Public Schools -- Learning to Live in a Diverse World

My children attend public schools and I am very glad about that. Public education is coming under increasing attack, particularly here in Arizona, where our state legislators seem determined to undermine the very foundations of public education. At the same time, many Christians seem intent on fleeing public schools in favor of private, Christian ones or of homeschooling. I am not opposed to either option and recognize that there are many factors that influence a family's decision about educating their children. But I think that we are wrong to abandon public schools, both as a nation and as Christians.

We did not plan or expect to have our children in public schools. Because of our work overseas, our children have mostly attended small schools for expatriate Christians, where class sizes were very small (our daughter had 10 children in her combined 4-6 grade class) and the worldview largely homegeneous. Even in those environments they did gain some multi-cultural exposure, as they often had classmates from several countries as well as living themselves in a cross-cultural situation. They also took classes on-line through a Christian internet school which offered high-quality classes, but in a largely homogeneous environment. Most of their classmates were from white, middle- to upper-middle class homes. Some, like our children, lived outside of their home countries, but most were simply homeschooled children in the United States. (In the interest of full disclosure, I now teach for that school and really enjoy the students with whom I work.) Prior to high school, the one year my children lived and went to school in the United States they both attended a local private Christian school. Although the school was good, it proved to be a less-than-ideal environment for our children, particularly our daughter. As a new junior high student she felt very much marginalized and out of place. Her classmates were from similar socio-economic backgrounds and lacked the multi-cultural perspective that our daughter had. Nor could they appreciate and affirm her uniqueness. This may be more because of their age than the school environment, but the lack of diversity in the school certainly left little place for someone to feel at home who was not just like everyone else.

Now my children are both in public high schools. Although our school district has some serious problems, I am comfortable that my children will receive a solid educational foundation that will equip them for life after high school. It certainly helps that my son attends one of the nation's best high schools, according to some rankings, while my daughter attends a good, though fairly average high school. But the quality of the academics is not the primary reason I am glad my children are in public school. In public school they learn to interact with people from a wide variety of backgrounds. Our school district is, as they say, majority-minority, which means that more than 50% of the student population are not white. Every day at school my children are reminded that they live in a country that is growing increasingly diverse, one in which people who look like them will need to learn to work alongside people who don't look like them. My daughter's school is less so than my son's, but even though the socio-economic and ethnic diversity is not as great as we might wish, she still encounters a wide variety of worldviews. Neither of my children spend their school days in a Christian worldview bubble. And that's a good thing, because they are not going to live in a world where the majority of people accept an evangelical Christian worldview, or even a Judeo-Christian one. They must learn to interact with a broader world and they must choose what they believe and why and they might as well begin in high school. We can't keep them in a sheltered environment forever.

I want my children to be comfortable with the reality that people around them look and think differently than they do. I don't want them to view people as threats simply because they are different in some way. I want them to accept the wonderful diversity that is the United States. I want them to be comfortable with having a black, Hispanic, Asian or female president, and with having co-workers from all these and other backgrounds, because that's the future of this country. I don't want my children to think that white men should be the natural leaders or control the levers of power and influence, at least not simply by virtue of being white men. The world is changing. Our country is changing. By studying in public high schools, my children are learning to deal with that changing world better, I think than they would in a more homogeneous environment.

I could list other reasons that I affirm public education, both for my children and for society as a whole, but this to me is one of the key reasons we need to have public education. Rather than fleeing from public schools, rather than tearing them down either actively or passively, we need to recommit to supporting and developing them. As Christians we should do this not less, but more. Ultimately I recognize, as I said earlier, that each family must make their decision for their own reasons, but I would strongly encourage us to give serious thought to supporting public education. We want our children to be prepared to engage with a diverse world and public schools can help us do that well.

Time to Change our Lenses

When one lives in Arizona, at least the part of the state where I live, many songs about Christmas ring completely fanciful.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! 

(Yeah, right.)

Oh the weather outside is frightful 

(only 65 F today, pretty terrible really)

Walking in a winter wonderland 

(wearing shorts and a T-shirt while the sun beats down on my head)

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the one we had last year 

(or maybe it was the year before, or the decade, maybe last century?)

I have no problem with singing nostalgic songs of snow-covered Christmases. But living in the dry Sonoran desert I am reminded each winter that much of our Christmas mythology arises from a very particular cultural perspective. We present an image of Christmas that suits what we think Christmas should be like. And that's okay, except when we start to insist that this should be how everyone experiences Christmas. If you live all your life in Florida, or Arizona, or even more so in Australia or South Africa, Christmas is not likely to bring to mind images of snow-covered pine trees. How about saguaro cacti covered with Christmas lights instead?

Today at the weekly study I attend, one man raised the all-too-common complaint that the phrase “Merry Christmas” has been forced from our society and that this indicates how unchristian we have become. I wholeheartedly affirm the right of this man and anyone else to say “Merry Christmas” as much as he wants, but I also don't think that saying it or not saying it indicates in any way whether we as a nation are in accord with God or not. Rather, it reveals another way in which we create a perception of how Christmas should be and then insist on everyone affirming that perception. But what about those for whom Christmas does not, in fact, have much to do with the birth of Jesus? Do we bring them closer to Jesus by insisting that we greet one another with the words “Merry Christmas”? I resonate with Karl Wheeler's call to surrender Christmas as a “Christian” holiday. He writes: “Why should my faith have more say or power than someone else's? In fact, I think we have less chance of inviting someone to Christ when we rise up in power imposing what we believe to be right.”

In reality, Christmas in America long ago ceased being a Christian holiday. Although Christmas as a Christian celebration does date back quite some distance in Church history, the significant emphasis on this event developed only relatively recently. We make Christmas what we want it to be and we could, should we so choose, celebrate the birth of Jesus on any given day of the year. I happen to like the symbolism of celebrating it in the darkest part of the year—but even that symbolism only works for those of us in the northern hemisphere. For those in the southern hemisphere Christmas comes at the height of summer. Much of the imagery in our traditional Christmas songs must sound particularly out of place when sung on a sunny Australian summer morning.

I am not advocating that we scrap all of our Christmas songs and the imagery we have built up around this holiday. However, we do well to stop and recognize that so much of our thinking about Christmas derives from a particular cultural background – a mythology. This extends not only to images of snow-laden fir trees, but also to the image we have of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus in the stall in Bethlehem. We create a nice sanitized image when in fact it probably was quite noisy and messy. (I am not saying that the birth of Jesus did not occur. I am only pointing out that much of how we perceive the actual birth event derives from our own image of how it might have or should have been.)

As I reflect on the humor of singing songs about white Christmases here in Arizona, I recognize that our cultural lenses affect us not only in this season. We all see the world through a particular set of cultural filters and experiences based on our background, our upbringing, our life experiences and the voices of the people we listen to the most. This is natural. But when we cannot recognize that these lenses also limit and distort our perspective, we became prisoners of them. We need to listen to the stories and experiences of others so that we can regularly remember that there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy. We do not have the one true understanding of the world, anymore than our image of Christmas as a time of snow-covered scenery and warm fireplaces matches the reality in many parts of the world.

As Christians in America, we must begin to recognize that we live in a multicultural society, one that does not see the world the way we see it. Let's be honest, even those who call themselves by the name of Christ do not all see it the same way. The time has passed when we could insist on defining the narrative that shapes our society solely on our terms. In reality that narrative has been largely defined by a rather narrow portion of society: white men who call themselves Christian. But white Christian men (a group that includes myself) don't have the whole story. We don't have the only perspective on the world and we certainly don't have the true one by which all others must be measured. We need to recognize that figuratively speaking we are living in Arizona but still singing songs about the white Christmas we're expecting this year. Let's wake up, stop dreaming and hear the songs those around us are singing instead. We might just find them to be more meaningful than the old melodies we've so cherished.

What about purple?

Red or blue. Black or white. It seems these days that everything must be cast in dichotomy. We've lost the middle ground, the shades and variations that bring color and diversity to our world. We reduce people and issues to labels, either A or B, red or blue, black or white. I see this in so many areas. What has propelled us to cast nearly every aspect of life in two tones? We can't just blame it on the media, because we perpetuate it every time we post something on Facebook that takes one position and vehemently denounces the other as un-American or unbiblical or un-something. We bear the guilt for erasing the shades of color from our world.

I too am guilty of participating in this dichotomous system. Many years ago while working as an intern with the junior high youth at my church I prepared a talk (that's what we called the youth sermons) based around a song by Leslie (now Sam) Phillips entitled Black and White in a Grey World. I no longer have the text of my message, but I remember that the main point focused on how we as believers needed to see things as black and white, right or wrong, good or evil. This, I argued at the time, was how we needed to stand out in a world that had blurred everything into shades of grey.

Now, many years later, I see things quite differently. Yes, black and white do exist, but those shades of grey (or of purple, if we refer to the contrast as red/blue) define the world in which we live. I find now that so many issues cannot simply be reduced to right or wrong, black or white, red or blue. Even issues that once seemed clear cut to me I now recognize as having far more complexity and nuance to them. I may oppose abortion, but the issue cannot be reduced to whether it should be illegal or not. That won't solve any problems really, although it may make it seem like it has. Casting the issue simply in terms of pro-choice or pro-life limits us to two colors, ignoring the many facets of the discussion such as the factors that encourage or reduce abortion. But it's so much easier to slap a label on myself or others and have done with it.

The political sphere in our nation has come to be defined in this way. A person is either red or blue. They can't possibly fall somewhere in the middle, because that's too complex and cannot be easily summarized in a nice chart or color-coded map. Don't consider any colors outside of that duality. Green? Pink? Orange? Forget it, there's no room for that in our two-tone world.

Unfortunately I see this same mentality within the Church, or at least within the parts of it that I frequent. If one is a Christian, one must adopt position A and not B, position X and not Y. A person is either saved or a sinner. Women are either virgins or sluts. We've cut out any middle ground, which may be part of the reason that many people feel uncomfortable in the Church. There's no room for diversity and color. Apparently we fear the middle ground, because in the middle the answers are not clear cut and we can't quickly define people. We're uncomfortable when we don't know how to label those around us.

Looking back now at that Leslie Phillip's song, I see that in one verse she sang: 

It's not so easy finding answers in the shade.It takes some patience, takes some gritBut it's better than throwing all your colors in the streetWhat's life without color in it?

In the song she uses these words to argue for a black and white perspective, but as I consider the world now, I would understand these words differently. Yes, it is not easy finding answers in the shade. Living in a world that has diverse shades of meaning, a world in which there are not easy black and white answers to most questions presents great challenges. We cannot just cite some “authority” and have done with the matter. We must wrestle with the questions and the many nuances involved. We have to actually deal with real people and real situations which are inherently messy and complex. It does take patience and grit. But it is indeed better than throwing all our colors in the street, abandoning them in favor of a world where we can quickly label and define people as being one of two shades.

How do we move beyond a world limited to dichotomies? We need to stop limiting ourselves to sound bites and simplistic positions. Especially as followers of Christ we need to get to know the messy, colorful, complex world in which we live and stop seeing things as either black or white. Some issues can come down to that, but the vast majority of them not only allow for but demand greater diversity. We need to engage with people and hear their stories, rather than trumpeting little snippets of information that support our position. Even if we choose to define ourselves as black or white or red or blue, we can recognize that the issues are far more complex and that our perspective is always limited and imperfect. Let's stop reducing people and issues to labels and affirm the diversity that exists in society and creation. After all, what's life without color in it?

Power and Surrender

Yesterday I discovered a new-to-me blog, From Two to One, whose author composes well-written, thought-provoking pieces on topics I resonate with. Over the past two days she has written a solid two-piece look at how we turn our worldviews into idols. I encourage you to read what she's written in part one and continue with part two. I think she's very much on target with her analysis.

I agree with the summary her teacher gave of politics: that ultimately it's about power. The citation from Thomas Friedman hits the heart of the issue:

“People with power never think about it; 

people without power think about it all the time.”

This year I have been on a journey, an awakening really, as I begin to understand how much my worldview has been shaped by my background of power. Not that long ago I would have argued that I didn't have much power. Based on some scales I don't. But I come from a privilege class of white men living in the most privileged and powerful countries in the world. I have had the opportunity to live outside of this country for many years, which has helped open my eyes and my mind to seeing and understanding the world differently than most people like me. Now that I'm back in the United States I continue to have my worldview stretched, expanded, deconstructed and reconstructed as I begin to listen to voices that previously I had not heard. It's a challenging, often painful process. It pushes me to change my behaviors, my beliefs and my actions. Sometimes it compels me to be silent where previously I might have spoken out, and at other times it compels me to speak out where before I would have remained silent. It has left me feeling like an outsider and stranger in many of the social circles in which I live.

I feel more and more that the American church, at least the more conservative branches of it in which I have generally been at home, has come to hold to a worldview shaped by a particular cultural lens more than the Kingdom of God. Yet we have managed to blur the two so thoroughly in our theology and practice that we cannot see the difference. We have, as the author of From Two to One argues, made our worldview into an idol, and now we fight viciously and desperately to protect that idol from all threats. In the process we present a false image of Christ, we promote hatred and injustice and all the while claim to be God's ambassadors to our society. Thankfully there are many voices, represented by From Two to One, Kathy Escobar, Caris Adel, Julie Clawson, the Sojourners and others, that strive to speak for the truth of the gospel even though it runs contrary to the worldview idol that many in the American church strive so hard to defend.

What would it look like for the American church, and I'm thinking particularly of the conservative evangelical community, to surrender power and authority rather than fighting so hard to preserve it? What would happen if we allowed God to demonstrate love through us, if we opened our doors to those who are different from us, if we welcomed them not with the goal of “fixing” them but simply with the goal of listening and entering into their stories? What if we stopped fixating on being “right” and admitted that we've been wrong far too often, that we have judged too quickly, that we have far too often caused more hurt than we've healed? Isn't this the model Jesus gave us?

Wasted Treasure

Last night my wife and I watched the movie Mozart's Sister. I enjoyed the film as a work of art, although the storyline grieved me. A bit of internet research confirmed our questions about the factuality of the storyline. Despite the fictional nature of much of the plot, the underlying theme follows in line with what we know of Maria Anna Mozart, known affectionately to her family as Nannerl, and her early life. Apparently a young woman of significant talent herself, her father not only failed to fully appreciate her talent but actively thwarted and stifled it. He actively and fiercely promoted Wolfgang's development, but Nannerl's role remained purely a supporting one. As she grew older, even that role was removed from her because it was not seen as a proper one for a young woman of marriageable age.

This story, even in the broadest of outline, grieves me. The world lost the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate the talents of this remarkable young woman simply because her father and her society deemed it inappropriate for her to display and develop them. How many times has this happened throughout history? How much potential has the world lost because societies have viewed women as inferior mentally and physically or because they have deemed that the proper place for a woman was in the home as wife and mother? Surely the loss of all the talent and potential of women throughout the centuries must constitute one of the greatest failures of human history.

I'd like to say that we have thankfully progressed beyond such narrow beliefs. Unfortunately that is not the case. Certainly we have progressed in some cultures, but that progress has been relatively recent and still not fully realized. In many cultures around the world little if anything has changed in this regard. I have lived in a culture where women were still viewed as inferior. Although in that culture they were (thankfully) allowed to have an education, they were the first ones to be pulled from school if finances were short and in many cases women were discouraged from pursuing higher education because men would not want to marry a woman who was smarter than them. After all, how much education does one need to have babies and manage a home? When I hear such views expressed my anger begins to boil. How can people think this way? And how can they fail to see the enormous potential they deprive their culture of by proscribing the talents and abilities of their women?

In American culture we have made progress. Women now have access, at least theoretically, to almost all spheres of life and all roles. But we haven't reached the point where we fully release the potential of women in our society. We still undervalue women in business, sports, politics and other fields. In much of the church we continue to define a very narrow sphere in which women can express their gifts. We rob ourselves of so much by doing so! Unfortunately conservative evangelical Christians often lead the battle against full equality for women. I hear of and know families in which the daughters are raised primarily for the role of wife and mother. Yes, they are in most cases given the same or nearly the same education as any brothers they might have, but with a stated or unstated expectation that they will subordinate their skills, talents and gifts to those of their husbands or fathers. I do not disparage the roles of wife and mother. These are important—vital!--roles in society and deserve our full respect. But a woman should not be forced into those roles simply because no other options are available to her.

In the movie, Nannerl becomes close friends with the youngest daughter of the king of France, who has lived in a cloister with two of her other sisters since early in her childhood. In the film this daughter chooses to become a nun and submit her wishes and desires to the authority and leadership of the church. When she meets Nannerl for the last time, she encourages Nannerl to accept a similar sacrifice for herself in submitting her own dreams to the plans and decisions of her father. Nannerl chooses to do so, but the movie leaves us with a strong sense that she does so with great sorrow and regret. Some Christians would argue that Nannerl made the right decision, that submission to her father was the biblical choice. I would counter that as a woman come-of-age Nannerl should not have felt nor have been in a position where submission to her father was the only choice available to her. I do not agree that the Bible places an adult woman under the authority of her father or any other man. The times in which Nannerl lived offered her no realistic alternatives. I hope that our society—particularly within the church—will do otherwise and strive to liberate and encourage the talents, skills, gifts and interests of our daughters and women. I dream of a day when no Nannerl will be doomed to obscurity because she is a woman. The world cannot afford to so casually and carelessly squander such treasures.  

A Not-So-Social Parable

I came across this paraphrase yesterday at this site and want to share it with you. I won't add any other comments at this point in time and let the text speak for itself.

The Lazy Paralytic

1. When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at his home. 2. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. 3. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. 5. When Jesus saw this he grew angry, "Why did you wreck my roof? Do you have any idea how much that cost to install? Do you know how many tables and chairs I had to make in my carpentry shop to pay for that roof? The reeds alone cost five talents. I had them carted in from Bethany." 6. The disciples had never seen Jesus so angry about his possessions. He continued, "This house is my life." The disciples fell silent. 7. "It's bad enough that you trash my private property, now you want me to heal you?" said Jesus, "And did you not see the stone walls around this house?" "Yes," said the man's friends. "Are these not the stone walls native to the Land of Galilee? 8. "No," Jesus answered. "This is a gated community. How did you get in?" The man's friends grew silent. 9. Then Jesus turned to the paralytic and said, "Besides, can't you take care of your own health problems? I'm sure that you're family can care for you, or maybe the synagogue." 10. "No, Lord," answered the man's friends. "There is no one. His injuries are too severe. To whom else can we go?" 11. "Well, not me," said Jesus. "What would happen if I provided free health care for everyone? That would mean that people would not only get lazy, but they would take advantage of the system. 12. Besides, look at me: I'm healthy. And you know why? Because I worked hard for my money." The paralyzed man then grew sad and he addressed Jesus. "But I did work, Lord," said the paralytic. "But an accident rendered me paralyzed." "Yes," said the man's friends. "He worked very hard." 13. "Well," said Jesus, "That's just part of life, isn't it?" "Then what am I to do, Lord?" said the paralytic. "I don't know. Why don't you sell your mat?" 14. All in the crowd then grew sad. "Actually, you know what you can do?" said Jesus. "You can reimburse me for my roof. Or I'll sue." And all were amazed. 15. "We have never seen anything like this," said the crowd.

Those Weren't The Days

A song I hear occasionally on the radio has stuck in my head the past couple days: The Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams. In the song Adams recalls several events from his past with warm nostalgia, capturing his feelings with the repeated refrain:

Those were the best days of my life.

That phrase has prompted me to reflect on my own perspective on life. Now that forty is in my rearview mirror, I like Adams am inclined at times to think of times in my past as the best days of my life. Our cultural mythology promotes this by refering to the time after forty as being “over the hill,” clearly implying that the best years of life come before that. Certainly I have some great memories of my earlier years, of high school and university days and I don't think there's anything wrong with remembering them with warm nostalgia. (One wonders how accurately we remember them, although perhaps its just as well if we allow some details to slip from our memories.) But I do myself wrong by choosing to live in the past. I rob myself of life when I choose to think that my best days are already behind me. I cannot recapture the past. I can celebrate it – maybe even grieve it as appropriate – but I cannot relive it, no matter how hard I try. 

The truth is, those don't have to be the best days of my life. The best days can still lie ahead. Life is not at an end, whether one is thirty, forty, fifty or beyond. Yes, the seasons of life change and the way in which we can enjoy them changes as well, but I don't want to live my life looking backward with regret, feeling that the prime of life is receding ever farther from my present. I want to embrace the present and look to the future with hopeful optimism. Life isn't over. The end has not yet come. I have a friend who is living his life as fully in his seventies as he has done in all the years before. He might even say he's enjoying himself more than ever. That's a model for me.

I would say the same to those who seem to hold to this idea on a national level. Some by their words and actions seem to believe that the best days of our country lie behind us. They would tell us that America has fallen from its greatness and that to recapture that we must return to what we once were. While there may be some aspects of truth in that, to me it is a hollow philosophy. It sees the past through rose-colored lenses and fails to recognize the significant shortcomings and failures of our society throughout its history. It's like a forty year old thinking that high school or university was the pinnacle of life and if he or she could just get back to that, everything would be great. But we're not the same nation we were in the past and we cannot go back to that point in time. Nor should we want to. Our best years do not have to lie behind us. They can still lie ahead of us.

When I say that I do not think primarily of restoring America to a position of proud arrogance in which it can impose its will on others around the world without restraint – particularly through military but also through economic influence. I certainly don't think of restoring an America in which a single group holds the majority of economic and political power. Rather I think of a nation that has learned humility – a nation that strives to uphold the equality of all of its people and to include them in the political and economic life of the nation. I think of a nation where power is used for the benefit of all but especially of those most in need, of those marginalized and crushed by systems and people that have wielded power unjustly. I think of a nation that contributes to global development not by force of arms or manipulative control but by coming alongside others to work for the common good. I think of a nation that lives for the future by taking care of its environment now. I think of a nation that lives not to consume more and more, making sure we “get our fair share” (although in fact we already have consumed more than our fair share), but which seeks to live moderately and modestly, promoting healthy, sustainable lifestyles so that others on this shared planet can also live.

No, we have not already seen the best days of our lives or of our nation. The best can still lie ahead of us. But it takes a willingness to break with outdated or false systems of thinking and behaving. It requires us to recognize and admit our weaknesses and failures. We won't progress by trying to go back to what was. We will progress as we seek to live out of an ethic of humble servanthood. We can be something of a “city on a hill,” but not by proclaiming our own self-righteousness and superiority. No, our best days are not behind us, unless we choose to try to live in the past. I don't want to live there though. I want to move forward and strive for what can yet come.

I'm probably just a hopeless dreamer, but that's a dream that motivates me far more than any call to reclaim our nation's past greatness.

Surprised by Hope

As I sat in the worship service yesterday morning (yes, in the end I did choose to go) listening to our pastor lament the decline of the United States and express his pessimism concerning the future, I understood one of the factors that leaves me uncomfortable not only with this particular worship community, but with much of conservative American evangelicalism. Despite the Good News brought to us by Jesus, we have become by and large a pessimistic people. We see the world negatively and we expect things to get worse. There is precious little hope in the messages I hear coming from the conservative wing of the American church and it not only discourages me, but I increasingly think that we fail to truly represent the Kingdom when we present such a negative outlook.


I am not saying that all is well in the world or in the United States. We face real problems and we may endure some very rough times in the years ahead. I do not affirm in any way a gospel of prosperity and success that claims that true believers will know nothing but God's blessing. The Bible clearly tells us that those who follow God will endure hardship. But I react negatively to the underlying pessimism that I hear in the conservative evangelical church. This derives in part from their worldview which sees the best years as already behind us and tries to hold on to that past rather than continuing to work for positive progress in society. It also stems from a faulty theology.


I only began to recognize this in the past few months, particularly after reading N.T. Wright's book Surprised by Hope. I have read much theology in my day, but rarely has a book impacted by theology so strongly and unexpectedly as this book did. It shifted my worldview. At the risk of oversimplifying a remarkable piece of writing, Wright says essentially that the Church, at least the evangelical wing of the Church, has come to misunderstand heaven and fails to properly affirm the central truth of bodily resurrection, with tangible effect on both our beliefs about the future and our daily lives in the present world.

Salvation, according to Wright, is not a matter of being rescued out of this world. “Salvation,” he wrights, “is not 'going to heaven' but 'being raised to life in God's new heaven and new earth'.” Salvation and resurrection and intimately intertwined. They are not just about, or even primarily about, a future outside of this place. They are about the inbreaking, transforming work of God's Kingdom in this present place; not ignoring the fallen, corrupt nature of the world but believing that God through the power of resurrection is at work now to renew and restore that fallen Creation to the glory it originally had, which will be heaven. The resurrection of Jesus marked the first step in in this process.


“The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing, close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term, in the future. And what he was promising for that future, and doing in that present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world present is so they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose—and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that larger project.”


Wright does not speak out of a rosy-eyed optimism that ignores the real problems of the world. Nor does he assert that human effort and progress alone will result in the overcoming of these problems. He recognizes and asserts the need for God to bring about this renewal and transformation. Without God's activity there would be no hope. But, he affirms, in the resurrection of Jesus God demonstrated God's commitment to restoration. God worked in that event and continues to work in this world through those who accept the invitation into the Kingdom. We are God's co-workers, through whom God is at work in this present world, not merely preserving it long enough to save as many souls as possible before the “End,” (lest we should be “Left Behind” as a very popular but theologically inaccurate series described) but bringing about transformation that will be made complete at some point in the future when Jesus returns to culminate his reign over this world. 


When I hear pastors speak, as my pastor did yesterday, pessimistically about the future, I now compare that with the word of hope that Wright points to in the Gospel message. We, the Church, need not be pessimistic. We need not merely “hang on” and try to hold fast until we get our escape ticket out of this place. Rather we are called to participate with God in the renewal of this world in which God placed us. I can get excited about this message, much more than about a pessimistic message that says things will continue to get worse and worse and all we can do is try to save as many from this sinking ship as possible before it goes under. I wonder whether our failure to speak a message of real hope is part of what hinders people from getting excited about this message.


I don't think this is a minor matter. I see it as a major difference in one's theology that affects how we live in the present world, how we view the future and how we understand salvation. I'm sure there are churches that proclaim more clearly this message of hope. I'd like to hear it within my own worship community. I need to meditate on it more and seek to live my life in line with the positive impact this hope can give me and my world.

Worldviews, Evolution and Slippery Slopes

A few years ago the church I attend established a number of home groups focused on strengthening our understanding and application of a biblical worldview. They used a series entitled The Truth Project (www.thetruthproject.org), created and supported by Focus on the Family. The series is quite well done and impressive—convincing in fact. The presenters argue how a biblical worldview begins with a foundation of certain beliefs about God, truth and humanity, on which are then built the biblical view of things such as politics, economics, history, art and a wide range of other topics. They show this visually as a facade like that of a classic Greek building, with the foundation supporting columns on which rests a beam with niches for various topics, all covered by a roof. I came away from watching the series feeling like I had a nice grasp of what a biblical worldview looked like. For me there weren't any particularly new elements, but the series brought them together in a nice synthesis. The way they present the structure, if you remove any one element of it, the whole structure faces the danger of collapse. The direct analogy of course is that our society is increasingly removing or modifying elements of this biblical worldview and the whole “house” of our Western Judeo-Christian culture is now threatened.

Now, some years later, I'm beginning to question many of the presuppositions and arguments made in this series. I do not have the full series at hand to review and examine more critically, so I will not try to argue with specifics from the series but from general points that they made. First of all, I wanted to put the word “biblical” in quotation marks every time I used it in the first paragraph, because I really think this word has become attached to far too many things. Although she takes the subject in a somewhat different direction, I credit this post by Rachel Held Evans with stimulating much of my thinking on this issue.

I was raised in a circle that treated the Bible as God's answer book to everything. It was in essence not only the book that showed us the path to eternal life, it was the guidebook to every question, the ultimate key to organizing our lives. But is that what the Bible really is? Can it realistically fulfill this role? I rather doubt that at this point. Given that sincere Christians often disagree (at times vehemently) on key issues (not just theological), it seems dubious to me that we can speak of a truly “biblical” understanding of most questions that face us as humans. Is there really a “biblical” politics? Would that look more republican, democrat, libertarian or other? Is multi-party democracy more “biblical” than divine-right monarchy? What about economics? Many of those around me advocate unhesitatingly for capitalism as the clear “biblical” economic system. Never mind, as Evans points out in her article, that this system didn't even exist in Bible times.

I think that much of what the Truth Project advocates as a “biblical” worldview is really a classical Western worldview. Some of it has been influenced by the text of the Bible, though even in this it derives from a particular interpretation or set of interpretations. Much of it derives far more from Greek philosophy than the Bible. Even more it represents a particular Western cultural worldview than an inherently biblical one. This is not to say that the Western cultural worldview cannot be argued for and defended (or argued against and attacked). I am simply arguing that to assert that this worldview is THE biblical worldview is erroneous, false, and misleading.

I understand better now why the advocates of this worldview are afraid. As I said, they see their worldview very much as a cohesive, interlocking structure. Remove one piece and the whole building is in danger of collapse. In their minds this is precisely what is happening in the United States today. (I dare say that most of those behind the Truth Project would say that Europe has long ago abandoned this worldview and is now paying the price.) Therefore out of fear they must try to promote and rebuild this worldview so that their ship doesn't sink (to switch metaphors). What is more, since they tie their worldview to their Christian faith, to see the worldview crumble is to see their faith crumble as well. No wonder they feel such a strong need to defend it. As Evans writes in her book Evolving in Monkey Town: “for fundamentalists, Christianity sits perpetually on the precipice of doom, one scientific discovery or cultural shift or difficult theological question away from extinction.”

What if, by contrast, our faith is much more fluid? I'm not advocating for a completely undefined faith. But what if our faith is far more adaptive and flexible than we have tended to perceive it? “Fortunately,” writes Evans in her book, “the ability to adapt to change is one of Christianity's best features.” For this reason she describes herself as an evolutionist, arguing that: “I'm an evolutionist because I believe that the best way to reclaim the gospel in times of change is not to cling more tightly to our convictions but to hold them with an open hand. I'm an evolutionist because I believe that sometimes God uses changes in the environment to pry idols from our grip and teach us something new.” I imagine that her use of the word evolutionist makes some people uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable until I understood what she is saying. Then I began to become an evolutionist as well.

I'm beginning to see faith not simply as a set of propositions that one must assent to (without, however, abandoning the idea of absolute, propositional truth) but as a journey; a journey toward Christlikeness; a journey of discovery in which God guides and directs us by the written text of the Bible, by the community of sinner-saints around us and by the agency of his Holy Spirit. I'm finding there are a lot of people on this journey. Some might accuse us of abandoning our faith; of making it personal and subjective. I don't think that is the case, at least not for many of my fellow sojourners. Rather we are seeking to understand what it means to be Christ-followers in the modern world, faithful to God's Word in Jesus Christ in the context of the 21^st century. I guess, like Rachel Held Evans, I have stepped onto the slippery slope. It is not as solid, secure and well-defined as the structure of the “biblical worldview.” But as she says: “Now, I have to keep a very close eye on Jesus, as he leads me through deep valleys and precarious peaks.” Let the journey continue.

Thoughts on Homeschooling

Recently I had the privilege of sharing with a group of homeschoolers about my experiences living and working overseas. I appreciated their interest and the questions they posed. Our time together passed quickly and could have easily extended another hour or more. A brief interaction with the parent who organized the session stands out to me because it hinted at something that, despite all the positive aspects of homeschooling, troubles me about some members of the homeschooling community.

As I was gathering my things to leave I was talking with this mother—a very friendly, polite, and intelligent woman—about my children's situation now that we are back in the United States. I told her that my daughter currently studies at one of our local public high schools and then commented that she was thriving there and it seemed in fact to be a good environment for her. This seemed to rather surprise this mother. We didn't have time to discuss it further, but from my impression she found it quite difficult to believe that someone could consider a public school to be a good environment for their child.

I do not want to accuse this woman of any particular bias, because we did not have time to really discuss the issue. But her reaction hinted at something I have picked up at times from other homeschooling families: the sense that homeschooling is really the most godly and superior choice for teaching children. Depending on the degree to which this philosophy is held, it may express itself as a complete disdain for anyone who doesn't home school, or it may be expressed more as pity for those who do not home school due to either family constraints or other reasons. Admittedly, not all homeschooling advocates actively demonstrate this philosophy and those who truly disdain non-homeschoolers are probably a quite small minority, but I think that the philosophy does pervade most homeschooling families. They are so convinced of the benefits of their method that they must perceive every other schooling option as inferior in some degree. Perhaps this is only to be expected, given the commitment and effort it takes to home school.

When our children were young, my wife and I did not envision sending them to public school either. In fact my wife often had quite critical things to say of our local public school system. Now as our children are in or prepare to enter high school, imagine our own surprise as we enroll them in the same public school system which earlier we had viewed so critically. We are not unaware of the weaknesses and drawbacks of doing so, but at the same time we see our daughter thriving in her current school environment as she has not thrived in the past several years of her education and we look forward to launching our son into the same system (albeit to a different high school) next fall.

Our children have spent most of their educational lives either in small, Christian school contexts or studying at home in a semi-homeschool environment (not a “true” homeschool environment because we did not choose and implement the curriculum ourselves, although our children did their study at home under our supervision and with our assistance.) To the extent that they had classmates, they were largely from the same or similar cultural backgrounds as they. Although we lived in other cultures and they had some interaction with these cultures, their key educational environments were distinctly evangelical and American.

Now that one of them is in public school (our son is finishing his middle school years in an on-line virtual academy), she is for the first time in her life immersed fully in a secular world. She is surrounded by people who are not like her, people who do not share the same underlying values or beliefs. She has made friends with people who are quite different in their worldviews, not necessarily the people we would have chosen for her had we been the ones making the choice. But we are not and at age 15 we no longer should be, at least not in a directive sense. We do converse with her about her friends and as she interacts with them it has opened opportunities for conversation with her about many issues. She is, for the first time, having to consider the meaning, implication and impact of Christian faith in a decidedly non-Christian context. The outcome is not certain, but my wife and I are convinced that the process is worthwhile.

I see a trend among some evangelicals in America, a trend to condemn the secular culture in which we live and to respond to the increasing secularization by retreating and withdrawing from it. Homeschooling can, in its more negative forms, constitute a part of this trend. It seems that some families feel that we can no longer engage with the culture and our best response is to try to isolate ourselves and try to remain pure and unsullied. I do not think this is a healthy response. Nor do I think it is a realistic and workable response. At some point our lives must cross those of others who are different from us, who do not think and act and believe as we do. If we do not prepare our children for this interaction when they are growing up, when we are most able to influence and teach them, they will instead crash into it later in life. I fear that children who grow up in an isolated conservative Christian environment, even if they are “armed” with apologetic skills to “defend” their faith, will find it difficult to deal with a secular society. But deal with it they must at some point. For this reason, among others that I will not go into here, I am glad that my daughter is in public high school.

I am not opposed to homeschooling. It may be the best option for some and it definitely has advantages. The group I talked with recently were certainly polite, generally engaging and interested in what I had to say. I don't know that the average public school classroom would have been such a receptive environment—though in fact I do not know because I have not had that opportunity. What I would say to homeschool advocates is: recognize that homeschooling is an option, not a mandate. It is not more or less godly than placing our children in public schools, so do not judge those of us who take that route. Recognize also that your child will have to deal with a world in which the majority of people around him or her will not share the same beliefs, values or worldview and consider how you can foster a healthy ability to engage and interact with people from that world. Let us not be guilty of creating a Christian ghetto culture. Salt doesn't do much good if it just sits in a salt shaker, no matter how comfortable and welcoming that may be.

Words of Wisdom

I was listening to some of my favorite music this evening and these words resonated in my mind, as they always do when I listen to this song:


Reject the worldly lie that says
That life lies always up ahead.
Let power go
Before control
Becomes a crust around your soul.
Forsake the hunger to possess
And soul-diminishing success
This world is full of narrow lies
I pray by grace your smile survives.


from the song Sunshine of Your Smile by Michael Card

Where's that Old Georgia Pine?

I was driving in the car the other day, listening to the radio as I usually do. I had the country station on (yes, I do enjoy listening to country music on occasion, I'll admit it!) and the song "Meet in the Middle" by Diamond Rio came on. (I must confess that I couldn't correctly identify the band as Diamond Rio. I had to find it on the internet.) It's quite a catchy tune and the chorus resonated in my mind much of the afternoon. It goes like this:

I'd start walking your way
You'd start walking mine
We'd meet in the middle
'neath that old Georgia pine
We'd gain a lot of ground
'Cause we'd both give a little
And there ain't no road to long
When you meet in the middle.

I think this song captures something that is  true more often than not in personal relationships. We create distant between ourselves and others because we refuse to yield. It requires humility on our part and a willingness to forgive unconditionally, neither of which are easy to do in our natural human condition. I've been learning a lot about this over the past couple years and could go on at length on this topic.

But what my mind focused on that afternoon and has continued to mull over occasionally since then, is that this song also captures what a lot of people are calling for in our society these days. I think most of us agree that the political scene has become rather polarized, with conservatives railing against liberals and liberals doing the same against conservatives. Each side is convinced that they are correct and that the other side is leading the country down the road to damnation (though not all would be willing to accept the concept of damnation in the first place!) There seems to be little space in the middle for rationale, meaningful dialog. In general I agree that this space is sorely lacking and that we could all stand to apply the lyrics to this song to our social interaction.

At the same time, I think that part of the tension in our society arises from the fact that everyone holds certain values quite strongly. Some of us still believe that there are certain absolute truths that are not open to debate or compromise. In fact, I think most people actually hold this belief at the core of their worldview, even the most tolerant-minded person who believes that we should all just accept one another. Such an individual fundamentally believes that there aren't any absolutes, which in itself is an absolute (and therefore a logical contradiction, but that's another discussion.) So what happens when values conflict? In some cases I think we can work to meet in the middle. This should happen more often than it does, because I think in many situations the disagreement isn't over what we want to achieve but how to go about achieving it. For example, I think most Americans would agree that reducing poverty is a good goal. We just disagree on the best way to go about doing that.

But there are times when the issue is much more fundamental, when it comes down to a question of worldview and truth claims. The differences here seem to be unbridgeable. There's no Georgia pine where we can all meet. To name one specific issue (which will probably get me a lot of feedback), the question of accepting homosexual marriage, or even homosexuality as an acceptable public lifestyle. For some people, myself included, this is not an issue that is open to discussion. Our worldview based on Scripture tells us that this is not something that we can embrace or approve. However, I also understand from Scripture that we are to love all people regardless of their condition, behavior or lifestyle. God loves us as we are. On our own none of us has a chance of being acceptable and pleasing to God. Homosexuality is only one of the practically infinite number of things that keeps us as humans from God's holy presence. Effectively it doesn't separate a person from God anymore than gossiping about a neighbor or anything else, although practically we often treat it as if it does. At the same time I certainly cannot simply affirm it as a valid lifestyle choice. So how can I respond on this particular issue? How do I demonstrate love without affirming the lifestyle? Is there any way to meet in the middle on an issue like this?

Is it still possible in today's society to find that Georgia pine? How do we as believers move to meet others where they are at without compromising the truths and values that define us? Is it even possible? I believe it is, but need wisdom and discernment to know how. What do you think?