Christians, Now Is the Time to Empathize with Those Feeling Fear and Rejection

I am thankful to have this post shared on desiringGod.com today:
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/let-s-rise-to-love-those-left-in-fear

This is the heaviest and most urgent thing on my heart this week. I pray all Christians would consider this. Real people - friends - feel singled out and afraid because of specific words aimed at their race, religion, gender, or group by the president-elect or by people jumping on the publicity. This is not about whether you think these thoughts are overreactions or not. We need to empathize, no matter how we voted and no matter how we personally feel about the results. Loving our neighbors as Christ loved us certainly includes having empathy for their fears.

With Christians being credited as heavily supporting president-elect Trump's rise to the presidency, many people are questioning whether these attitudes reflect our hearts too. It's up to us to show our fellow citizens how Christians care for those who are vulnerable and afraid, and to show them the Gospel doesn't have political boundaries.

Genuine Church Community vs. Atomization and Individualism in American Culture

Image: www.goodreads.com

One of the most important priorities for the church right now is recovering genuine community. The health and effectiveness of church community for doing what the church is supposed to do has been severely weakened. Here are some examples and perspectives on this I have shared in the past from Rod Dreher and Carl Trueman and from Chris Martin (discussing Pew Research results on what Christians think is essential to spiritual life). It's why Mark Dever recently wrote a book devoted to community. Two major obstacles to forming Christian community are the trends of atomization and individualism. Here's an explanation of both:

Atomization refers to the trend of people disconnecting and living apart from one another and apart from the social and community groups they once regularly attended. It is a breakdown of connections and relationships on a community level, and some have noted it is particularly strong in America. Sociologist Robert Putnam drew attention to this phenomenon in 1995 in his essay "Bowling Alone" and captured the basic image: where people once used to seek regular community and do things together in groups, many people prefer now to do everything on their own terms. Putnam also identified some of the reasons this is harming America's social fabric, weakening both the productivity of the community and the ability of people to form relationships. He concluded it resulted in less civic engagement, and also in less trust between average people. Here's a longer explanation from a recent perspective.

Individualism describes the obsession of people in our day with living out their own unique, personal journey of self-discovery. It is characterized by an idea that the self-fulfillment and development of a person's individual identity is the supreme value. As a consequence, many people resist being influenced by groups and institutions that try to form common ideas in a community because they do not want to be shaped by something outside of themselves. If they join, they do so while standing apart and avoiding any adoption of group ideals unless it aligns with their personal identity. For instance, instead of letting church shape your thinking on God, you come to church convinced of your own personal take on spirituality and you only stay if the church seems to fit with that. Where American society used to be composed of many institutions of people coming together for common goals or values, which would form a united mindset and set of ideas among those people, today people often insist on figuring out who they are by looking within and by their own experiences rather than being taught or shaped by a community. Here is a useful discussion by Tim Keller and Russell Moore for more context.

Contrast this with the way Dietrich Bonhoeffer described the essential Christian community in his important work Life Together:

Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us. This is true not merely at the beginning, as though in the course of time something else were to be added to our community; it remains so for all the future and to all eternity. I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, the more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity. (Life Together, p. 26).

Taking Bonhoeffer's observations, Christian community is not about what kind of spirituality or identity you or I bring to the mix. It is about what Christ has done for us, and what we are because of Christ. Identity is not something personally determined and established by us as individuals; it is something that derives from and depends on the work of Christ. We could say that the more we know Christ, the more He reveals to us our true identity. But Bonhoeffer emphasized that meeting Christ in private and learning to know him by ourselves is only half of the process. He explained that community is not optional for the Christian; it is essential to the way we are formed and the way God feeds us. We need one another to speak the Word of God to each other, to hear each other's confessions and cries for prayer, to minister forgiveness to one another, and to display to each other in the flesh the love that Christ has put into our hearts through His Spirit.

Image: http://livingwatercommunitychurch.org/

Therefore knowing God requires humbling yourself to be shaped and taught by the community. You cannot come to Christian community and participate authentically while still insisting upon maintaining a personal identity not shaped or influenced by the community. One of Bonhoeffer's main points about Christian community is that it must be established by God. We do not have the option of taking or creating community on our own terms. All real Christian community is established by the Holy Spirit, not by our plans and expectations. "Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate." (Id. p. 30)

That is why Bonhoeffer states: "He who loves his dream of a community more that the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial." (Id. p. 27). We cannot make the community to fit our expectations. We must receive it. This necessarily requires humbling ourselves, because we are not in control and we must accept what God creates. I will note that this is not to be confused with simply accepting anything we are given by other men and women, for if they are also engaged in setting up their own idea of community, it may be equally detrimental. But it also means we have no excuse to just stiff-arm what we receive from others in community solely because we don't happen to like it or prefer it.

So how do we tell the difference? One of the reasons Bonhoeffer's book Life Together is so engaging and powerful is that it gives us a detailed breakdown and discussion of the aspects of community that come necessarily from our being united through Christ. These are the things natural to a genuine Christian community, the basic vital signs of the spiritual life. Bonhoeffer shows why these things are necessary to our life in Christ and how they nourish and maintain it. If the dynamics of your Christian community fulfill these purposes and serve to bring people closer to God and closer together in Christ, then they may be just what we need. That does not mean they will always be comfortable. Detecting the difference between the two - community created by God versus community dictated by other people - may take careful discernment. But either way, there is no question that the real community must be received. We cannot set the terms.

Instead, we love people the way the Scriptures teach, and we accept them for Christ's sake, and then we take the community that God develops out of that. Bonhoeffer gives us a peaceful picture of what kind of growth in grace and joy is available to us if we will humble ourselves and just receive what God is giving. Consider how liberating and relieving it is to not be ruled by a pressure to fix and tinker with the community in every place where it isn't developing according to your expectations. Simply receiving is a gracious privilege:

Christian community is like the Christian's sanctification. It is a gift of God which we cannot claim. Only God knows the real state of our fellowship, of our sanctification. What may appear weak and trifling to us may be great and glorious to God. Just as the Christian should not be constantly feeling his spiritual pulse, so, too, the Christian community has not been given to us by God for us to be constantly taking its temperature. The more thankfully we daily receive what is given to us, the more surely and steadily will fellowship increase and grow from day to day as God pleases.

(Life Together, p. 30)

Spiritual Coffee: Dangers of Nostalgia in Voting - New Film Finishes Chariots of Fire Story of Missionary Eric Liddell - Do Churches Help Solve Social Problems?

I took a short hiatus while I completed a series on recognizing and confronting addictions in the lives of others, but now here's a new installment of Spiritual Coffee with three things to help keep your Christian mind alert and informed. The third link in particular is a very pressing issue for the church, so I took some additional time to comment on it.

(As always, you can look over past installments under the tag Spiritual Coffee.)


Hope in the Ruins: Why Politics Can't Save Our Politics, James K. A. Smith (Comment Magazine)
Rather than dwelling on the present deterioration of ideals and unity in both political parties, take some time to focus on what we want to rebuild and how to get there. One helpful resource for figuring out what that looks like is Smith's review of Yuval Levin's book The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism.

"It is hard to imagine a more timely, important, and wise book than Yuval Levin's latest, The Fractured Republic: Renewing America's Social Contract in the Age of Individualism. Levin, a Hertog Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and founding editor of National Affairs, is one of our most astute political analysts, eschewing from-the-hip punditry for careful work that is nourished by both historical insight and social-scientific rigour. But more importantly, Levin is that rare combination of heart and mind, intellect and soul, who writes with the philosopher's commitment to big ideas but as someone who knows and loves his neighbours."

Among the important points Smith observes:

1. Both conservatives and liberals are blocked from achieving progress by a misplaced nostalgia for "the way things were." Levin charts out why he believes people on both ideological ends are pursuing a past that cannot be recovered. Each side is trying to return to what they perceive to be their golden years, and yet this is impossible for either side to accomplish. So we get nowhere.
2. One of the reasons this return to the past is impossible is that often the idealized time that each party wants to get back to was a short time of unsustainable success or prosperity. Many of these cherished seasons were the result of complex social and economic forces developing over decades and they often had consequences that had to be worked out over following decades.
3. Therefore: A) they are incredibly dependent on a long sequence of many different events, more than any political party can orchestrate; and B) they were never capable of lasting anyway, even at their best, because by their nature they were temporary conditions that a society could not continue to maintain.

One example:

"For example, we longingly look back on the widespread productivity of the postwar era, yielding gainful employment that could sustain a new era of consumption and almost unparalleled prosperity. We pine for the days when a job at GM could buy a family a house in the suburbs and all of the security and stability that came with that (at least for whites, who benefited from the cartel-like cooperation between corporations and unions). "Play it again, Sam!" our politicians bellow. But when you look at the unique constellation of historical contingencies at play you realize this can't happen. The US economy soared in that era in no small part because we were one of the few developed economies whose infrastructure wasn't decimated by World War II. Once Germany and Japan rebuilt, in the 1970s, the US economy experienced the reality of competition that sent us into the malaise that Jimmy Carter named."

Most importantly, Levin's book displays careful thinking about what can be accomplished now, in our current cultural state. I highly recommend Smith's discussion of how Levin deals with the problems of atomization and individualism, and why Levin sees rebuilding neighborhood/community groups and institutions as an essential part of restoring social stability. (Here's some basic explanation of both atomization and individualism for those not familiar with how these terms are being used.)

The Story After "Chariots of Fire", Amy Qin (The New York Times)

A fascinating report on the making of a new film telling the story of how Eric Liddell, the Christian Scotsman and Olympic runner of Chariots of Fire, went on to become a missionary to China like his parents. He was captured during the occupation of China by Japan and held in a Japanese prison camp in 1945, where he died. It is especially encouraging to see this movie being made by a Hong Kong filmmaker and distributed in China.

“The Last Race” is "a Hong Kong-Chinese production that opened in more than 50 Chinese cities last Friday. (It does not yet have a North American release date.) Co-directed by the veteran Hong Kong filmmaker Stephen Shin and the Canadian Michael Parker, it focuses on the final years of Liddell’s life, when he was held in a Japanese labor camp in the coastal province of Shandong."

"'It means a lot to me to be able to tell this story of an Olympic champion who came to China and sacrificed so much to help others,’ Mr. Shin, who is also a Christian, said in a recent interview."

Do Churches Contribute to Solving Social Problems? - Joe Carter (TGC)

Carter analyzes a recent Pew study that showed many people do not believe the church contributes to solving social problems, or that it doesn't contribute much. These numbers are much higher than eight years ago, and he also notes that they are higher even among Christians - meaning that a number of Christians do not even recognize how the church positively impacts society. This excerpt is especially important, and I posted additional comments below to emphasize why:

"There has been no sign that churches are less charitable or engaged in their communities than they were in 2008. What has changed is the attitude and expectations many Americans have about the role of churches. No matter how many “good works” churches engage in—from feeding the homeless to ministering to sex trafficking victims—it won’t be sufficient to offset our opposition to the increasing sexual permissiveness of society. Our refusal to abandon the Biblical ethic on sexuality makes us, in the eyes of many Americans, a social problem to be solved rather than a partner in solving social problems.

 "Unfortunately, when it comes to religious liberty the church has relied too heavily on society recognizing the benefits we provide. For instance, churches and other religious institutions in American [sic] are almost always exempt from federal, state, and local taxes. The justification for this policy is usually that such institutions provide vital charitable benefits to society. But what happens when this argument is no longer perceived to be true?

 "Losing popularity is no great loss. Losing tax-exempt status, however, is a considerable loss, since it poses a direct threat to the religious liberty of churches and Christian institutions. As Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the Supreme Court ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), 'That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create . . . are propositions not to be denied.' (Unfortunately, even many Christians deny this proposition and are woefully naïve about how taxation would affect—if not outright destroy—many charities and ministries.)"

My Take: Here's why this matters so much. The power to tax is the power to destroy because where the government can tax you, it can control what you do by heavily taxing things it doesn't like and giving deductions and exemptions for things it wants to promote. Chief Justice Marshall recognized in 1819 that it is wholly possible for government to destroy certain institutions and organizations by simply making the taxes on what they do so high that the group must fold. Taxes have always been used to promote certain behavior and discourage other behavior. We allow charitable deductions from taxed income because giving to non-profit organizations is generally good for society, so we encourage that giving by not taxing any part of their income that a person gives away to charity.

But if the government can tax the church, then the government can also choose to tax certain activities of the church more highly than others. For instance, a church that refused to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies might be taxed at a higher level on its property, whereas a church that was "open to everyone" (as the government might say) could get a much lower property tax bill. Taking advantage of the taxing power this way, the government could discourage and even strangle something that it is not allowed to directly outlaw. Even where the courts and the Constitution protect religious groups from having to perform marriage ceremonies against their beliefs, if the government can tax them then it can make living by those beliefs extremely costly.

Likewise, the government could offer tax-exempt status for contributions to churches that do the things the government wants churches to do, and refuse to provide it to churches that hold beliefs and practices that the government doesn't like. This would inevitably reduce giving to churches where contributions were not tax exempt: even people who would still give in spite of not getting a tax exemption would be stuck with the fact that they have less money to give now. Instead of giving that money away and paying no taxes on that part of their income, they would now still pay 20-30% of that amount in taxes - meaning that many would have to give less and use the rest to pay the tax. This is why tax-exempt status for churches matters so much. The government cannot punish churches by law for having beliefs different from what government desires, but it can use the taxing power very freely. Where it would be unconstitutional for the government to try to force a church to stop doing something, if churches are not tax-exempt, the government could instead tax what the church does and grind it down.

This is why we should take it seriously when the public and politicians are saying the church doesn't contribute to society or solve social problems, and try to learn how to correct those errors. But more than that, we must persuade our neighbors that freedom to live by your own beliefs is more important for all of us than any particular social cause. For over 225 years this country has lived by the conviction that the government should never have the power to force a person to change his or her beliefs or to prevent that person from living what they believe simply because others don't like it. A tragic consequence of the culture war has been the rise of an attitude that refuses to tolerate the other side's beliefs: a mindset of "us vs. them" that has left us with people thinking there's simply no room for both ways of life. A shocking number of people seem ready to throw out the ideas of freedom of belief and freedom of speech as long as they think they have the upper hand. We must unite against that.

People of all beliefs should agree that having government manipulate what we believe and practice is a much worse evil than having people refuse to agree with your lifestyle. We have to see together that any discussion by politicians and government of taking away tax-exempt status for churches is a direct assault on freedom of religion, with the clear agenda of manipulating religious beliefs and church teachings. If anyone gives the government the power to do that today, the government will have the power to use it against them tomorrow. One of the foundational promises upon which the United States was built was this: there are certain things the government would never have the power to take away from its people. We must remember how precious it is to have a government that has limits on what it can do to you. [The previous paragraphs after the block quote are my own comments. -Anthony]

Addiction: How to Help Each Other (Part II) - Confronting Deception and Concealment, Pride and Shame

Image from http://www.alcoholanddrugsrehab.com/

For Part I, click here.
For Part III, click here.

Addictions affect far more people than we realize. In the last 10 years, I have discovered so many types of addictive behavior affecting fellow Christians and others I come in contact with through criminal law that I wanted to make what I’ve learned available to help others care for people with addictions. We often miss the signs of addiction because many addictions don’t look like what we stereotypically think of as the behavior of “an addict.” Many people hide their addictions very well, and seem to function normally most of the time.

If you’re trying to help someone break out of a ‘bad habit’ or sinful pattern in life that is really an addiction, you can end up spinning your wheels and going nowhere if you aren’t prepared with an understanding of the mental maze that addicts live in. Addiction is a complex interplay of selfishness, shame, pride, denial, guilt, and fear. Most addicts actively work to conceal their addictive behavior. I have learned the hard way how easy it is to miss what's going on under the surface, and what it takes to get an addiction out in the open.

I posted Part I of this discussion last week, where I summarized what makes something an addiction, the risk-taking behavior that reveals someone has an addiction, and how addictions compare to idolatry. I also gave a breakdown of why people turn to addictive behavior, with a list of critical things to be aware of when trying to help someone with an addiction. Part II covers below why addicted people lie and conceal their behavior, why it takes so much careful work to get them to cooperate with their own healing, and the combination of pride and shame that trap people in addiction. Finally, in Part III I will give a detailed list of ways to recognize patterns of deception and concealment that addicts commonly use to keep their addiction secret or to resist help and accountability, and how to counter them.

There is enormously helpful biblical teaching on this subject from groups like CCEF. Although I am trying to give you the main insights and tips from 10 years of law practice dealing with addicted clients and addicted people in the church, I don’t have a counseling degree and I’m not a professional counselor. In many cases, your primary goal should be to get the help of a certified counselor, while using the type of information I have put together to support your friend and keep him or her accountable. Several quotes below are from Ed Welch, a CCEF counselor, and I encourage you to chase down more of his resources at CCEF.

Addiction Makes Liars Out of People: Deception and Concealment Come Naturally

I am not trying to be insulting or accusatory here. It simply has to be faced that one of the sad byproducts of addiction is that it nearly always turns the addicted person toward lying and deceiving the people around him, especially when people begin to confront the person about having an addiction. This is often a total shock to family and friends because it happens even to people who would never lie about anything else. Part of the difficulty in spotting an addiction can be that the person you're trying to help has always been honest and candid with you about everything, so it is disorienting and hard to grasp when you begin to realize they are deceiving you about their addiction. It's completely out of character.

1. Other People Just Don't Understand

Part of the problem is that addicts usually think they have things under control. They think their indulgence and vice is something they just choose to do, just something they use to take the edge off and relieve stress. You've heard the classic self-deception: "I can quit any time I want to." This is usually what they really believe - they never put it to the test because they don't want to quit. They want to keep using this to dull pain or relieve tension. So the first person an addict is lying to is herself. Ed Welch says: "All addicts lie. As idolaters they forge an alliance with the anti-god and his crumbling empire, and lying is one expression of this alliance. ... For addicts, this deception is not only what they speak, it is also what they believe. They also have been lied to and believe those lies—lies from family, friends and Satan himself."

You've probably heard pastors describe temptation to sin as a lie: what you expect a sin to give you and what you actually get are usually two different things. When you are tempted by a desire, sin looks appealing and satisfying and not too dangerous. If you give in, you realize afterward that the satisfaction was brief and the negative consequences are much bigger. (Just what James 1:14-15 describes.) Addiction functions this way too. A person's desire for the relief and comfort their addiction provides will blind them to how big the consequences are. In the last post I described how people take greater risks in order to satisfy an addiction than they ever normally would take. Their need has become so dominating that they rationalize away the consequences or sinfulness of their actions.

But while the addicted person is lying to herself about things being out of control, she usually has a perception of what other people will expect and accept. Addicted people often realize that others would question their choices or be concerned by their risks, and even though they won't admit to themselves that there's good reason for concern, they learn to conceal what they are doing in order to avoid the unpleasant confrontations. So they begin lying to others as well. There are plenty of excuses they can use for this: "I know it bothers him, so I just don't want him to worry needlessly," or "It's none of their business," or "We just have different beliefs about how to unwind, so there's no point in talking about it."

However, the deeper the addiction goes, the more lying becomes a means of self-preservation and a regular habit. Pride causes the addicted person to resist all efforts to question or intervene in the addictive behavior, and shame makes the person unwilling to confide in others or allow anyone to see how ugly the situation really has become.

2. Pride and Shame Gain Control

"cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction."

You can see the evidence of pride in what I just described: the addicted person thinks they have things very well in hand, thank you, and anyone who thinks differently just doesn't understand. It is likely that the addicted person has thoughts like: "Who are they to tell me what I can do?" Self-justification and defensiveness are common side-effects of addiction (and sometimes causes of it). I quoted a therapist in Part I who said addicts believe two lies: that they deserve relief, and that they should get to decide how and when they get it.

For many addicts, even when they know the problem is out of control, the hardest thing to get past is the pride of being able to do what they want to do. That is one reason many fail in treatment: I have seen a number of people over the years walk out on treatment not because they believed they were cured or that they didn't have a problem, but simply because they were tired of having to abide by someone else's rules. When life is spiraling out of control, desperation may drive them to treatment. But when things stabilize, they start to think it's unfair that they no longer get to decide for themselves when and how they find pleasure or comfort. As time goes on, they are tempted to find compromises to make their addiction "manageable" instead of cutting it off entirely. Sometimes the hardest part to accept is never again.

Therefore, cultivating and encouraging humility is crucial for helping someone overcome an addiction. The person has to be willing to admit they have a problem: in other words, they have to be able to admit they can't handle this. They have to admit weakness. Along with that, they must submit themselves to someone else's accountability in order to make sure the person doesn't return to the addiction or get close to temptations that would trigger it. They no longer get to do whatever they want. It is a basic element of original sin lodged in all our hearts that we chafe and bristle at not being able to do things our own way. This is one of the biggest battles of the will in overcoming an addiction. Pray for humility in the person you're helping. Pray for the grace to listen and receive instruction.

A person who isn't growing in humility as they come to terms with an addiction is not going to fare well in overcoming it. That's why many addicts have to suffer devastating consequences before they surrender their addiction and accept help. It's only when forced into a situation where they must quit or be destroyed that they finally realize what a hold it has over them, and how helpless they are to control it.

Along with pride, addicted people are crippled by pride's evil twin: shame. Sooner or later a person with an addiction that is getting out of control will realize, in spite of their self-justification, that the state of their life really looks disgraceful. The effort to put on an image for everyone else of appearing to have it all together just makes it that much more frightening and intimidating to think about the veil getting pulled away and people seeing what's really underneath. Ed Welch sums it up: "If they were not dominated by shame before they began their addiction, they certainly will be after. When you live for something that is ultimately worthless, you feel worthless. When you live for neither God nor people, you will hurt others and degrade yourself. Then the cycle continues—addiction leads to shameful consequences, which leads to more devoted addiction." (Welch)

3. Killing Shame with Humility, Encouragement, and the Love of Christ

The solution to shame is also rooted in humility. As John Piper points out in Battling Unbelief, shame is really just pride that is wounded because it isn't getting praise. A shame problem is a pride problem: we feel shame because we want people to think about us a certain way - we want to take pride in something - and we perceive that they don't. So although shame looks vulnerable and sympathetic, it is really a problem of taking too much pride in what others see; so much pride, in fact, that you can't bear to have them see the real truth. Part of humility is learning not to worry about what other people think. As it happens, one of Ed Welch's best and most well-known books tackles shame expertly: When People Are Big and God Is Small.

To combat shame, an addicted person also needs diligent and frequent encouragement. They have to be reassured that it's okay to be you. They have to be shown that people will love them and accept them even with the veil pulled away. They also have to discover what is good and valuable in themselves and begin to feel good about it again. This is why most treatment programs and support groups for addiction heavily rely on a group therapy environment which emphasizes positive reinforcement for each other. They pour on the encouragement: every step forward is a victory that deserves praise and approval. Every day of sobriety is a celebration, which is why people get cheered when they report how many days they have been sober, whether it's two or two hundred. In fact, I cannot think of a single program that is successful - for any type of addiction - that doesn't use this approach of mutual encouragement.

I have seen firsthand in addicted people that if they don't care about themselves, they will likely relapse into addiction. People that try to beat addiction just to save their marriage, or just to keep their job, or just to please family and friends, are at serious risk. The problem is that, if they still personally feel like they are worthless, then sooner or later they are going to lose hope and believe they can't win. They will expect failure. Or, the thing they're fighting for will collapse, and nothing will seem to matter anymore. When they get that low, they are likely to just revert to numbing their shame and fear with their addiction. The marriage, job, and family are all worthy things to fight for, but at bottom the person has to care about himself or herself. The person has to care what happens to them. So the person needs constant encouragement from others that he or she is valuable and important and has gifts, personality, and other qualities that make their life special and precious.

This is not inconsistent with dismantling the person's pride. Pride is about overvaluing yourself and being too obsessed with what people think of you. Being humble does not mean you think you're of little value or think there's nothing special about you. The Book of Proverbs is filled with lessons that humility is essential and pride is lethal, yet it is also filled with exhortations to value your life, preserve your life, care about the quality of your life, and protect your life. Both pride and shame can be fought by having a correct view of who you are and what makes you precious. And what makes us precious more than anything else is being loved and accepted by God.

As Ed Welch points out, we are reassured in our identity by the fact that Jesus reaches out to people regardless of what other people think. The Lord went out of His way to touch those others considered untouchable:

"So, if we are to help, we watch the life of Jesus. He was born into shame and his people are outcasts. Watch him eat with the shamed and touch the shamed. Watch him identify with them so they can identify by faith with him. At every point, we expect Jesus to turn away and not be sullied by the shamed. Instead, he always invites, always surprises, and offers a connection to himself in which we are given cleansing, covering and belonging. As we follow the story, our roles begin to change. No longer is there an addict and a helper. Now we are two people who are seeing beautiful realities that will take the rest of our lives to understand. " (Welch)

You can't get too shameful for Jesus. His power to cover over sins cannot be exhausted. Belonging to Him cancels out all human opinions about your worth. The addicted person can be comforted and encouraged that he is precious in God's sight, fully accepted as a child of God because of what Jesus has done. And Jesus does not just accept us, but transforms us and cleanses us as well. He gives us a new life, redeemed from sin. This is the best possible news for someone struggling under the shame of addiction. Jesus can make all things new. In Christ, your life is never a lost cause.

Next: Part III - Breaking Through Deception and Creating Openness and Honesty - How to Help People Through to Recovery

Spiritual Coffee: Barnabas Piper Leadership Podcasts (Spiritual Disciplines) - Sports Community Replaces Church - Richard John Neuhaus, Liberal and Orthodox?

Catching up on a week of interesting developments. Here are three of the most useful things I've come across to stimulate and sharpen your Christian thinking. As always, prior selections are under Spiritual Coffee.

5 Leadership Questions podcast: Spiritual Disciplines and Leadership, Todd Akins and Barnabas Piper (with Kevin Spratt)
The bonus here is discovering this podcast by Akins and Piper, which has weekly episodes where they "ask five questions of different guests or about different leadership topics. The aim of the podcast is to inform and encourage Christian leaders whether they serve in the pastorate, the business world, non-profits, or on a volunteer basis." This one has a valuable perspective on why we can't take the spiritual disciplines for granted, or get tired of them. Kind of like we shouldn't get tired of breathing or eating. Some things are so basic that you just can't opt out of them if you want life to work.
In addition to a useful concept, Akins and Piper have quotes from each episode posted below the player so you can skim what they talk about.

“Many times the delta between our knowledge and our application is immense.”“Without the fundamentals you don’t have anything to build off of.”
“There are some things that there simply isn’t a newer better way to do.”
“Character is as valuable now as it ever has been, and there aren’t different versions.”
“You can’t really innovate spiritual disciplines.”
“You can’t lead people in a direction you’re not going yourself.”

Check out the episode with Jon Acuff too. Good thoughts on developing yourself for success and staying away from moral failure.

“I try to surround myself with people who have the kind of lives I want to live.”“Hustle is an act of focus, not frenzy.”

Lessons from Cleveland's Religious Devotion to Its Teams, Ed Uszynski (Athletes in Action)
This is a remarkably well-written comparison that identifies the community-bonding and identity-formation aspects of the investment people have in their cities' sports teams. It contrasts how those aspects used to be served primarily by church community. There are some valuable observations here about what may be missing from our churches, as well as what we need to make sure we are getting from church instead of simply from sports and other recreational friendships.

"They actually fill a void previously filled by church attendance and the experience of being a church member. With the decline of institutional religion as an influential reality in communities across America, a key component of human development and one of the primary areas that Christian education used to fill—identity formation—has been taken over by sport culture."

The Liberalism of Richard John Neuhaus, Matthew Rose (National Affairs)
Neuhaus was founder and editor of the Christian magazine First Things, a commentary on religion and public life, up until his death. He is probably one of the most well-known voices addressing the absence of religion in the public square and civil government. He coined the phrase "the Naked Public Square" with his book in the 1980s, describing what had happened to social and civic discussions by the exclusion of 'religion' as an accepted aspect of those discussions. He was a great champion for the importance and appropriateness of religious thought being applied in society, politics, law, and education, but also a very wise and reasonable thinker who didn't suffer from the extremes that some Christians do in trying to 'put the Bible back in school.' He is a man well worth studying and knowing. It's only fair that I include a link to the reminiscences of First Things writers about Neuhaus as well. This article is by no means the definitive portrait of Neuhaus, but it is a great picture nonetheless.

"At the time of his death in 2009, Richard John Neuhaus had been a public figure for nearly four decades. To admirers and friends, he was arguably the most influential American Christian intellectual since Reinhold Niebuhr or John Courtney Murray. The New York Times described him as a 'theologian who transformed himself from a liberal Lutheran leader of the civil rights and anti-war struggles in the 1960s to a Roman Catholic beacon of the neoconservative movement of today.' It was a conventional biographical arc — Neuhaus's life was defined by exchanging the ideals of liberalism for the dogmas of religious traditionalism."

"But that story is misleading, if not worse, since it distorts the convictions of a man wholly defined by his convictions. Neuhaus spent his life contending for the soul of the liberal tradition. Conversions great and small marked his career, and he often quoted Cardinal Newman, saying that 'to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.' But his commitment to political liberalism, far from being a youthful error he later repudiated, was one of his life's few consistent threads. The other was his orthodox Christian faith."

Spiritual Coffee: Christians, Don't Always Insist on Rights - The Eyes of Wendell Berry in Film - Southern Baptists Find Unity, Humility

Friday's roundup to help you set your mind on things above as we go into the weekend. As usual, I summarized why I think these are worth pondering, and included the quotes that left the strongest impression upon me.

Click on Spiritual Coffee for other good stuff from past posts.

Following Christ, Relinquishing Rights, Brett McCracken (brettmccracken.com)
I believe Christians must have this category in their minds: 'rights I have, but I will choose not to use.' That is what McCracken (a contributor for Mere Orthodoxy) is saying, making a simple but difficult point that Christians are not supposed to be concerned first with protecting the full use of their rights - whether it is the right to own firearms or the legal basis to keep refugees and immigrants from entering the country. With the religious liberty we have enjoyed in the United States being attacked with increasing ferocity, and other rights we are used to depending on being questioned or limited by a government we do not trust (regardless of who is in the White House), it is sadly very easy for us to get indignant and defensive. We often become very vocal about insisting upon total freedom to use our rights however we see fit. But this pattern of thinking doesn't fit the Scriptures. Although I don't agree with every example McCracken gives, and I think many Christians would not need to adopt them all, he does a very good job of confronting the un-Christian attitude of insisting on all of our rights.
Christians do have rights, and we do use them, but we don't need to be insistent about using them every time we have them. And we don't need to use them fully. We can (and should) give up our full rights on many occasions. The reason is that the Christian is supposed to be concerned first with showing what kind of hope we have in God and what security we have in heaven, not with guarding our own security and comfort on earth. Although McCracken didn't quote this, John Calvin summed it up in saying: "There is nothing plainer than this rule, that we are to use our liberty if it tends to the edification of our neighbor, but if inexpedient for our neighbor, we are to abstain from it." [commenting on 1 Cor. 10:23-24.] In other words, only make use of your rights if it will not cause your neighbor to stumble. But if it does, don't use them. "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." (Galatians 5:13)

"The Christian way is to set our rights aside when they are an an impediment to the love and grace of the gospel, let alone when they endanger the safety of others. Does this mean we never appeal to our rights? No. Paul himself appealed to his rights as a Roman citizen when he was about to be flogged (Acts 22:25). Does this mean we fully surrender our freedom to believe certain beliefs and to live our lives consistently with those beliefs? No. But it may mean we exercise our freedoms more quietly or that we cede some of our freedoms for the sake of others’ flourishing. It may mean we open ourselves up to inconvenience and discomfort and pain.

"This is a hard truth for Christians, but it is a foundational truth in our faith. The New Testament is full of calls to follow Christ’s model of humble, self-effacing and status-relinquishing love (Phil. 2:5-8); to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Eph. 5:21), to consider others more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3), to see freedom in Christ not as a weapon but as an opportunity to serve others in love (Gal. 5:13-15), to serve our neighbors before we serve ourselves (Rom. 15:1-3), and so on. 

"This is the upside-down, countercultural nature of the kingdom of God, and Christians in today’s world have an opportunity to reclaim our witness as emissaries of this “others before myself” kingdom."

The Eyes of Wendell Berry: A Cinematic Portrait of a Camera-Shy Man, John Murdock (First Things)
Author Wendell Berry is one of those writers (like Marilynne Robinson) who make a profound impact on many Christians, while transcending any categories such as "Christian fiction" or "Spirituality." Indeed, it would not be fair to label their work in any such terms. It is bigger than any narrow genre or category, and like authors such as John Steinbeck and Flannery O'Connor, we honor its ability to capture human life so completely by calling it "literature." I would like to be more familiar with Berry than I am, and so this brief introduction and the film it describes are very welcome.

"Berry, who lives life without a television or a computer, is about as un-Hollywood as he can be. Yet, the executive producers for Dunn’s labor of love were heavyweights Robert Redford and Terrence Malick[.]"

"Dunn’s film is not your run-of-the-mill biopic, and how could it be? Berry, though very much alive, agreed to participate in the project, but with the complicating condition that he would not appear on camera. The viewer sees recent interviews of his wife Tanya and daughter Mary, but the man himself is present only as a voice and in images from the past. With their differing views of progress, both fans and critics of this farmer/writer, who has done his varied work with draught horses and a 1956 Royal typewriter, will likely see his elusiveness as fitting. 

"The Seer centers on Berry’s debates in the 1970s with Earl Butz, the Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Butz had rural roots that rivaled Berry’s, but he came to see a decline from 45% of the population working the land at his birth to some 4% at the time of their encounters—what Berry labeled The Unsettling of America—as a positive development. 'Butz’s law,' which he formulated, was 'adapt or die,' and its measure of success was 'P-R-O-F-I-T.' 

"Berry is seen by many as a prophet of a different sort. Archival footage shows him—then with a full head of dark hair—acknowledging that he and Butz would likely never agree, because 'he’s arguing from quantities and I’m arguing from values.' For Berry, the calculus must acknowledge such incalculables as 'the Hebrew-Christian values' of neighborliness and kindness. He concludes, 'I don’t think you can love those old values and love what has come to be American agriculture at the same time.' It is a message that has permeated the more than forty books of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry that have issued from his literary perch overlooking the Kentucky River."

Southern Baptists Elect Steve Gaines as President, Renounce Confederate Flag, and more.
The Southern Baptist Convention met this week to elect a new president and passed several important resolutions. Even if you aren't Southern Baptist (as I am not), this was a historic convention that affected one of the largest bodies of Christians in the United States. Here are a few reasons worth knowing, with some links for details:

• It's significant to know that the election for president, which was evenly divided on the first two ballots and was set to go to an unheard-of third ballot, was also a difference between those in the SBC who hold to Calvinist theology and those who fit with Arminian theology.
• Even more important, the election never went to a third ballot because J.D. Greear, pastor of Summit Church in Raleigh, NC, withdrew his name and pledged his support behind Steve Gaines before the Wednesday morning vote. It was an extraordinary display of humility and unity (he and Gaines met and talked it through and prayed over it the night before) that allowed the convention to move forward together. Here's Greear's explanation, a great example of seeking the good of Christ's body above your own plans or vision.
• The convention voted to renounce the display of the Confederate Flag, passing an even stronger resolution than the one initially proposed. Some may see this as long overdue, others may think it is out of place. But I think this needed to be said: wounds of racial distrust and historical disharmony need to be healed by demonstrations of humility and empathy with each other's pain. The speech by Dr. James Merritt urging that all the flags in the world are not worth the loss of one soul was a powerful moment that seemed to stir the convention to action. Russell Moore praised the decision and explained his support for it.
• A resolution on caring for refugees was passed as well. I hope the example this sets for the church and for individual Christians will help us be wise and generous in our political engagement on this issue in addition to acting it out in our churches and communities.
• Here is a link with a recap by the SBC of the convention, and here is a collection of video of the speeches at the convention.

Spiritual Coffee: Young Men Isolated in a Virtual Online Tribe - Knowing You're No Better than Unbelieving Friends May Help Save Them - Russell Moore Challenges Justice Advocates to Stop Being Selective

Mid-week roundup of three resources for Christian thinking and reflection. Prior collections are tagged under Spiritual Coffee.

Seeking the Living Among the Dead, Rod Dreher (The American Conservative)
What kind of virtual culture and religion have young men encased themselves in through online interactions? When you consider how much time they spend connecting virtually with people, through streaming video, social media, and online gaming, it becomes clear that this amounts to a self-designed reality that occupies more of their lives than ordinary community and culture. And that reality is missing some important pieces. Rod Dreher always brings an extra depth of thoughtful and insightful examination to what he discusses. This time, he shares at length from Edward Hamilton, who teaches at a small conservative Christian college in Texas. His observations about how young adults - mostly young men - are shaped by this virtual reality give us a lot to consider in repairing a healthy community. For example: these virtual webs of interaction are largely devoid of anything resembling church or Christian practice (not necessarily by intention, but simply by indifference); the content and material tends to be focused on feeding cravings, instead of building ideas or relationships; and the virtual YouTube circles and gaming clubs and social media become a sort of tribe that takes the place of church and community.

The Myth of Moral Superiority: When You're No 'Better' than Your Agnostic Friend, Jen Pollock Michel (Christian Living, TGC)
This tackles a very present problem for many of us with unbelieving friends: how do you display the need for the Gospel to people who don't have any big and obvious sins in their lives? Especially to those who sometimes seem to be better parents and spouses than you feel you are, leaving you feeling almost silly in trying to point out their subtle sins?

"Many of my non-Christian friends and neighbors don’t easily fit the snarly, selfish caricatures of the godless. They are good neighbors and good parents. In Lisa’s case, they are great neighbors and admirable parents.

"And this evident morality leaves me a little stumped in terms of evangelism. What does it look like to share the gospel with friends who fail the obvious narrative of “wretch,” a term with which converted slavetrader John Newton described himself? If I am the student—and my non-Christian friend sometimes the teacher—have I failed my heavenly assignment from God? Shouldn’t I be better than them?"

"Even the most morally upright person, Christian or non-Christian, falls short of God’s glory. In fact, the gospel exposes the depths of my depravity—that of all the pedophiles and pornographers, drunks and derelicts, I am chief sinner among them (c.f. 1 Tim. 1:15). And maybe this is the biggest difference between Lisa and me: not that I outperform her in virtue, but that I outrank her—by virtue of gospel self-awareness—in vice.

"The gospel doesn’t make me better. But it does make me eager to admit my debts and deficits, grateful to receive God’s good gifts from whomever’s hand they come."  

Russell Moore to Justice Conference: Don't Be Silent on Unborn, Sexuality, and Hell, Chelsen Vicari (Juicy Ecumenism - Institute on Religion and Democracy blog)
It's encouraging to hear that Russell Moore was invited to speak to a gathering like this, which usually features social justice pioneers and leaders who are more politically leftist. Christians are too often divided down liberal and conservative lines on doing justice, each side leaving something out. Moore is just the man to tackle this subject with wisdom and clarity, being fair to both sides.

"The annual gathering of young evangelicals is described as 'one of the largest international gatherings on social and biblical justice' and is a project of World Relief. The Justice Conference customarily invites members of the Christian Left to Champion issues related to social justice. For example, last year’s keynote speaker was Dr. Cornel West, liberal political activist and Union Theological Seminary professor. So it’s a bit surprising that this year, wedged on the schedule between Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, was Dr. Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission."

"He tackled issues ranging from racial injustice, human trafficking, and refugees. But it was his mention of the sanctity of unborn life, sexual ethics, and the reality of Hell that had some in the room squirming uncomfortably in their seats.

"Too often, Moore said, Christians are tempted to solely focus on the social issues that their peers or 'tribe' approve. 'When I’m speaking to people in my tribe of conservative confessional evangelicalism,' explained Moore, 'I often have to say you are pro-life, and rightly so, but because you recognize the image of God and the humanity of God in the unborn child and in his or her mother, you must also recognize the humanity and dignity of God in people who might not be politically popular with you right now: with prisoners, with refugees, with immigrants. And that works the other way too.'

"The bulk of Moore’s discussion urged his audience to recognize the dehumanizing of the unborn as equally unjust as the dehumanizing of other vulnerable groups more popular among younger Christians."

Spiritual Coffee: Safeguarding Church and Family Culture - Who Is David French? - Know Jonathan Edwards in 30 Minutes

Some evening fuel for thought, or a head start on your morning coffee time.
Prior roundups of current links for feeding the Christian mind under Spiritual Coffee.

Carl Trueman Adopts Rod Dreher's Benedict Option ("Eating Locusts Will Be (Benedict) Optional"),

Carl R. Trueman (First Things)
Rod Dreher has been known for the past two years for the idea of "the Benedict Option," which essentially argues that the Church at this cultural crossroads needs to focus on preserving Christian culture in our churches and families and communities rather than putting all our attention into trying to change the wider culture of the world. Dreher has observed that while we were trying to change the culture in society, we lost track of preserving the unique culture of the Church. Now we're in danger of losing that altogether in the next generations. I think Dreher is right, and the Church needs to hear this, so it's encouraging to see more theologians and scholars affirm this. The namesake for his idea comes from the Order of St. Benedict, and the fact that much of the learning and history and philosophy of the world was preserved through the Middle Ages by monks living in private Christian communities. Dreher doesn't advocate for monasticism itself, but he has some really good points about how we should learn from that concept and apply it to safeguarding Christian community and beliefs.

If you want to read more from Dreher on the Benedict Option, here and here are some good pieces to give you the overview. If you prefer video, then use this.
And if you really want to dig into all his historical and anecdotal examples, this is long but very thoroughly explained.

It's not the only thing the Church should focus on, but I think Dreher is spot on that we have failed to realize we aren't preserving a separate and unique culture and community in the Church. We've been so busy trying to shape the wider culture that we lost track of safeguarding and passing on a uniquely Christian culture in the Church, and largely failed to pass Christian faith and teaching in a coherent form on to the next generation. Moreover, we aren't on the offensive against culture now. We're on defense. We need to give great attention to preserving what is Christian in our lives and churches so it doesn't get pushed out by social pressure, because that's what is most likely to happen if we keep trying to wage a culture war the same way and don't re-examine what's happened to our churches.

Who Is David French? And Why Is He Running?, Denny Burk
This is worth reading not just because David French's third-party candidacy is intriguing, but much more because what Burk shares about French's past words and character is a tremendous demonstration of Christian character and faith put to the test under the harshest conditions. Bookmark this for raising your kids to be men and women who take courage in the Lord and honor Him with all their hearts.

Edwards on the Christian Life: Alive to the Beauty of God, Dane Ortlund (Equipping You in Grace - servantsofgrace.org)
Want to understand what makes Jonathan Edwards such an important Christian theologian, and how some of his remarkable ideas energize faith and the fruit of the spirit in Christian living? Dane Ortlund has got you covered in this podcast. Ortlund is the vice president of Bible publishing at Crossway, and author of several books including Edwards on the Christian Life.