our freedom to do this is being denied and, over the past 20 months, has been frequently, abruptly, and seriously disrupted. Are we happy about it? No. Do we accept it as inevitable and incontestable? No. But our freedom to do this is not appropriate currently. We tried to retain this freedom under relaxed lockdown conditions by offering in-person, large group interactions each week. Some colleagues and clients were distressed that their freedom to isolate and maintain distance was taken away by us pursuing our freedom to associate and interact.

So, it seems an ethic of rights approach based on a distorted value of freedom is illogical and unworkable in this situation.

What about the cry for unity? Surely this is valid? However, the unity called for seems to be more about unification than unity. And when used in a virtue ethics approach, being a homogenous, unified whole is promoted as being supremely virtuous. But unity based on unification is a virtuous ideal but a flawed reality. Few attempts at unification produce a neatly, nicely, unified whole. Previously divided countries are unified but differences and divisions linger for years, decades, generations, and centuries, often erupting into racial, political, economic, or social discord. 

The current call for unity seems to be against dividing the vaccinated from the unvaccinated – especially when it comes to employment, education, and worship. If we are unified about not making vaccination mandatory, everyone will be happy and we will all be on the same team. 

My family and I have been associated with a religious, community youth organisation that came from the USA to my country in the late 1940s. I got involved as a teenager and, in my late twenties, began working full-time in it for 35 years in four countries. I am still a member of the latest iteration of it. Was our organisation united? Yes. We firmly identified ourselves and our projects with the name and image of the brand. Were we unified? No. We held different versions of the same belief system; different ways of delivering the same programmes; different interpretations of why we did what we did and how best to do it.

This united commitment seems to be lacking in the current calls for unity and be side-tracked by a virtuous, illogical, and unworkable appeal for a unified stance on Covid-19 measures and their implications. 

Is there another way? Maybe.

Instead of fairness as equality using a utilitarian ethic, we could embrace a value of integrity using principles of justice and equity to see what is good or best for most people. Jesus’ parables of the forgiving dad, trusted servants, and generous vineyard boss have outcomes that are patently unfair and unequal, but they do have integrity in delivering justice and equity.

Jesus challenges us to examine our conscience and ask if we can honestly say we have considered and explored all available justice and equity possibilities when we conclude what is good or best for those disadvantaged by measures that we don’t like or agree with. It also requires that we preserve what is good or best for those advantaged by these measures and accept not everyone will benefit equally. It won’t be fair, but it will have integrity. We won’t have equality, but we will have justice and equity.

Then we could take a duty ethic approach to promote a value of responsibility instead of pursuing freedom as an unlimited right to do what we want. This would mean accepting limitations on our freedom to do what we want so that all of us can enjoy more freedom to be who we are and experience what we should as humans. Jesus didn’t promise Zacchaeus and Matthew, despised outcasts in society, the freedom to do what they wanted. He set them free to become humans who took responsibility for who they were and treat others as humans. 

Having the freedom to be who we are and experience the rights of being human creates diversity. No two humans are identical. So instead of trying to unify incredibly complex and unique humans in a crisis, what about accepting, celebrating, and even leveraging diversity? All of us respond differently to the same stimuli – physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual. 

Jesus’ story of the Jewish traveller beaten up and left to die has people from the traveller’s race and religion avoiding him. A racial and religious outcast attended to him. Jesus’ point was that people who do things Jesus’ way are included in Jesus’ kingdom. A virtue ethics approach that values inclusiveness as a value could focus on how we can authentically include those with different beliefs, circumstances, needs, and expectations about immigration, lockdowns, vaccination, mandates, passes, and isolation under Covid-19. We won’t be unified, but we might be united in our efforts to virtuously include each other.

Fair, free, and unity offer seemingly neat and tidy approaches. But the human experience is never neat and tidy. And these approaches are illogical and unworkable individually and, even more, collectively – especially in the current situation. Integrity, responsibility, and inclusiveness are messy and untidy, but they seem to offer a more authentically Jesus’ way of pursuing what is best, doing our duty, and being virtuous in the face of a situation with complex issues that we have never faced before. And along the way, we will respect everyone’s right to be, to belong, and to experience being human – to be like Jesus.

NOTE: Read Part 1 Here

Over the past 20 years, through my experience of teaching missiology, mentoring young people and coaching university students in educational and developmental theory, I have become acquainted with the work of some of the more notable post-modern, socio-cultural thinkers of the past 50 years. I have begun to see a connection between my understanding of these thinkers and my approach to theology. The result, I hope, is that I have arrived at a more honest approach to theology than that which I have taken in the past. I used to try to impose on those around me a particular theological viewpoint on issues simply because I had the depth of research and highly-regarded expositions of erudite theologians to support my pronouncements. I owe a debt to Foucault for prompting me to acknowledge that my theology is co-constructed through the interplay of three factors – environment, noesis, and experiences. My theology is not primarily the result of some foolproof, irrefutable logic but has a far more complex, rich and challenging aetiology.

The work of Uri Bronfenbrenner on the different, concentric systems of the environment in which we exist as individuals, is based on the iconic Russian wooden doll that contains three or four exact replicas of diminishing size of the largest outside doll. Using this analogy, Bronfenbrenner describes the ecology of our lives in this diagram.

This has provided a helpful explanation of how my family configuration (past and present), my church experience, my education, my work, and the community in which I have grown up and live in now (local, cultural, religious, national, global and historical) all contribute to my theological perspective on different issues.

Then, there is a helpful term, “noesis”, that I came across while I was thinking through my theological approach. Noesis is the psychological result of a combination of perception, learning and reasoning. When it comes to theology, this is seen in our view of the bible (is it literal, contextual, or figurative – or a combination of some or all of these selectively or entirely?); our view of people (are we inherently depraved or inherently noble?); our view of the world (is it essentially good or essentially evil?). My noesis (formed largely through extensive theological study, research, teaching and dialogue) has a profound impact on my theological approach.

Related: Why My Heart is Torn Between Russian Orthodoxy and Pussy Riot

For example, when it comes to the creation/evolution issue, our theological view on the origins of life very strongly reflects our noesis. If we believe that the Bible is literal and that people are inherently depraved and the world is essentially evil, then we will be more likely to see Genesis, chapters one to eleven, as a precise description of the origins of life through the miraculous acts of the creator God. This fits with our literal view of the Bible – the text means exactly what it says. It explains the depravity of humanity – a perfect creation was corrupted by wilful human disobedience and all people since then are born in sin. Moreover, an essentially good world was handed over to evil by this action which explains the presence of life-threatening natural, social, intellectual and spiritual elements in a previously safe and nurturing, holistically perfect environment.

If, on the other hand, we believe that the Bible record on the origins of life is more figurative and that people are inherently noble and the world is essentially good, then we can allow for some or all elements of the theory of evolution as having a part to play in the origins of life without eliminating the controlling hand of the creator God. This deistic evolutionary view sees God as bringing out the inherent nobility of humanity as it evolves and supports a view of the evolving natural environment as essentially good and life-sustaining and needing our committed stewardship to enhance its goodness.

Finally, our experiences form, shape and apply the understanding we have devised from our environment and noesis and help to refine and define more clearly what we truly believe theologically about a certain issue. Living life has a way of sifting out the sense from the nonsense if we truly allow our theology to be challenged and formed by those around us to whom we seek to express the reality of the philanthropic God through following Jesus.

Rather than appealing only to some body of theological evidence or weight of ecclesiastical, academic authority to justify my theology, I am coming more and more to concede honestly that my theology is an amalgam of my environment, noesis and experiences which may lead me to an understanding of God’s ways in a certain area of life that is different to the understanding of a fellow traveller on the journey of following Jesus.

It seems to me that recognizing this process provides the opportunity of developing and expressing a more honest theology on specific issues that acknowledges the possibility that someone else may hold a different theology on the same issue. Whereas, in the past, I would have condemned them and their theology because of my misguided claim that my theology was grounded in infallible logic, I can now accept that their theology is grounded in the same core beliefs but has developed authentically for them through their environment, noesis and experience. Furthermore, I now realize that my past theological pontificating was dishonest in that it ignored the reality of environmental, noetic and experiential influences on my belief.

As mentioned above, my pondering on this began in the context of preparing for a public theological conversation on sexual and gender identity. And it has proved to be very helpful in diminishing my own prejudice against those with a very different theological understanding to mine on this issue and enhancing my acceptance of different theologies on sexual and gender identity.

In this area, I observe that our theology usually focuses on three aspects of sexuality and gender: identity, orientation and activity. And depending on our environment, noesis and experience, we can hold different combinations of understandings on all three aspects while sharing a common, core, theological perspective.

For many in the evangelical tradition, their conclusion is that the references in the bible clearly condemn non-heterosexual identity, orientation, and activity. Based on the construction of their theology from their environment, noesis and experiences, their theology of sexual/ gender identity is well-founded and their conclusions are valid.

For a growing number in the evangelical tradition, their theology on sexual and gender identity is more accepting and affirming because of their different combination of environment, noesis and experiences. They argue that the references do not condemn non-heterosexual identity, orientation and activity and that there is even a theological argument for blessing non-heterosexual relationships that fall within the same moral, biblical boundaries that apply to heterosexual marriage.

In between these extremes of theology on sexual/ gender identity are those who can argue that the references approve identity but not orientation and activity; or approve identity and orientation but not activity.

Also by Mal: Caught in the Act…Reputation and Relationship

As I came to the end of my journey through Russian dolls, noesis and experiences to what I hope is a more honest theology, I was reminded that, whatever our theology on specific issues, there is one theology that, according to Jesus, supersedes all others. When Jesus came to show us how to fulfil the will of God, he spent a lot of time showing love, grace, mercy and justice and, in Matthew chapter 23, he declared justice, mercy and faithfulness as more important than keeping religious rules. Some of his earliest words recorded in Luke chapter four, emphasise his mission of mercy and justice and foreshadow one of his most defining and comprehensive expressions, in Matthew chapter 25, of the lifestyle that guarantees eternal life – a lifestyle totally focused on grace, mercy and justice. And in his summary of the law in Matthew 22, he elevates the love of and for God, and love of and for those we encounter in our lives, as the highest expressions of doing the will of God.

So, we can hold many differing theological views on sexual/ gender identity, orientation and activity but there is another theology that I believe supersedes these – the theology of holistic reconciliation based on the life and words of Jesus who promoted love, grace, mercy and justice as the most critical components of our theology of the philanthropic God. When it comes to theology on issues, the most important theological question for me is “How does my theology of holistic reconciliation apply love, grace, mercy and justice to my theology on this issue that I have formed from my environment, noesis and experience?” And this, I hope, produces a more honest theology.

NOTE: Read Part 1 Here

I had to prepare an introduction for a session on “Sexual/Gender identity and theology” as part of facilitating a recent public conversation event that brought together people from the evangelical church community and LGBTI community to engage in safe and respectful dialogue on sexual/gender identity and spirituality. As I mulled over how to best create an environment in which conflicting approaches to theology on this issue could be presented, I was forced to reflect on 40 years of my own experience of grappling with theology. I attempted to come to some understanding of how I have formed my theological understandings on different issues and why my understandings have changed over those years.

Since then, I have met with LGBTI Christian leaders in New Zealand, Hong Kong and Korea and, in each country, a prominent LGBTI Christian leader has challenged my stereotype of the theology of LGBTI Christians. In all three cases, I found myself listening to them promoting a very conservative, evangelical theology of salvation that depended primarily on an intellectual assent to the four propositions of “Steps to Peace with God” or “The Four Spiritual Laws.” Why, given their sexual and gender identity, did these leaders still cling to a more traditional theological understanding when this evangelical tradition has been the source of so much discrimination and exclusion for them?

Related: I’m Gay at a Conservative Christian College

While I was engaged in this process, by chance, I was given a copy of Karl Barth’s “Evangelical theology – an introduction” and was reacquainted, after many years, with his delightful assertion that the object of theology should, and must only be, “the philanthropic God.” It seems to me that, if I had followed this principle more strenuously in the past, my theology would have been a lot more compassionate, engaging and enlivening than some of the arrogant, judgemental and life-draining pronouncements I have inflicted on congregations, students, colleagues and friends over the years. I like Barth’s succinct term, “the philanthropic God, ” which encapsulates so much of God’s dealings with his people in the Old Testament, the message of the prophets, the person and work of Jesus, and the vision and mission for the church contained in the New Testament.

I was also confronted with the extremes of my own theological journey. At times, I have indulged in researching and devising intricate theological constructs for all manner of points of belief and practice, often as part of my own theological study and teaching in seminaries. At other times, I have dismissed esoteric theological endeavours as irrelevant to the reality of following Jesus in daily life. As I looked back on this erratic path and considered my present situation, I came to the conclusion that, for me, a little theology can be a dangerous thing and too much theology can be a disaster. So often I recognize in my past a tendency to use a recently acquired, half-formed understanding of a theological point to assault an issue without due consideration to the wider and deeper implications of my theological approach. At the same time, I look back with some chagrin to times when I waxed eloquent with a comprehensive theological explication on some issue that left everyone, including myself, no better off in our ability to engage with this issue than when I started.

I remember when the Charismatic renewal was experiencing a surge in New Zealand during my late teens and early twenties and I became an avid opponent of it using my meagre and ill-thought out grasp of pneumatology. A few years later I was taking a theology paper on the Holy Spirit and was exposed to wonderful writing of James Dunn who gave me a deeper and wider understanding of the gifts of the spirit. A subsequent Pentecostal experience turned me into a crusader for the Charismatic and Pentecostal movement and I attempted to coerce all my family and friends into the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As the years rolled by, I came to a more nuanced, inclusive and ecumenical view that values and affirms my Pentecostal experience but accepts and affirms an understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit from a more conservative, evangelical and even traditional perspective.

The skill then, in theology, is to find a path that honours the richness of theological thought but makes sense in our daily lives. To have an informed theological understanding that is deep and wide enough to grapple with the important and significant points of an issue but without careering off into a theological cess pit that is so deep and wide that the issue gets lost in the theology and we are left with nothing to offer for those, including ourselves, trying to understand the issue.

Also by Mal: I’m Heterosexual and that’s Not Okay

I came to another realization about my theological approach. The longer I have dabbled in theology, I have become aware that I am more and more taking a practical, active approach to theology these days compared to the theoretical, propositional approach I took in my younger years. I used to delight in creating hypotheses about all manner of issues of life and faith and devising weird and wonderful theological explanations for these issues that had little connection to the reality of my relationships with God, people, society, and the environment. And I recognised in myself an element of theological dishonesty.

At this point, I began to ask how I have come to this theological space that I now occupy. My reflections produced the three factors of environment, noesis and experience which I will explore in part two. By acknowledging these three, I believe I can now express a more honest theology that works with and for people in the communities in which we live.

Look for Part 2 Friday on RLC

A connection began to form between what my friend and I were talking about and what the prophet was saying.

When I look at my own journey in regard to how I view LGBTI* people and activity, I have to admit that I started from a station of apathy in my mid teens. I was vaguely aware that there were people who were not heterosexual but I really didn’t care about them and gave no thought to what their issues might be – especially in the church because, as far as I was aware, there were no LGBTI* people in the churches in which I was involved.

In my late teens, my apathy was destroyed when I was confronted at university with homosexuality through the Queer Club which was very active on campus and quite publicly demonstrative in their expressions of affection to each other in an attempt to shock those looking on out of our narrow, heteronormative bias. My knee jerk reaction was one of abhorrence when I became aware of what sexual activity between two men entailed. This was further heightened in a rather comic incident in our church youth group when a somewhat naïve youth group leader decided to show the classic film, “Deliverance”, to our group without checking the contents. The youth leader’s frantic and futile attempts to block out the homosexual rape scenes only served to entrench my abhorrence of homosexual orientation and expression.

This abhorrence was rudely challenged in my early twenties at about 5am on a gloriously fine summer morning at a church youth camp for which I was the director. A young person came to wake me up to tell me that Justin, a 15 year old boy in our youth group, was about 10 metres up a high voltage power pylon on the camp property and threatening to jump. I stumbled out of my stupor and my bed and hastily made my way to the base of the pylon to find Justin perched precariously on the edge of one of the bars crying and yelling, “Nobody understands what it’s like to be queer in church. I’ll never be normal. No-one loves me. I’m better off dead.” Faced with this tragic situation, all my abhorrence faded immediately and I found myself gently talking to Justin and encouraging him to come down because, even if no-one else accepted him, I would and I would listen to him and do what I could to help.

Related: The F Word — authored Anonymously 

Thus began my move into a station of acceptance. This was encouraged further when, a few years later, when I was a high school teacher helping in the school Christian club, two mid-teenage guys who were openly gay and in a relationship tried to join the club. The treatment they received at the hands of other Christian students and teachers, while not aggressive, was somewhat less than accepting which only motivated me more to let them know that they could talk to me any time about their relationship and faith.

After a few more years, I ended up working occasionally as a television production manager which put me in the company of a few unashamedly LGBTI* people, some of whom were in relationships with each other. As I got to know these wonderful people, I began to see the possibility that I could affirm their committed, monogamous relationships that seemed to me to have all the same relational, emotional, mental and even spiritual elements of the more credible heterosexual marriages I knew. While getting closer to my media friends, my journey to the station of affirmation was confused as I grappled with research on the aetiology, biblical theology and practices of non-heterosexuality.

The final step to my destination of affirmation came relatively recently through a close friend who had come out to me many years previously after he had read a research article I had written in a magazine about the Christian response to homosexuality. After going through reparative therapy and following a heterosexual lifestyle for many years (with some anguish and self-doubt), he came to see me only a few years ago to let me know that he was in a relationship with a male partner. Knowing my friend to be a dedicated follower of Jesus and one of the most caring and supportive male friends I have, I found it hard not to affirm his sexuality and relationship.

About the same time, in 2010, a visit to Sydney to attend an event called “A Different Conversation” hosted by a Christian community in a suburb with a high LGBTI* population, exposed me to the stories of non-heterosexual people who had suffered at the hands of the church. I was confronted with the prophetic challenge of the bible to activism by showing mercy and bringing justice to those who are excluded, exploited, oppressed, denied, discriminated against and marginalised. At the end of the event, we were invited to join a group called “100 Revs” (although, sadly, it proved impossible to get more than about 30 pastors who were brave enough to participate – many expressed their agreement with the initiative but few were willing to stand up and be counted). I marched with this group in the Sydney Mardi Gras holding banners expressing our apologies on behalf of the church for the way we have abused and demeaned LGBTI* people both within and outside of our congregations. This drew me into the station of activism as a way of showing mercy to those who had suffered at the hands of my fellow Christians over the centuries.

Also by Mal: I’m Heterosexual and that’s Not Okay

As a result of these experiences and through my continued involvement with LGBTI* people in a number of contexts, the last few years have seen me willingly pulling into the station of advocacy on behalf of LGBTI* people in the church and community. Some would accuse me of going against a biblical condemnation of non-heterosexuality. However, whatever we believe about the rightness or wrongness of non-heterosexual orientation and expression, we are at least compelled by the repeated words of the prophets and Jesus to speak out for those who are excluded, victimised, deprived, demeaned, and condemned. And, having walked alongside a considerable number of LGBTI* people over the past 30 years, I have seen them suffer all of these injustices at the hands of the church and society and I can no longer sit by and not try to follow Jesus who called us to faithfully bring justice and mercy by showing grace and love.

As I thought through my journey from apathy to advocacy and reflected on the words of the prophet Micah and Jesus, I saw a connection. My apathy and abhorrence was rooted in sin – the sin of not following Jesus to where he was – reaching out to those on the edges of the church and society. But, once the words of Jesus enlightened my experience, grace prompted my acceptance and love motivated my affirmation. But grace and love without restorative action are empty and the call to love mercy prompted me into activism and the appeal to do justice now compels me to advocacy.

I have been encouraged in recent months and weeks by the growing number of church leaders around the world who have begun the journey from apathy and abhorrence. Who would have thought even a year ago that we would hear people such as Rick Warren or Pope Francis expressing acceptance of LGBTI* people?

Oh that we who claim to follow Jesus would take the ‘A’ train and, at least, leave the stations of apathy and abhorrence as we daily show grace and love by doing justice and showing mercy in our efforts to walk humbly with God in society.

A few weeks ago I was away from my home city staying in a suburb in which 30% of the inhabitants are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, transvestite and intersex, hanging out with them to deepen my relationships with LGBTI people there who are exploring what it means to follow Jesus in a faith community. Just by being with this community, I was aware that I ran the risk of attracting a certain amount of criticism from some of my friends, family and Christian groups. Then, a talk in a church on Sunday morning while I was there, based on Luke 15, raised the question, “Am I willing to allow my reputation to be damaged for the sake of my relationships?”

I had been brought up in an environment in which my family, friends, church leaders and society highlighted repeatedly the importance of protecting my reputation. My family feared that I would bring shame on them if I was caught with the “wrong” people or doing something not approved by them, the church or society. My friends wanted to be sure that I didn’t hang out with people that they would feel uncomfortable being seen with (unless we were on a mission trip). The church didn’t want me to associate with people who might undermine my faith and who don’t fit the standards for those who are welcome in the fellowship. And society expected me to support the status quo by doing what the majority finds acceptable.

Related: Am I A Christian Bigot? – by Stephen Mattson

But, sitting in that church a few weeks ago, I was impressed that Jesus has a different view on reputation. Luke 15 opens with the mutterings of religious leaders complaining about the company Jesus kept. Jesus proceeds to tell three stories about three people who place more importance on looking out for something or someone that is lost than on sticking with what is already safe. It is this Jesus who is concerned for those who are lost who calls me to put relationship over reputation. I suggest that, when we think about relationship and reputation, a close reading of the gospels leads to the conclusion that Jesus didn’t worry about his reputation amongst his family, friends, religious institutions and society.

I got to thinking about my own situation as a white, heterosexual male mentoring and life coaching immigrant (mostly female) young people and LGBTI people. I didn’t chase down this life of mission. It found me through relationships with people in these communities over the past 40 years. But it has resulted in numerous incidents in which my reputation has been called into question by family, friends and church leaders as I have been caught in the act of maintaining relationships outside of the safe norms accepted by the establishment. Caught in the act of:

• being seen in public with my friend who is a prominent leader of the gay community and getting hugged and kissed on the cheek and called “Sweetie”;
• marching in the Sydney Mardi Gras to say sorry for the way the church has treated LGBTI people and being hugged and kissed by semi-naked LGBTI people – just being in the parade was enough to damage my reputation in the eyes of some people. (Even more damaging to my reputation was my inability to dance in the parade with anything like the moves of those around me.);
• being assumed to be the partner of a younger man whom I attended a church service with at an LGBTI church in my home city;
• in daily life, often being seen in public alone with a variety of young Asian women in cafés, restaurants and other places and being presumed, by those looking on or acquaintances I happen to run into, to be with them for a variety of wrong reasons.

All of these have drawn comment about the impression my behaviour gives and my motives. But, Jesus seemed to attract similar comments when we read the gospel accounts. And, furthermore, it would appear that, for Jesus, reputation in the eyes of family, friends and religious leaders was not the issue. Relationship with those outside of those circles was the issue. He seemed more concerned that his relationships reflected and replicated the relationship that his father wanted to have with him and those around him.

Related: How does a Red Letter Christian read the Bible? by Derek Flood

So much of our time and effort can be taken up with concerns about our reputation in the eyes of people who already think they are in the kingdom of God when, instead, Jesus is calling us to a life of relationships with people who consider themselves outside the kingdom of God. From observing the life of Jesus and from my experience, I would suggest that, when reputation with those already “in” is not the issue, authentic relationship with those who are “out” grows and it reveals Jesus to others and ourselves.

Another observation from reading the gospels and my own experience is that the attribution of a bad reputation to me is usually made by those who are uninvolved with society outside of their ecclesiogical ghettos and who fear that, by sacrificing my reputation in the religious structure for relationships outside of organized religion, I might “fall” or cause others to “fall”. But, I believe this fear is founded on a faulty view of involvement in structured Christianity (which I have explored briefly in a previous article, “Church is Fantasy”) and morality for which, in the last two articles I have written for RLC, I have explored the practice of a redeeming morality rather than a judging or condemning morality as well as arguing for a quantum morality that puts the will of God to be with people in their need, ahead of the desire to prove what is right or wrong.

If we can see beyond the fabrications of organized Christianity and embrace a morality that values redemption and the will of God, I believe we will be free to reflect how Jesus dealt with people both inside and outside of the religious constructs of the time and emphasise relationship with those who are “out” rather than reputation with those who are “in”.

In the early days of Jesus’ ministry, where he is tempted in the wilderness, his responses to Satan’s temptations appear to damage his reputation by his refusal to be relevant (bread was something that everyone would have welcomed and made Jesus a hero as a religious leader), powerful (control of the kingdoms of the world would have given him absolute authority and power to mandate adherence to his religion globally), and spectacular (by performing a feat that would have established his fame forever and convinced people to follow his religion). And yet, after appearing to miss all these opportunities to enhance his reputation in the eyes of the religious, the rich and the powerful, we read that he returned to his neighbourhood and, without any apparent broadcasting of what he had just been through, his reputation spread throughout the countryside – a good reputation in the eyes of the people who were longing for redemption and a bad reputation in the eyes of people who thought they had all the answers.

Interestingly, for many Christian leaders caught in a morally disreputable act, there is a variety of responses that seem to illustrate the connection between reputation and relationship. People in the church looking on either choose relationship with the fallen one and facilitate genuine redemption, or choose reputation to either exclude their fallen brother or sister or to explain away and whitewash his/her transgressions and restore the fallen leader back on his/her now doubtfully reputable pedestal. People outside the church may initially hurl justifiable accusations of hypocrisy at both the perpetrator and the institution but often revert to a sigh of relief that, yet again, a reputable Christian leader has been exposed as no better or worse than them. For the transgressor, s/he may choose reputation and fight to excuse his/her actions and attempt to reclaim their reputation, or s/he may, as a few of my friends in this situation have done, recognize the folly of chasing reputation and choose relationship and discover a new way of following Jesus and proclaiming the gospel through humbly connecting with imperfect and often disreputable fellow travellers on the road to redemption.

Also by Mal: Redemptive Morality – Non-traditional Marriage and Les Mis

I have been encouraged over the past few months to see evangelical and political leaders in New Zealand, the UK and the US espousing a change of opinion on the marriage equality issue. As I read their statements, they all seem to have one feature in common. A close friend or family member coming out has changed their perspective on the controversy and given a human face to the issues. I’ve been excited to see these leaders risking their reputation with the political and religious establishment for the sake of their relationships with people who matter to them and who are in jeopardy of being pushed out by their family, friends, church and social groups because they have come out. This seems to me to reflect more authentically the behaviour and teaching of Jesus.

It seems that when we take a moral approach that values redemption and the will of God over judgement, condemnation and right and wrong, our reputation may suffer in the eyes of religious leaders but it will be enhanced in the eyes of people who want to connect with Jesus in a meaningful and authentic way.

And this is what I believe we are called to do as followers of Jesus – to fulfil the will of God to bring redemption to those around us by being caught in the act of making our relationships with them more important than our reputation in the eyes of those who already think they are righteous.

—
Mal Green is a member of Incedo, a mission order in New Zealand exploring what it means to follow Jesus with young people 24/7 outside of the structures of Christianity so that we can invite them to join us in our faith adventure. He has been hanging out with young people since 1969 while studying, lecturing, mentoring, pastoring.

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A few years ago, to break the boredom of a long flight from my home in New Zealand to the USA North-West to attend a couple of facilitated conversation events on Christian spirituality in action, I bought a copy of the Economist – something my friends found amusing given my complete lack of understanding of economics as evidenced in my personal budgeting deficiencies. I had an invigorating week with a dictionary in one hand trying to grasp the meaning of the fascinating material that I was reading. Amongst the many incredibly informative articles on a range of topics (hardly any on pure economics, thank God), was one on quantum computing. Given that I know only slightly more about computing than I know about economics, this was going to be a hard read.

However, with the help of Google and my trusty Smartphone dictionary, I gathered that quantum computing is where an atomic processor uses multiple processes simultaneously to handle the same byte of data at exactly the same time. This creates a situation where, in contrast to binary computing in which a processor uses linear logic that only allows for either an “on – I” or an “off – O” response to a byte of data, in quantum computing, the atomic processor employs a fuzzy logic approach that allows a response to the same byte of data with an “I” at the same time as the processor is responding with an “O”. Nevertheless, apparently this conflict can be harnessed to produce better quality solutions more quickly by using multiple processes and allowing this conflict to exist between them. (This is my summary after enduring a sustained period of brain ache!).

Related: FBI Report – Hate Crimes Against Gays Outnumber those Against Religion – by Michael Kimpan

As I was attending these conversation events in the USA, a synthesis formed of what I was reading and what I was hearing and discussing. It seemed to me that, in our Christian belief system, we may have settled for a linear logic, binary thinking approach to doctrine, morality, ministry, behaviour, ecclesiology and life when perhaps God might be found to be more into a fuzzy logic, quantum thinking approach to exploring the intersection of life and faith that is demonstrated by Jesus and the prophets (and, interestingly, in Celtic Christian spirituality which seems to embrace a similar approach). Elsewhere, I will explore this notion in theological belief but, given the present context of this article, I want to explore it in relation to morality.

Our fascination in the West with linear logic can be traced to our heritage in Greco-Roman philosophy, in particular the Platonic version of this mindset. The influence (and, in my opinion, damage) in Christianity of this Greco-Roman approach on belief, teaching, learning, church government, religious architecture,   theology and gender roles can be seen within the first century of the church’s existence (a topic which will be the subject of future articles). In all these areas, there is a quest to prove what is truth – what is right. And the result of this is a conclusion that, when we know what is right, every other option on this particular belief must be wrong (as Socrates discovered when he dared to suggest that we should have more questions than answers). From looking at my own experience and studying church history ancient and modern, it seems that we may have also fallen under the spell of this binary approach in our Christian morality.

In the previous article, I suggested that our personal and corporate morality is very much dictated by what we perceive, believe or have been taught to believe is right or wrong. A simple, linear logic is often employed to argue that if “Action A” is proscribed by “Absolute B” in our belief system, then “Action A” must be wrong. A sort of “A+B=C” approach (and please forgive me if I have got this wrong – I failed Algebra in Junior High – maths with numbers was hard enough, but maths without numbers did not compute in my brain). Thus, what follows is a binary morality that says that, because of this, “A” is always wrong and it can never be right. And so we have a neat and tidy way of deciding right and wrong.

But what if, as in quantum computing, God holds that “Action A” can be both right and wrong and he is more interested in a fuzzy logic approach to morality that focuses more on the implications of what I called “Redemptive Morality” in my previous article?

Related: Sexual Brokenness in the Church – Confessions of a Pastor and Sex-Addict – by T.C. Ryan

For many years I accepted the biblical story of the spies and Rahab in Jericho without questioning the moral conundrums it contains. God’s people sent two men as spies to scope out Jericho in advance of the Israelites implementing God’s plan for them to conquer the land of Canaan. They end up in the home of a prostitute, Rahab, who hides them and gives them the information they need and then protects them, has them stay in her house overnight and eventually facilitates their escape back to the Israelite camp to convey the necessary strategic information that will produce a successful conquest of her city. I rejoiced at the evidence of the provision and guidance of God and the compassion of the Israelites to Rahab who had risked her life to help God’s people and was rewarded in the short term with protection during the conquest and became part of the ancestry of David and Jesus and was, centuries later, declared a woman of faith in the Hebrew faith gallery.

But, a few years ago, a friend pointed out a few problems in this story of which I am sure most of us are aware but either ignore (as I did for many years) or put into the “too-hard” basket because to confront these details would challenge our linear logic, binary morality.

Firstly, what were two Israeli men doing going straight to a prostitute? Then, why did they stay there given the Jewish moral code about sexual relationships outside of marriage and with foreigners? Next, we have Rahab telling a blatant lie and sending the city authorities on a pursuit that she knew was pointless. To confuse the issue, the writer of the book of Joshua has this non-Jewish, sexually immoral woman reveal that she understands the all-powerful ways of Yahweh better than the Jewish men hiding in her house. Finally, the spies return to Joshua and report that God has spoken prophetically to his people through this non-Jewish woman who is a breaker of both the truth and sexual purity moral codes. This last sentence condemns her according to the Jewish legal, moral and religious code because she is not a member of the Jewish cult worship of Yahweh, she is engaging in proscribed moral behaviour, she is from an evil and sinful culture, and she is female.

A binary morality, based on the Jewish moral code in the torah, would consign this woman to damnation by applying a right and wrong filter to the data presented. Moreover, a binary morality should also condemn the Jewish spies for going to a place of sexual immorality. But, God seems to inspire the writer of the book of Joshua to ignore these sinful elements and instead focus on a bigger picture that allows for a fuzzy logic, quantum moral perspective that exposes how these events and people fitted God’s will.

Also by Mal: Who Am I to Think that I Could Stand in God’s Way?

This quantum morality that employs fuzzy logic concludes that two Jewish men going to the house of a foreign prostitute is wrong according to the torah but, at the same time, is right according to God’s will; that lying and deceit are proscribed in the torah but, at the same time, are prescribed when used to achieve God’s will; that sin must be punished according to the torah but can be rewarded when the implied immorality is used to achieve a successful implementation of God’s will; that the lying and deceit condemned in the torah result in the honour of being declared a person of faith because they helped bring about a commitment of God’s people to his will.

Does this mean that immorality, lying and deceit can be declared right? Far from it. But does that mean that immorality, lying and deceit can be declared wrong? From the above exploration, it would appear no. Are we asking the wrong question? Almost certainly the answer is yes. Instead of asking whether a particular belief, action, desire, practice or expression is right or wrong, perhaps we should engage in a much more difficult exercise and ask how a particular belief, action, desire, practice or expression can be part of God’s plan to bring his will on earth.

Which brings us back to redemptive morality. What is God’s will? Perhaps we can summarize it as to redeem his creation – people, communities, nations, and the environment. Jesus makes this point emphatically when he says that “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.” This is reinforced by Paul who talks twice about the work of Christ reconciling all things to himself. Could it be that somehow our linear logic, binary morality has twisted God’s will into being a crusade to persuade people to do what we Christians consider to be right in all situations. But, maybe this is merely our will individually and corporately in Christianity and perhaps there may be a more redemptive approach to morality to be found in a fuzzy logic, quantum morality that adheres more authentically to the will of God to redeem his creation.

—
Mal Green is a member of Incedo, a mission order in New Zealand exploring what it means to follow Jesus with young people 24/7 outside of the structures of Christianity so that we can invite them to join us in our faith adventure. He has been hanging out with young people since 1969 while studying, lecturing, mentoring, pastoring.

Most of the rhetoric opposed to marriage equality legislation seems to revolve around a perceived affront to the personal and religious morality of the complainant as though the right to marry for couples of alternate sexual expression is in some way an attack on the private and corporate morality of those who believe that a heterosexual monogamous union is the only acceptable form of marriage. However, the right of an individual or religious body to impose that moral belief on others in society needs to be considered on a theological level, especially when that moral belief denies full participation in society for those of an opposing moral belief.

SELF-RIGHTEOUS, CONDEMNING, PERSONAL MORALITY

It seems that, in the Christian world, personal morality has become self-righteous condemnation of anyone who holds a different moral belief on a particular issue. It is a basic tenet of human existence that there should be no restriction on the right for someone to hold an opposing belief that does not threaten the belief of another person. Moreover, there is no denying that, where an  expression of a belief does not hinder the expression of someone else of an opposing belief, individuals have the freedom to practice that personal moral belief in their personal life. In the specific issue of marriage equality, this seems to have been lost sight of, especially by those of the conservative Christian right who seem hell-bent on denying the right to express their moral belief to those of an opposing personal moral viewpoint on the sexuality of two people entering into marriage that allows for non-heterosexual unions. It appears that these Christians believe it is “my right” to determine the personal morality of all people and to condemn those who do not agree with them.

SELF-SERVING, JUDGING, CORPORATE MORALITY

Moreover, these well-meaning moralists on the heterosexual-monogamous-marriage-only side can claim the support of corporate Christianity in the form of many church and para-church hierarchies who tend to express a somewhat selective and conservative approach to morality that both mirrors the perceived and expressed morality of their adherents and drives their constituents to accept unquestionably that their strictly defined, traditional moral viewpoint is the only one that is good for society. These expressions from Christian religious bodies are often couched in terms of an imagined threat to society as a whole but, with more careful reading, can be seen to be more about a perceived threat to their own particular corporate expression of Christianity. Thus, the morality expressed by these groups is revealed to be a self-serving attempt to protect “our rights” to exist as a religious body and to preach “our” particular morality in an attempt to convince others that “we” have the truth. The end result is that this corporate morality is judgmental on anyone who will not agree with their publicly espoused decrees on moral issues.

PROBLEMS

This raises some problematic issues theologically. The Judeo-Christian moral code as prescribed in the old and new testaments is just that – a moral code for Jews and Christians. Christians (and followers of other religious and philosophical traditions) quite rightly protest at the attempts in some countries to impose a Muslim Sharia moral code on all citizens, whether they are Muslim or not. There is no question that much of the moral codes of all religions shares common themes and principles that are good for society. But, this happy coincidence (or, from a religious perspective, potential evidence that God’s ways are best) should not confer the right on adherents of a particular religious moral code to expect that their version of right and wrong can be imposed on society at large.

Related: My Quick Thought on Chick-Fil-A — by Andrew Marin

This moral crusading mentality, it seems to me, is the result of a deliberate and spiritually impoverished missing of the point when it comes to a morality that claims to be derived from a particular philosophical or religious belief. Such an approach to morality has elevated the seven deadly sins to an infamy beyond their significance. I am not arguing that lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are now okay. Far from it. They are tragic in their effect on the perpetrator and in their consequences for the recipient. But, it seems to me that the approach taken by organized religion over the years has devoted considerable resources to attacking these sins in the lives of their followers and in society at the expense of a more spiritual, Jesus-focused approach to morality. Moreover, this corporate approach to morality by organized religion and its followers has countenanced far too many instances of moral lapses in the lives of Christian leaders, private and public, individual and corporate.

ANOTHER WAY?

I have seen recently the movie Les Miserables and I could not help thinking about the contrasting moralities demonstrated in Inspector Javert, Jean Valjean and the Bishop of Digne who has given the released criminal, Valjean, lodgings. In a pivotal, early scene, Valjean is caught by his former jailor, Javert, with stolen silver from the Bishop and taken back to the Bishop. We see Javert attempting to apply the strict moral code of the state supported by religion; we see Valjean expecting to suffer for breaking the moral code; and we see the Bishop with the power to condemn Valjean according to that moral code. The moral code deems stealing to be a personal sin that corporate religious and judicial systems must punish.

I am reminded of the situation in the Christian scriptures of the adulterous Jewish woman caught in bed with another man in which we see the her personal morality being judged and condemned because of her indulgence in lust and because the corporate morality of Judaism demanded that anyone caught in the act of fornication should be stoned. Around her, individuals were yelling condemnation at her because, self-righteously, they could claim not to have been caught in the act of fornication. The religious leaders were threatening judgement on her because their self-serving view of morality declared that the tolerance of sin in one person in their religious system might infect the whole structure.

SELF-LESS, REDEEMING, COMMUNAL MORALITY

Into this situation above steps one who follows a redeeming morality – a self-less moral perspective and redemptive ethical application that considers not what is “my right” or “our rights” but what is the sinner’s right. In this way, this morality considers what is right for all involved – the woman, her accusers, the onlookers and those who will hear and read about this incident – all of us sinners. Instead of basing his moral judgment on the seven deadly sins, Jesus approaches the woman from a more communal perspective of justice, mercy and compassion that will create an environment in the community that encourages a morality that values and redeems people.

In a similar way, the Bishop in Les Miserables sees the opportunity to apply a different morality. He lies and expresses in practice a radical extension of the teaching of Jesus that if a person asks something from you, give her or him more than what they asked for. Javert is only concerned with punishing the personal sin of Valjean according to the corporate morality whereas the Bishop sees an opportunity to start Valjean on the road to redemption and do what is best for the community of which Valjean will become part.

Both Jesus and the Bishop are applying a redemptive morality – a morality that promotes the paramountcy of the sinner’s rights and the benefit for persons who make up her/his community; a morality that prizes justice, mercy, freedom, restoration and redemption more than judgement, condemnation and punishment.

IN PRACTICE

In the last few decades, a growing number of evangelical leaders have begun to realize what those in the Society of Friends have recognized for many centuries. That, in the words of the prophets and Jesus in the scriptures, the communal moral issues of social justice appear to have primacy over personal moral belief and corporate religious morality where the social morality does not prevent the practice of a personally held moral standard and where the personally held moral standard does not deny justice to others with different personal moral beliefs.

As a counterpoint to the seven deadly sins, a Catholic father in the fifth century CE proposed the seven virtues of chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. But, as good as these virtues are, the consistent achievement of them eludes even the most religious of people if they are honest. However, if we take the communal, redemptive moral approach of Jesus and focus more on the issues of justice, mercy and compassion, it seems to me that we will concurrently be motivated to embrace the seven virtues because it is hard to show justice, mercy and compassion without being motivated to be chaste, temperate, charitable, diligent, patient, kind and humble. Furthermore, in the pursuit of justice, mercy and compassion, the vices of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are hard to pursue when our focus is on what is right for the community in which we are seeking to bring the morality of Jesus.

Also by Mal: I’m Heterosexual and that’s Not Okay

An experience in an evangelical setting recently brought home to me the inadequacy of a self-righteous personal morality. I was visiting one of my old churches a few months ago and one of the pastors preaching that day told the story of how a girl in the church had given him the web address for a site from which he could download current movies for free. He took advantage of this opportunity and was perturbed to discover that the movies were uncensored compared to the cinema release version and, in the end, he stopped downloading these movies and deleted all those on his hard drive because they were arousing lust in his life. My wife and I were sitting there wanting to scream out, “But what about the injustice of downloading a movie from a website that denies those who produced the movie their rightful income?” It seems that, yet again, one of the seven deadly sins that corporate Christianity makes so much noise over, personal lust, is more important than justice.

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW

Further on in the story of Les Miserables, Valjean, having broken the terms of his release from detention many years ago, is now mayor of his town and a successful and benevolent factory owner. He is discovered there by Javert who is provoked to continue his pursuit of Valjean for crimes of the past. While Javert continues to be motivated by personal self-righteousness and corporate self-serving, Valjean shows compassion for his former employee, Fantine, and her daughter, Cosette, as he tries to evade Javert. In a memorable scene near the end of the movie, Valjean comes face to face with Javert behind the barricades and has the opportunity to get revenge and be rid of his long standing avenger. Instead, following the example of the Bishop, Valjean practices a self-less, redemptive morality that recognizes the rights of the sinner and allows Javert to escape.

So, where is this self-less, redemptive morality in my life each day? How do I respond to personal and corporate moral issues in a way that considers what is right for the people involved more than “my right” and my self-righteousness or what will serve “our rights” for any corporate Christian body to which I belong? How can we demonstrate this communally focused morality offering redemption to those involved in issues that confront us personally and corporately today such as marriage equality? For me, it is found in the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46 which motivate me to seek out those who are thirsty, hungry, sick, lonely, marginalised, abandoned, imprisoned, destitute and naked – those who, like me, are struggling every day with the seven deadly sins in their lives – and be dikaios (equitable, appropriate, just, righteous) according to Jesus’ moral standards with justice, mercy and compassion that offers redemption right here, right now.

—
Mal Green is a member of Incedo, a mission order in New Zealand exploring what it means to follow Jesus with young people 24/7 outside of the structures of Christianity so that we can invite them to join us in our faith adventure. He has been hanging out with young people since 1969 while studying, lecturing, mentoring, pastoring.

This led us to sell our church building, buy an office/warehouse complex in our local town centre and develop a community centre that research had shown our town desperately needed. Our dream was to provide a venue for community use through which could form meaningful connections with our neighbourhood that would lead to opportunities to invite them to join us in following Jesus.

However, as this dream became a reality, it concerned me that it seemed that the only way we had of demonstrating that someone from the community had connected with us was that they began attending our Sunday services. There was scant awareness of how this decision to join the church had affected what happened in their lives from Monday to Saturday (a conclusion similar to that reached in research by Willow Creek a few years ago). Moreover, those of us in church were modelling this Sunday-centric, venue-dependent and event-focused approach to Christianity at the same time as we preached on Sunday morning that coming to church on Sunday morning was not as important as what happened in the rest of our lives. But, as soon as someone didn’t show up at church, we began to wonder about their commitment to following Jesus.

And so a few of us began a process of asking, “What if church as we know it is not what we make it out to be – the centre of our worship life, the source of our teaching about our faith, the place of fellowship with fellow believers, and the house of God? What if the reality of worship, teaching, fellowship and the presence of God was to be found outside the walls of the building we call church? What would that make church? How would that change our worship, teaching, fellowship, and experience of the presence of God? How would that change how we ‘do’ church?”

Also by Mal: Who Am I to Think I Could Stand in God’s Way? (Especially when it’s Marriage)

Around the same time, at a gathering of the members of the mission order I belong to, someone commented that there seems to be a lot of hype in church as we know it.  Not just in the big, raving Pentecostal churches (which I enjoy immensely) or in the upmarket large evangelical churches or in the hothouse camps and conferences (some of which I have previously enjoyed producing and promoting) that proliferate (or pollute, maybe) the landscape of Christianity.  But even in the small, quiet, fundamentalist, local church (like the one I belonged to for 25 years) there is still hype.  The hype is that the experience of Sunday morning (or the experience of a massive conference or camp or special event) is what church is all about, that this is real church, and that we need it every Sunday and we need more of it.

But, in our misguided and thoughtless enthusiasm, and despite our strenuous and fervent proclamation in our events and meetings that following Jesus is an everyday lifestyle, maybe, through our policy (stated and implied), timetabling and expectations, we have created a fantasy that seems to have produced people who are committed to church but not necessarily committed to Jesus.  We have communicated the fantasy that being committed to church means they are committed to Jesus.  And, that being committed to Jesus means being committed to church. And being committed to church means being committed to the programs and events the church organizes.  By communicating the fantasy as reality we have, in fact, achieved the very opposite of what we have stridently proclaimed.

Nevertheless, fantasy is important. We can’t live on reality alone. We indulge in fantasy every day. I have this fantasy as I wake up most mornings that I’m going to have a great day and that motivates me to get out of bed. Think about romance.  It’s fantasy.  But try maintaining a relationship with your partner without romance and you’ll soon learn that a little fantasy goes a long way.  Or, sport.  Winners live in the hope that the fantasy of coming out on top in every game will become reality.  Without fantasy, no sportsman will (or should) take the field.  Even in business we use fantasy to motivate ourselves.  Cold, hard reality is not enough in any field to guarantee success.

So, while what happens in church might be fantasy, it is not all bad.  Really well-produced church events are great – like a good show, a good movie, a good romantic moment, a good game, a good gourmet meal.  But none of these are ongoing reality.  None of these happen 24/7.  None of these sustain us in the long term. And, even worse, treating fantasy as reality is a path to disaster. The reality of following Jesus is an everyday lifestyle, not a regular meeting or event. So, “What if church as we know it in our community is just a fantasy?” How would that affect what we do in the building we call church and, more importantly, how might it affect what we do outside of that building?

Also by Mal: I’m Heterosexual and that’s Not Okay

Perhaps we could  start by being honest with ourselves and the people we are communicating to that none of the biblical narratives about pleasing God (from the Old Testament prophets to Jesus and Paul in the New Testament) make attendance at church events and meetings a requirement for spending eternity with Jesus.  Quite the opposite.  The truth about what pleases God and guarantees an eternity with Jesus is far more grounded and focused on the reality of everyday life.

Possibly we could consciously downgrade the importance of Sunday meetings (and maybe even cancel them occasionally or often) and special spiritual events and upgrade the importance of following Jesus in our community by pushing ourselves out there to engage with people instead of always coming into the church building.  And, when we have a meeting or an event, let’s have a good one and indulge in some really good fantasy and acknowledge it as such but let’s make sure we continually challenge ourselves to never let the fantasy replace the reality of following Jesus in the lives and situations of people in our community.

If we don’t challenge ourselves on this and make some changes, I fear we may end up asking Jesus on judgment day, “Lord, when did we ever see you hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick or in prison?”  And we may hear Jesus say (in the words of The Message version of an earlier passage in Matthew chapter 7), “Knowing the correct password—saying ‘Master, Master, ’ for instance—isn’t going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, ‘Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects [services, meetings, events, etc] had everyone talking.’ And do you know what I am going to say? ‘You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don’t impress me one bit. You’re out of here.’”

—
Mal Green is a member of Incedo, a mission order in New Zealand exploring what it means to follow Jesus with young people 24/7 outside of the structures of Christianity so that we can invite them to join us in our faith adventure. He has been hanging out with young people since 1969 while studying, lecturing, mentoring, pastoring.

In it, a couple of friends, John and Kelly, arrive at my house one evening and I’m not prepared for what they have come to talk about.

For the purpose of this story, John represents a few guys that my wife and I have kept in touch with over a long period as they’ve gone through marriage to lovely Christian women (who turn out to be unfaithful to them), fatherhood, divorce and return to bachelorhood.

In this scenario, John has moved to Australia and, on a brief visit home about two years ago, had introduced to us Kelly, from China, who is a few years younger than him. My experience of working with the Asian community and background in mentoring and relationship coaching are useful in helping John and Kelly over the internet to work though issues that come with developing a committed and caring relationship that is good for both of them.

As the scenario develops, they are back in New Zealand for another visit and arrive at my door and I welcome them in. We sit down with a wine and they surprise me by asking if I would use my powers as a registered Christian marriage celebrant to conduct their wedding in a few months. We talk through why they want to get married and I become sure that they have thought carefully through everything and are at least as committed as any couple I have ever taken through preparation for marriage.

Also by Mal: I’m Heterosexual and that’s Not Okay

I challenge them on cross-cultural issues and they show a remarkably good grasp of having worked through potential challenges that I have seen undo other cross-cultural relationships. We talk about a range of topics and they reveal in passing that they have not had sex and are saving themselves for marriage (which is not something I come across often these days – especially among Christian couples!). They also mention how they believe God has led them together and prepared them for each other through previous experiences. They speak about the future they see for themselves in mission for God and how they believe that their past experience in mission will be enhanced by both of them working together as a committed, married couple.

And so they talk excitedly about the wedding plans – what they want in their wedding service and who will be taking part – and we start to finalize the plans.

As I mulled over this scenario, the words from the bible came to me from the story of Peter and Cornelius – “Who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?” This proposed marriage seemed to give evidence of such a strong expression of the way of God. It seemed to fit all the criteria of Christian marriage – careful courtship, abstinence, a sense of a call of God, a commitment to mission, a demonstrable commitment to each other. Why would I not agree to be the celebrant for this wonderful couple?

At this point, my scenario went into freeze frame mode. Kelly is a male. So, how do I respond to the question, “Who am I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

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Mal Green is a member of Incedo, a mission order in New Zealand exploring what it means to follow Jesus with young people 24/7 outside of the structures of Christianity so that we can invite them to join us in our faith adventure. He has been hanging out with young people since 1969 while studying, lecturing, mentoring, pastoring.