For the next four weeks Jana and I are very, very excited to be in the UK spending time with a variety of organizations and faith communities. Don't worry, nothing here on the blog will change. The blog will still be posting Monday-Friday at 5:00 CST.

If you're in the UK here are events when I'll be speaking in public venues. Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you while visiting.

If you have questions about any of the details below Hannah Bywaters has been coordinating all our engagements. Feel free to contact Hannah at 07973 959847.

June 2-5 / Jersey
Speaking at various events and venues with Business Connect. Check events, schedule and venues here.

The "Tales From the Inside" event is on June 4 where Bob Ekblad (author of Reading the Bible with the Damned) and I will be speaking together inside HM Prison La Moye about our experiences working in prisons.

Sunday, June 14 / Brighton
Speaking at One Church, Florence Road, 10:30am service.

Informal discussion group organized by Martin Poole of St Luke’s upstairs at the Good Companions Pub, 132 Dyke Road, 8pm.

Sunday, June 21 / St Albans & London
Speaking at Ashley Hall Church, St Albans, 10am service.

Speaking at Borough Common Church in the 'schoolroom' of The Borough Welsh Congregational Chapel, 6pm service.

Sunday, June 28 / Aberdeen
Speaking at St Mary's Episcopal Church, Cove Bay, 9:30am.

Speaking at Mission Church, Old Aberdeen, 11am.

I was talking to one of my students recently about the temptations of youthful spirituality, how when you are young you get addicted to the buzz of the worship high and then go searching for a more intense fix. You become a worship junkie.

From your high school youth group on being close to God is being ON FIRE! Because God is AWESOME!

That's the temptation for youth, being trained to associate God with adrenaline and the Spirit with excitement.

What I told my student was this.

What no one ever shares with you when you're young is that Christianity is boring. No one tells you that. That Christianity, for the most part, is boring.

No one tells you that Christianity is a 70 to 80 year grind in becoming more kind, more gentle, more giving, more joyful, more patient, more loving.

You learn that God isn't in the rocking praise band or the amped up worship experience. What you learn after college is that Holy Ground is standing patiently in a line. You learn that Holy Ground is learning to listen well to your child, wife or co-worker. Holy Ground is being a reliable and unselfish friend or family member and being a good nurse when someone is sick. Holy Ground is awkward and unlikely friendships. Holy Ground is often just showing up.

Being more and more like Jesus is a million boring little things.

No one ever tells you that when you're young.

Just like no one ever tells you just how risky and revolutionary it all is.

That a truly radical life of following Jesus is made up of a million boring little things.

I'm currently working on a book entitled Angelic Troublemakers: A Progressive Theology of Spiritual Warfare for Doubters and the Disenchanted. And in one of the chapters I'd like to tackle some issues regarding how progressive Christians respond to the problem of suffering.

As I discuss in the book, among progressive Christians the problem of suffering may be the biggest obstacle to faith, the biggest source of their doubt. And yet, many progressive Christians respond to suffering, death in particular, in ways that have come to puzzle me.

So I'd like your help and feedback. Before I write this chapter I'd like to float some observations to get your reactions. I'd like to test some impressions out. 

To start, by and large progressive Christians recoil at the notion that God is involved with or "wills" suffering. Because if God "wills" suffering, like the death of a loved one, then God is a monster.

And yet, throughout the Old Testament we find expressions of God bringing both "weal and woe" (Isaiah 45.7). For example, this week in my bible class at church I'm doing a lesson on 1 Samuel 1-2, the story of Hannah and the birth of Samuel.

Recall that Hannah is barren. And in 1 Samuel 1.5 it says that the Lord had closed Hannah's womb, which is a source of great suffering and sadness for her. This--the Lord closing her womb--is problematic enough. But Hannah's prayer goes on to pile on the problems.

As we know, Hannah prays to God to open her womb and God answers her prayer. In praise to God Hannah sings a famous song in 1 Samuel 2. And here's a part of her song:

1 Samuel 2.6-8
The Lord brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.

The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.

The Lord brings death and makes alive. The Lord sends poverty and wealth.

No doubt the preferential option for the poor is the key aspect of this text--"He raises the poor from the dust"--but there's some theology here that makes many progressive Christians squirm. It is the same theology we see in Job:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Again, many progressive Christians recoil at the thought that God would take away our children (recall that all Job's children were killed). And yet, Job reconciles himself to that fact. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Consider also the sentiment of Ecclesiastes:

"There is a time to be born and a time to die."

There is a note of resignation sounded in this line, to say nothing of the stoical tone of the entire book of Ecclesiastes. When it's your time to go it's your time to go. It's God's will.

Consider another text:

James 4.13-15
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 

Again, many progressive Christians recoil at a text like this. "Whatdaya mean, 'if the Lord wills'? God picks and chooses who is going to die on the highway this holiday weekend?"

What I want us to focus on is how the theological sentiments expressed in texts like these--"if the Lord's wills," "there is a time to die," "the Lord brings death and makes alive," and "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away"--were experienced by the ancient Hebrews as something that bolstered and strengthened their faith and how we, by contrast, get knocked for a loop.

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away" was consoling to the ancient Hebrews. It shocks and ruins us.

Ponder that contrast.

The Hebrews suffered horribly. As in horribly. More than most progressive Christians like myself can even imagine. And yet a people who suffered horribly wrote these texts and found these texts consoling.

By contrast, many privileged progressive Christians can hardly hold onto faith simply because these texts exist.

How screwed up is that?

What's going on here? What can explain this massive theological disjoint between the ancient Hebrews and modern progressive Christians?

My hunch, and this is a key part of the idea I want to float, is that what we are seeing in these Old Testament texts is an expression of what might be called Hebraic stoicism or Hebraic acceptance or Hebraic resignation or Hebraic impassivity. And by such labels I mean the effort to emotionally and existentially reconcile oneself to one's situation in life, especially in the face of suffering, loss and death. In this Hebrew worldview the notion of "the Lord's will" was akin to the Greek notion of fate. Not quite the same thing, but close enough to make the point that the good things and the bad things that happened to you were your fate, your lot, the Lord's will. A fate, lot or will that you had to accept and become reconciled to.

And here's the thing. This stoical understanding of "the Lord's will" has been the default assumption for most of world history. People reconciled themselves to their fates. And the Hebrews had their own version of this. When the ancients said that something was "the Lord's will," even a death of a loved one, they were speaking about this acceptance and resignation to fate.

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Interlude: Let me pause to make a very important observation. By "reconciled to their fate" I don't mean reconciled to injustice and oppression. Notice in the lament Psalms that the problem isn't death or loss. The problem, over and over, is the enemy, the oppressor. Biblically understood, lament is more about injustice than grief. And note how even in Hannah's story the problem wasn't her closed womb but her oppressor Peninnah: Hannah's "rival [Peninnah] kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the Lord, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat." (1 Sam. 1.6b-7)  

We've almost lost this stoical sense of "the Lord's will," but not quite. How many of us can tell stories here about our grandparents? Many of our grandparents expressed stoical acceptance in the face of loss--from the death of a child to a crop lost to drought--with the simple "the Lord gives and the Lord takes away."

This understanding of "the Lord's will"--as emotionally and existentially reconciling yourself with your situation in life--has been largely lost among progressive Christians. You can't say "If it's the Lord's will" to progressive Christians without them bristling--"What do you mean, if it's the Lord's will!? The Lord wants this one to die and this one to live?"--or descending into a funk of doubt.

And here's the really, really weird thing.

It's not that progressive Christians are afraid of or opposed to stoicism. In fact, given their doubts about things like heaven progressive Christians have to adopt some form of stoicism! Relatedly, many progressive Christians gravitate toward Buddhism or agnosticism, and each of those have built into them their own stoical stance toward death, suffering and loss. Progressive Christians tend toward the stoical. They just bristle, ironically, at biblical and Hebraic expressions of stoicism. Biblical expressions of stoicism--"the Lord gives and the Lord takes away"--fill progressive Christians with anger and doubt. But eastern, philosophical and humanistic expressions of stoicism? Those are cool.

Overall, then, it seems that something has changed, theologically speaking, that has caused progressive Christianity to drift away from the biblical imagination despite their philosophical sympathies for the very view the bible is articulating.

What went wrong?

Well, if you've read any of my three books--what I loosely call my Death Trilogy--you can anticipate what I'm about to say.

Specifically, a part of what has happened is that over the last 500 years in the West our existential relationship to death has changed, particularly among the affluent and privileged.

Advances in technology, medicine and agriculture have increasingly insulated us from death. We also work to push reminders of death out of view. Death is now "pornographic," an illicit and unseemly topic. We've created an illusory and delusional state of affairs where we pretend to live in a deathless world.

Consequently, when death occurs we feel that it is abnormal and alien. Death is experienced as exceptional, a violation of the norm. Death is intrusive, inserting itself from the outside into our lives.

But before the modern era death was an expected and anticipated part of existence. When someone died it wasn't all that surprising, even children dying. Death was normal.

"And if I die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Even children were trained to expect death to come suddenly and soon.  
 
Simplifying, then, our existential relationship to death has shifted from stoicism to shock.

And I think it's this existential shift from stoicism to shock that explains why progressive Christians bristle at references to "the Lord's will."

Follow me here. We are at the crux of the argument.

Where death was an expected part of existence--even an accidental death or the death of child--a stoical assumption regulated what was meant by "the Lord's will." "The Lord's will"--if we use that phrase as shorthand for Job's "the Lord gives and the Lord takes way"--meant emotionally and existentially reconciling ourselves to our life situation as it stood, as being our lot, our fate, as "the Lord's will." And this was because death wasn't shocking or perplexing or intrusive. Death was coming to all of us--perhaps even tonight--so why be surprised when it did?

By contrast, when our existential relationship with death shifted to shock death began to appear accidental, intrusive and abnormal. Death shouldn't happen.

So when death occurs it feels like a violation, like an attack. Consequently, in the modern era when death is attributed to "the Lord's will" our only framework is to feel that this is just about the worst and most horrible thing you can say about God. The stoical framework has been lost. "The Lord's will" can only mean for us that God is attacking us, that death is being inserted into our world from the outside.

And here at last we are at the root of why I think so many progressive Christians hear references to "the Lord's will" as being tantamount to the claim that God is arbitrarily and capriciously "picking and choosing" who to let live and who to let die. We are at the root of why we are so existentially shocked by Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2: "The Lord brings death and makes alive."

Notice how the "picking and choosing" complaint places death as something outside the world, as something being inserted into life by "the will of God." Notice in this complaint--"So God is picking who will live and who will die?" (As if it's not obvious that everyone is going to die.)--how the world is assumed to be deathless.    

By contrast, in the ancient worldview where death was inside the system--an expected, normal and regular part of life--a reference to "the Lord's will" in relation to death wasn't introducing something from the outside. A reference to "the Lord's will" simply named life as it was, a mixed bag that included death. "The Lord's will" simply meant that there is a time to live and a time to die. And everyone was going to die. Read Ecclesiastes. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. That's life. You shouldn't expect anything different.

And yet, we do.

Why?

Because of the pornography of death we live with the delusional assumption that death is irregular, accidental and abnormal. Death is an intrusion and an interruption of "normal life." Consequently, to attribute this intrusion to God--as "the Lord's will"--is a theological outrage and scandal.

But it's scandal that has been created by our delusional relationship with death, the assumption that death is not a normal and regular part of life.

Our scandal at the bible and with references to "the Lord's will" isn't a problem with the bible or the "Lord's will" biblically understood.

The problem is with our delusional relationship with death in the modern era.

The Hebrew people suffered horribly. And they were consoled by Job's confession that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away. They were consoled because they were not shocked or surprised by death.

There was a time to live and a time to die. This was an accepted truth.

But us?

We are theologically unsettled by Job because death isn't a part of our lives. Death is out there somewhere, waiting to attack us. And attributing that attack to God is blasphemous.

And so we reject Job's prayer.

And become filled with doubts by a people who knew more about death, loss and suffering than most any of us.

Yesterday was Memorial Day in America, the day we remember those who have died in our wars. And as you expect on days like Memorial Day there's lots on social media expressing gratitude for those who gave their lives in service to America, making the "ultimate sacrifice" as we say. Many of these expressions of gratitude are very personal, people sharing pictures of parents or grandparents. On days like Memorial Day I think of my Grandpa Kline who fought in WW II and was awarded a Purple Heart. Grandpa Kline was shot and injured fighting in France.

One of the things I wondered about yesterday was if the church had a Memorial Day, a day to remember those who have been martyred for the faith. I know the Catholic Church celebrates individual martyrs throughout the year, but I was wondering if there was a single-day celebration commemorating all the Christian martyrs throughout history. I looked around online but couldn't find anything.

I was especially looking around for something that was interdenominational because, as I've written about before, Protestants are particularly lacking in this regard. Catholic readers might jump in here to note that, of course, Protestants are lacking in this regard because we have schismed and thus cut ourselves off from the martyrological legacy of the church. Anabaptists, practically alone among Protestants in this regard, could counterpoint as they have a rich and distinctive martyrological legacy of their own.

And I don't think it's a mistake that the greatest peace witness within the Protestant tradition--the Anabaptists--is the only tradition within Protestantism that has a martyrological legacy. Those two things, let me keep pointing out, go hand in hand.

I bring all this up because I think it's important for the church to have her own Memorial Day or Martyr's Day. To borrow from Paul Tillich, religion is about ultimate things. And by and large we can recognize these ultimate things by following the blood. Blood consecrates and hallows. Blood makes things sacred. Blood tells you what is most and ultimately important.

So as flags were raised across America yesterday we created a sacred, hallowed time. A collective experience of worship. A national church service.

Memorial Day was a national liturgy that shaped and directed our love toward that which is most sacred and holy in our lives. Our god will always be standing in a pool of blood. Because the pool of blood tells you what you're willing to die for, to bleed for, where your ultimate allegiance is located.

Follow the blood, it tells you what you worship.

And for most Christians in the US the American nation is the most holy and sacred thing in our lives.

And so you can see, perhaps, why I think the church might need her own Memorial Day.

Another Memorial Day to remind us that there are other things that are sacred and holy. Perhaps things even more sacred and holy.

That there is another pool of blood in which I am willing to stand.

A few months ago a shared some thoughts about prayer and identity at Wineskins magazine:

For most of my life prayer had been a stumbling block. Prayer always raised more questions than it provided answers. Whenever I prayed I was filled with doubt.

To be sure this was mainly due to how I approached prayer. I approached prayer pragmatically. The critical question was: Did prayer work? Did prayer do anything? Accomplish anything?

And if it didn’t, what was the point?

Here and there, when I voiced these questions and concerns, people would quote me the lines from C.S. Lewis:

“I don't pray to change God…It doesn't change God. It changes me.”

That’s a fine sentiment, but the question no one took the time to answer for me was this: How, exactly, was prayer supposed to change me? I’d prayed a great deal and, as best I could tell, it didn’t seem to have a profound or lasting effect upon me. Prayer mainly left me feeling bored, sleepy or self-conscious.

So if God wasn’t being changed and I wasn’t being changed, well, what was the point?

And so things stood for many years. I prayed, but not all that often. And when I did pray the doubts and questions filled my mind.

But a few years ago things began to change. While I remain confused about how prayer may or may not change God I think I’ve begun to glimpse a bit of how prayer is supposed to change me. And that, to quote Robert Frost, has made all the difference.

To be sure, prayer is still hard. When I do pray I require support. I use tools like prayer beads and structured prayers. I generally lean heavily upon the Psalms.

(BTW, if you’re looking for some help here let me recommend to you the Paraclete Psalter. The Paraclete Psalter has you pray through all 150 psalms in a four-week cycle with psalms each day selected for Lauds, Midday, Vespers and Compline prayer. This psalter is a great resource for those wanting to pray the Psalms.)

I’ve come to think, because of an argument I make in my book The Slavery of Death, that prayer isn’t so much a tool than it is an identity, a mode of being and relating to the world. Specifically, prayer is the practice of what David Kelsey has called doxological gratitude. Which is to say that prayer is both renunciation and receptivity.

In prayer I renounce the idolatrous ways I grasp at significance, the ways I try to justify my existence and worth in the eyes of the world. And in prayer I learn to receive life as a gift. In these ways—in renouncing and receiving—the anxious knot at the core of my selfhood is slowly untangled. I find myself turning outward with joy and love.

In short, prayer cultivates a Eucharistic identity, a life that flows out of gratitude, joy, peace and thanksgiving.

A couple of observations about some Pentecost icons.

First, the empty seat at the top is the Empty or Teaching Seat. This Seat represents the place where Christ sits, not physically present but present now through the Holy Spirit and continuing to instruct the church.

Second, Paul is included among the apostles sitting at the top right across from Peter on the top left. Frequently icons conflate or stack time, stacking past, present and future events on top of each other.

Third, who is that old king at the bottom of the icon?

That is Kosmos (or Cosmos) representing the entire world, not creation but the peoples of the world. Kosmos holds in his hands scrolls of apostolic teachings symbolizing that with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the commissioning of the church the teachings of Jesus are spreading throughout the whole world. And having received this teaching Kosmos--the peoples of the world--are now emerging out of darkness.

I hope you have a blessed Pentecost.

Happy Birthday Church!

Jana and I were once members of a new church plant when I was in graduate school. This was a church associated with our tradition but was more progressive, for that time and place at least. What happened was that a lot of people who had been hurt by our churches were attracted to this new church given it's progressive nature. That's a good thing, people were looking for healing. But it also brought with it a lot of anger, hurt and dysfunction. That church no longer exists.

One of the lessons Jana and I learned during that time is that it's hard to build a church upon a foundation of anger, resentment and hurt. It's hard to build a church around an identity that basically says, "We're not like those other churches."

It's often been noted that progressive theology is inherently reactionary, the moon to the evangelical sun.

But if that's the intellectual side of the equation, the hurt and anger is the emotional side.

--an unpublished post about the emotional woundedness that runs through progressive Christianity

Many thanks to Judy for sharing this TEDx video with me. The video shares an original song composed and sung by women serving life sentences, without the possibility of parole, in Muncy State Prison in Pennsylvania.


More information about "The Lady Lifers" can be found here.

We really need to have a conversation in this country about if life without parole is cruel and unusual treatment. I think it is.

Humans were created by God to be eschatological beings.

Hope is as essential to us as water, bread and air.

I recently presented with my good friend Mark Love at the Pepperdine Bible Lectures. We did an evening session entitled "A Whirlwind in a Thorn Tree: The Music and Theology of Johnny Cash."

It was a fun session. Thanks to everyone who attended. I am kicking myself, however. During the session I forgot to share one of my favorite Johnny Cash quotes from my son Aidan.

I listen to a lot of Johnny Cash in the car. A lot. So the boys have soaked up quite a bit of Cash's discography.

One day driving in the the car to school with me Aidan says, "Johnny Cash sings songs about murder, prisons, trains...and Jesus."

I think that's one of the best descriptions of Cash's music I've ever heard. Way to go, son.

For my part of the session out at Pepperdine I talked about the theme of solidarity, standing with the outcasts, the marginalized and the down-and-out. I was surprised how few in the audience knew that Johnny Cash dressed in black as a sign of solidarity, as a symbol of grief. Most in the audience thought the black attire was an outlaw thing. No doubt it was, but as the lyrics to the song Man in Black describe:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me.

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought 'a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen' that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen' that we all were on their side.

Well, there's things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin' everywhere you go,
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You'll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything's OK,
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
'Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black

The black dress was a sign of solidarity, funeral attire as a symbol of weeping with those who weep.

After making these observations about the theme of solidarity in the music of Johnny Cash I wanted to complicate the picture a bit. It's easy for fans to fall into fawning hagiography when it comes to Johnny Cash. No doubt, there is much to admire. But the picture of solidarity is complicated.

One example of this complication comes from the story of Glen Sherley.

A day or so before the famous Live at Folsom Prison concert Cash was given the song "Greystone Chapel" written by an inmate at Folsom, Glen Sherley. Singing a song written by an inmate captured Cash's imagination given his penchant for showing solidarity. Cash decided to end the concert by singing "Greystone Chapel," and before the song Cash shared that it was written by Glen Sherley, an inmate there at Folsom. There's a famous photo of that moment--Cash shaking Sherley's hand from the stage. It's the photo you see above.

After having made a connection with Cash, and being made famous by the album, Sherley was eventually granted parole. And Cash was there to meet Glen at the gates of the prison when he was released. And Sherley, given his musical talent, began to preform with Cash on tour.

It's a wonderful, feel-good story. By showing solidarity in singing "Greystone Chapel" Johnny Cash saves Glen Sherley.

Almost.

Over time on tour Sherley began showing sociopathic tendencies, making violent threats to members of the crew and band. Worried about Sherley's potential for violence Cash cut Sherley loose, removing him from touring and other projects.

From there Sherley drifted.

And on May 11, 1978, seven years after being released from Folsom prison, Glen Sherley shot himself in the head.

What went wrong? Was Sherley a sociopath who used Cash to get a release from prison? Did Cash fail Sherley by not sticking with him longer?

It's hard to answer those questions. Opinions differ. But I shared this story at Pepperdine because I wanted to make a point about solidarity.

Let's not romanticize solidarity. Solidarity is absolutely necessary, a non-negotiable for a follower of Jesus. But solidarity doesn't always end well. Solidarity often ends in heartbreak and tragedy.

We can all pile up story after story, how after hard years of walking alongside someone, pouring our lives into someone, emptying our bank accounts for someone, how it all fell apart in the end.

Solidarity doesn't guarantee a Happily Ever After. If you live a life standing in solidarity with people you're going to, eventually, have some Glen Sherley stories.

Being a Man or a Woman in Black, standing in solidarity with others, it's harder and more heartbreaking than you think.

Last night was an emotional night out at the prison. I'm about to start some traveling and will be gone from home for about two months. So last night was the last night I was going to be with the men at prison for many weeks.

I was surprised by how emotional I got saying good-bye. It is only for two months, but two months is a long time and I felt it. I am going to miss these men. I joke with them all the time that I write and talk so much about them because it's my goal in life to make them the most famous prison bible study in the world. These men have meant so much to me. In many ways they have saved me.

Funny how that works, your faith saved by inmates at a maximum security prison. God moves in mysterious ways. I encounter God more behind bars than I do sitting in a pew.

Over the next two months while I am away from the prison it would mean a lot to me if you remembered the men at the French Robertson Unit in your prayers. I regularly pray that God protects their bodies as well as their souls. They live in such a dark and violent place.

And if words are hard to come by as always The Book of Common Prayer is there to help. The prayer for prisoners and correctional facilities from the BCP:

Lord Jesus, for our sake you were condemned as a criminal: Visit our jails and prisons with your pity and judgment. Remember all prisoners, and bring the guilty to repentance and amendment of life according to your will, and give them hope for their future. When any are held unjustly, bring them release; forgive us, and teach us to improve our justice. Remember those who work in these institutions; keep them humane and compassionate; and save them from becoming brutal or callous. And since what we do for those in prison, O Lord, we do for you, constrain us to improve their lot. All this we ask for your mercy's sake. Amen.

Luke has posted Part Two of our conversation with Rob Bell over at his site Newsworthy with Norsworthy. If you missed it, Part One of the conversation is here.

In Part Two the topics shift to the theological notion of zimzum, which Rob and his wife Kristen used in their most recent book, Eucharistic theology and practice, and toward the end reflections on creativity and failure.

Again, it was a blast being with both Rob and Luke. Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Over the last year I've heard patience mentioned over and over, in all sorts of contexts.

I've heard patience described as the quintessential experience of faith. Faith is learning to wait on God in the midst of doubt.

I've heard patience described as the quintessential act of love and kindness, managing our irritations and our hurry to be attentive and gentle with each other.

I've heard patience described as the quintessential aspect of peace and non-violence as we refrain from using power to make things "work out right" right here and right now. Peace requires a patient, eschatological hope.

Patience, it seems, sits at the root of many, many things.

Things like faith, hope, and love.

--an unpublished post about the virtue of patience

When I was young I would weep through communion.

Prior to taking the Lord's Supper, which we did every Sunday, it was the tradition at my church to sing a reflective song, often one in a minor key, that made us dwell upon the sacrifice and suffering of Jesus.

Sometimes the song focused upon Jesus praying and weeping in the Garden of Gethsemane. Songs like "Tis Midnight And On Olive's Brow":

'Tis midnight, and on Olive's brow
The star is dimmed that lately shone;
'Tis midnight in the garden now,
The suff'ring Savior prays alone.

'Tis midnight, and for other's guilt
The Man of Sorrows weeps in blood;
Yet He that hath in anguish knelt
Is not forsaken by His God.

'Tis midnight, and from ether-plains
Is borne the song that angels know
Unheard by mortals are the strains
That sweetly soothe the Savior's woe.

Other songs focused upon the passion and crucifixion of Jesus. Songs like "O Sacred Head":

O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown:
how pale thou art with anguish,
with sore abuse and scorn!
How does that visage languish
which once was bright as morn!

What language shall I borrow
to thank thee, dearest friend,
for this thy dying sorrow,
thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever;
and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love for thee.

I would weep through these songs, the tears often carrying through the communion service. My heart would break each week during the Lord's Supper.

Theologically at this time my mind was governed by what we call penal substitutionary atonement. A part of what brought me to tears was the knowledge that Jesus had suffered for my sins. And each week I felt a deep sorrow for that.

But here's the strange thing. The peculiar alchemy that mixed this theology with my personality within that faith community didn't produce in me a toxic, guilt-ridden faith.

To this day I'm puzzled by this as I am very aware that this was not everyone's experience growing up in my faith tradition, or within conservative Christianity generally. For many others something in the mixture of personality, doctrine and faith community created a toxic and poisonous religious experience characterized by fear, shame and guilt. Along with a vision of a brooding and wrathful God.

But not so with me. For some reason, while I knew that Jesus was suffering for my sins, my sins were not my focal point. All I felt in those songs was how much Jesus loved me. Even though I was a mess and a sinner. Jesus was willing to do that for me. And if that were true, then how much did he love me? It was, by my calculation, a love beyond measure.

I didn't feel traumatized or abused or scared. I felt loved.

And that feeling has never really left me. No matter my failures. No matter my sins. No matter my brokenness. Jesus loves me.

And that has been the template and model for my own love, what my love aspires to. No matter your failures. No matter your sins. No matter your brokenness. Love. Unconditionally.

People often ask me, how did I get from A to Z? How did I grow up in a sectarian and fundamentalist faith tradition to get to where I am today, theologically speaking, all the while looking back upon the past with great love, affection and gratitude?

How'd that happen given the very different experiences of others?

Truthfully, I have no idea. I can't explain how it happened, but I can describe what happened. I heard the same message but drew a different conclusion. I wept over my sins, like everyone else, knew Jesus died for my sins, like everyone else, but I felt love rather than wrath. 

And if I'm honest, I miss that feeling.

Progressive Christians don't typically weep over their sins when they contemplate the cross or take the Lord's Supper.

But I used to.

And I still do from time to time. Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's sentimentality. Maybe it's bad theology.

But I still weep for my sins.

And I still feel loved.

Many months I was teaching a bible class at church as a part of a series on the book of James. I was working through Chapter 4 which contains a string of rapid-fire imperatives:

James 4.7-10
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

Submit. Resist. Come near. Wash. Purify. Grieve. Humble yourselves.

When we read texts like this our tendency is to interpret them pietistically and individualistically. Our struggle to resist the devil, for example, is a struggle to purify our hearts in a private, spiritual battle against lust or anger or addiction.

This interpretation is reinforced by the text that comes directly before the command to "resist the devil":

James 4.4-6
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that he jealously longs for the spirit he has caused to dwell in us? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.”

Again, the temptation here is to interpret "friendship with the world" pietistically. The world is a place where people are sinful and we aren't to be friends with sinful people.

All in all, then, James 4.4-10 has tended to be a text read about Christian withdrawal from the world in an effort to maintain our moral purity.

But the context of James 4.4-10 is not about a private pietistic struggle. The context is about communal peace-making within the church.

The backdrop of the imperatives in James 4.4-10 starts back up in James 3.18. Here's the full context leading up to "do not be a friend of the world" and "resist the devil":

James 3.18-James 4.3
Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 

"Friendship with God" is being a peacemaker. And "friendship with the world" is associated with violence. "What causes fights and quarrels among you?" "You desire but do not have, so you kill."

In this text "the world" isn't a place full of moral depravity. "The world" is a place where people fight and kill. And Christians aren't to be friends with fighting and killing. "The devil" is using our desires to tempt us into fighting and killing. And Christians are to resist that.

In a world of violence, quarreling, fighting and killing James is very clear:

Friendship with violence is becoming an enemy of God.

It was quite a week at the Pepperdine lectures. After Jana and I spent some time with Rob Bell as a part of Luke Norsworthy's podcast we also spent time with Nadia Bolz-Weber. We especially loved getting to know Nadia's family who are just amazing, amazing people.

As a part of her presentation Nadia shared some excerpts from her upcoming (Sep. 8th) book Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People. No spoilers, but the most poignant stories Nadia shared had to do with the small but eternally weighty work of simply getting along with people. Later, when Jana and I were visiting with Nadia, I shared with her how these stories have been the most impactful for me. We also talked about how this is what we both appreciated in Sara Miles's work.

Specifically, a lot of people have romanticized notions of "community." We talk about "community" all the time. How we need "community" how we should be "community."

But community is, for the most part, hard, irritating and boring. As I said in one of my presentations, community often means standing around drinking bad coffee with people when you'd rather be someplace else.

And community often means, and I'm thinking of Sara's work with the food pantry at St. Gregory's and my life with Freedom Fellowship, sharing life with people who are damaged in various ways. There are so many people in the world who are hard to like, let alone love--through their own fault or no fault of their own--and community means loving these people.

But most importantly, what I love about Nadia's work, in its confessional posture, is how that damaged and unlovable person isn't really you at all. It's me. In all my vanity, pride, envy and insecurity.

Let's not romanticize the drudgery and irritation of community. Or the sin community will expose in your own dark heart. The Kingdom of God is all the wrong people working hard to love each other. And that's a difficult thing.

But it happens. Over and over it happens.

Even when you're drinking bad coffee.

Before the start of the Pepperdine Lectures it was my honor (along with Jana) to drive out with Luke Norsworthy to Laguna Beach to record a podcast with Rob Bell.

Rob, and his friends who hosted us, was awesome. So warm, welcoming and hospitable.

We spent about three hours talking with Rob and enjoyed every minute of it. Part One of that conversation is now live at Luke's website Newsworthy with Norsworthy (and you can subscribe to and follow Luke's podcast on iTunes).

In Part One we talk a bit about Love Wins and the issues related to human freedom, something I was looking forward to talking to Rob about.

I'll let you know when Part Two of the conversation goes live.

The Good Samaritan (1885) by the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler:

--an unpublished post sharing a painting I found particularly moving

I'm fortunate that my preacher, Jonathan Storment, is also a dear friend. Jonathan and Josh Ross, who is also a friend, have a new book out entitled Bringing Heaven to Earth: You Don't Have to Wait For Eternity to Live the Good News.

Bringing Heaven to Earth is a great book and I was honored to endorse it. I asked Jonathan and Josh if I could share an excerpt from the book. Regular readers know I'm passionate about the local church, so I was excited that Jonathan and Josh chose to share this story from my own church here in Abilene.

///

Excerpt from Bringing Heaven to Earth:

My favorite hymn is “O Holy Night.” It’s easily one of the most profound, powerful songs ever sung. “Fall on your knees.” This was not written as a request, but as a mandate. In the light of the gospel and the power of God’s love and grace, we have no choice but to kneel in worship.

Heaven has entered earth in the form of a Baby, and now “the soul feels its worth.” What a great line! The chains are released because the slave is our brother, because the soul feels its worth. I think I understand why we keep this hymn in the “Christmas song” category. It conveys such power and insists on such a humble response, we can only handle it a couple of times a year. And from a historical standpoint it’s incredibly accurate.

When most of us think of human rights—when we think of equality and opportunity, justice and mercy—the biblical foundation for these things is entirely influenced by the Jesus story. Heaven has intersected earth and changed everything. The soul has felt its worth.

Jesus is God’s Way of letting the soul feel its worth. At its heart, the gospel is about a God who chooses to be among us.

God chooses to be among the people who ordinarily are overlooked. He paid special attention to shepherds and teenagers and fishermen and single moms and small children. Jesus showed special care to lepers, blind persons, those with physical disabilities, crooks, liars, hookers, and worse. That’s who God decided to be with.

Rene Girard was a French philosopher who taught at Stanford University. He was a brilliant anthropologist who was fascinated with one question: “Why, in modern times, does the marginalized person have moral authority?” This reality confused Girard because, outside of the movement of Jesus, there was nothing comparable to it in ancient culture or literature. The ancient world celebrated the strong and heroic, not the vulnerable and weak. Girard found this fascinating in light of greater attention being paid in the modern world to liberation movements and efforts to protect the rights of minorities and to combat human trafficking. What was motivating all these efforts to come to the aid of marginalized and powerless people?

Girard traced this social phenomenon back to the life of Jesus. He discovered that with His birth and death, Jesus introduced a new plot to human history. The victim mattered. The people who were oppressed mattered. And to the confusion of his peers at Stanford University, Girard, a man respected for being a great thinker and widely known as a secular humanist, started following Jesus.

Our world thinks the most important thing you can do is take the right position on the right issues. Jesus reminds us that the most important thing is to be standing in the right place. Girard’s great insight was that Jesus changed the world by standing in solidarity with all the “wrong” people.

Jesus created a new ethic, which His followers adopted and lived out. God in human flesh celebrated life among the least of these, until the outcasts and overlooked people on the margins of society started to realize that they mattered too. Gradually it took hold, so that a growing number of cultures adopted an ethic that insisted that everyone mattered. It sounds like such common sense to today’s Western mind. After all, we assume that these truths are “self evident.” But in Jesus’s day, this was a breath-taking, groundbreaking insight that no one had ever considered before.

Who would have thought that asking a Samaritan divorcee for water, or having a party with a corrupt tax collector, or touching lepers would have such far-reaching implications? Who would have thought that a Judean peasant who never wrote a word that was preserved, and who never traveled farther than forty miles from the village where He was born, would so radically alter the world? But centuries later, Jesus’s life slowly deconstructed an economy in the West, in a world that was unknown to the ancient near east. His life, example, and justice ethic overturned a system built on slave labor and slave trading. And he did it with parties. By choosing to socialize with those who were despised by the “acceptable” people, Jesus opened people’s eyes to the entrenched lie that some lives matter more than others.

God in human flesh partied with all the wrong people.

A few months ago, the church I serve had a party for Martha. Martha had been in prison for more than a decade, and after she was released she had to spend years on parole. On the day her parole finally ended, we threw a party to celebrate Martha’s freedom. She was re-entering society fully, and the church thought that was worth a celebrating with cake and punch.

For an evening, people celebrated something really significant. There were tears and hugs and high-fives and junk food. But Martha’s party really started a few years earlier.

When she first entered prison, she was incredibly lonely. The other inmates received letters from friends and family, but Martha didn’t have a support group. She was more than incarcerated, she was alone.

One day a prison chaplain suggested that she read the New Testament, mentioning that Paul’s letters could be considered God’s letters sent to Martha.

Then the chaplain gave Martha a Bible.

At first she ignored the chaplain’s advice. Two-thousand-year-old letters couldn’t replace notes from a friend. But eventually Martha picked up the Bible just to skim through it. When she did, one word caught her attention and eventually got her to read the whole Bible.

The word that stood out is found in the first verse of the first chapter of Paul’s letter to Christians in Ephesus:

“I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus.”

And the soul feels its worth.

///

Jonathan Storment is the preaching minister at the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, TX and is the author of How to Start a Riot.

Josh Ross is the preaching minister at the Sycamore View Church of Christ in Memphis, TN and is the author of Scarred Faith.

This will be the last of three posts regarding the hermeneutics of Jesus's temple action (Part 1 here and Part 2 here).

As I mentioned yesterday, my interest in the hermeneutics of the temple action--how the story is interpreted--is that this story can be used to unmask the background assumptions regulating how we read the biblical texts, the unspoken worldview that tells us which readings of the text are legitimate versus illegitimate.

Here is the analysis I have been giving.

In debates about justified violence and just war Jesus's temple action is often used as a warrant for using violence against people, even to the point of killing people.

A different reading of the temple action could argue that Jesus's violence in the temple action was violence directed at property, rather than at people, as a protest against economic and political exploitation.

As I mentioned in the last post, I don't think Jesus's actions can be used to justify violence of either sort--toward people or property. Just war apologists and militant activists who make appeals to Jesus's actions in the temple are free to disagree with me about that. My point has been, rather, that a wildly implausible reading--using the temple action to justify violence against people--has frequently been deemed moral and legitimate while an equally if not more plausible reading--violence toward property to protest exploitation--is generally deemed immoral and illegitimate.

Why the different attitudes about those two readings?

The suggestion I made yesterday was that when the reading is used to support the violence of Empire that reading is deemed moral, theologically reasonable and legitimate. But when a reading supports violence protesting or interrupting Empire, and milder forms of violence at that, that reading is generally deemed immoral, theologically unreasonable and illegitimate.

What I'm trying to draw attention to is how Empire regulates our reading of Scripture, how Empire unconsciously sets up the boundaries of what is moral versus immoral, reasonable versus unreasonable, legitimate versus illegitimate.

So let me, to end this series of posts, make this point clear.

Imagine I go to a Christian blog or forum and there I see Christians debating whether or not killing is ever justified. We've all seen or participated in these debates, say, between pacifists and just war apologists. And while many of us have strong opinions about this topic most simply feel torn. We see the good points being made by both sides. So the debates roll on.

Here's the point I want to make: Christians find these debates about killing people perfectly normal.

Can a Christian kill people? Ho hum.

Ponder that. This is how deeply Empire has scarred our theological imaginations. It's completely normal for Christians to debate killing people online, coolly listing out criteria about when killing is or is not acceptable.

Now imagine you stumble upon a different sort of debate today on the Internet.

Imagine you come across some Christian activists debating online about when it is or is not acceptable to use violence against property as a part of a protest against economic and political oppression. Using biblical texts like Jesus's temple action these activists are setting out criteria for when it is justifiable to destroy property as a part of a protest. These activists discuss things like "last resort" criteria just like the "last resort" criteria used for just war: Force may be used only after all peaceful and viable alternatives have been seriously tried and exhausted or are clearly not practical. It may be clear that the other side is using negotiations as a delaying tactic and will not make meaningful concessions.

If we came across a debate like that online we'd freak out. We'd log in to say, "Hey, destroying property is never, never okay!"

Ponder, here, our reactions to those two debates, Christians debating justifiable violence toward people versus justifiable violence toward property.

My point, again, isn't that either sort of violence is justified but that when Christians debate killing people no one finds this conversation weird or problematic as a conversation.

Listing out criteria for killing people? That's totally normal behavior for Christians. 

But listing out criteria for the justified destruction of property? That's totally beyond the pale--radical, crazed, immoral and insane.

Once again, I don't think either sort of violence is justified. What I'm trying to point out is how our notions of sanity, morality and radicality have been twisted in ways we barely notice or register. Violence toward property in a protest? That's the height of immorality and irresponsibility. It's anti-Christian to the core. But few if any Christians are shocked by a debate about killing human beings. We think killing is a legitimate debate to be had, worthy of reasoned conversation and consideration.

Killing people? That's on the table of options. It's a very Christian conversation.

Think about that.

That is how deeply our theological imaginations have been scarred by Empire

In yesterday's post I made an observation regarding the hermeneutics of Jesus's temple action. Specifically, in the debates about pacifism within the Christian tradition Jesus's temple action is often used to justify violence toward people, even killing people.

The observation I made yesterday was that many of the Christians who make these sorts of arguments--that Jesus's temple action provides a warrant for violence against people, even killing people--often decry the destruction of property as a part of protests against economic or political oppression. And yet, Jesus's actions--violence toward property as a part of a protest against exploitation and oppression--fits this situation better than using his actions as a warrant for killing people, because Jesus didn't kill anyone during the temple action.

Again, my point in making this observation isn't to provide a warrant for violence toward property during protests. Jesus's temple action was a symbolic and dramatic enactment taking place within the overarching narrative of Israel's relationship with YHWH. I'd argue that Jesus was telling a story more than he was engaging in a form of political activism.

People can debate me about that. Regardless, my purposes in drawing attention to Jesus's temple action is how it illuminates background assumptions that regulate our hermeneutical choices, why some readings of a text are deemed legitimate or illegitimate.

Specifically, in conservative, evangelical circles why is the temple action often used to justify violence toward people--even killing people--but never used to justify violence toward property in protests against exploitation and oppression?

I think a key here is where the violence is being directed, the othering nature of violence.

Specifically, when the temple action is used in debates about justified violence toward people--even killing people--the person being aggressed against or killed in these debated scenarios is an Other--the enemy, for example, in a just war. The violence is being directed at Them rather than at Us.

By contrast, violence toward property in protests against exploitation and oppression is a violence directed against Us.

Consequently, the purposes of these two forms of violence are different. In killing the enemy the goal is to preserve our country, violence to protect Us, violence to protect our empire.

In contrast, the goal of violence directed toward property in protests is to call us and our empire to repentance for systemic oppression and exploitation.

This contrast again highlights the puzzle I noted yesterday and above. Specifically, which situation best fits what Jesus was doing in his temple action? Was Jesus killing enemies of a foreign nation in a war to protect his country or protecting his family from a violent intruder?

Or was Jesus using violence toward property in a protest to call his nation to collective repentance for its systemic oppression?

Again, my point here isn't to justify violence against property. As I said above, I think Jesus's actions were a singularity, a theatrical enactment taking place at a critical time and place in Israel's overarching story. My point is to draw attention to how more plausible readings of Scripture are deemed illegitimate while less plausible readings are deemed legitimate.

In the case of the temple action notice how a pro-Empire reading is, by default, deemed moral, rational and legitimate whereas an anti-Empire reading is deemed immoral, irrational and illegitimate. When the violence is directed toward Others the reading is legitimate but when the violence is directed at Us, even violence of a much milder sort, it's illegitimate.

I'm interested in the hermeneutics of the temple action because it reveals how our readings of the biblical text are betrayed by our self-interest, personal and national, how Jesus becomes aligned with Us against Them.

Especially when we'd like to kill Them.

Part Three

In the debates about pacifism within the Christian tradition many Christians have justified the use of violence and killing by making an appeal to Jesus's temple action, the time when Jesus flipped the tables of the moneychangers and dove sellers and drove people from the temple courts with a whip.

I agree with the many other Christians who think that this is a horrible argument. It's quite a stretch to go from Jesus's temple action to killing people. Of course if Jesus, say, stabbed somebody to death in the temple then we might have something to talk about. But that's not what happened. To be sure, the word "violence" could be used to describe Jesus's actions, but that's a far cry from giving us a warrant to kill.

And yet, there is something much less talked about and debated regarding Jesus's temple action.

Specifically, many months ago I was reading a book by David Graeber, anarchist activist and one of the intellectual leaders of the Occupy Movement. In the book Graeber was describing how one the questions most hotly contested in activist communities is if it is ever okay to break a window during a protest. And if so, when?

A strict non-violent approach to activism would argue that it's never okay to break a window, for both practical and ethical reasons. But more militant strands of activism would say that while we should never hurt human beings there are times when it's justifiable to destroy property. That is, when we talk about the use of violence a distinction can be made between property and people.

In recent months this distinction--violence toward property or people--has also come up in the wake of property destruction associated with the protests against police brutality in cities like Baltimore. For example, in their recent "Cost of Freedom" conversation at Biola University Cornel West and Robert George talk about the property/people distinction in relation to the protests in Baltimore (pick up at the 1:35 mark).

I bring this up to make two observations.

The first observation is that while I don't think the violence of Jesus's temple action can be used as a warrant for violence against people the situation is murkier when it comes to violence toward property. The temple action was a symbolic, public and visible act of protest against economic and political corruption that involved some violence toward property. Jesus left the moneychangers and dove sellers with a bill.

Now, to be very clear, I think it's hard to draw ethical implications from Jesus's temple action.

For example, it's hard to tell if Jesus was trying to change the system or trying to provoke the system into a violent response, picking a lethal fight to shame the Powers That Be. Either way, Jesus's temple action wasn't politically effective, unless you consider execution by the state a mark of success. Basically, it's hard to get a sense of what Jesus was trying to accomplish in the temple action.

In addition, if Jesus did destroy property during the temple action he took full public responsibility for it. Jesus wasn't an anonymous anarchist wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. What we see in Jesus's action, if we believe that he destroyed property, is more akin to acts of civil disobedience where property is destroyed and those engaging in the action do not flee but stay to be publicly identified and arrested. An example of this would the Catonsville Nine.

So again, it's hard to know exactly what, if any, lessons we should take away from Jesus's temple action. Which brings me to the second point I'd like to make, a point that is more about the hermeneutics of the temple action than about the ethics.

Specifically, many of the Christians who use the violence of the temple action to justify killing or violence toward people are very often the same people who decry violence toward property during protests.

Which is very strange if you think about it.

Specifically, hermeneutically speaking it's a real stretch to use the temple action as a warrant for killing because, as we know, Jesus didn't kill anyone during the action.

However, a coherent hermeneutical case could be made that Jesus did engage in violence toward property as a part of a protest against economic and political exploitation. I'm not saying such a case should be made or that it's justified, simply that a stronger case could be made for violence toward property as opposed to killing.

And yet, many of the Christians who use the violence of the temple action to justify killing or violence toward people are often appalled by the violence toward property in protests against economic and political oppression.

Part Two

The rupture between Catholicism and Protestantism occurred when Martin Luther said this:

I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God.

I'm Protestant enough to think everyone has a Martin Luther line in the sand. Even Catholics. There are issues of conscience where you can no longer fellowship with a particular faith community.

However, not everything should or ought to become an issue of conscience. We can't do community unless, at a variety of critical locations, people are disagreeing yet staying in communion. Yes, there will be locations of rupture. But agreement isn't what ultimately what binds the community together.

Disagreement is what makes community a real community.

--from an unpublished post arguing that we need to tolerate more disagreement within faith communities