Hybels, Bono, and Aids

Last year at Willow Creek's leadership conference Bill Hybels interviewed Bono Here are parts of the interview. Pretty interesting stuff.

A few thoughts that struck me in this interview.

1) Bono's articulate faith - I don't want to oversell Bono on this (as you will see below), but I was pleasantly surprised that his passion for engagement on the issues of AIDS, world poverty, etc. are driven by his faith in the teachings of Scripture and personal faith in Christ. In fact, his biblical arguments for engagement are, I think, irrefutable. If you don't think so, then check out Isaiah 58 for yourself.

2) The need for the church - Good to hear Bono say that the church is a necessary ingredient in elevating the suffering in developing countries. I agree that such a mission will never get far off the ground in the US unless the church makes it an issue. Evangelicals are among the most generous Americans and are the leading suppliers for charities. And, as Bono said, the church has the power to set the moral climate on these issues for millions of people.

3) Bono's lack of need for the church - Here is where I get concerned for Bono. He recognizes the need for the church to curb the AIDS epidemic, but he doesn't seem to recognize any personal need for the church. In the interview, Bono points out that passages on helping the poor are second in number only to passages about personal salvation. I haven't done the numbers myself, but I assume he is correct and wouldn't be at all surprised if he was. But I am pretty certain that passages on the poor are a very, very distant second. That doesn't take anything away from the importance of these Scriptures, or that Bono is wrong to point out our negligence. But the church cannot forget what is number one. In answering why the church is behind, Bono noted evangelicals disdain for the immorality that causes AIDS and its historical reluctance to get into politics. I agree with both answers (and also that they are lame excuses), but there is a third. The church has a tremendously difficult time, and always has, on how to balance evangelism with social work, a struggle which is absolutely appropriate (albeit a sad excuse for inaction on issues like AIDS). I'm not sure Bono feels the tension. Nor does he seem to feel the need for Christ's body to be a significant part of his life. My prayer is that Bono would see the church as more than a strategic partner. That for him the church would be a source of partners in the journey of faith offering the embodiment of Christ's grace, teaching, forgiveness, encouragement, rebuke, and so forth.

4) The church's lack of desire for Bono. Bono's struggle with the church is a two way street. He said in the interview that he never had a problem with Christ only Christians. Bono, I'm sure, is not an entirely innocent party in the friction. Nevertheless, the Church seems all too eager to distance itself from the artsy, edgy, and hip among us. Especially if they show sympathies with "radical" views. Christians must draw lines in the sand. The uniqueness of Christ demands it. But Jesus never drew a line apart from himself (e.g. "no one comes to the Father except through me."). Jesus and only Jesus has ever been the true dividing line for Christians. To create another line is to elevate something to the unique status that Jesus alone deserves. To create another line, in others words, is not only unwise it is idolatrous.

Charlie Bit Me Auto-Tuned

I love this video. Apparently, Time magazine has called it the best viral video yet. And now there is an auto-tuned version. I've included both for your pleasure.

DG Conference 2010 Trailer

This is the trailer for the Desiring God Conference coming up on October 1-3. Great trailer, great theology, and it looks like a great conference.

Prayer Update

As many of you know, things have been quite out of whack in the Strong household. My wife, Jen, is expecting our fifth child and about two weeks ago was put on bed rest to prevent her going into pre-term labor. She has a history of that with all of our other children, and she was experiencing some early labor signs.

As of Sunday, Jen will have made it to 35 weeks! We've been praying for 36 weeks, so we are very close. For the last two weeks or so she has been on some meds that have pretty bad side effects (nervous, shaky, headache, heart-pounding, etc.). She'll be able to stop those on Sunday. Bed rest, however, will continue until next week.

All in all, it has been a great experience. I'm not trying to sugar coat or overlook the anxiety that Jen and I have both felt. But God has proven faithful time and again. He has answered our prayers continually. So many, especially our church, have aided us with prayers, meals, help with the kids, house cleaning, etc. Jen and I have both been learning that life in the slow lane (that is being unable to accomplish much of anything except the basic necessities) is a pretty good place to rest in the goodness of God. Our weakness shows his strength.

Thank you for all your prayers. Please keep them up. Our Father delights to hear them, and we appreciate the love for us that they express. When the dust begins to settle, I should be able to get back to some more faithful blogging.

Growtivating to Become Contemporvant

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Work & Rest

Work and rest make up the rhythm of our lives. If we are serious about living out the gospel in daily life, then it seems mandatory to bring that gospel into our work and rest. The Bible has a lot to say about these issues. One could even say that the Bible is, in a sense, all about these issues. At LBBC, we have spent the last several weeks exploring work and rest. If you're interested, you can follow along with the study here. The first sermon began on 4/11/10. Hope the sermons serve you well.

False Assumption #3: Everybody Has An Angle

Everybody has an angle. It’s not an assumption, like many others, that we are born with, but one we learn by experience. Foucault said that all human beings are on a quest for power. That’s not your typical Sunday School lesson, but if you know anything about yourself and others, you know that he wasn’t far off the truth. Humans love power. We do. We like the power to manipulate, influence, “nudge” others into a path of our liking. And usually that path happens to be to our benefit.

Information is power. When the doctor says, “you really need this surgery,” generally you have no idea whether you really need it, or whether he is just padding his pocket by performing a non-harmful yet unnecessary surgery. He has a power over you in the form of expertise information. Tyrannical totalitarian governments are in the business of information. They keep much of it secret by hijacking the press and media outlets, they ruthlessly extract it with their brutal crews of secret police, and they run countless campaigns of misinformation. Why? Because the more information the more power.

The Angle of information. We all want power, and information is power. Logically, then, the world should thank us when we provide life-changing information like the gospel. However, what often happens is people become very suspicious of your information. And they do it for the simple reason that if you know something they don’t, then you have some power over them. They automatically assume that you are using your power to “nudge” them into a path that benefits you. Everyone has an angle, and the Jesus’ stuff is just your angle. This very logic is why the gospel is so radical, so counter-intuitive. At its heart is power that is used not for personal benefit, but for the benefit of others. It is power sacrificed, power in service. However, people don’t assume that. All they see is Mr. Information trying to sell them a bill of goods to pad his church’s attendance, add to his own level of self-righteousness, and play the admirable role of the hero saving them from so-called eternal peril. Call it blindness, hard-heartedness, or whatever you like, but it is the status quo perception in a broken, power hungry world. Better get used to it.

Living Proof. “Keep your conduct . . . honorable . . . so that they may see your good deeds and glorify God”(1 Peter 2:12). It has often struck me how often NT writers, like Peter here, emphasize Christian living far more than proclaiming the gospel. I doubt that it is their preference for “lifestyle evangelism” over against proclamational evangelism. After all, “how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?”(Romans 10:14). Nevertheless, the early church was obviously aware of their need to persuade hearers that their love was genuine. The gospel is power sacrificed, power in service, but until individuals see and experience that power in action, they are not likely to believe in its existence. We must be living proof of the gospel. How is power in service being lived out in your life?

Living the Safest Life Possible

Great stuff by Francis Chan

You Can Change

Just started on Tim Chester's book You Can Change. Here's a great quote from chapter 2"

"You will cleanse no sin from your life that you have not first recognized as being pardoned through the cross."

Gospel and Cultural Engagement

One of the big divisions in the young, restless, and reformed movement is over cultural engagement. Last week Thabiti Anyabwile addressed the issue at the Together for the Gospel Conference, which I was grateful to attend. It seems to me that a big part of this divide is the inability of both sides to hear the concerns and understand the language of the opposing side. I thought this critique of Thabiti's message by Joe Thorn to be fair and balanced.

Overall, I thought Thabiti made some good points. I appreciated his observation that we don't just shape culture, but culture also shapes us. However, I also thought his message was overly simplistic and reactionary. I don't know that I disagree with Thabiti, but sometimes I had the feeling that his message was more like "What is culture? How do we engage? What will engagement accomplish? We don't know any of these answers, so let's just stick to Jesus and stop talking about it." That is probably not a fair assessment of his message, but I, and I think quite a few others, had more questions than answers after he was done.

For a different take on this issue, check out his helpful article from Boundless.

Endangered Ethnicity

False Assumption #2: The Bad Is Out There

Everyone knows that there is something wrong with the world. That’s why when the lights go out, we instinctively lock our doors and listen for strange noises. It’s why our children wet their beds rather than face the valley of shadow and death lying between them and the bathroom. So where does all this badness come from? Most of us think we know that answer. It’s them. It’s those people out there. You know, those liberals, those right-wing radicals. It’s Hollywood and their gay-loving. It’s the terrorists, the druggies, the whites, the blacks, the hispanics. Christians are hardly an exception to this line of thinking. Ask the average mid-western church goer and they’ll tell you where the badness comes from. It’s the world.

Strategies for Badness. If the problem is those bad buys out there, then the solution is pretty simple. If you’re a democrat, then beat the Republicans. If you’re an American, then kill the terrorists. And if you’re a Christian, then tell the world how wrong they are, boycott their services, and most of all, just stay away.

The Bad Looks Familiar. What makes an Islamic terrorists strap explosives to a subway, wait for hundreds of people to clamor aboard, and then mercilessly send them to their grave? Ask them, and they will tell you. They are doing the work of God. They are carrying out his war against the bad people that are corrupting his world. The bad people are out there, they say, and their job is to beat them. Sound vaguely familiar? The terrorists aren’t bad because they have falsely identified who the real bad guys are. They are bad for the same reason we are. They have never stopped to consider whether they might be the bad guys too.

Same Old Problem. The danger of this assumption is that it always puts me on the side of the good guys. The bad may be terrorists, the rich, the young, the old, the church, the world, the politicians, the lawyers, ad nauseum. But whoever the bad guys are, there is always one constant. They are whoever I am not. There is a problem with the world, and it is always the same problem--them.

Salvation and the Bad. But the gospel says just the opposite. It says the problem with the world is that it is filled with people just like you. Yes, you have been abused, corrupted, victimized, and all of that was bad, unjust, and wicked. But it happened because the world is full of people like you, not unlike you. So salvation doesn’t lie, it can’t lie, in beating the bad guys. At least not in you beating the bad guys. Salvation is God dying for your badness, forgiving your badness, and transforming your badness into goodness. That is the way salvation always works. There are no people on God’s side until he puts them on his side. That is, until he brings them to repent of the their badness and trust in his goodness. If the bad is always out there, then it is never here. And if it is never here, then salvation has never come here either.

Legalism 101

From Resuregence.

Peter Hitchens

I already posted a video about Peter Hitchen's (Christopher Hitchens brother) new book The Rage Against God. However, this video, which better document's Peter's journey, I found both fascinating and insightful.

Peter Hitchens Author Interview--The Rage Against God from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

LBBC 2.0

Just launched the Lebanon Bible Baptist website 2.0. We still have some stuff to add and kinks to work out, but the framework is pretty much all there. Let me know what you think.