Power corrupts. Including religious power.

Former Christianity Today editor Katelyn Beaty has a great op-ed over on RNS making the case that the #ChurchToo scandal isn’t as much a case of sex abuse as it is a case of power abuse. And while the church has spent a lot of time talking about the proper boundaries and exercise of sex, it has spent almost no time talking about the proper boundaries and exercise of power.

If money, sex and power are the unholy trinity of spiritual temptation, arguably most Christians have a relatively paltry understanding of the third. Churches teach regular tithing and Dave Ramsey-style financial management. Scads of books and articles are written every year helping Christians practice sexual purity before marriage and sexual fulfillment within it. By contrast, little is taught and written about power and its corrosive effects.

Beaty goes on to suggest three actions for the church if we want to avoid continued scandals like the one with Bill Hybels at Willow Creek. She hits the nail right on the head with the first one:

Churches must seek leaders who are accountable and vulnerable, not just charismatic and driven.

Hybels and Willow Creek have taught the evangelical church culture a lot of lessons over the past two decades about church growth and the megachurch model. Now maybe it’s time to start un-learning those lessons. Beaty has some good ideas on where to start.

-- As Willow Creek reels, churches must reckon with how power corrupts

Zahnd: Christianity vs. Biblicism

I attended the Water to Wine Gathering at Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO a couple weekends ago. WOLC’s pastor Brian Zahnd included in one of his talks some discussion of the dangers of biblicism. I had hoped to summarize that talk in a blog post, but happily Zahnd has published a post of his own doing just that. (It’s actually the preface to an upcoming book, but he shared it on his blog.) I find his thinking very helpful in how we approach and interpret the Bible.

I particularly enjoy his opening metaphor:

As modern Christians we are children of a broken home. Five centuries ago the Western church went through a bitter divorce that divided European Christians and their heirs into estranged Catholic and Protestant families. The reality that the Renaissance church was in desperate need of reformation doesn’t change the fact that along with a reformation there also came an ugly split that divided the church’s children between a Catholic mother and a Protestant father. In the divorce settlement (to push the metaphor a bit further) Catholic Mom got a long history, a rich tradition, and a unified church, but all Protestant Dad got was the Bible. Without history, tradition, or a magisterium, the Bible had to be everything for Protestant Dad — and Protestants have made the most of it.

He goes on to liken the Bible to rich soil out of which grows the tree that is the Christian faith. The Christian faith is rooted in and draws nourishment from the Bible, but Christianity and the Bible are not synonymous. To approach it this way, says Zahnd,

…is both conservative and progressive. Conservative in that it recognizes the inviolability of Scripture. Progressive in that it makes a vital distinction between the living faith and the historic text.

I probably have some readers getting very nervous at this point, but if so I would really recommend reading the whole thing. Zahnd and others like him are pointing the way to embrace Scripture while at the same time moving past reading it in a flat, biblicistic way.

Christ has made our hearts glad... and is waiting for our politics to catch up

Matthew Lee Anderson has published over on Medium a transcription of a great little talk he gave recently at the Evangelical Theological Society. [Aside: I cringe every time I see good authors publishing stuff at Medium… it’s not hard to own your own words on a site of your own, come on, folks!]

Anderson makes the point that, as much as anything, it’s evangelicals’ attitude that needs to change - an approach that Andrew Wilson, picking up from Anderson and riffing off Rod Dreher, describes as The Taylor Swift Option:

[T]he conservative evangelical political witness has been fueled by a narrative of decline and of its own precarious position in the world. This narrative, that to be an evangelical means to be an embattled minority fighting the dark forces of an oppressive secularism lurking in every public school and in every corner of Hollywood, empowered evangelicals to be adept users of the grievance politics we are now so familiar with from other communities… Every response by evangelicals to contemporary events happens against this backdrop, whether we like it or not, or were responsible for it or not. Regardless of our intentions, our denunciations of the spirit of our age invariably take on the atmosphere of fear, anxiety, and resentment that has suffused evangelicalism’s political life for the past 30 years. The first task, then, is to purge ourselves of such affections and passions and establish the evangelical political witness on a new foundation. Such fear and resentment cannot be simply verbally repudiated; they must be expunged, rooted out and replaced by a hope that is less spoken of directly and more felt, a hope that we do not name but that permeates and suffuses our response to culture war conflicts. Such good cheer must be hearty, for Christ hath made our hearts glad—and he is waiting for our political discourse to someday catch up. Second, with this gladness I would commend a deflationary attitude toward those grand narratives of decline and to the day-to-day disputes and dramas that we think embody them. If the West is dying….so? If we are all going to be bigots, well, we might as well get on with it and become likeable bigots. If “marginalization” or “dhimmitude” are the new form of persecution, I for one will happily take it over many of the alternatives. The sooner we turn such instruments of stigma into pieces of art, the sooner we will begin actually resisting the very ideology we claim to be. As the prophet Taylor Swift hath said unto us, “haters gonna hate, hate, hate….you just gotta shake, shake, shake…”

I’m not much for claiming the evangelical label myself these days, but I think Matt’s put his finger on changes that have to be made if the evangelical church is ever to regain its witness in America.

I’m reminded of the subtle dig thrown by Metropolitan Tikhon Mollard in the statement from the Orthodox church after the Obergefell ruling back in 2015. His opening paragraph:

The recent ruling by the US Supreme Court on the legality of “same-sex marriages” has received much press coverage and has already caused some consternation about its implications and ramifications. But we Orthodox Christians must rest assured that the teaching of our Holy Church on the Mystery of Marriage remains the same as it has been for millennia.

“Eh, what’s that, a “recent ruling”? The church has been around for millennia. We’ll survive this. "

Regardless of your feelings about Obergefell, this is the sort of attitude the evangelical church should be taking more often.

Now if I could just get that Taylor Swift song out of my head…

Albert Mohler, the SBC, and #MeToo

I’ve been chewing on Dr. Albert Mohler’s post on The Humiliation of the Southern Baptist Convention for the past several days. If you’re interested in the topic of the #MeToo movement and the evangelical church, it’s worth a read. In it Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, recognizes the rot of sexual misconduct and misogyny that is being brought to light in the Southern Baptist Church and more broadly in evangelicalism, and does what looks like some soul-searching for answers why.

Is the problem theological? Has the Conservative Resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention come to this? Is this what thousands of Southern Baptists were hoping for when they worked so hard to see this denomination returned to its theological convictions, its seminaries return to teaching the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures, its ministries solidly established on the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Did we win confessional integrity only to sacrifice our moral integrity? This is exactly what those who opposed the Conservative Resurgence warned would happen. They claimed that the effort to recover the denomination theologically was just a disguised move to capture the denomination for a new set of power-hungry leaders. I know that was not true. I must insist that this was not true. But, it sure looks like their prophecies had some merit after all.

On one hand, this is a pretty stunning bit of realization for Mohler. But on the other hand, I don’t think he really goes far enough. Because he doesn’t have any particular change to propose, other than “people should stop doing that stuff, and we should stop covering it up”. As Jake Meador says in his brilliant piece on this topic, “I can’t help wondering: Where do Mohler and a few other prominent evangelical leaders go from here?”

A few cautious words of critique…

It feels like Mohler gets this close to having a more eye-opening realization, but just can’t get there. Sure, people warned that this patriarchal complementarian theology would lend itself toward such abuses. And those warnings “had some merit”. But… that can’t possibly mean that those people were right, can it?

Though it sounds like a jest, I’ve frequently said quite seriously that I imagine at least 20% of my theological beliefs are wrong… I just don’t know which 20% those are. And so while I clearly think my current beliefs are correct (because if they weren’t, I’d change them), I remind myself to try to have the humility to realize that unquestionably some of them are wrong.

I’ll allow that for someone as erudite as Dr. Mohler we might lower his likely percent-wrong-ness to something smaller than my own - 10%? Single digits? But it’s still folly to suggest that it approaches 0%. What I wish we would see from Mohler is that next step to acknowledge even just the hint of a possibility that patriarchalism/complementarianism might be in that small percentage he could admit might be up for grabs - not to full-up change his position on it, but just to admit that maybe it’s worth some open discussion.

An alternate approach

I really appreciated Richard Beck’s analysis of the situation today. (I almost just linked to it instead of writing this post…)

I appreciate [Mohler’s] both/and balancing act here, trying to keep the complementarian structure yet speak a strong word for protecting the abused. And yet, this is the exact same balancing act that evangelicals and the SBC have been preaching and attempting for generations. And by Mohler’s own admission, it has brought the judgment of God down upon them. In short, Mohler seems genuinely anguished and searching for answers, but he can’t offer an accurate diagnosis of what went wrong. He seems legitimately perplexed. He says nothing beyond the same old, same old: Men are in charge, but they shouldn’t abuse the women under their leadership. But clearly, that’s been a disaster. And it’s not really hard to see why. I think the problem evangelicals are having here is the same problem they always have. They only look at the Bible and they ignore human experience. Evangelicals always make man serve the Sabbath, rather than having the Sabbath serve man. In this instance, the Sabbath is “God’s plan for marriage and the church,” and men and women must conform to that plan. Come hell or high water. Well, they’ve found hell and high water.

Beck goes on to make the case that the Scripture is not conclusive as to either complementarianism or egalitarianism, and that with freedom in where we land on the question, we should consider the results of the positions as we look for a landing place. Egalitarianism, Beck argues, provides more concrete, structural ways of protecting women. (It’s worth reading Beck’s whole piece - I’ve summarized about 6 paragraphs of his here.)

Time to wrap this up…

The position and argument that Beck describes is more or less where I find myself these days. While I know and respect many who would disagree (on both ends of the spectrum!), I think there’s plenty of room to argue the topic, and I don’t think it’s essential to the gospel message. I think it is reasonable and helpful to look at the fruit these positions have produced over the past few decades, too. And I pray that, regardless of where churches and pastors land on complementarianism / egalitarianism, concrete, structural safeguards are in place to ensure that women are not just protected but lifted up as equals and co-heirs of the Kingdom.

What will happen with the children of post-evangelicals?

Richard Beck has an insightful piece up on a topic that’s had me thinking. While he’s a decade older and from a different denominational background than I am, he and I have traveled a similar path from a strict conservative Christianity into a progressive post-evangelicalism. But what impact, he asks, does this have on our children?

Anyway, we were talking about how our kids now view the church. We’ve become liberal in our views and so we’ve raised our kids as liberals. We’ve preached messages of tolerance and inclusion. And we’ve been successful. Our kids don’t look on the world with judgment and suspicion. They welcome difference. But we’ve noticed that this comes with a price. Our kids don’t have the same loyalty to the church as we do. We were raised conservatively, so going and being loyal to a local church is hardwired into us. We can’t imagine not going to church. It’s who we are. But our kids weren’t raised by conservatives, they were raised by us, post-evangelical liberals. Consequently, our kids don’t have that same loyalty toward the church. So we were talking about this paradox in our small group, how our kids weren’t raised by our parents, they were raised by us, and how that’s made our kids unlike us. Especially when it comes to how we feel about church. Basically, our kids aren’t post-evangelicals. They are liberals.

He goes on to say that he doesn’t mean that being a liberal is a bad thing, but that he wonders if his children will have a rootedness in a community and deep sense of belonging that he experienced growing up in a more conservative environment.

I’ve had similar questions about raising my own children. While I consider myself pretty solidly post-evangelical, as a family we have spent the last decade as committed members of a fairly conservative evangelical church. My kids attend Sunday School and youth group and get taught many of the same things I did when I was their age. Then they come home and I feel the tension keenly when we have discussions about hot topics that have come up - things like evolution, gender roles, religious tolerance, and historical and textual criticism of the Bible.

Maybe my willingness to stay committed to a conservative church gives lie to the claim that I’m post-evangelical. I guess that’s ok with me - it’s not like post-evangelicalism is a club for which I need to establish my bona fides. What I’m really hoping for my kids is that we can find a sweet spot in the middle - one that doesn’t view orthodox doctrine and social responsibility as an either/or proposition but rather a both/and, one that sees questions as a sign of a strong faith rather than a weak one about to shatter.

Maybe it’s truly the journey that has shaped my theology and Christian outlook into what it is today, but I’m holding onto hope that my children can find their path to a confident faith even through being raised by a meandering post-evangelical.

The Gospel Coalition has its #MeToo moment

The pace of sexual abuse allegations and resignations / firings in the wake of the #MeToo movement has been stunning. Since early October when Harvey Weinstein was deposed from his organization, executives, journalists, actors, athletes, and doctors with patterns of abuse have been uncovered and summarily fired, retired, and replaced.

Last week, the trial of US Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar provided the most heartbreaking story yet as 160 women gave victim impact statements, confronting a man who had abused each of them under the guise of providing medical treatment. (As many as 265 people have now come forward accusing Nassar of abuse.) Rachael Denhollander, a victim of Nassar’s as a teen, was the key witness in his prosecution and provided the capstone victim impact statement last Friday. In a 30-minute address in the courtroom, Denhollander spoke bluntly about the systems that had failed her and Nassar’s other victims, about her struggles to advocate for abuse victims, and then about the good news of the Gospel.

Denhollander’s statement went viral. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of Christians, from leaders to laymen, lionizing her courage and willingness to share the Gospel so publicly. But from a close reading of her statement, there was a question stuck in my head: she said that her victim advocacy “cost me my church”. What was that all about?

Yesterday, in a fantastic interview with Christianity Today, the other shoe dropped. Rachael revealed that the church she lost was a church “directly involved in restoring” Sovereign Grace founder C. J. Mahaney, who left his pastorate after being accused of covering up sexual abuse within his church network. She says that she and her husband were told by multiple church elders that this church ‘wasn’t the place for them’ if they were going to speak out for abuse victims that way.

This hits close to home.

Mahaney was a council member of The Gospel Coalition (TGC), a group that is strongly influential in the evangelical circles I’ve been in all my life. TGC leaders have consistently supported Mahaney, with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler making jokes about the accusations against Mahaney while introducing him as a “guest speaker” at the “Together for the Gospel” (T4G) conference in 2016. Mahaney resigned from the TGC council after the abuse scandal broke, but has slowly, without publicly addressing the allegations, worked his way back into good standing with the group. He is now back as a regular headline plenary speaker at T4G 2018.

Mahaney isn’t the only T4G plenary speaker in the penumbra of this kind of allegations. A former student at The Master’s College, founded by John MacArthur, has come forward to allege that the leaders of that college forced her into a “biblical counseling” session with her abuser, and then threatened church discipline if she refused to drop charges, eventually kicking her out of the school.

It’s time for The Gospel Coalition to come to grips with their own #MeToo moment.

TGC is filled with men (and yes, it’s only men) who have served long in ministry and been helpful to many. I’ve personally benefited from the teaching of MacArthur and Matt Chandler and TGC founder Don Carson over the years. But in this cultural moment, their willing blindness to these issues is inexcusable, and their silence is deafening. Indeed, this planned T4G 2018 seminar leads me to believe they still really don’t get it:

We can do better.

How loudly would it speak to the watching world if Rachael Denhollander were invited to be a plenary speaker at T4G18? For the leaders of the theological movement that Rachael and her husband are a part of to recognize their failures in the area of addressing abuse, to repent, and to hear the truth spoken by their sister?

Rachael is a survivor of abuse and mistreatment from the hands of both a despicable doctor and a group of church leaders more intent on protecting themselves than their sheep. Her words cry out to them like the blood of Cain’s brother calling from the ground. From the end of her interview with CT:

First, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not need your protection. It defies the gospel of Christ when we do not call out abuse and enable abuse in our own church. Jesus Christ does not need your protection; he needs your obedience. Obedience means that you pursue justice and you stand up for the oppressed and you stand up for the victimized, and you tell the truth about the evil of sexual assault and the evil of covering it up. Second, that obedience costs. It means that you will have to speak out against your own community. It will cost to stand up for the oppressed, and it should. If we’re not speaking out when it costs, then it doesn’t matter to us enough.

Rachael Denhollander is a hero and example to us all. It’s time for The Gospel Coalition to admit their complicity in these things and show true repentance. Come on, guys, set an example for us. Invite Rachael to speak at T4G. Let’s show the world what it can really mean to be together for the Gospel.

15-year-old Chris would be in disbelief

File this under “things that would’ve stunned the 15-year-old Chris”.

As a teenager, the evangelical Christian culture we were in lionized people like Jay Sekulow. He founded the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which was out there fighting against the secular world to protect Christians’ rights. He argued and won a 9-0 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed Jews for Jesus could distribute evangelistic pamphlets at Los Angeles International Airport. A sterling example for Christian young people to look up to.

At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was spoken of with disgust. Anti-Christian. There to take away our religious liberty. Thank God we have people like Jay Sekulow to fight them on our behalf.

Fast-forward 25 years.

We now have a President who has been described by Jerry Fallwell Jr. as “evangelicals’ dream president”. In that president’s flurry of anti-immigrant activity, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now looking to deport more than 100 Iraqi Christians, most of whom have been in the country legally for many years, and send them back to Iraq where they are a heavily persecuted minority.

Wait, what? Christians immigrants being deported? Where are the religious liberty groups like the ACLJ and our brave heroes like Jay Sekulow?

Oh, that’s right: Sekulow is currently a part of the President’s legal team and is making the rounds of the Sunday news talk shows arguing with TV hosts about why the President’s tweets saying “I am under investigation” don’t really mean that he’s under investigation.

And who is standing up for the Iraqi Christians?

The ACLU.

Yes, I know all the objections that will come back to this. Not all evangelicals. Franklin Graham actually broke with the President on this one. Some of the deportees have criminal records. The ACLU supports some causes I disapprove of. Etc, etc.

But really, this is such a stunning reversal of positions (or at least, my perception of those positions) over the past couple decades that it’s enough to set my head spinning. It also makes me happy to have set up a recurring monthly donation to the ACLU.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” - Micah 6:8, NIV

A Little Plastic Surgery for the Body of Christ

As a musician and long-term volunteer worship leader, I have plenty of opinions when it comes to church music. So this morning when I came across a job posting for a Music Director position I was brought up short. And boy, do I have opinions.

Here’s the job posting. On The Gospel Coalition website, it’s for Paramount Church of Jacksonville, Florida. It’s hard to tell from their church website how large their church is, but there appears to be one paid staff pastor and about a dozen deacons.

So here’s the job posting, which comes in 3 sections. I’m bolding the things that stick out to me:

A. General Description of Position

Paramount Church is a gospel-centered church in Jacksonville FL. The Director of Music is responsible for designing and implementing a style of music that is contemporary and band-driven yet not contemporary for the sake of novel, innovative creativity. The ideal candidate for this position will be committed to the centrality of the gospel in all things and possess a solid knowledge of and commitment to the historic Christian worship of the church. The Director will coordinate music plans with the Preaching/Teaching elder, and recruit, direct, and train a team of volunteer musicians. Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production is ideal.

I’m still trying to figure out what “not contemporary for the sake of novel, innovative creativity” means. How exactly do you have un-novel, non-innovative creativity? It is OK to be contemporary as long as we’re copying others and not doing our own thing? But that’s just a small quibble.

“Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production.” That’s a lot. Wow.

B. Position Duties and Responsibilities

  1. Plan and implement Trinitarian, gospel-centered music (Col. 3:16) for Sunday worship services, and special services as required, in consultation with the Elders
  2. Recruit, train, and rehearse members of the music team.
  3. Disciple music team members in a gospel-centered, historic worship paradigm
  4. Coordinate with A/V team regularly to assure quality sound and video/visuals for each presentation and oversee training of A/V volunteers
  5. Attend weekly meetings with the Elders and Leadership Team.

OK, that’s fairly straightforward. Aside from the “gospel-centered” buzzwords that add more branding than meaning any more, that sounds like a standard music director position.

But here comes the big list. Hold on tight!

C. Position Qualifications

  1. Committed to definitive Nicene orthodoxy and gospel-centeredness in doctrine, life, and music
  2. Possess a solid understanding of and commitment to historic Christian worship
  3. Band-driven rather than orchestral-driven style of music
  4. Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, and other instruments into contemporary-band driven arrangements
  5. Must be able to play piano and/or guitar in a contemporary band setting
  6. Minimum of bachelor’s degree in music and/or 5 years’ related church or industry experience. Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology is ideal.
  7. High-level of overall musicianship
  8. A builder/self-motivated/entrepreneurial spirit
  9. Sanguine stage presence
  10. Experience in leading corporate worship, and knowledge of directing, orchestrating, and coordinating various instruments in a band
  11. Ability to work with and train vocalists in singing of parts
  12. Ability to incorporate backing tracks and loops into regular Sunday and special services
  13. Leadership ability and ability to work with and inspire volunteers

Holy cow. Really? Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, other instruments into a contemporary band. Oh, and also incorporate backing tracks and loops. And also be able to direct and orchestrate the instruments in the band.

And what the heck is a “sanguine stage presence” anyway?

But here was the kicker to me:

(Part-Time, pay commensurate with experience)

This is a PART-TIME position.

That’s right, you need to be able to write songs, orchestrate, build and lead a team, plan and arrange services including tracks and loops, rehearse, perform, meet with the church leadership on a regular basis, and in the best case would have an MDiv. For a part-time position.

Now, maybe I’m just 39 and out of touch, and there will be a hundred qualified candidates beating down the door of Paramount Church to audition for this position. But really? Are these wise expectations for church music leading, or wise leadership burdens to place on a part-time leadership position?

I fear that so often in the evangelical American church we have set our music performance and production standards so high that the focus is on the production more than the actual act of congregational worship, and that none save the already-professional musicians need apply to participate as a part of the worship bands.

Job posts like this feel like we’re signing the Body of Christ up for plastic surgery when what we really need is just to get it to the gym for regular workouts.

The church should be the incubator for and encourager of the young musicians coming up in it. I am biased here but can speak from a lifetime of having had that experience in the church. From singing special music with my dad and brothers when the youngest was so small he had to be held so he could be seen above the pulpit, to playing Bach for Sunday night offertories when I was just learning the piano, to leading worship teams in college when I was not nearly experienced enough, my musical development has been the product of a multitude of churches that didn’t want professionalism so much as service.

Yes, some standards are appropriate. Some talent is needed. But let’s not set our production standards so high that none but trained professionals can meet them. And let’s not set our job expectations so high that we eliminate the talented amateurs from the conversation. The church can and should be developing these leaders from the inside. To always be searching for professionals from the outside is both unhealthy and unsustainable.

Words matter

O. Alan Noble has a really good piece over on the CT website about the importance of Christians being careful about the truth, especially when it comes to political debates.

I heard a story recently about a fairly well-known evangelical figure who was confronted about public statements he had made in writing and interviews… When the facts became overwhelming, this influential evangelical conceded that he had been playing fast and loose with facts. However, since his overall message was true and important, he reasoned, it was justifiable to fudge the details in order to motivate voters to make the right decision. … The belief that American voters must be manipulated rather than reasoned with if we want to institute any meaningful change is endemic. But this belief is essentially nihilist because it makes all political discourse a matter of coercion, a matter of who is doing the coercing and to what ends. I call this nihilist because it makes power, not truth, goodness, or beauty, the foundation of politics.

As I like to say: words matter.

I am sure I’ve been guilty of this sort of generalizing and overstating positions of people I disagree with - so here’s my renewed commitment to not do so. Let us speak the truth, be honest about the facts, and trust that God is at work.

Especially in this election year.

Oh, and go read the whole article. It’s worth it.

Fiet: Wheaton College and the Fear Machine

Midwestern pastor (and Wheaton alum) April Fiet has some really good thoughts today about the Wheaton College brouhaha around professor Larycia Hawkins’ comments about Muslims and Christians worshiping the “same God”.

Fiet doesn’t tackle the comments themselves, but rather our approach to them, regardless of our position.

What troubles me the most deeply about what is happening at Wheaton has very little to do with statements of faith, and more to do with a hermeneutic of suspicion. More narrowly, I am troubled by the fear that seems to be driving much of the conversation. It seems to me that too many conversations within the church are being powered by fear rather than by love for one another.

She talks about some of the fears she sees, and some of the really good things she has seen happen when fear was not so prevalent. And I really like this reminder:

Fear cannot be the motivating factor for the way Christians live, move, and exist in this world. When writing about the Christian life, the author of Hebrews put it this way: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2a) We run as people motivated by the cloud of witnesses all around us, and we run with our eyes on Jesus. We are not running because we’re afraid. We are not running because there’s something scary chasing us. We’re running as part of a group that has all eyes fixed on Jesus.

I really appreciate her focus here. It dovetails nicely, too, with something one of my pastors has been saying recently on this topic, which is that even if we disagree with Professor Hawkins’ position, we can make good progress in not “othering” our Muslim neighbors simply by remembering and adhering to God’s command to love our neighbor.

Anyhow, Fiet’s piece: recommended reading.