I’ve been trying to put my finger on why I enjoy so much, spiritually speaking, the prison bible class I lead and the worship over at Freedom Fellowship.

Talking with Jana the other day I think I figured it out. I said to her, “I like to be in places where the gospel matters.”

I don’t want to be harsh or judgmental, but sometimes I get the sense that the gospel just doesn’t matter that much to a lot middle-class and upper-class Christians.

Two example of this.

When the gospel doesn’t matter Christians tend to default to the dominant language of the American culture: consumerism. That is, people think about church in relation to their likes and dislikes. They like this and they don’t like that. They prefer this and they don’t prefer that.

In my circles you hear a lot of this in relation to the worship service and the preaching. Basically expressing likes and dislikes about what happens on Sunday morning.

I’ve grown tired of this sort of thing. Not sick and tired. Not angry tired. Just weary tired. To be sure there are things I like and dislike about our church. There are things, if I were in charge, that I’d change. But I’ve grown weary of using this filter for church and the spiritual life. I’m tired of thinking about the Kingdom through the prism of my preferences.

The other indication that the gospel doesn’t matter is over-intellectualizing. I’m a college professor. It’s my job to over-intellectualize. And I’m pretty damn good at it. I’m one of the best at our church in making biblical topics “interesting.” That talent for finding the “interesting” angle is what gives this blog the variety and freshness it has.

But I’m getting weary of being interesting. (Don’t worry, I’m not talking about this blog. I’m talking about church life.) The opposite of interesting is boring. I’m growing tired of putting that filter over my spiritual life and church life, sorting what bores me from what interests me.

These filters–preferences and boredom–fall away when I’m in the prison or speaking at Freedom. These audiences are simply trying to survive. They have a different agenda in listening for the Word of God. They don’t don’t use the language of liking or not liking. It’s not a filter they use. They also don’t come to hear something interesting, intellectually speaking.

In the prison and at Freedom the gospel isn’t a hobby, or a book club, or a form of entertainment. 

For them, the gospel matters.

(Picture note. A few weeks ago a strong storm blew into town on a Monday night with winds getting up near 70 miles per hour. Herb and I were in the middle of our study at the prison. With the possibility of the facility losing power we had to stop and the men had to get back to their cellblocks. The storm and wind were so bad Herb and I waited in the guardhouse until it blew over. I waited patiently and read the latest edition of The Catholic Worker which one of the chaplains subscribes to. When the storm passed we walked out to our cars under sunlight and a huge rainbow. I snapped a shot of it with my phone. Incidentally, as you can see, it was a huge–horizon to horizon–double rainbow. Yes, I did film it with the phone but, sad to say, I didn’t go all “double rainbow” on it.

I’ve given the picture the title “Double Rainbow over Barbed Wire.”)

I wanted to make you aware of Amy Frykholm’s review of Unclean for The Christian Century. Amy’s review opens with this provocative and autobiographical story:

The man stumbled into the Sunday morning service drunk. He was bleeding heavily from his hand and left bloody handprints on the door and then on the pew. Just as he arrived, we were gathering at the altar for the Eucharist. Before anyone had time to react, he was standing with us at the altar to receive the sacrament…

One of the more difficult passages in the gospels is Jesus’s exchange with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Specifically, many have puzzled over Jesus’s calling the Gentiles “dogs.” The story from Mark:

Mark 7.24-30
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Lord,” she replied, “even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Then he told her, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.”

She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

There is little doubt that Jesus privileges his mission to Israel. Jesus is, after all, the Messiah of Israel, the culmination of the story of Israel for the sake of the world. However, throughout Jesus’s ministry we see him bring the Kingdom into the lives of Gentiles, a sign of Jesus’s vision of the universal vocation of the Messiah.

What grates in the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman isn’t any of this but the racial epithet “dogs.” Did Jesus consider the Gentiles “dogs”?

There have been a variety of responses to this query. Some point to Jesus’s use of the diminutive for dogs–”little dogs” or “puppies.” That softens things a bit. Which leads to perhaps the most common interpretation, that Jesus was being ironic or playful with the woman to test her and the assumptions of the onlooking disciples.

I’m okay with that interpretation, but I was struck the other day reading a different interpretation in Ched Myers’s commentary on Mark Binding the Strong Man.

Myers first points to the social location of the woman. As a Gentile and a woman she’s pretty far down on the power structure, the bottom really. Because of this the woman’s insistence and pushing on Jesus is socially transgressive. She’s not being polite or staying in her place. Even when Jesus tries to put her in her place. 

But here’s the remarkable thing. This Gentile woman–this outcast of society–is the only person in human history who ever bested Jesus in an argument. Jesus, we know, was a darn good debater and wins every exchange recounted in the gospels. Except one. Jesus loses once.

This fact is highlighted when we note that the woman’s request–healing for her daughter–is granted not on the basis of faith but on the basis of her argument. Jesus says, “For such a reply…”

What’s going on with all this? Why does Mark show us Jesus losing an argument to a Gentile women when we’ve seen Jesus best the best theological minds in Israel (from the time he was twelve no less)?

Here’s Myers’s take: “This drama represents another example of status-equalization. Jesus allows himself to be “shamed” (becoming “least”) in order to include this pagan woman in the new community of the kingdom.” Myers sees in this a foreshadowing of the “shaming” of Israel when the Gentiles are brought into the Kingdom: “[S]o too Judaism will have to suffer the indignity of redefining its group boundaries (collective honor) in order to realize that gentiles are now welcomed as equals.”

Although we could go too far with all this, I find this line of thinking very interesting. Jesus allows the Messiah to be shamed by the “least of these.” And not because of their faith, but because of a forthright argument about fairness and equality. The Messiah is convinced and “shamed” by this argument and responds by opening up the Kingdom to all.

No doubt many readers right now are getting Christologically nervous. The idea of Jesus being “shamed” or losing an argument is just too much for their imaginations. For the anxious amongst us, I’m not going to force this interpretation upon you. Take a deep breath. We’re in midrash mode here.

And my midrash is this.

If Jesus is willing to be shamed by an argument–not faith!–for simple fairness coming from the margins, is the church willing to undergo a similar shaming for the sake of expanding the Kingdom?

Jana and I were walking to the Dairy Queen near our house the other evening and we had a talk about works based righteousness and our efforts as self-justification.

Jana started by talking about the propensity we have to name drop. I’m sure you’ve been around this sort of behavior. People sharing, in a seemingly casual but transparently calculated way, how they know so-and-so or how they spent time with so-and-so. And these so-and-sos aren’t bums on the street. Doesn’t work that way. These so-and-sos are luminaries, celebrities, and big shots. Names. Big names. And the bigger the name the better. 

Commenting on this, I noted how this sort of behavior functions as a form of self-justification, a form of works based righteousness. That is, by attaching my name to a bigger name some of the glow of celebrity rubs off on me leading to a heightened sense of self-esteem, the feeling that I somehow matter more compared to others. My existence is somehow justified by establishing this connection with a bigger name. If I know someone the culture deems significant then I must be a bit more significant if I know such people. So we name drop.

There’s a biblical term for this sort of behavior. Idolatry. Idolatry is grasping at significance by attaching your life’s meaning to another created thing–something that, despite its luster, is as subject to death as you are. Saint Paul would describe name dropping as “worshiping the creature instead of the Creator.”

Jana and I went on to talk about an acquaintance of ours who had recently lost a high-status position (though not their job). We were talking about the existential vertigo and vacuum this person was experiencing. Who are we in the eyes of others if they cannot see us through this high-status role/title/position? Such roles, positions and titles give our life meaning and significance. These things seem to justify our existence.

It’s the same thing, Jana and I noted, with the name dropping. Attaching your life’s significance to a created thing–a position, a title. Again, it’s a form of self-justification and works based righteousness. I matter because of the stuff that I do, the stuff that I accomplish, or the people who I know.

I think this is the deep issue the Apostle Paul was speaking to in his letters. We tend to think of works based righteousness in moral terms. That we could be “good enough” to earn our way into heaven. No doubt moral performance can be a part of this. But few of us feel that we are saints enough to make such a claim. Despite what the “faith alone” preachers say, moral forms of works based righteousness aren’t all that common, if they exist at all. I’ve never encountered a soul who felt they were good enough to merit heaven.

But we do name drop. We do attach ourselves to titles and positions. And in each of these cases we are trying to justify our existence, to prove that we matter, to give evidence that we are significant. This is the sickness I think Paul was really after.

Philippians 3.4b-8
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ…

We tend to read Paul’s list through a moral lens. But I think that is missing the point. True, Paul was proud of being moral. But his morality wasn’t really about morality. It was about feeling superior to fellow Jews who weren’t as righteous and zealous as he was. Let alone how he morally compared to debauched Gentiles. Being a Jew and a Pharisee was a status symbol, a way to feel significant, a way to matter, a way to feel good about oneself in relation to others. Paul could name drop with the best of us.

But he came to consider it all garbage. Paul exited the self-justification game. He gave up giving reasons as to why his life mattered. It became okay for Paul for you to think him a loser. Paul no longer had to name drop. Or feel ashamed in the face of a job demotion.

Where did this freedom come from? How did Paul leave the neurotic rat race behind?

Paul gave up trying to justify himself. Paul only claimed Christ.

That is justification enough.

[C. Eric Jones, Ph.D., is the Director of Undergraduate Psychology and Associate Professor of Psychology at the Regent University School of Undergraduate Studies. Eric is our blogger for the month of June, and this is his fourth post.]

The past three blogs have discussed theology informing a Christian positive psychology. However, this week another dimension is added to the discussion. In the winter volume of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity Dr. Ellen Charry presents what she terms positive theology. A main message of the article is not all theology is helpful in creating Christian positive psychology due to an emphasis by some theologians on the more negative aspects of the human condition. The point here is not that a negative emphasis is wrong, but, just as in psychology, a more positive view of a concept brings to light different facets of the human person and experience. More on this in a moment.

One of my oversimplified take home messages from Charry’s writing is that it is quite important to carefully think through to which particular theological writing one attends when attempting to base positive psychology on an explicitly theological foundation. In other words, just as in any scholarly writing one must review numerous perspectives on a topic before settling upon the proper beginning for a discussion. You might be asking yourself, why bring this point to my attention? Surely we all know not to run with the first idea that strikes us, right? Recognizing various disciplines are represented by the readers of this site, let me say my answer applies to all, but is particularly important for those of us in the field of psychology. In short, it is important to bring attention to the idea of careful assessment of theological perspectives because so many of us in psychology have no formal training in theology or related fields. The danger then is to use what limited theological understanding we already have and miss potentially rich creations because we did not dig deeply enough at the beginning. However, even theologians are not exempt from ignoring theology that is promising for establishing a Christian positive psychology. Though theologians may be aware of more perspectives concerning a single construct, they may be biased against certain useful perspectives and therefore the result may be the same. Whether out of ignorance or bias we may individually miss helpful ideas, suggesting collaboration as a hedge against these missteps.

I will not summarize Charry’s article here, but her treatment of the sacraments’ value in extending a Christian positive psychology is a fine example of the thinking in which we all should engage in this pursuit. She models for us how to compare various interpretations and choose ideas complementary to the building out of a Christian positive psychology. Above I mentioned adding another dimension to this week’s discussion and in Charry’s comparison of theological interpretations we see that new dimension. Not only do we see theology informing psychology, as in the previous weeks, but we also see psychology informing theology, although in a very general sense. She sees the need of positive psychology to bring a balance to the more pathology based side of the field as applying to theology also. Specifically, Charry states

“So too, the hope of positive theology is not to replace defect-based theology but to supply theological conversation about human strengths and abilities on which insights into defects (in theology’s case, sin) may be put to constructive use and not be debilitating. It is the suggestion of thinking positively that is of interest here.”

Just as in psychology when the focus of a study or theory is a deficiency of some sort, the weight of that deficiency can seem out of balance with what we know of human ability. In a similar way theology can at times emphasize the pathology associated with a concept to an extreme or at least to the exclusion in the same discussion of the more positive aspects of that concept. We would do well to consider Charry’s framing of the idea.

“Theological psychology must address the perennial challenge of balancing talk of divine distress at human failing to promote realistic self-reflection…with talk of divine compassion that inspires genuine love for and trust in God not only as judge but also as friendly companion.”

In closing allow me to offer three suggestions related to a Christian positive psychology. First, I hope you will think about how to collaborate with those in different fields, with different strengths, or with different perspectives in order to build a robust Christian positive psychology. Second, I hope you will share with us how specific theological perspectives may better inform a Christian positive psychology compared to other perspectives on the same concepts. Last, I hope you will consider attending the Society for Christian Psychology’s conference on Christian Positive Psychology this October at Regent University (see Conference link on this site). In addition to Dr. Ellen Charry, an impressive list of speakers will present engaging and thoughtful topics and it will be a wonderful time to share with others interested in establishing healthy, positive living according to Christian precepts. Having followed positive psychology since its inception I can honestly say I am thrilled to see such a strong lineup of speakers address Christianity informing positive psychology. Please join us for a superb conference offering an excellent academic atmosphere and warm and satisfying fellowship.

Do you want to be a saint?

How you answer that question is probably a pretty good indication about what Christian tradition you hail from.

If you are a Protestant the question makes no sense. Do I want to be a saint? I’m already a saint! All Christians are saints, right?

But if you are a Catholic then the question makes a lot of sense. Not every Catholic is a saint. Sainthood is aspirational in Catholicism, something attained after a lifetime of spiritual excellence.

To be sure, if you want to be a saint in Catholicism we might wonder about why that might be the case. Such aspirations might not be healthy and good. Sainthood probably shouldn’t be a behavioral goal. God should be the goal, sainthood should be a by-product, even an afterthought.

Regardless, there is a difference between Protestantism and Catholicism in this regard. In Protestantism everybody is a saint. In Catholicism sainthood it is something the church might aspire to.

The reason I’m bringing this up is that I wonder if Protestantism doesn’t suffer from its democratization of sainthood. Because if everyone is a saint then no one is a saint, at least as Catholics see it. No one steps forward or is put forward as a moral and spiritual exemplar that we might emulate.

More, Protestants don’t see holiness as an aspirational goal. Few, if any, Protestants strive to be more holy. But Catholics think like this. Not all Catholics of course, but striving after holiness is a part of the Catholic experience. By contrast, as a Protestant I don’t think I’ve ever woke up wondering how I might become more holy. And if I asked people at my church if they were trying to be more holy I figure I’d get a lot of odd looks.

At the end of the Theology and Peace conference the Plenary speakers (btw, what does “plenary” mean anyway?) offered some reflections on the conference.

Chris Haw, co-author of Jesus for President and a recent convert to Catholicism, raised some points about closed versus open communion. (I had a blast talking with Chris about Catholicism. He made some very powerful arguments that I’m still chewing on.)

As I’ve written about before, I’m a proponent of open communion. Chris, coming from his Catholic perspective, is a proponent of closed communion. In the closing session Chris made the comment that if we offered the Eucharist to everyone we’d be implicitly sacralizing and endorsing violence as the body and blood of Jesus would be being given to murderers, rapists, domestic abusers, etc. Chris said, citing William Cavanaugh, that the Eucharist must be used to draw a boundary.

I definitely see Chris’s point. My response, however, is this:

The body and blood of Jesus has already been given to murderers, rapists, and domestic abusers.

It’s no good trying to protect the body and blood of Jesus from being wasted in this way. Jesus has already wasted it. Jesus offered up his body and blood for the whole world while we were yet sinners. That ship has already sailed. Thus, it makes no sense, in my mind, for the church to protect behind a wall something that Jesus has already given away in a crazy, irrational and wasteful act of self-giving.

And nothing changes if you think, like Catholics do, that in the Eucharist the actual (if mystical) blood and body of Christ are present. Because the actual body and blood of Jesus was given away on Golgotha, with no church drawing a boundary and monitoring access. The actual body and blood of Jesus–then and now–will always be wasted.

This is why closed communion makes no sense to me. What are we protecting? What fantasy has gripped the church to make her think that she could prevent the blood and body of Jesus from being wasted on sinners?

Well folks, I’m sorry, it’s too late for those illusions. Jesus pulled the trigger on that a long time ago, foolishly wasting himself on the world.

And the church, try as she might, can’t stop that from happening.

I wrote this post two weeks ago. Waking up this morning and reading it I’m feeling uncomfortable with it. Particularly given the conversation in the comment thread from yesterday about domestic abuse.

To clarify some, I hope no one would think I’m arguing that because Jesus died for sinners like “murderers, rapists, and domestic abusers” that those actions can be passed over lightly. And there is a powerful criticism, the one Chris made, that says if you are welcoming such people to the table you are tacitly endorsing their sin and violence, giving them a free pass. And I definitely see that point.

My argument here is less about welcoming perpetrators to the table than dwelling on this notion of waste, the feeling I often get from some that the church’s duty in the Eucharist is to prevent the body and blood of Jesus from being wasted on the undeserving. But as I argue above, if Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners the body and blood of Jesus has already been wasted in the most extreme way imaginable. True, we might do different things in closed and open communion to address the violence and evil in our midst, but I don’t think an argument about waste can be the leading edge of those discussions as God has already, in Jesus, been wasted upon us.