Camp Idlewild 2011

Another Middle School Week at Camp Idlewild is in the books. This was a watershed week for many of our campers; the huge Middle School group with which we started three years ago had their last hurrah.  Next year they move up to Teen Week. In fact, several of them didn't wait for next year-- Rachel, Olivia and Kristina all went back for a second week. In the 40 years or so I have been going to camp, I never went back-to-back weeks.

We had a great week. With the exception of Wally Nooner (our head cook extraordinaire), our entire staff came from Denbigh and almost half (15 of 31) of our campers were either from Denbigh or recent Denbigh alumni. So camp week is a big event for our church family (we cancelled services Sunday and Wednesday night and invited our people over to camp). My thanks foes to our staff volunteers Roger Brown, Annette Vitello, Lynne Bean, Beverly Becker, Jennifer Glaspell, Bruce Gaynon, Joann Guthrie, Betty Tanner, Wally Nooner, Lynn Tucker, Sarah Mattingly, Angela Johnson, Mark Becker, Nathan Tanner, Dawn Tanner, Tressa Tucker, Angelynn Tucker and Tori Light. (This was the first year ever that Lynn, Tressa, Angelynn and I were all at camp together.)

The week was HOT. Temperatures at the beginning of the week were in the low to mid 90's, but it didn't take long for us to get over 100, and the heat index was near 120 on several of those days. We changed around the schedule so that outside activities were in the morning and Bible classes were in the afternoon. The kids were great; they went along with all the activities as if the heat didn't bother them. Last year we had all kinds of camper drama and trips to the emergency room; this year was pretty quiet and boring... just like I like it.

If you have never spent time at a Christian camp during the summer, then you have missed one of life's special experiences. And if you have never spent a week at Camp Idlewild... let me know and I'll add you to the staff waiting list for next year!

Should We Stop Evangelizing?

I was once in Zhitomir, Ukraine as one of the speakers in a seminar for Ukrainian Christians and church leaders. We had a good group of Ukrainian believers, several of whom had traveled cross-country by train, to hear some Americans teaching about a Jewish Messiah who came to save the whole world. Right before the seminar was to begin, a delegation from Kiev showed up demanding to know why our little church in Zhitomir allowed women to speak in church as our translators (well, because they were fluent in both English and Russian) and why we used alcoholic wine in communion (well, because that is the “fruit of the vine” that we could actually purchase in Zhitomir; the one time we tried to buy grape juice, it turned out not to be grape at all but some kind of strange “banana-juice” concoction). We were there to talk about Jesus, but these defenders of the faith wanted to talk about their version of church that could not include female translators or fermented wine.

I thought about that story as I read a CNN editorial by Carl Medearis entitled “Why Evangelicals Should Stop Evangelizing.” The general idea of the article is that Christians have spent so much time recreating their churches on the mission field that we have become impediments to actually talking about Jesus. Medearis is a former missionary and church planter who thinks we should stop spreading "Christianity" and spend more time talking about Jesus himself. Medearis seems to be saying that we need to stop trying to make Muslims into Christians and spend more time encouraging them to be more like Jesus. Among the Lebanese people he worked with, the most violent and fierce of the armed militias driving the violence there were the “Christian” militias. They didn’t look anything like Jesus, of course, but they were “Christian.” Sometimes missionaries (and preachers) like my friend in Keiv, simply recreate their own church structures and compete with other groups who are recreating their own church structures. In other words, they become just like churches back home—competing for converts to their system and not looking too much like Jesus in the process.

I think Medearis has a point. He’s wrong, of course, but he has a point. Jesus is still the only other name under heaven by which people are to be saved (Acts 4:12) and faith in Jesus means accepting him as “the way, the truth and the life” that is the only way to the Father (John 14:6). No Muslim can be Muslim and believe that about Jesus. For while it is true that “there is no God but God,” it is not true that “Mohammed is his prophet.” Getting Muslims to think and act more like Jesus is great, and getting Christians to more gentle and patient with non-believers is not only great but gospel (Col 4:6). But getting people to heaven requires faith in Jesus.

But over the course of history, nothing has gotten in the way of faith in Jesus more than has Christianity. When believers in Christ do things that are not at all Christ-like in the name of Christ, then that just isn’t helpful. We have to live like Jesus to give meaning to our message about Jesus. Maybe we do need to get over some of our fixation on the external structures that go along with our experience of Christianity (which sometimes create barriers where none should exist) and spend more time pointing to the crucified one and living the crucified life.

Medearis says that evangelicals should stop evangelizing. That’s not right. What evangelicals (whoever they are) should stop is seeing their traditions, politics, or economic ideology as having anything to do with the gospel. Christianity is Christ. And maybe there is a sense in which Christianity is Christ alone.  Maybe we should make our evangelism more about Christ?

That's Just Nuts

I must begin by confessing that I don’t really follow politics all that closely. Well, that’s not completely true; I generally spend some time reading/skimming through articles on the web from such varied sources as Fox News, CNN, The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post. I consider myself pretty much a political  moderate, and while I have always voted Republican in national elections, I do occasionally cross the aisle in  state elections. When really pushed for my philosophy on politics, I’d probably describe myself as a “Progressive Lipscombian.” (If you don't know what that means... good).  Politics is ultimately about power, and power is generally antithetical to the Kingdom of God. I also suspect that Will Rogers was onto something when he suggested that anyone who could be elected president is probably not qualified to serve.

OK, I say all that because I don’t want it to seem that I’m coming at this from any political perspective. I am definitely not a tea-party member (though if someone starts a coffee-party, I’d be more interested). But the latest brouhaha (and there have been many) over Michele Bachmann caught my attention. It seems that Bachmann has touted her presidential qualifications by pointing out that she and her husband are small business owners and that small businesses are the key to getting our economy back where it needs to be (no argument there). But CNN’s Jim Acosta and Erika Dimmler jump on the fact that the small business being referred to is a Christian counseling clinic where, along with many other things, counselors make use of "reparative therapy." This is where homosexuals who don’t want to be homosexuals are counseled in such a way to help not practice homosexuality. Things like prayer, Bible study, and personal mentoring are used to help people who so desire to "rewire" themselves sexually. If these people can't overcome the homosexual orientation, they they are given tools to help them live celibate lives. That, of course, proves that Michele Bachmann is a kook and not qualified to be president.

Bachmann may be a kook and not qualified to be president, but to use her counseling clinic as proof of that fact is just nuts. What if a homosexual person truly believes that their homosexuality is a sin before God? What if they would like to stop practicing homosexuality? It’s a free country, right? Don’t they have the freedom to NOT be homosexual if they can do that? No one is suggesting snatching gays and lesbians off the street and forcing them into reparative therapy, right? People are making the free-will choice that, based upon their religious belief, they don’t want to practice homosexuality. And to help them with their free-will choice, they are looking for counseling help in changing their sexual orientation (which is very hard) or their sexual behavior (which is very possible). The editorial stance of the article seems to be that if you are gay then you have NO RIGHT to try not to be gay or to get help in not being gay. The culture seems to believe that homosexuals must be free to be gay but cannot be allowed to choose not to be gay? That’s just nuts.

I’m not going to vote for Michele Bachman (unless she names Bob Turner of NY as her running mate. I’d HAVE to vote for a “Bachmann-Turner” ticket, especially if they had “Taking Care of Business” as their campaign song/slogan). But the idea that it is someone wrong to providing counseling to homosexual people who don’t want to be practicing homosexuals? That’s just nuts.

A Hill Worth Dying On

Earlier this year, 11 Iranians Christians were arrested and charged with “activities against the order of the country.” Specifically, they were charge with drinking wine… communion wine during a Christian worship service. These Christ-followers knew that they were risking their lives and freedom to remember Jesus in this act of worship. They were released in May, thanks in large part to public outcry from the West. These persecuted Christians believed that communing around the Lord’s table with other believers and with the Lord Himself was important—important enough to risk all.

Contrast their solemn faith with some of the disagreements that believers have had over the observance of communion through the years.

• Presence: Is the body and blood of Jesus literally present? Is it spiritually present? Is bread and wine only a visual aid to focus our thoughts or does something spiritually happen in communion?
  
• President: Who is qualified to administer communion. Must one be ordained? Must one be a bishop or can a deacon preside over a communion service. Can anyone preside? Can a woman preside?
  
• Participants: Who can eat of the Lord’s Table? Must one be a member of the local body? Can visitors partake? What about the children of members?
  
• Providers: Must deacons distribute communion after it has been blessed? Can only baptized believers “pass the plates” or can the “pre-baptized” participate? Can women serve at the Lord’s table?
  
• Presentation: Must there be only one cup? Must that cup contain fermented wine? Can the cup contain fermented wine? Must unleavened bread be used?

This list of communion issues is by no means exhaustive, but it is indeed exhausting. The kinds of things we have invented over which to feud and fuss is amazing. This picking of nits over communion split the Reformation itself, and it has split many churches through the centuries, some of which I have personal knowledge. But those 11 Iranian Christians never would have even considered those kinds of issues. When you are risking your life for something, you make sure that it counts. If you are going to take a bullet (literally or figuratively), you need to make sure it’s worth it. You must choose carefully the hill on which you’re willing to die.

Jesus died on the hill of Calvary. There is no issue worth taking a bullet for that is not directly connected to what Jesus did there. May God forgive us for all the blood we have spilled on hills that were not worth dying on.