Archive for the ‘Love’ Category:
What’s Glory Got To Do With It?
Long before I believed in any kind of a God, I would ask Christians why God supposedly created us, and why we should believe in him. I (predictably) got what I thought was a cop-out answer: “to glorify himself,” or “for his glory,” etc. I always wondered why such a “loving” God would create humanity, and then watch us spiral into chaos, all to glorify himself. It sounds really selfish, doesn’t it? Since I have become a Christian, I have avoided that answer as much as possible.
Now, I do believe that God loves us and seeks to glorify himself, but I do not see the two quite so juxtaposed as I once did. I haven’t really been able to figure out why, but I think that the last week or so in my life has illuminated my understanding.
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A Basis For Community
In my last post I discussed the human need for relationship. I argued that we are relational beings because God has always been relation as a Trinitarian God (meaning God is one being with three persons). I also proposed that the New Testament shows how the early church was a picture of solid community, but that the church in North America is not. This discussion has lead to another important question: Upon what is community based?
Community cannot be based purely on our mutual need for each other. This reduces community to a symbiotic relationship instead of seeing it as a beautiful living out of the way we are designed. Community based on need could then be likened to a commercial exchange. “I need help in this area, you need help in that area, so I guess we can help each other.” But community is far more involved than this. There is not only a willing component, but a desirous one. “I want to help you, you want to help me.” Community must be based on more than the fact that we need community.
the need for hope
In the 1820’s, the slave trade was senselessly alive and well in the United States. There was not enough political support to outlaw the practice at this time, though a few called for its eradication.
But in this decade of widespread slavery in the U.S., an unremarkable slave woman named Harriet Tubman was born. She became a runaway slave later in life, and went on to steal other slaves to freedom using the Underground Railroad; she was an abolitionist that inspired others to escape. She helped the north during the Civil War.
Here, an example of hope coming from within something senseless.
Individualism or Community
As I continue to work through the doubt of my faith, I am drawn by the love of a community around me. When I found myself in my hardest moments of doubt, I do not need someone to give me the “quick answers.” I don’t believe there are any easy answers to most hard questions. Although discussion is key, sometimes community is just a friend with an open ear, an open mind, and a loving heart. Unfortunately this idea of community is undermined by the individualism of our culture.
“No Christian is an island” as the saying goes. Yet it is hard to be in community in our society. American individualism is the dominant view of our culture. Each person must live for himself. At best we can unite as a family, city, or a patriotic nation. Many encouraged me to keep some distance from my family after I moved back in with my parents due to their probable adoption of a 19-month-old baby. To many a family member’s primary duty is not to the family, but to his or her self.
What in the world does “missional” even mean?
Part of our vision for this blog is that it would be a medium for all of us to be a missional presence online.
But what does that mean?
For some, being missional equals being “seeker sensitive,” or discussing only the very basics of the gospel. For others, it means crossing the globe to bring the gospel to a culture very different than one’s own. Since this term can be used a myriad of different ways, I will seek to define it for all future use on this blog, and hopefully leave out many of what I perceive to be the past misuses of this term. I’ll begin with the difference between “evangelism” and being “missional.”
At my alma mater, one of the local churches regularly hired open-air evangelists to “preach” in the middle of campus. I never figured out to whom they were preaching, since most students took a wide path around them. Read more »
