Christian living

On #LivingRocks, throwing stones and racial reconciliation

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

stones in handsWell, I’ll get to the point. The other day, Dr. Russell Moore penned this piece in the New York Times, A White Church No More. In it, he argues that the swelling support of Trump by evangelicals belies a white institutional vanguard that in actuality, is far from reality. Rather, evangelicalism is a multicultural array of every tongue, tribe and nation (Rev. 7 anyone?)

The center of gravity for both orthodoxy and evangelism is not among Anglo suburban evangelicals but among African Anglicans and Asian Calvinists and Latin American Pentecostals. The vital core of American evangelicalism today can be found in churches that are multiethnic and increasingly dominated by immigrant communities.

Given the intent of the post, from what I read, was to point out that the white evangelical suburban paradigm that was at the heart of Christianity no longer had a stranglehold on the kind of evangelicalism that finds its support in Trump. If I’ve read his article right, he is denouncing the idea that white evangelicalism speaks for what evangelicalism truly is.

Apparently, some Christians weren’t happy with what he wrote, not so much because he challenged the status quo thinking of the majority culture (though I suspect he probably got negative responses on that end). Rather, it’s because what he wrote wasn’t good enough and did not adequately address the real issues of power structures. It represented a continuation of the problem. Continue reading →

Yes Sunday is coming . . . but today is Friday

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

eastercrossAs Easter draws near, I’ve noticed a trend and one that I’ve fallen comfortably into myself. On Good Friday, it is not uncommon to hear some brief reflection on the Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross followed by these words, “but Sunday is coming.” Of course, the sentiment strikes at the heart of the culmination of this Lenten season, the anchor of the Christian faith – not just the death of Christ, but his resurrection. That is where our hope resides. As Paul indicated, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:13-14).

To be sure, the resurrection cannot be undermined. I confess that for much of my Christian life, I treated Easter Sunday as kind of a resurrection birthday only to downplay it’s significance the remaining of the year. The cross of Christ is nothing without the resurrection. At the cross, Jesus final sacrifice of atonement, where he bore the penalty for our sin, is not complete unless he rose from the dead. In his resurrection, is where we find life in him. The resurrection is where we can anchor our hope.

We have the advantage of hindsight. Imagine what his disciples felt at that time. This person they followed and believed to be the Messiah, the promised Savior, who would come and rescue the God’s elect from the oppression of Gentile rule, was now seemingly defeated by it in the cruelest manner. But they would come to realize that in God’s paradox, he would use an instrument of death to bring life and nailed at his resurrection.

And so living on the other side of this revelation in Christ, we want to celebrate in the victory that secures eternal hope for those found in Christ. To put in more simply, we want to skip to the good part. Continue reading →

Mary, Martha…and Scripture?

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

I’ve been pondering this past Sunday’s sermon on Luke 10:38-42, Mary and Martha

Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.

mary at Jesus feetWhile I have heard sermons on this passage dozens and dozens of times, I’ve not quite heard the inextricable link of sitting at Jesus’ feet and believing God’s word. I had typically heard the sermon on this passage in the context of prayer, worship, “being still,” etc vs. the busyness of doing. But in consideration of the redemptive narrative of Scripture, making Jesus the priority is more than the activities we engage in but the orientation of our hearts, which starts and ends on the surety of Scripture – what God has actually said. Considering that Scripture testifies to the incarnate Word, this connection made perfect sense to me.

The other day I came across a blog post with yet another progressively oriented Christian proudly patting herself on the back that she had moved away from the doctrine of inspiration. She was so pleased with herself having resolved the mystery of God’s breathed out word through human authors. They were, after all, merely human and probably got a lot of things wrong, she reasoned. It was ok to no longer wrangle over the unpleasant parts of Scripture because it’s too stressful to handle the tension of believing this is what God says and does when confronted with all the inconsistencies the mind cannot fathom. How many people claiming to sit at Jesus feet have said this? Continue reading →

The many faces of privilege: more than race and riches

Lisa Spencer2 Comments

I really appreciated this short article, 3 Reasons Why I Hate Diversity, from Christena Cleveland over on Ed Stetzer’s Christianity Today blog. While I wholeheartedly concur with her points regarding the discomfort that engaging with a multi-cultural body can bring, it is her point #3, “diversity exposes my privilege” that really peaked my interest.

In our stratified society, it’s fairly easy for privileged people like me to turn a blind eye to inequality. As long as I stick to certain neighborhoods and social settings, I am unlikely to meaningfully interact with people who struggle to survive underneath society’s oppressive boot. This makes it easy for me to sidestep feeling guilty about my privilege and the relative ease with which I move through life. But racial diversity has a way of bringing racial, economic and other forms of inequality into conscious awareness.

For this reason, as a person who identifies with some privileged groups (e.g. the upwardly-mobile, the educated, the mentally able, etc.) I sure as heck don’t want more diversity in my church. More diversity would expose my privileged life by bringing the inequality “out there” into the very sanctuary pews where I sit. True diversity would require me to stay alert to the reality of inequality. It would demand that I confront my privilege, recognize the ways that I benefit from a society that oppresses my brothers and sisters, repent, and join the fight for justice.

But I’d rather not confront my privilege. I’d like to keep believing that I’ve “earned everything that I have”, that “if people just work hard enough, they’ll succeed”, that “if people just obey the law, they won’t be harassed by the police” and that, frankly, I deserve to be treated better and earn more than others.

Diversity exposes my privilege, my desire to take credit for the social power that I possess and my tendency to justify holding onto the money that passes through my hands.

In our racially charged culture, when we speak of privilege, we often think of “white privilege” and for good reason since it has been the standard by which acceptability is set. However, her description reminded me that privilege has many faces. Merriam-Webster defines privilege this way, “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage or favor.” I don’t know about peculiar, but we should not balk at the idea that sociological circumstances can exist whereby a dominant group enjoys a certain kind of power because their privilege has been deemed the norm, giving them the right to marginalize others.  Continue reading →

A good way to undermine Christ’s mission

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

Anger 2I want to leverage the sermon from church this past Sunday to point out some observations I’ve made over the course of my Christian life and a quote from a book that I greatly appreciate.

The sermon, titled Remember Christ’s Mission came from Luke 9:51-56

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set towards Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. And they went to another village.

A good point that was made about this passage is that Christ’s mission is not to condemn. Now that might raise the hackles on the back of necks especially from those who are quick to point out how much the topic of sin is neglected from the pulpit these days (as if we have a reasonable sample of what all churches are preaching). In fact, I often wonder if this rush to make sure sin is pointed out is to make sure the person knows they can’t get away with anything.  Continue reading →