Pride!

I have a friend named Christine who, with her husband Damien, have set up a confessional tent at the Cincinnati Pride Festival for the last three years. She talks to the outcasts (in this case, people in homosexuality) and loves them. She prays for them and with them and people experience God's love in a way many of them never have in their lives. I ached at not being able to attend this year. Well, MC found something on a blog (link to it @ the title of this post) that makes me want to do happy jumping jacks (excerpt below). God bless Christine and the Tent of Meeting.

The extra beautiful thing? The author of this blog is a friend I met through Benny the Bull. He's a great guy, and it's awesome to see how Christine's love for Jesus in the form of loving people affected this guy I know who didn't even directly interact with the Tent. Did you follow all that? Remember, this is a homosexuality advocate who prints t-shirts (one of them below) and was there to support his own thing. This was his objective review of the tent:

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...After it was all over, I sat at home with Dan and had a beer, recalling the good bits while muscles pleasantly ached. He asked me if I ever went into the confessional tent. No, I hadn't, even though he prodded me to break away and go many times throughout the day.

Since I didn't, he felt it was okay to share what went down.

It wasn't a typical confessional booth, like I said it was a tent. He told me it was nice inside - gauzy draperies and a comfortable height. Candles lit. A woman sat opposite him and said (consider it with error as this is a game of telephone):

This is not a confessional for you, it is a confession for me.

I want to confess that, as a Christian, I know that you have been hurt by society and Christians in general, and I just want you to know that God loves you and I love you, and I'm sorry.

I just wanted to apologize for all of the wrongs that have been committed against you.


Dan, who grew up in a Catholic family, wiped away tears and asked why she was doing this.

I grew up in a conservative Baptist family that taught me certain people weren't deserving of love.

It took a long time to realize that these people were wrong.


She's been doing this for three Prides so far, and it's a part of the process to heal some of the harm that's been done.

Now I'm not one to pick apart anyone's beliefs (unless it affects me). To hear this, even second hand, was moving.

A movement in the right direction.

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Wouldn't it be great if we all bought these shirts from Chris?

Moron Authority/More on Authority

Yesterday, Totila and I had a brief discussion concerning authority. It's a subject which, many of you know, has continued to intrigue me for a while. I find it to be rather Important for living out the Kingdom. So Totila forwarded this to be from Wayne Jacobsen's blog. Totila's comments are under that.

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Sara and I have been reading “What Jesus Meant” by Garry Wills, a Catholic who is Professor of History Emeritus at Northwestern University. I have mixed feelings about the book, but love what we read this morning.

Here are some quotes from his chapter on Heavenly reign:

(In reference to Jesus’ statement, “the first will be last and the last will be first:) The antihierarchical last sentence shows that the symbolic-prophetic meaning of the Twelve has nothing to do with church governance below. The biblical scholar John Meier concludes that Jesus gave his movement no authority structure.”

“But what of Peter? Did not Jesus found his church on Peter…? The Catholic scholar Raymond Brown wrote, “Peter never served as the bishop or local administrator of any church, Antioch and Rome included.”

The idea that Peter was given some special power that could be handed on to a successor runs into the problem that he had no successor. The idea that there is an ‘apostolic succession’ to Peter’s fictional episcopacy did not arise for several centuries at which time Peter and others were retrospectively called bishops of Rome to create an imagined succession.

Jesus said, “Where two or three are met together in my name, there I am in their midst: (Matt 18:20). Why do (any of us) met together in Jesus’ name need a bishop from Rome when they have Jesus in their midst?

He goes on to talk about Jesus’ establishing heaven’s reign on earth, not through our hierarchical religious institutions, but through the presence of the Risen Lord. Jesus equates heaven’s reign with his personal presence, and that in groups of twos and threes.

And all of this is from a Catholic! Amazing. I forget who recommended this book to me, and while it does have a few problems, it is as incisive a book about the life of Jesus as I’ve read. The presumptuous title aside, I think he does peel back a lot of the religious veneer we have laid over Christ and gets to the heart of why he came and what he wanted to instill in his people. I think I’ve enjoyed it more than Sara, but it is a good read.

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 It seemed really apropos the conversation we had about authority.  I think it is right on.  I also greatly believe in the authority of those God has placed in the church, I just think it looks really different from what the "system" thinks. Pretty much invisible.  But then, I think the whole church is invisible for the most part, except for where Jesus likens it to a city set on a hill. 

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Back to Stevie's voice. Yeah, I've gotten to the point where, if anybody suggests that they have authority, I immediately suspect that they don't. When authority is mixed with control (that is to say, when someone invokes that word to get their way) it becomes demonic and anti-Kingdom ("You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them"). True Authority, I think, is a kind of anointing: I'll know you have it by the fruit of your words and life, not by you trumpeting your possession of it. And, as I've said before, authority is not the power to demand your way, it is the right to serve others. The shepherd's authority IS his sleeping on hillsides, being covered with dew every morning when he wakes, having a rock as a pillow, and eating what he can find on the countryside. His authority isn't proven when he pulls out that staff to correct a sheep (which he SO RARELY uses), it's proven in lonely nights and doubtful days, when he offers his life an offering for those sheep he loves.

I hear people talk about Organization in the Kingdom as a way to justify the power they're garnering for themselves. "Well, an Apostle has to be in charge, and I'm only ensuring that I'm still in charge." Yikes. I'll be standing over here. "There must be Order in the church, and we think it should look like THIS. So we'll enforce our Order." Again, yikes. Aren't these the kind of things that humans shouldn't really touch? I think they are. I think apostles and prophets have a vision for what it might could look like, but they're going to be Super Loathe to wrestle people into that shape. They serve, and expect the Spirit to work out the details. The scripture says "...God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be..." Let's continue to leave that work to Him, shall we?

The Kingdom is a level playing field. There's no points for tenure. Or Agressive Personality. Or Bible Knowledge. If anything, humility (i.e., having been with Jesus) is what gets you status in the kingdom, but of course the humble would never want that status. They see it as something dangerous, almost--something to be considered with dread. I keep thinking of Galadriel, who 'passed the test' by FORGOING the Ring of Power which Frodo freely offered her in the forest. That's quite a picture, there. She was offered some of the greatest authority known, and by passing it up, she proved herself as Wise and Worthy to be Followed.

But it's all a bit too secretive, isn't it? If these people who possess this True Authority are never recognized in a worldly way, how can we ever find them? For heaven's sake, are we going to require that the Spirit of God UNCOVER them for us in some way?

Religion + Poverty = BFF

I was talking to my good friend Jarlot one fine Nigerian afternoon, and he mentioned in passing something about poverty and the incredible religious culture in that country. I threw on the emergency brake:

S: Wait, did you just say something about religion and poverty?
J: Yes.
S: Are you insinuating there's a spiritual connection between them?
J: Oh, sure. Yes.
S: There's a relationship between the spirit of poverty and the spirit of religion?
J: Oh, yes. That much is apparent.
S: Okay, I don't know about this. Please explain it to me.
J: It's very simple. Psalm 133 says, "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity!" And verse 3 says "there the LORD bestows his blessing." So you see, unity of the brothers and God's blessing always go together. God has promised to pursue unity with blessing. But the spirit of religion is about DISunity. It creates walls, separations between us. This one wears this label, that one belongs to this club or affiliation. We are divided from one another. When that happens, God REVOKES his blessing. And you get disease and poverty, alienation and sin. We are victimized because of this spirit of religion, and it produces poverty.
S: Oh, okay, sure. I mean... I knew THAT. I thought you were talking about something else...

Jarlot spat this out like he learned it in kindergarten. It was patently true to him. And when I heard his pithy explanation, I looked at Peb, stupefied. "Sounds right to me" was Peb's endorsement.

As I quickly sorted through the most poverty-stricken places I've seen in my life, it was stunning that high degrees of religion were common among them. Mostly a strong Catholic or Orthodox strain of the stuff. Wow. Hard to debate this theory.

Also hard to sweep aside the scriptures. So let's just let this one stand today. Psalm 133 is true, and

Religion + Poverty = BFF

Viva la Revolucion!

Ever wondered what exactly an apostle is and what exactly they do? I have. I've talked to lots of guys and read a couple of books on the subject. Apparently, the kind of guys who get books into the Christian Merchandising Outlets want us to believe that apostles are basically whoever has huge, successful money-making organizations.

Gee. I'm not buying it.

My pal Peepee describes the Acts account of apostles as "guys who go survey the land, see who God's enlisted to lead, then authorize those guys as Kingdom reps to do their thing. They set up outposts for the Church." He gets this from Paul's trips authorizing elders and uncovering other guys that God had set apart to lead his people. Also, Paul tells us in Ephesians 3 that aposles and prophets lay foundations for the Kingdom. To me, that means they're probably NOT doing big, 'important', high-profile work. Paul says they're the "scum of the earth." They're probably setting things in place w/re: to relationships and basic Kingdom strategies/systems. Extremely low-to-the-ground kind of work. If the Body of Christ is disjointed, the apostles are the guys putting it aright. Anklebone-connected-to-the-shinbone kind of stuff. Not glamorous. Highly necessary.

If all those things are true, I just saw my first on-the-field apostolic work. Ike was doing all the stuff I listed below, but wasn't really sure if that was IT. In enemy (read: religious) territory, we found this brother, clearly called to be heading up an outpost, and as best we could, gave him permission and blessing to abandon all the trappings and go full-bore into his ministry and calling. It was rather exhilirating.

Again, not totally sure what apostles do, but I have a better idea today than I did last month. That felt like the real thing.

I'm sure that the Kingdom is not about organizations and divisions on ANY level. And I'm sure that the church is a network of relationships that covers the earth. I'm sure it's small-looking, grass-roots, and imperceptable to the spiritually blind. And I'm sure that Ikechukwu Nnodem is an important man in the Kingdom. And I'm not QUITE sure (but I have some guesses) what Paul would be doing in Owerri, Nigeria.

How do you combat Religion in Nigeria?

This is Ike and Vicki. They've seen God in ways you haven't. Allow me to explain: they were born again and immediately read Jesus' words as literal commands to care for the downcast and the outcast. So their home has had a steady stream of addicts, prostitutes, orphans and widows running through it. Now, the Bible says that if you hang out with these people, Jesus will take it personally and step into the picture. He has done so with Ike and Vicki. Jesus always does what he says. I guess that's why they call him Honest Jesus...

Ike tells stories of Jesus' involvement in his life as if he's giving you a weather report. He's seen Jesus quite a bit. But when he mentions very casually that "when we saw that she had died, we prayed all night for her, and the next morning she came around..." one is given some serious pause. "Wait. Ike, did you just tell me that you prayed all night and that she was then Raised From The Dead?" "Yes." "Well, that's amazing!" "Oh really? Yeah, I guess so. But we've seen it before..."

Yeah, Ike and Vicki have seen *3* people raised from the dead, and at least one person healed of HIV. They've also seen alcoholics delivered, marriages restored, and orphans loved into wholeness. I'm telling you, these people have seen the Kingdom. In their home, we were amazed that there was a parade of new faces that emerged from the back rooms over the 10 days we were there. Ike and Vicki are currently housing 3 orphans, Ike's mother (who was once dead), and a Christian girl that acts as a nanny for them. Their house is a one-stop shop for redemption of every kind. Are you getting the picture?

Now then: Ike has struggled with running a Sunday-morning-style church-house, which is, to say the least, in vogue in Owerri. It's a total drag for them, and the fruits have been so-so. But Ike's felt pressure to do MORE with the church-house thing, even contemplating leaving his job as a draftsman because that's what's expected in that culture. Meanwhile, everybody that comes within 100 yards of his house gets saved, healed, and delivered. Guess what our advice was?

IKE, LEAVE THE STINKIN CHURCH-HOUSE BEHIND. YOUR HOME IS A FESTIVAL OF REDEMPTION. IT IS THE CHURCH/KINGDOM IN ACTION. BE DONE WITH THE RELIGIOUS STATUS QUO. THERE'S NO LIFE THERE. YOUR HOME IS A GARDEN IN FULL BLOSSOM!!

It was hard for Ike's Nigerian mind to wrap around that, somewhat, but he received it. Meanwhile, we were thankful for such a clear lesson on what IS and ISN'T the Church. Thanks Ike!


BONUS FOOTAGE:
Here's a photo of a couple that are NOT Ike and Vicki. They are Williams and Stella. Williams looks only marginally pleased to have met me. I look as if I've not been groomed since the Euro '96 Soccer Tournament.

My Beef With Darwin

I've spent the weekend thinking of nature and the planet. And I'm hot under the collar:

If the theory of natural selection is true, shouldn't we be all be up to our ears in the all the fossils and bones of all the failed species? Shouldn't there be an ENDLESS variety of species-gone-wrong littered all over the planet? Where are the humans-but-with-the-head-out-the-butt? Where are the handless human remains? The people with feet growing out their ears? Human anatomy as we know it should be one of a TRILLION variations. Not to mention the TRILLION versions of dog that didn't work (seen those fossils?), failed fish, wrong-headed plants and insects and reptiles, amphibians, marsupials, and every other variety of life that exists. I'm not saying that there's nothing to natural selection, or that there isn't some development within species, but the whole from-one-cell-developed-all-of-life is not just anathema to me as a believer, it's insulting to my reason. What a load of utter bullshit.

If you heard one of my songs and then declared that it just happened on the wind, that there was no thought or intention put into it at all, I would scratch my head at you. "We worked our butts off on that", I would think. "We put SO MUCH thought and effort behind every sound! We rehearsed and tweaked and edited until we got it JUST SO. This is our very best, as humans." I would be nonplused, but I would go on. But the human arrogance that looks at this unBELIEVably complex planet and dazzling intricacies of the simplest organism, and declares them to be a product of Infinite Chance flat-out pisses me off. It's an insult to The Artist, and it makes me indignant. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't need me to defend him, and I'm not compelled to try to do so. It just makes me angry.

Uber-athiest Francis Crick comes this close to admitting something important:

An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going.

Can't quite say it, can he? Well, these guys don't buy Crick's Schtick.

Wonder what religion looks like in Nigeria?

I thought so.


I'm convinced that Owerri, Nigeria is the most religious town in the world. And I've lived in Dallas. When you drive through town, there are more signs for churches and ministires (about 4 per block) than there are for stores. It's like a friggin' religious carnival. Even in the villages, where there are no stores, no utilities, and few paved roads, THERE ARE CHURCHES. And they all have signs, and advertise their Rev. Pastor Nwankwo or whatever (titles are very important here). When we were in our evening meetings, we could always hear other meetings happening around town. The first Sunday morning, we met in a building that housed 3 gatherings. On the second Sunday, I walked through 2 church meetings to get to mine. Awesome. Many times, by the time I took the stage to lead some worship, I was the 4th or 5th worship leader to have graced the stage. By that time, my enthusiasm for the project was gone, but Peb told me that if I didn't get us out of the soulish crap and back into something authentic, he would immolate. I didn't want to see that happen.

And, in case you weren't sure, all this religion ISN'T good. One of the reasons it proliferates is that, for the Nigerians (who suffer 60-70% unemployment), 'pastoring' is a profession that anybody can break into. You simply secure a meeting spot, get some friends and family together and, by virtue of the traditions, they'll all start tithing to you to secure God's blessing. Even if there's a life-or-death medical situation in the family, they'll pay their tithe to you first. There's a creepy ambition with these 'pastors': they all have pamphlets, booklets, or calendars they want to force on you. If you want to get involved in the very happening religious scene in Nigeria, here are some things you can look forward to:

*Ushers. They call themselves ushers, but they're actually the sleep police. They stand in the aisles and look over the crowd, poking at anybody who's fallen asleep or simply seems unattentive. I am not making this up.
*Maudlin worship leaders who feign getting emotional, say "Praise the LORD!" and "alleluia!" as many times as it takes to get the crowd riled up, and who say things like "Jesus died for you! Can't we give him a louder clap offering than THAT!?"
*Men and women separated during worship. Men on this side, women on that.
*No metal jewelry allowed. If it's plastic but coated with metallic PAINT, this can be approved or disapproved by elders. I am not making this up.
*Allegiance to pastors and our specific denominational strains before anything else, including family.
*Mandatory face-washing during services. If any usher or elder thinks you look unseemly, they can ask you to wash up, and you will be expected to leave and take care of yourself.
*Fun, fun FUN!!

About that Ohio-based NBA franchise...

Did ANYBODY record game 5 of LeBron vs. the Pistons? I want SO BAD to see that performance! Anybody? Does anybody KNOW somebody who recorded it?

I feel that this is in the face of all the Kobe fans. THIS is what being awesome means in the right moment. 82 points in a February game means nothing except self-love. Scoring your team's last 28 points (or whatever it was) in a must-win situation is just a wonderful jewel for the casual sports fan.

SO WHO'S GOT IT? HELP ME!!

Welcome to Nigeria!

People here are used to being harassed, swindled, and devalued. The Nigerian culture is anti-woman, anti-family, and anti-God.

When a woman is made a widow:
-The brothers of the dead husband harass her, as she’s the impediment to their financial gain from their brother’s death. SOMETIMES THEY POISON AND KILL HER.
-The women in the family take broken pottery and shave her bald. This is deeply humiliating for Nigerian women.
-She is expected to eat only from broken pots for a year to show how mournful she is of her husband’s passing.
-She is expected to cry aloud in the streets as she goes about her business for a year to show her mourning. If she doesn’t, she will be outcast. The women in the family enforce these rules. Sympathy is not for the widow, but for the traditions.
-She is not to be greeted in the streets.
-She is expected to throw massive feasts for the families, covering a week or more. The casket must be ornate and expensive, and the food and drink must honor everyone. The trouble of losing your means of income is hugely compounded by the financial burden of these feasts. Many widows go into debt for these feasts (at the pressure of the family) and never recover.
Ike (heroic man of God that I'll be writing about in future posts) teaches against the culture and traditions in his marriage conferences, which he puts on once or twice a year. He is stemming the tide of this godless society, BUT because he opposes the godless traditions, the religious community (which is also stunning and will be written about in future posts) rejects HIM.

The government is, let's say, 'corrupt':
-Police ALWAYS have impromptu “checkpoints” set up on major roads. When you pass through, they look for something to accuse you of, then demand ‘fines’ on the spot. We went through several of these.
-Police often take people’s salaries or pensions and hold them for several months, then returning some of the original amount and keeping the interest along with whatever portion they’ve stolen.
-There is no such thing as reliable statistics on Nigeria. Even an accurate census is impossible, because regions inflate their numbers to get more governmental aid.
-Government contractors will be told, “Want to get a $30M construction contract from us? Great… sign here.” Then the contractors will be given $3M and told to do their best.
-Government officials take the INCREDIBLE profits from Nigeria’s oil supplies (one of the world’s richest) and pocket it, building themselves fabulous mansions and living in the States, only to visit their golden-egg-laying nation when they need to make a public appearance or show up at a political function. The profits from this country’s vast natural resources never come back to the people.
-Politicians also take many, many wives (“Nobody knows how many.”), and make them salaries government employees.
-Subsequently, nobody trusts civic leaders, government officials, or authority of any kind. It's a massive spiritual attack on the nation's souls, and an incredibly sucessful one.

Nigeria is a hard place to live.

Some Things You Might Overhear Me Say To My Roommate, Vance, If You Happen To Be Near the Lodan Hotel in Owerri, Right After I Exit The Bathroom

"I know. It smells like corn chips. I can't help that."
"Nigeria, 3. Ah-noose, 0."
"I don't know if the lizards HELP or HURT the process. Personally, they inspire me."
"Ever seen wet cement coming off the chute? Like that."
"I think it was a moral victory just to have made it in before it was too late! The launch senquence caught me unawares!"
"No, that was Number TWO."