Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Weekly Commentary: What Triggers Spiritual Growth?

Does spiritual growth require some kind of hormone, like other efforts to enhance performance? Some of us may be disappointed with ourselves, like my brother Richard.  Not so much with particular things he has done, as with aspects of whom he has become.  Richard lives in Colorado, and we met and talked at a family wedding this summer.

I did not know much about Richard's private life, but after a few wedding toasts he was willing to talk freely about his pain of not being the person he had always thought he would become.  

I told Richard boldly that we are called to become the person God had in mind when he originally designed us.  Richard listened politely.  I asked Richard if perhaps he had removed God from the central role God longs to play in our lives.  I told Richard, "Perhaps you have refused to let God be God, and have appointed yourself in his place."

Later, we had a chance to talk, away from the distractions of the wedding reception.  I told Richard that perhaps what he was missing was some of the mysterious process called "spiritual growth." The goal of spiritual growth, I told him, is to live as if Jesus held unhindered sway over our bodies. Of course it is still we doing the living.  We are called by God, I said, to make daily life choices as the uniquely created selves which each of us is ---- with our own particular temperament, our own gene pool, our unique history.  But to grow spiritually means to make those choices increasingly as Jesus would have, if he were living in our unique place and time. That is, to perceive what Jesus would perceive if he looked through our eyes, to think what he would think, to feel what he would feel, and therefore to do what he would do.

John Ortberg, a teacher, writer and the pastor of Menlo Park (CA) Presbyterian Church, agrees that we may be missing the life we were appointed by God to live.   Too often, says Ortberg, people think about their "spiritual lives" as just one more aspect of their existence, alongside and largely separate from their "financial lives" or their "vocational lives."  Periodically they may try to get their spiritual lives "together" by praying more regularly or trying to master some other formal spiritual discipline.  It is the religious equivalent of going on a diet, or trying to stick to a budget, Ortberg says.

The term "spiritual life" is simply a way of referring to one's whole life, says Pastor Ortberg, every moment and every facet of it ---- from God's perspective.  "Another way of saying it," continues Ortberg, "is that God is not interested merely in your "spiritual life" ---- God is really interested in your life as a whole.  He intends to redeem it!"

As Pastor Ortberg sees it, "God holds out the possibility of transformation, and the possibility of transformation is the essence of hope.  Hope is the primary goal of spiritual life."  The goal of spiritual transformation can and should be pursued full-time, he says.  Often we reduce our "tools for spiritual growth" to a few activities, such as prayer and Bible study, or a few periods of the day called "quiet time."  However, every moment of our lives can be an opportunity to learn from God how to live like Jesus.

Getting clear on what "spiritual life" looks like is no casual affair.  How does one know if we are settling for false transformation instead of the real thing?  Here are a few warning signs offered by John Ortberg:

   1.) Am I spiritually "inauthentic"?  To be "inauthentic" means being preoccupied with appearing to be spiritual.  Perhaps we have a hard time talking about God without trying to convince people we are "spiritual."  Or, we may work harder at making people think we are a loving person than we do at actually loving them.

   2.) Am I becoming judgmental or exclusive or proud?  Pride is a potential problem for anyone who takes spiritual growth seriously.  As soon as we start to pursue virtue, we begin to wonder why others are not as virtuous as we are.

   3.) Am I becoming more approachable, or less?  In Jesus' day, rabbis had the mistaken notion that their spirituality required them to distance themselves from people.  The irony is that the only rabbi that outcasts could touch was Jesus ---- he was the most approachable religious person they had ever seen.  The other religious leaders had a kind of awkwardness that pushed people away.

   4.) Am I growing weary of pursuing spiritual growth?  Conventional religious goodness manages to be both intimidating and unchallenging at the same time, and this is tiresome. Intimidating because, for example, it might involve 39 separate rules about Sabbath-keeping alone.  Unchallenging because we may devote our lives to observing all the rules and not ever open our hearts to love or joy.  Conforming to some particular religious subculture is simply not a compelling enough vision to captivate the human spirit.

   5.) Am I measuring my spiritual life in superficial ways?  God's primary assessment of our lives is not going to be a measure of the number of our prayers, Scripture readings or meditations. Rather, the question is whether we are growing in love for God and people.  The real issue is what kind of person we are becoming?  Practices such as reading Scripture and praying are important 
---- not because they prove how spiritual we are ---- but because God can use them to lead us into life.   

Pastor Ortberg summarizes these thoughts by saying that spirituality refers to the Spirit of God and the fact that we are spiritual creatures.  So, Christian spirituality has to do with having our inward person (our mind, our will, our desires and intentions) formed or shaped by Jesus into a character that will honor God.
________________________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage your pursuit of personal spiritual growth this Fall at CPC.
________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, July 25, 2014

Is CPC An "Outward-Facing" Church? How Did This Happen?

Author and church development expert Leonard Sweet says, "A missional church faces outward toward the world . . . .  For too long, churches have faced inward, offering religion as a benefits package for members ---- something that 'meets my needs' or simply offers comfortable social opportunities with one's friends."

Dr. Sweet reports that many churches ask, "How can we get more young people involved?"  He believes that is the wrong question ---- it is an "inward-facing" question. A better question, he says, is to ask, "What are the hurts and hopes of our community and how can we respond to them?"

Does CPC do a good job in sending members out into the community and the world, or is it's focus simply to get more people to come to church?  Do we at CPC evaluate our progress in terms of filling our seating capacity, or by our sending capacity?

To truly connect with their neighborhood, church members must not just look at data on a page, but listen to the people in the community. They must get out and talk to the people who live around the church ---- in Summit, New Providence, Berkeley Heights, and perhaps elsewhere in Union and Morris Counties.

Again, the question: "Is CPC an outward-facing church?"  In many small but meaningful ways, CPC members regularly have been caring for and working to transform the community around us, by offering service on a committed and regular basis.  You know about our participation in Family Promise (homeless care), SHIP (Summit Helps It's People ---- meals for the homeless), weekly visitation teams at Overlook Hospital and Runnells Specialized Hospital, and a variety of other organized, outward-facing efforts.

Over the years, CPC has built an enviable record of community involvement.  For example, our members were prime movers in developing Senior Citizen housing and low-income housing in Summit.  Now we have new challenges and we will solve them with some new CPC participants, with re-newed energy and new ideas, building upon a strong foundation.

So, Dr. Leonard Sweet might praise CPC as an "outward-facing" church, but is there more to our story?  Don't we have some evidence of waning interest in Bible literacy. While our worship services and Sunday sermons are compelling, perhaps our members more and more are merely spectators, with their working knowledge of the Bible becoming less and less sure over time?

Is this not a bit ironic?  While we have a continuing track record of reaching out to others ---- giving of ourselves to others, those relationships may not really be spiritual. Is it simply that today we evangelize to outsiders more by example, than by Bible lessons and the re-telling of the parables of Jesus?

This is different from the practices of earlier generations, but perhaps it is not a bad thing.  We must, indeed, respond to the changing tastes and interests of American culture and society, and today many of the strict denominational borders within and around Christianity are fading. We are encouraged to befriend and respect people who may be very different from us.  In a very real sense, is this not what Jesus would tell us to do even if many of us cannot recite a specific Bible story in support of such practices.

Here is a question for each of us:  If the time and effort required to gain and retain Bible literacy is increasingly replaced by "action" programs to help others in need, in the long run how might that change our relationship with God?
_______________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage some personal growth this year at CPC.
_______________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

When Facts Do Not Change A Strongly-Held Belief

Moral attitudes are especially difficult to change because the attached emotions may largely define who we are.  Certain beliefs are so important to us that they become part of how we prove our identity.

Take, for example, a story about Dr. Ignaz Semmelwies.  A bulletin board exhibit, entitled "The History of Hand Washing," currently on display at Overlook Hospital, illustrates how difficult it can be to change strongly-held beliefs.

Dr. Semmelwies was the Chief Resident in surgery at the Vienna General Hospital in 1847.  At the time, the theory of diseases was highly influenced by ideas of an imbalance of the basic "four humours" in the body, a theory known as dyscrasia for which the main treatment was blood lettings.   There was also conventional wisdom that diseases were spread in the form of "bad air," sometimes called "unfavorable atmospheric-cosmic-territorial influences."

At the Vienna General Hospital, there were two OBGYN clinics.  Clinic #1 was a teaching service for medical students.  Clinic #2 was exclusively for the instruction of midwives. At the time, the staff were quite puzzled about a consistent difference in the mortality rates of the two clinics.

A good friend of Dr. Semmelwies died after accidentally being poked with a student's scalpel while performing a post mortem exam.  The friend's own autopsy showed a pathology similar to that of women in Clinic #1 who were dying of puerperal fever (infection of a woman's placenta following delivery or abortion, sometimes causing death by the infection passing into the bloodstream).  Dr. Semmelwies proposed that there could be a connection between cadaver contamination and the puerperal fever. He concluded that he and the medical students carried "cadaverous particles" on their hands from the autopsy room to the patients in OBGYN Clinic #1, that caused puerperal fever and the higher incidence of patient deaths than in Clinic #2.  He believed this explained why the student midwives in Clinic #2 (who were not engaged in autopsies and had no contact with the corpses) saw almost no mortality.

Dr. Semmelwies instituted a policy of using a solution of calcium hypochlorite for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of patients in Clinic #1. Mortality rates dropped dramatically in Clinic #1.

Regardless of these facts, many doctors in Vienna were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands.  They felt that their social status as gentlemen was inconsistent with the idea that their hands could be unclean.  As a result, Dr. Semmelwies' ideas were rejected by the medical community.  Perfectly reasonable hand-washing proposals were ridiculed and rejected by Dr. Semmelwies' contemporaries in the 1840's.  The ideas of Dr. Semmelwies were in conflict with established medical opinions, regardless of being consistent with scientific facts.

Only years after his death, did Dr. Semmelwies' handwashing requirement earn widespread acceptance, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease. Pasteur was able to develop the germ theory through experiments demonstrating that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for souring wine, beer and even milk. Today, the process he invented for removing bacteria by boiling and then cooling a liquid (pasteurization) is not in dispute, but it took decades for acceptance. Today, Dr. Semmelwies is recognized in medical circles as a pioneer of antiseptic policy.

According to the Overlook Hospital exhibit, "Semmelwies Reflex" is a term applied today to a certain type of human behavior characterized by reflex-like rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs or paradigms.

When the subjects of climate change or evolution come up in conversation today, do some of us tend to deny widely accepted scientific findings because they challenge our identity ---- our sense of self?  Do we think there is not solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades?  Do we think humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time?  To believe either of these propositions requires some rejection of Biblical and/or political teaching, which in turn would cause some believers to fear they were changing their belief system.  Furthermore, would it alienate them from group values, like their church denomination or their political party?

In 2012, The New York Times published a story by Maggie Koerth-Baker, in which she confirmed that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective in changing beliefs, because one's sense of "identity" may "trump" the facts.  The emotions attached to these preferences largely define who we are.  Certain beliefs are so important for a society or group that they become part of how we prove our identity.

In groups, says Ms. Koerth-Baker, it is as though we circle around certain ideas.  It's how we show we are a member of the group.  We tend to side with people who share our identity ---- even when the facts disagree, and calling someone a "flip-flopper" is a way of calling them morally suspect, as if those who change their minds are in some way being unfaithful to their group.

But people change their minds all the time, Ms Koerth-Baker points out.  When the stakes are high, achieving that change of mind is hard to do.  That's why, she says, marshaling data and making rational arguments often will not work.

Whether you are changing your own mind or someone else's, the key is emotional, persuasive storytelling.  Stories are more powerful than data because, she says, they allow individuals to identify emotionally with ideas and people they might otherwise see as "outsiders."

Ms. Koerth-Baker reports that researchers have speculated, for example, that children who grow up seeing friendly gay people on TV will be more likely to support gay marriage as adults, regardless of other political affiliations and religious beliefs.
_______________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage some personal growth this year at CPC.
_______________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

What Is God Looking For From Us?

Most of us will admit that from time to time we do or think wrong things.  We understand that God may not really approve of such behavior on our part.  What can we do so that God will forgive us?  How do we get "right" with God?

In the Book of Luke, Jesus offers us this helpful parable (Luke 18:10-14):

     "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax
      collector.  The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself:  'God, I thank
      you that I am not like other men ---- robbers, evildoers, adulterers ---- or even
      like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "

     "But the tax collector stood at a distance.  He would not even look up to
      heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' " 

     "I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God.
      For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles
      himself will be exalted."

In one sense, the Pharisee certainly was a good man.  When he says he gives a tenth of all he gets, that means he's generous to the poor. When he says he doesn't commit adultery, that means he's a faithful husband.

But let's look at the Pharisee's prayer ---- whenever we write a thank-you letter to somebody, aren't we thanking them for things that they have done?  However, the Pharisee says, "God, I thank you," and that's it.  That's the last reference to God.  The prayer is all about the Pharisee himself.  This is self-worship.  Underneath the veneer of God-centeredness is utter self-centeredness.  Underneath the veneer of all that God-talk and all the God-activity and all the morality, is adoration of self.

The Pharisee's view of acting morally right and being righteous seems to have two characteristics:

          1.) His understanding of sin and virtue is completely external.  It's
               completely focused on behavior and the violation of, or the
               keeping of, rules.  It's not looking inside.  It is not looking at
               character.  Sin is perceived completely in terms of discrete 
               individual actions.  Notice he doesn't say, "God, I thank you
               that I am getting more patient.  I'm getting to be a gentler 
               person.  I am able to love people I used to not be able to love. 
               I'm able to keep my joy and my peace, even when things go
               wrong."

          2.) The Pharisee says, "I'm not like the other man," implying, "I
               am so much better" ---- perhaps he is looking down on those
               "other men."

Now, consider the tax collector.  What can we learn about repentance from his attitude?

If you think of sin externally and comparatively, like the Pharisee, there's always somebody who has committed more sins than you.  You are only ever a sinner, you are never the sinner.  The Pharisee, however, is thinking of sin in absolute terms.

On the other hand, what the tax collector is saying is, "All I know is I'm lost, and where everybody else is does not matter."  The tax collector is not just looking at what he's done wrong; he is not just looking at his discrete individual actions ---- his whole understanding of himself is that he is the sinner ---- it is how he sees himself.  It is a part of his identity.  He asks for mercy.  He sees his dependence on God's radical grace.

The attitude of the tax collector shows us that real repentance involves real sorrow over sin and the way it has grieved God.  Fake repentance is sorrow over the consequences of sin and the way it has grieved you.  Self-pity may appear to be repentance, but it is not.

Jesus says the tax collector went home "justified" before God.  What does Jesus mean by "justified before God"?  What is "justification"? Scholar and Presbyterian pastor Timothy Keller says that in this parable, Jesus introduces us to a universal problem ---- the problem of righteousness, and then Jesus gives us two figures, each of whom represents a particular solution to the problem.  One solution does not work, says Keller.  The other one does work.

The Pharisee is trying to justify himself by his good deeds and by his conscientious religious practices.  He is keeping God's rules, but in such a way (focusing on the external) that it makes him feel good about himself and so he can say, "Now, God, you owe me."  He is keeping God's external rules as a way of earning his justification.  He is not depending on God's radical grace.  The tax collector, on the other hand, shows by his words and actions that he is utterly depending on God's mercy.

"Justification" is a legal term, borrowed from the law courts.  It is the exact opposite of "condemnation."  To condemn is to declare somebody guilty, whereas "to justify" is to declare him righteous.  In the Bible it refers to God's act of unmerited favor by which God puts a sinner right with Himself ---- not only pardoning or acquitting him, but by accepting him and treating him as righteous.  No matter what we attempt to do for ourselves, only God can do this.

We are justified and thus treated as righteous because of God's unmerited favor.  God's love and acceptance of us, says Pastor Keller, is secured through Christ, and we obey God's law out of a desire to delight, resemble and know Jesus.
________________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage some personal growth this year at CPC.
_______________________________________________________________________


Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Are Any Of Us Evangelical Christians?

Last weekend I joined several members of my family in driving to western New York State (The Finger Lakes Region) to meet another family who will be joining ours by marriage, later in the summer.  The prospective bride and groom live in Colorado, and he is my brother's son.  We went to Geneva, New York, because that is where the bride grew up, and she has several close relatives continuing to live there.

So, there was plenty to eat and drink as we progressed through the weekend.  But much more memorable were some of my conversations with other guests.  In particular, I had a long chat with the bride's Uncle Ron, who had flown in from El Paso, Texas.  He was a few years younger than me, and works as a medical technician at a local El Paso hospital.

At one point, I remarked to Uncle Ron how beautiful I thought the little church was I had passed on my way to that night's family gathering. Ron agreed, but added that as he saw religious faith, it was not about beautiful buildings and ritual ---- it was about strict adherence to some basic Gospel principles.  He explained that he was an evangelical Christian, and to him salvation by faith was all about the sin-atoning death of Jesus Christ, which he had come to believe in through personal conversion, the authority of Scripture, and the importance of preaching as contrasted with mere ritual.

At that point. I had to sit down.  Ron was a bit wound up now, so I thought I had better ask him some questions about evangelical Christianity.  Ron told me that "evangelicals" do not form a distinct denomination ---- it is an umbrella term applicable in varying degrees across many Protestant denominations.

Ron explained that American Evangelism has had two core convictions:  (1.) that a personal encounter with the risen Christ is necessary for our salvation; and (2.) that Scripture (especially the Gospels) offer a wholly trustworthy guide to God's will for mankind.

Ron told me that ever since American Evangelism broke with the mainline Protestant churches about 100 years ago, the hallmark of evangelical theology was a vision of modern society as a sinking ship, sliding toward depravity and sin.  He said that for evangelicals, the call to the church alter was the only life raft ---- a chance to accept Jesus Christ, thus rebirth and salvation.

I was glad he had brought our conversation back to the centrality of Jesus Christ.  So, I asked Ron what he meant by "a personal encounter with the risen Christ"?  Did Jesus appear to Ron in a dream, was there a distinct voice in the darkness of night, or did something happen on a mountain top?  How did Ron know when there had been a "personal encounter" with the risen Christ, in his life?

Ron said he had read the Gospels over and over, so he already had an intellectual understanding about Jesus Christ, even though it left some questions unanswered. But, at some point, Ron said, he began to feel an emotional attachment to Jesus.  He continued: "This analogy is quite simplistic, but it was a bit like my courtship with the girl I eventually married.  When we were dating, I learned much about her interests, friends and life experiences, and she learned many factual things about me.  But at some point I began to have feelings for her, as well as factual knowledge.  On an emotional level we began to have sort of a "personal encounter."  I thought about her a lot, even when we were not together.  I continued to have some of my old impulses and appetites, but I could see myself moving closer to her impulses and her way of seeing the world.  Then, whenever we were together, we really felt close."  I think a "personal encounter" with Jesus Christ is somewhat like that,  It is a process over time.  When people say they have been "born again," I believe that they are simply saying that at that point in the longer-term process they know they have progressed in their relationship to the point where they know they are "in love" with each other.  And my "personal encounter" with Jesus Christ was like this.

These days, Ron said, many younger evangelicals take a less fatalistic view.  For them, the "born-again" experience of accepting Jesus is just the beginning,  What follows, he said, is the long-term process of "spiritual formation" that involves applying the teachings of Jesus in the "here and now."  Modern evangelicals do not see society as a dying vessel.  They talk more about the biblical imperative to fix up the ship by contributing to the betterment of their communities and the world.  Ron noted that modern evangelicals support traditional charities, but also public policies that address health care, race, poverty and the environment.  Beginning in the 1970's, emphasis seemed to shift from just winning souls, to also saving bodies ---- evangelical "mission" became as much about making the world better as it was about populating heaven," Ron said.

Ron went on to say, "We shouldn't allow a child to live under a bridge or in the back seat of a car.  We shouldn't be satisfied if elderly people are being abused or neglected, even though they are living in a nursing home."  Ron, the evangelist, really resonated with me when he said, "You can't just say 'respect life' and mean it exclusively for the unborn babies."

Quoting evangelical pastor Rick Warren, Ron suggested that if more Christians worked to alleviate needs in their local communities, the church would become known more for the love it shows than for what it is against.

At the end of the evening, I thanked Ron for sharing so frankly his approach to faith.  At first I had been a little overwhelmed, but Ron had left me with much to think about.  I especially remember his closing comment about today's evangelicals:  "People in my age group are much more attracted to participatory theology," he had said, "and are very resistant to being told what to do or what to think."

As I drove back to New Jersey the next day, I recalled my conversation with Ron and wondered ---- are there not some members of CPC who would be very happy embracing some of the modern evangelical theology?  Perhaps I am one of them!
_______________________________________________________________________

These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage some personal growth this year at CPC. 
_______________________________________________________________________