When it comes to Christian aesthetics my tastes tend toward the Catholic. Perhaps because I went to a Catholic school from 6th grade through High School. Something of the Catholic aesthetic might have rubbed off on me during those years.

By contrast, the aesthetic of your average Christian bookstore, Mardel or Lifeway, leaves me cold.

But when I walk into a Catholic store, the spiritual resonances within me start to hum.

Jana and I love antique stores that tend toward the thrift and junk shop end of the spectrum. We like old and vintage stuff at a good price. When we visit my hometown in PA during vacations we love exploring these stores.

My hometown is heavily Catholic. So these shops fill up with vintage Catholic articles. The estate sales from these old Catholic families are just full of vintage rosaries, medals and crucifixes. You can't find this stuff down south. Too many Protestants. So the shops back home are a gold mine for someone who, like me, loves a Catholic aesthetic.

Two years ago in one of our favorite shops I found this massive wooden Rosary. It was huge. I asked what it was.

"It's a wall Rosary," said the owner. "You hang it on your wall. That one is from Italy."

Thank goodness you hang it on a wall, I thought. I couldn't imagine anyone carrying it around in their pocket.

I'd been collecting vintage rosaries and had never seen a rosary like that in any of the shops. You can by new wall rosaries online, but I'd never come across a vintage one in a shop. It was so unique I bought it and displayed it on my office wall.

This last Christmas I found another one. Looking through a large collection of old rosaries I found a huge one made of class and medal. I stretched it out, feeling the weight of it in my hands. Another wall rosary. Again, I'd never seen anything like it.

So if you ever visit my office you'll find two of my very favorite things. My two wall rosaries framing a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe (a Christmas present from Jana). All pictured above, the wooden rosary on the right and the glass one on the left.

As we've been discussing in the last two posts, John Barclay has argued in his book Paul and the Gift that grace can be "perfected" in six different ways. (And I've suggested a seventh perfection.)

And as we've noted, this list of perfections is handy because it helps illustrate how most debates about grace aren't really about grace but are, rather, about the centrality or importance of a particular perfection or component of grace. For example, Calvinists and Arminians agree that grace is incongruous--poured out upon the unworthy--but they have fierce debates about the perfection of efficacy.

Barclay makes a lot of interesting observations about how these debates about the perfections originated and have played out in church history. Specifically, one of the reasons grace gets "perfected," Barclay argues, is through the process of debate itself. As we debate positions the give and take of analysis tends to push our definitions and positions to the limit cases, if just to achieve logical and rhetorical clarity. Ideas get isolated and "purified" and, thus, more extreme. Positions start boiling down to either/or.

You can detect the legacy of these debate in our contemporary skirmishes. Faith vs. works. Justification vs. sanctification. Bondage of the will vs. free will. Monergism vs. synergism. Why these extreme, either/or positions? Why these polarities?

As Barclay shows, we argue about these polarities because we've inherited the debates of the past regarding the various perfections of grace. These debates forced the theologians of old to take extreme positions. And we've inherited those extreme positions.

For example, as Barclay points out, early on Augustine didn't seem all that worried about human agency being involved in responding to God's grace. But later on, in his debates with Pelagius and his followers, Augustine began to perfect the efficaciousness of grace. As these debates evolved any bit of human agency was increasingly deemed to be theologically problematic. Consequently, the debate between Augustine and Pelagius latched onto a particular facet of grace and the debate "perfected" that component, pushing the participants in the debate toward increasingly contrasting, and therefore more extreme, positions. And those extreme positions then cascaded down through the ages. We continue to debate these same either/or polarities.

All of which allows Barclay to make a pretty potent observation. Our understandings of grace have been warped by these church-historical debates. These debates have deformed grace, pulling grace this way and that-a-way, like a lump of taffy, with generations of debate tugging the facets of grace toward extreme, "perfected" viewpoints. The view of grace we've inherited from these debates is sort of like our reflection in a fun house mirror. The vision of grace reflected in the mirror of church history is deformed and distorted.       

And that sets up the main part of Barclay's project in Paul and the Gift. Yes, of course, we can't return to an unbiased and "objective" reading of grace as found in Paul. But we can try to discern, as Barclay does, which perfection (or perfections) of grace seemed to be on Paul's mind.

And one of the tools that can be used here in making this assessment is the tool Barclay uses: When we look at Paul's treatment of grace how did he compare to his peers, Greek and Jewish, in speaking about grace? More specifically, was there anything particularly novel, creative, innovative or shocking in the way Paul spoke about grace given his time and place?

According to Barclay, many of the perfections invoked by Paul were common among his contemporaries. For example, according to the ancients good gifts, given by humans or the gods, displayed perfections like superabundance. Lavishness and extravagance has always marked the best and greatest gifts.

But some of the perfections Christians have focused on when it comes to grace are notably lacking among the ancients in their conversations and conventions regarding gift giving. For example, in a point we'll come back to in a following post, the ancients didn't perfect the notion of non-circularity. Among the ancients, Greek and Jewish, when patrons gave gifts there was always some expectation of return, if only loyalty and gratitude. This expectation of return was the raison d'être of the ancient "economy of gift" and the practices of patronage. And this applied to the gifts given by the gods as well.

And interestingly, we don't see that expectation of return challenged in the letters of Paul. Again, this is a critical point I'd like to return to, but for now we can simply note, following Barclay, that throughout Paul's letters he assumes that God expects a return for the gift of grace. Gratitude, fidelity, righteousness. As we all know, after Paul's magisterial disquisitions on grace in the first parts of his letters there always comes the predictable pivot: "Therefore."

Grace has been given to us...Therefore. And what follows Paul's Therefore is a list of obligations and expectations. Like his contemporaries, Paul assumes that grace implies a return. Grace obligates us. Gifts--even God's gifts--have strings attached.

In short, when we look at Paul's treatment of grace he often looks more like the ancients than many modern Christians who have perfected attributes of grace like non-circularity, where human moral effort as a response to grace is deemed perverse, illegitimate and impossible. According to the perfection non-circularity, grace cannot be repaid. To even try is foolish. To think you can is prideful and therefore sinful. What we see in this is how in perfecting non-circularity we create the "faith vs. works" and "justification vs. sanctification" debates that are hard to map onto Paul's writing.

Again, when it comes to grace Paul didn't perfect non-circularity. We did.

So in many ways, when it comes to grace Paul looks more like the ancients than modern Christians. But that raises the question, in what ways, if it all, did Paul break with his contemporaries on the subject of grace?

According to Barclay, in his close reading of Galatians and Romans, Paul did make a distinctive break with his ancient context when he came to emphasize the incongruity of grace. On this point, that God poured out grace upon unworthy recipients, Paul's gospel made a radical break with his culture, making the gospel shocking and scandalous.

Specifically, both Greek and Jewish sources were in agreement that gifts should only be given to the worthy. This notion was related to the issue of reciprocity. If you expect a return on your gift it makes sense to give that gift to people who can, in fact, make that return. According to the ancients, gifts should be given to worthy recipients, people who merited the gift in their ability to respond. That's what made the patronage and the gift economy work.

And critically, this was also believed to apply to the gifts given by God. As shown by Barclay, there was broad agreement among Second Temple Jewish sources that God is gracious to the righteous in the land, to the faithful, to the loyal remnant. To the worthy.

As a theologian of grace Paul's shocking break with both Greek and Jewish culture was to insist that grace was incongruous, that God gave the Christ-gift to those who were not worthy. And while that notion is commonplace to us, in Paul's day that idea was totally out of left field.

As Barclay goes on to point out, Paul's surprising gospel of incongruous grace was critical to his mission to the Gentiles. The distinction between Jew and Gentile was a distinction of moral worth, the Jews being worthy and the Gentiles being unworthy. Paul's scandalous message was that God's grace had been poured out upon both Jew and Gentile, irrespective of worth. In being given to the Gentiles, to the depraved and unworthy, in Paul's gospel proclamation grace was declared to be incongruous.

Now, like I said, the fact that grace is incongruous, that we are unworthy of grace, is a banality for us modern Christians. What was once a scandal has become tame.

But before we yawn at Paul we have to reckon with what I think is the most powerful part of Barclay's Paul and the Gift, what I consider to be the most profound argument of the book.

Specifically, Barclay argues that we have to understand the missionary context of Paul's gospel of incongruous grace.

Paul's gospel of grace wasn't an abstract theological argument about God's universal love. Paul's gospel had a revolutionary sociological objective. In Paul's hands grace was a destructive force that demolished the "wall of hostility" that had existed between Jews and Gentiles so that new social arrangements could be imagined and realized, Jews and Gentiles living in community together. Grace had sociological implications. Grace brought new modes of community into existence. Grace changed how people treated and lived with each other.

In short, we have to understand the missionary thrust of Paul's gospel of grace, how grace facilitated the unprecedented formation of Jewish and Gentile communities. Exactly how grace created these novel social experiments will be the subject of the next post, and it's the part of Paul and the Gift that I think has the most contemporary and practical relevance for us today.

And lastly, the other reason we need to attend to the primacy of incongruity in Paul's gospel of grace is how Paul ignores or assumes things about grace that just don't jibe with the perfections of grace that have preoccupied Christians for centuries. For example, as Barclay notes, Paul just doesn't seem interested in the details about how human and Divine agency work together in salvation. The debates we inherited from Augustine and Pelagius were not on Paul's radar screen as he contemplated practical social problems like Jew/Gentile table fellowship. Paul simply wasn't interested in perfecting the efficacy of grace the way we have been.

In addition, and of even greater practical relevance, is how, as I mentioned above, Paul didn't seem interested in perfecting the non-circularity of grace. Where Paul rejected the views of his contemporaries in preaching incongruous grace, Paul agreed with his peers that grace obligates us and demands a return. As I read Paul and the Gift I found this insight to be very important. So I'd like to devote a post to this as well.

So, to conclude this series there will be two more posts. On Monday (Part 5) we'll talk about how Paul's gospel of incongruous grace facilitated social experimentation. And on Tuesday (Part 6) we'll end with a discussion about how our inherited tendency to perfect the non-circularity of grace has created enormous problems for the modern church.

In his book Paul and the Gift John Barclay suggests that grace can be "perfected" in six different ways.

Many reviewers of Paul and the Gift have said that this list of perfections is the most helpful thing in the book, worth the price of the book, as the list helps us focus on what, exactly, we mean by grace. Specifically, most of our debates about grace aren't about grace per se, but about a specific perfection of grace and if that perfection is central to the biblical vision of God's grace.

In the last post I gave a summary list of Barclay's six perfections of grace:

1. Superabundance
Grace is "perfected" if it is lavish and extravagant.

2. Singularity
Grace is "perfected" if it flows out of a spirit of benevolence and goodness.

3. Priority
Grace is "perfected" if it is unprompted, free, spontaneous and initiated solely by choice of the giver.

4. Incongruity
Grace is "perfected" if it ignores the worth or merit of the recipient.

5. Efficacy
Grace is "perfected" if it accomplishes what it intends to do.

6. Non-Circularity
Grace is "perfected" if it escapes repayment and reciprocity, if it cannot be paid back or returned.

As I've watched YouTube clips of John Barclay present this list to various audiences he's mentioned that he's open to people suggesting additions to this list. So in this post I want to argue for a seventh way grace can be perfected.

Here's my addition of the list:

7. Liberality
Grace is "perfected" if it is given to more rather than fewer recipients.

I'd like to suggest that liberality is a distinct idea from superabundance and incongruity, though there are relationships.

Specifically, where superabundance focuses upon the size of the gift liberality focuses upon the number of recipients. True, giving gifts to many people implies some abundance, you have to have more if you want to give to more people. But the two perfections are distinct. I can give an extravagant gift to one person (superabundance with no liberality). Or I can give small gifts to many people (no superabundance but much liberality).

God's grace, therefore, is perfected in that it is both superabundant and liberal, extravagant and given to many.

But just how many?

That question is why I think we need to introduce liberality as a perfection to Barclay's list. For example, when Arminians debate the doctrine of election in Calvinism their most passionate objections aren't about the perfections of efficacy and non-circularity (issues we discussed in the last post). The most passionate objections to Calvinism are about liberality, about how in Calvinism God's superabundant and incongruous gifts are poured out upon so very few--just the elect. Arminians, by contrast, argue that God's grace is liberal--universal in fact--poured out superabundantly and incongruously upon all of humanity.

As John 3.16 declares, for God so loved the world. As in, the entire world.

Liberality can also be contrasted with incongruity in the debates about universal reconciliation. If all of humanity is depraved and rebellious God's grace given to any one of us is incongruous. But that incongruous grace can be poured out upon few, many or all of humanity. By itself, as with superabundance, the perfection of incongruity doesn't get to the scope of grace. Incongruous grace can be given to the few or the many. Another perfection--liberality--is needed to get at this issue.

But there is a relationship between liberality and incongruity. If the gift of grace is incongruous when given to a single depraved human then that incongruity grows as that grace is poured out on more and more unworthy recipients. That scandal of grace grows with each new addition. And it's that scandal of liberality that many find objectionable to theologies of universal reconciliation. Is grace so liberal that it incongruously includes all of humanity? There has to be a limit to grace, right? A line in the sand where no more will be included, with the very worst of sinners left outside? Such questions are not about the incongruity of grace, but about the perfection of liberality.    

So, this is my suggestion for Dr. Barclay. There is a seventh perfection of grace--liberality--that captures the way we perfect grace by expanding its scope and universality.

In the last post I pointed out that John Barclay argues in his book Paul and the Gift that grace is a complex and multi-dimensional construct. Consequently, when we talk about grace we have to be specific about what part of grace we are talking about. Because you and I both might be using the word "grace" but mean very different things by it.

So what are the components of grace?

According to Barclay, as he reviewed biblical and historical sources, grace involves six components, what Barclay calls "perfections."

Barclay uses the word "perfections" because that's how he identified the six components of grace. Specifically, as the ancients and the church debated the nature of grace and gift-giving they would latch onto a particular aspect of grace and gift, identifying this feature as the essence. This essence was undiluted, pure grace. The perfection of grace.

Surveying these historical sources Barclay has identified six different ways grace has been "perfected," features believed to be the essence of grace.

Here is a summary of Barclay's six perfections of grace:

1. Superabundance
Grace is "perfected" if it is lavish and extravagant.

2. Singularity
Grace is "perfected" if it flows out of a spirit of benevolence and goodness.

3. Priority
Grace is "perfected" if it is unprompted, free, spontaneous and initiated solely by choice of the giver.

4. Incongruity
Grace is "perfected" if it ignores the worth or merit of the recipient.

5. Efficacy
Grace is "perfected" if it accomplishes what it intends to do.

6. Non-Circularity
Grace is "perfected" if it escapes repayment and reciprocity, if it cannot be paid back or returned.

As you read through this list you likely felt a lot of it as familiar. Obviously, if God is giving the gift we expect that gift to be "perfect." Consequently, we expect a lot of these perfections to be applied to God's gift of grace. For example, God's grace is extravagant and a product of God's love for us. That is, God's grace displays superabundance and singularity.

We also believe that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. In this grace displays priority (God loved us first) and incongruity (while we were undeserving sinners).

You don't get a whole lot of debate about the first four perfections. By contrast, there has been a lot of debate about the last two, the perfections of efficacy and non-circularity.

For example, does grace accomplish what it sets out to accomplish?

That perfection--efficacy--is at the heart of the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism. In Calvinism God's grace can't be resisted or renounced. God's grace is perfectly efficacious: if God decides to save you you're going to be saved. God elects you and you can never fall from grace.

Notice how the perfection of efficacy is at the heart of debates regarding election, irresistible grace and the perseverance of the saints.

Notice also how debates about the perfection of non-circularity fit into these same debates. Does grace demand a human response? If just our free will assent? According to some Calvinistic positions any response at all from the human person--even the assent of free will to "accept" the free gift of grace--contaminates the perfection of non-circularity. According to these Calvinistic views, even the act of accepting grace must be the initiative and act of God (a view called monergism). No human agency whatsoever is allowed at any point. Not even the choice of a free will.

The debates between Calvinism and Arminianism about the perfections of efficacy and non-circularity are just one example to consider. As Barclay points out in Paul and the Gift, many of our famous church-historical debates have been debates about one or more of the six perfections.

But here's the super important insight, the same point we made in the last post: Everyone in these debates believes in grace.

To stay with our example, both Calvinists and Arminians believe in grace, they agree that grace is extravagant (superabundance), free and unprompted (priority), loving (singularity), and poured out upon a rebellious, depraved and undeserving humanity (incongruity).

Again, both Calvinists and Arminians believe in grace.

Now it could be argued here that in accepting all six perfections that Calvinists have the more perfected vision of perfect grace. And I guess you could make that argument. Except for two things,

First, when it comes to a perfection like non-circularity, did the ancients--Jewish and Greek--perfect their notion of gift in this way? Specifically, when the ancients talked about the practices of gift giving did they praise and elevate gifts that couldn't be repaid or reciprocated?

This issue is important because, to our second point, how did the apostle Paul perfect grace is his gospel? That's what Barclay is really after in Paul and the Gift. How did Paul perfect grace?

So the historical backdrop is important here as Paul was working with ancient Jewish and Greek notions of grace and gift and working out his own vision of perfection.

So what perfection or perfections did Paul focus on? And are these the same perfections that we moderns focus on in our contemporary debates about grace?

To be specific about it, while Calvinists might insist upon the perfections of efficacy and non-circularity did Paul? How biblical are the six perfections? How central are the six perfections to Paul's gospel of grace?

So that's the big question in Paul and the Gift. The question isn't all the different ways grace can be and has been perfected, but about how Paul perfected grace.

We'll take up that issue shortly--Paul's perfection of grace--but before we do that I'd like to suggest in the next post that Barclay consider adding a seventh perfection.

Can you guess what it is?

One of the books published in 2015 that got a lot of attention and praise in theological and biblical studies circles was John Barclay's book Paul and the Gift. Paul and the Gift is a book of Pauline scholarship that analyzes Paul's understanding of grace.

Obviously, grace is a hugely significant doctrine for the Christian faith. Everything in the faith rests upon what we mean by "the grace of God."

Because of the attention the book received and the importance of its subject matter, I thought I'd devote a few posts to share what I found helpful, interesting and important in Paul and the Gift. These posts aren't intended to be a thorough book review but a gleaning of insights from the book that I want keep and share.

To start, one of the big, central ideas behind Paul and the Gift is easily stated: When we speak of grace we aren't just naming one, simple thing. Rather, grace names many, many things and you have to keep track about what you're talking about.

As a psychologist I appreciate this point. Whenever psychologists seek to assess and study a construct in the world the first thing that has to be decided is if the construct in question is uni-dimensional or multi-dimensional, whether the construct is one simple thing or a composite of many different things.

Consider personality. We tend to think of personality as a multi-dimensional construct, a composite of many distinct traits. Consequently, to assess personality we have to assess each personality trait separately. Traits like extroversion or conscientiousness.

The traits themselves we tend to think of as uni-dimensional. We don't usually break a trait like extroversion down into component parts. We tend to measure extroversion as extroversion, with a person being "high" or "low" on that single dimension.

One of Barclay's big points early in Paul and the Gift is that grace is less like a trait and more like personality. Grace isn't one simple thing, grace is a composite of many different things.

It's a simple idea, but one rarely recognized, often with sad results.

As Barclay describes in his book, many of the historical and on-going debates about grace are rooted in ignoring the fact that grace is multi-faceted and complex. For example, Barclay points out, to say that Augustine believed in grace whereas Pelagius did not misses the point that Pelagius very much believed in grace. In a similar way, to say that Luther believed in grace and that the Catholic Church did not misses the point that the Catholic Church has always believed in grace.

What's going on in these debates, Barclay points out, isn't a debate about who does or does not believe in grace. These are debates, rather, about a particular feature, part, facet, dimension, piece, or component of grace. More specifically, these aren't debates about grace per se, but about what facet or feature is believed to integral to grace or, at the very least, what features should be included in the personality profile of grace.

In the next post I'll review the various features and components of grace that Barclay describes. You can think of these as being the "traits" that combine to make up the "personality" of grace.

But for this post let's simply appreciate the important point Barclay is making right out of the gate, a point that can help us in our debates about grace. If grace is many things rather than one thing then when we debate grace with people--and a debate about grace sits at the heart of a lot of our arguments, from total depravity to election to merit/works to the perseverance of the saints--the debate isn't about who does or does not believe in grace. Catholic and Protestant. Augustinian and Pelagian. Calvinist and Arminian. Everyone in these debates believes in grace.

The debate is actually about what traits we think should or should not be included to make up the personality of grace. The personality of grace varies from theological tradition to theological tradition, but everyone has a relationship with grace.

So, what did Jana and I get each other for Christmas?

We got each other many different things, but here were the big presents.

Last year Jana and I started collecting vinyl. Jana hunts for Broadway musical albums, the classics, to play in her drama classes and to use the album covers as artwork for her classroom walls.

I hunt for Johnny Cash.

To date my most happy finds are original pressings of At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin.

A couple of months ago Jana was at our local record store--Record Guys--buying some albums. As she was checking out the guy at the register was starting to go through a big stack of records that had recently been dropped off.

As he flipped through the albums Jana saw a cover.

"Is that what I think it is?" Jana asked.

He pulled the album out of the stack and looked at it.

"I think it is."

"Well," Jana said, "I know you haven't priced it yet, but I want to buy it."

And she did.

The album is pictured above. It's an original pressing of Johnny Cash With His Hot Blue Guitar. Released on October 11, 1957 by Sun Records, this was Cash's very first LP, collecting many of his early hit singles with Sun, iconic songs like "I Walk the Line," "Cry! Cry! Cry!" and "Folsom Prison Blues."

Incidentally, for music history buffs, With His Hot Blue Guitar was the very first LP put out by Sun Records, the Memphis studio that gave birth to Rock & Roll in the '50s with artists like Elvis, Carl Perkins (he of "Blue Suede Shoes" fame), Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison...and Johnny Cash.

So, Johnny Cash's first album, pretty awesome present!

For Jana I got her an original piece of artwork from one of Jana's favorite artists, our friend Polly Jones (Polly's website here). Jana loves color. As in, loves it. Which is why Jana loves Polly's art so much. The color and Polly's use of mixed media. Polly often incorporates printed text in her art.

In trying to find something for Jana from Polly's collection Polly offered to paint something original and just for Jana. Polly asked what I wanted. Most definitely flowers, I said, and lots of color. Obviously. Plus, I said, Jana loves tea, and sharing tea is something we love to do together. So if a tea cup or a tea pot could be added that would be quintessentially Jana.

And this is the painting Polly did, Jana's Christmas present:

Jana loved it. The text Polly incorporated were the Psalms, the hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," and a love poem.

And most importantly, there's that tea cup.

Every semester I lecture over a famous study in social psychology entitled From Jerusalem to Jericho.

The study was done in 1973 by psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson and was a sort of modern-day reenactment of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

The participants in the study were seminarians preparing for the ministry. The seminarians were randomly assigned to one of two groups, the first group asked to prepare a sermon on the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the second group asked to prepare a sermon on a non-helping subject. The seminarians were then scheduled to deliver this sermon at an appointed time and place.

Upon arriving at the designated place the seminarians were told that the location of the sermon had been changed and that they were to go to a new location.

At this point the seminarians were randomly assigned, a second time, into three groups. A third of the seminarians were put under heavy time pressure, told that they needed to get to the new venue in a hurry (the high hurry condition). The second third was put under moderate time pressure (the intermediate hurry condition). And finally, the final third was told that they could take their time getting to the new venue (the low hurry condition). After this hurry manipulation the seminarians were pointed to the exit and directed to proceed to the next venue.

Along the route (an alleyway) to the next venue Darley and Batson had placed a person who showed signs of distress. Specifically, they were sitting slumped against the wall, head down and eyes closed. As the subject passed, the confederate would cough twice and groan. Basically, they showed signs of abdominal pain. As the seminarians passed the key variable was recorded: Would they stop to check on the groaning person?

In short, as I noted, the study was a controlled simulation of Jesus's parable. We even have seminarians standing in for the priest and Levite.

So who stopped to help? Those on their way to preach a sermon about the Good Samaritan? Or those who had the time to help?

Overall, the results of the study revealed that the biggest factor in helping was having the time. The relevant statistic from the study was (% who stopped):

The Low Hurry Condition: 63% offered aid

The High Hurry Condition: 10% offered aid

And, incidentally, some seminarians in the high hurry condition literally stepped over the groaning person on the way to deliver their sermon on the Good Samaritan.

When I lecture over this study the point I make is this: Most of us Christians are Jesus hobbyists.

Hobbies are what we pursue during our free and leisure time. And the results of Darley and Batson's study suggest that this is how many of us approach our faith. We approach Christianity as a hobby, as something we do if we have the time.

And so that's what I challenge my students with.

Are you an actual follower of Jesus? Or are you a Jesus hobbyist?

To be able to say, ‘I’m baptised’ is not to claim an extra dignity, let alone a sort of privilege that keeps you separate from and superior to the rest of the human race, but to claim a new level of solidarity with other people. It is to accept that to be a Christian is to be affected – you might even say – contaminated – by the mess of humanity. This is very paradoxical. Baptism is a ceremony in which we are washed, cleansed and re-created. It is also a ceremony in which we are pushed into the middle of a human situation that may hurt us, and that will not leave untouched or unsullied.

--Rowan Williams, from Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist and Prayer

One of my favorite images of Jesus comes from Matthew 12.

In Matthew 12.15 we read that "a large crowd followed him, and he healed all who were ill." The text then goes on to describe how Jesus' care for these people was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah 42:

Isaiah 42.1-4
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.

He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;

he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope.” 

This prophecy is used to highlight the gentleness and compassion of Jesus:

A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. 

The people were broken and fragile. Hanging by a thread. Life about to be extinguished. Bent and bruised. A weak, tenuous and fading flicker. And Jesus cared for and healed them. He did not break them and snuff them out.

It's a model for how we should move through the world. All around us are broken and fragile people. Bruised reeds and smoldering wicks.

Let us not break people and snuff them out. 

Let us move through world as Jesus did.

Glory be to God for dappled things –
   For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
       For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
   Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
        And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
    Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
        With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
                         Praise him.

--"Pied Beauty" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Praise God for things that are counter, original, spare and strange.

Like maybe me. Like maybe you.

I had noticed that we'd run out of toilet paper. Driving past Walmart Monday night on the way home from the prison bible study I pulled in to get some. I found the toilet paper aisle. And then I saw this:

There is a whole, two-tiered row at Walmart--end to end--filled with a bewildering array of toilet paper choices. Different plys. Tons of different adjectives for the word soft. Infusions of Aloe and Vitamin E. Quilting and ripples.

Incidentally, as I peered at the packaging for the ripples it kind of grossed me out:

Removes more! I really didn't want that image in my head.

I dialed Jana.

"Hey Sweetie, we were out of toilet paper so I pulled into Walmart to get some."

"That's great!"

"Yeah, but I'm standing here in the toilet paper aisle and there are like 10,000 choices. Is there a brand or type that you usually get?"

"Just get anything that is 2 Ply."

I scan the aisles. "Most of these are 2 Ply. Would you like anything else? Aloe infusion? Quilting? Ripples?"

"Ripples?"

"Yes, ripples. They remove more."

"Just get Great Value, the generic brand."

"That should narrow it down."

I look and find the Great Value toilet paper, thinking my choices are over. But then...

Soft or strong? No!!!!!!!

As I mentioned in my New Year's day post, my fourth book will be appearing this year. Reviving Old Scratch: Demons and the Devil for Doubters and the Disenchanted is coming out this May with Fortress Press.

It was nice to see Reviving Old Scratch making Christianity Today's list of 7 Anticipated Books of 2016.

Head on over to Fortress Press to see the cover of the book along with its description.

I was visiting my home congregation over the holidays and was scheduled to lead the adult Bible class and preach the sermon. Since we were traveling I didn't bring a Bible with me. I planned to use a Bible from the church for the things I was going to read.

Before the Bible class I popped into the room that served as the church library to scan what translations were in stock. As I scanned the shelves I saw this old, maroon, beaten up, Gideon's New Testament. The cover is pictured here.

I'm not sure what drew me to this old New Testament. I think it was simply its age. I took it down from the shelf and opened it.

On the inside cover I saw the name of the previous owner. In very faded pen marks I read that this New Testament had belonged to Miss Gloria. My heart leaped.

Miss Gloria was my very first Sunday School teacher. Or, at the very least, the very first Sunday School teacher of my memory.

Standing there, looking at Miss Gloria's signature and holding her Bible, the memories came flooding back.

Miss Gloria, African American, light skinned with curly hair. I remembered her horn-rimmed glasses and red lipstick.

But most of all I remembered her heart. A cherub of kindness and grace. We all loved her.

There was something spiritually profound about holding Miss Gloria's Bible. I felt the tether of faith connecting us--all the saints in that small church--from generation to generation.

I flipped through the pages, noting where Miss Gloria had underlined verses in a red ink pen. And then I found a note she had left for herself on the page facing the first chapter of Matthew.

I slowly read the words Miss Gloria had written to guide her Bible study, and her life in Christ:

Read expectantly! God reveals!

The life with God = the Great Experiment, full of surprises and the greatest joys!

I just stood there, marveling.

People often ask me, why are you a Christian? Why do you love the Bible so much? Why haven't you given up on church?

One of the answers to those questions is very simple.

Miss Gloria was once my Sunday School teacher.

I love liturgy as much as the next person, but liturgy is way, way overrated.

On Christmas eve when Jana and I were home visiting my family in PA we drove down to the Catholic cathedral for the midnight mass. I'm not Catholic, but again, I love liturgy and the liturgical calender. So I really look forward to Christmas eve liturgical services. These experiences are important to me.

As Jana and I were listening to the pre-service readings and music before the mass started a family entered and sat in front of us. They were very, very dressed up and you could tell that this was a part of their Catholic family Christmas eve ritual. Dress up, go out to a late night dinner and then go to mass.

As the family settled into the pews you could tell they were a bit tipsy from dinner or after-dinner drinks. And once the mass started they ignored the proceedings and whispered among themselves.

I'm not judging the family. I mentally check out of worship services all the time. I bring up this Christmas eve experience just to make a simple point: liturgy is over-rated when it comes to spiritual formation.

A lot of evangelicals find liturgy exotic and mysterious and therefore filled with spiritual potency. There is nothing more irritating than talking with an evangelical who has just discovered liturgy. Liturgy is the solution for what ails everything in the church! Liturgy is the answer to everything! Especially spiritual formation.

It's all total hogwash.

If you've spent any time at all in liturgical communities you know those communities aren't creating committed followers of Jesus any better than non-liturgical communities. In fact, if you look at the rates of the religiously-unaffiliated and where they are originating from, many of these liturgical traditions are struggling more than their non-liturgical evangelical counterparts.

Again, let me be very clear. I love liturgy and liturgy plays a central part in my own spiritual formation. There's a reason Jana and I were at that Christmas eve mass. Everyday I say Morning and Evening prayers with either the Book of Common Prayer or the Liturgy of the Hours.

But you only get out of liturgy what you put into it. You can go to Christmas eve mass tipsy and bored. Or you can go to mass expectant and full-hearted. It's a Chicken and Egg problem. You get out of liturgy what you put into it. Which implies that liturgy, as a spiritual formation tool, assumes some prior, extra-liturgical spiritual formation.

You have to care about liturgy to get anything from it. But that leaves open the question, where shall that caring come from?

I'm being hard on liturgy because I think an overly nostalgic and optimistic view of liturgy infects a lot of the Ben Op discussions. James Smith's book Desiring the Kingdom is a huge hit among Ben Op proponents. Desiring the Kingdom is a great book, one of the best I've read in the last ten years.

But one of my criticisms of Desiring the Kingdom is its overly optimistic vision of liturgy as a tool of spiritual formation. The impression of you get from Desiring the Kingdom is that liturgy has this profound ability to shape and direct your disordered desires. No doubt liturgy does do this. It does it for me. But again, that's because I have desires that I carry into the liturgy. And it's those extra-liturgical and pre-liturgical desires--those aching, expectant desires to seek the kingdom of God as I attend a Christmas eve mass--which are decisive.

It's like that joke about psychologists changing a light bulb. How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Just one. But the light bulb really has to want to change.    

Liturgy is like that. Can liturgy help you desire the kingdom? Yes it can. But you have to desire the kingdom first if liturgy to be of any help.

So what we need, in addition to liturgical practices that help us desire the kingdom, are practices that help us become the kingdom.

In sum, I think the Ben Op has to be a pincer movement. On the one hand, as I described in my last post, we need liturgy to practice "sabbath a resistance." We need liturgy to help sustain our desiring the kingdom, especially in the face of the social shaming we will face as we opt out of the American way of life to live into the foolishness of the cross.

The second part of the pincer movement is creating a community that practices and incarnates the kingdom of God in their midst. The kingdom of God practiced intentionally, intimately, and locally.

Obviously, there is going to be some debate among Christians of various stripes about what practicing the kingdom of God should look like. As I argued it in Part 2 of this series, progressive Christians will reject a Pharisee-oriented Ben Op, an expression of the kingdom that focuses on monitoring orthodoxy and enforcing moral codes. As we've discussed, progressive proponents of the Ben Op will practice the kingdom through radical hospitality and the works of mercy (Matthew 25). Progressive exemplars here are the Catholic Workers, the new monastic movement, and Jean Vanier's L'arche communities.

In sum, a progressive Ben Op isn't just a liturgical community, a progressive vision of the Ben Op will be a Franciscan community.

We're all familiar with how Saint Francis opted out. How Francis stripped himself naked and renounced his family's wealth to live in poverty. That's part one of the pincer movement. But the second noteworthy thing Francis and his followers did, the second part of the Ben Op pincer movement I want to draw our attention to, is how Francis and the early Franciscans were known for their care of lepers, living among and caring for that ostracized, unclean and marginalized community.

When the Franciscans lived with leper colonies they were doing more than liturgically desiring the kingdom, they were becoming the kingdom.

And it's this second part of the Ben Op--the Franciscan impulse to embrace leper colonies--that keeps the Ben Op looking like Jesus, keeps the Ben Op outward-looking and oriented toward hospitality, helps the Ben Op incarnate Jesus' embrace of the unclean in table fellowship.

It's this Franciscan impulse that moves the Ben Op community away from lighting candles and incense in churches to washing the feet in the world. It's this Franciscan impulse that grounds the life of the Ben Op community in Matthew 25 and practicing of the works of mercy.

And again, it's this Franciscan impulse--caring for the "lepers"--that characterizes the progressive Ben Op communities we've pointed to: the Catholic Workers, the new monastic movement, and Jean Vanier's L'arche communities. Each of these communities illustrate both parts of the progressive Ben Op pincer movement, a Franciscan lifestyle of caring for and living for others along with being a richly liturgical community to sustain spiritual vibrancy and identity as we walk an ignoble, foolish path in the world as a community of the Cross.

So that's the heart of the progressive vision of Benedict Option. A progressive Ben Op is a liturgical, Franciscan community. And by liturgical I mean a community that practices sabbath as resistance, opting out of the American Dream to create the space and margin in our lives necessary to live as Franciscan communities, communities that exist to wash the feet of the "least of these" in our local contexts.

And yet, all this raises the million dollar question. How are we going to pull this off? The complaint will come: the local church is filled with families and busy people with mortgages and day jobs! You're not going to get bourgeois American Christians to adopt Catholic Worker and new monastic lifestyles!

You're totally correct. It's very, very hard to detox from the American Dream. So let me conclude these posts with some practical suggestions. Franciscan baby steps for bourgeois American Christians.

Again, the impulse of the Franciscan community is to be an outward-looking community committed to a lifestyle of hospitality.

And if you make a study of some of the great modern practitioners of Christian hospitality, people like Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, they tell us that they were followers of the Little Way of Thérèse of Lisieux.

As I've gone around telling churches about the Little Way I've framed the heart of the Little Way as a practice of hospitality. Here's how I recently described the Little Way:

When you hear the Little Way described it's often described as a practice of self-mortification, of putting up with people when they frustrate and irritate us.

But that's not how I see it. For my part, as I teach the Little Way, I see it as a practice of approaching people, moving toward people in love. As I explain it, the Little Way is a practice of welcome, embrace and hospitality.

For example, in the Story of a Soul an overriding theme in Thérèse's descriptions of the Little way is that of approaching others with small expressions of warmth, welcome and kindness. Thérèse describes how the Sisters in her convent were variously popular or shunned. And having noted these distinctions--the socially rich versus the socially poor--Thérèse goes on to describe how the practice of the Little Way is a practice of hospitality, of welcoming the Sisters who were shunned and marginalized

The Little Way of hospitality is welcoming others, especially the most marginalized persons, with small acts of kindness and inclusion. As Thérèse wrote, "a word, an amiable smile, often suffice to make a sad soul bloom."

Small things, yes, but hugely difficult to do. Imagine how your life would change if you started daily and intentionally seeking out the most difficult to love people in your life to welcome them with a bit of warmth and kindness. Think, even, of how you might practice the Little Way on social media with hard to love people!

The Little Way may be little but, in the words of Dorothy Day, it is a harsh and dreadful discipline.

And here is the critical point: the Little Way is a discipline of hospitality that anyone can do, anywhere and at anytime. Day job or not.

So that's the first Franciscan baby step. Progressive Ben Ops will be communities that will place the practice the Little Way at the center of their lives, individually and collectively. Thérèse of Lisieux will become the patron saint of Ben Op spiritual formation.

And I think Rod might agree with me about that.

Beyond the Little Way, another Franciscan baby step is simply to take a cue from St. Francis.

Share life with a leper colony.

And by a leper colony I mean find people in your local community who have been abandoned by the American Dream. Look around your city and adopt a place and community that has been abandoned by empire, a place where people are lost and lonely. Here are some ideas:

• A prison or jail
• A poor school
• A housing development
• A city mission
• A hospital
• A local laundromat
• A neighborhood or zip code
• An assisted-living facility
• A state school
• A senior-citizen home
• A local non-profit serving a marginalized group (e.g., refugees, domestic abuse victims, the homeless)

The list can be expanded and expanded. But the goal in each instance isn't to create a program or ministry to "save" or "rescue" or even "help." The goal, to take a cue from Samuel Wells (PDF), is simply to be there, to accompany, to share life there. To be sure, you will likely serve, help and work for people in all of these locations. But like the Franciscans and their leper colonies, the goal is simply for the church to share life in an abandoned nook of empire.

No one in the church has to sell their home or quit their job or live in voluntary poverty. But there will have to be some opting out of the American Dream, some sabbath as resistance, if we are to make margin in our lives to share life with others. Being with others mostly means simply showing up. Everyday. So the members of the church have to make margin for it. Sharing life in a leper colony, being with others in an abandoned outpost of the American Dream, isn't a program or ministry. It's a lifestyle the church takes on as her core identity.   

You'll know you're heading in the right direction when there is absolutely no budget for this endeavor. When all you do as church is just show up for people. What William Stringfellow calls the sacrament of mere presence and Jean Vanier calls accompaniment.  Being with those abandoned by the American Dream. You know you're on the right track when the entire church is able to say, to a person, we live there. Everyday we are there--in that school, in that jail, in that cancer ward, in that mission, in that assisted-living facility, in that apartment complex--we are there, as a church, everyday.

We, all of us, our children and our elders, our clergy and our laity, our CEOs and our janitors, in one way or another, all of us, are there, everyday.

Being with. Sharing our life together.

Do this and God will do the rest.

For in that leper colony, in that abandoned wasteland of empire, we will find our church, our Christ, our God and our salvation.

If you ask my friend and colleague David McAnulty about the biggest obstacle facing American Christianity his answer might surprise you.

According to David, this is the church's biggest obstacle:

Youth sports.

I think David has a point. Growing up in my faith tradition we went to church three times a week. On Sunday morning we'd attend Sunday School and worship. Then we'd return to the church for a Sunday evening service. And then we'd gather midweek for Wednesday evening bible classes.

Those days are fading fast in our faith tradition. Our churches are dropping the Sunday evening gathering and attendance for the Wednesday evening bible classes has plummeted. And if you inquire about these changes what you mainly hear is that families are just too busy. And a huge part of that is youth sports. Traveling and games on the weekends. Practices during the week. With families so busy evenings are precious, and so the Sunday and Wednesday evening church gatherings get dropped.

Families just don't have time for church anymore.

Well, families do have the time, but families today value sports more than the assembly of the saints. 

I grew up in a very sports-oriented family, but when I was young a sport was a seasonal investment. Nowadays, if you want your child to be successful in a youth sport it is now a year-long investment, mainly with camps and traveling teams that compete for most of the year.

I bring all this up to frame a conversation I recently had with a friend who was lamenting how his family church attendance had suffered because of their involvement with soccer. Soccer had become an all-consuming, year-round investment. "But we have to do it," my friend despaired, "if our kids are to have any chance at being successful. If your kids don't compete year-round they'll get passed by all the other kids who are doing all the camps and traveling teams."

"You're right," I said, "you have to make that commitment if you want your kids to be successful at soccer. But the question I keep thinking about is why we don't care as much about our kids becoming successful Christians?"

This conversation about the impact of youth sports on church attendance, at least in my faith tradition, might seem to be a strange approach to the Ben Op. But I think it's a great illustration about why we need the Ben Op and the various obstacles the Ben Op will face. 

Recall from my last post how I described what I've called "the scarcity trap," the way our neurotic pursuit of self-esteem, success and significance emotionally and physically depletes and exhausts us. The felt scarcity of not "being enough" causes the scarcity of not "having enough," like enough time or energy.

The discussion about how youth sports affects church attendance is a perfect illustration of this dynamic. Wanting our kids to be successful and fearing that our kids will fall behind their peers, we push our families to a point of exhaustion where we no longer have the time or energy for Christian community and spiritual formation.

And beyond illustrating the need for the Ben Op, the case of youth sports also helps us address some of the criticisms of the Ben Op by specifying how, exactly, the Ben Op is supposed to help us.

The biggest criticism of the Ben Op is that it calls for a withdrawal from the world, a turn inward. While a withdrawal from the world makes sense to Christian fellowships with monastic traditions, it's a tougher sell for evangelicals who prize engagement with the world. Evangelicals have always prized social action and evangelism, two things that are hard to do if you withdraw into an spiritual enclave.

To be sure, many conservative evangelicals have withdrawn and turned inward. You see this especially with the home school movement. That's not a criticism of homeschooling, just an illustration about how the Ben Op occupies a contested place in the evangelical imagination, with many evangelicals drawn to the notion of cultural withdrawal and other evangelicals arguing that cultural withdrawal is antithetical to Christian witness and mission.

So what shall we mean by withdrawal? And is withdrawal a critical feature of the Ben Op?

Again, I think our discussion of youth sports is helpful here.

At the end of my last post I said it's time for Christians to start opting out of the rat race of modern, capitalistic societies. And that's what I think should be at the heart of a Ben Op "withdrawal." By withdrawal we mean opting out.

When we are talking about a progressive vision of a Ben Op we aren't talking about physical, geographical withdrawal. Again, in contrast to the Ben Op of the Pharisees, that's exactly what Jesus didn't do. Jesus was radically in and available to the world. And, thus, any Jesus-shaped Ben Op will look exactly like that. More on that in the next post.

So the withdrawal we are describing here isn't geographical, the withdrawal is psychological.

Theologically, a better word might be renunciation. If Christianity is going to become a locus of resistance to Empire we have to be formed into people who renounce--opt out, psychologically withdraw from--the way Empire defines success and significance. In the empire I live in that means opting out of the American Dream.

For example, a family opting out of youth sports to make room and margin for a different kind of family and church life.

Consider another example. In the sermon I gave at ACU's Summit last year, I shared the story of a young man who left a prestigious educational institution to teach history at a poor, inner-city high school. That's opting out of the American Dream. That's resisting empire, pursuing a very different path toward success and significance. 

And notice how the opting out in these two examples--youth sports and career choices--face the exact same challenge: social shaming and stigma, the fear of "falling behind," the neurotic anxiety about not being successful. If we opt out of youth sports we fear that our kids will not be successful or will fall out of step with their peers, making them odd and weird. If we say no to a prestigious career opportunity to pursue more servant-oriented work we fear looking like a loser or a failure to our peers, neighbors, colleagues, families, and even, in our heart of hearts, to ourselves.

In short, to opt out of empire is to experience shame. Which means that we have to become shame-resilient if we want to resist empire, individually and collectively.

And that's why we need the Ben Op. Shame-resiliency.

Proponents of the Ben Op often speak of the need to develop richly liturgical communities as the loci of Christian resistance to empire. And I wholeheartedly agree. But when you hear Ben Op proponents describe liturgy they often seem more interested in nostalgia than resistance, idolizing and fetishizing medieval and monastic liturgical expressions and practices. Don't get me wrong. I'm as nostalgic as the next guy. I have a prayer kneeler in my office and Orthodox icons fill my walls. I use prayer ropes and prayer beads. But as a progressive I don't fetishize the past. I'd rather live in a modern, liberal democracy than as a medieval peasant. And not just for the technological advancements, the moral advancements as well. Again, as many historians have argued the moral advances of liberalism are rooted in Western Christianity. I applaud those moral achievements.

And yet, I embrace liturgy, prayer kneelers, prayer ropes, icons, and prayer books because it is psychologically and socially difficult to opt out of the American Dream. Consequently, I need to practice what Walter Brueggemann has called "sabbath as resistance." As Walter writes:

In our own contemporary context of the rat race of anxiety, the celebration of Sabbath is an act of both resistance and alternative. It is resistance because it is a visible insistence that our lives are not defined by the production and consumption of commodity goods.

Living in empire we embrace liturgy to cultivate shame-resiliency, to remind ourselves that we aren't insane in the face of the shaming we experience in the world when we opt out, when we seek first the kingdom of God rather than the American Dream. Liturgy reminds us that it's the world that has gone insane. Liturgy is where we cultivate the social and psychological antibodies necessary to live counter-culturally in the world.

To be sure, liturgy has its limits and its own attendant temptations. More on that in the next and final post. But liturgy has to be a critical component of any progressive vision of the Ben Op.

Why? Because the cruciform way of Jesus will always be an ignoble path in the world. The Way of the Cross will be shamed as foolishness, by liberals and by conservatives.

Which is why we need a Ben Op, an intentional community practicing sabbath as resistance so that we can develop the shame-resiliency necessary to live ignoble, foolish and cruciform lives in the midst of empire.

Over the last three years I've done different things with Friday's posts. It started off with me blogging through the Rule of St. Benedict to highlighting posts found by interesting search terms to last year's "Unpublished" series where I posted material I'd left unpublished over the years.

So, what to do on Fridays for 2016?

As many of you are aware, this blog is the only social media presence I have. I'm not on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. No big philosophical reason for that. It's mainly due to how busy I am. I work hard at this blog to keep content coming Monday-Friday. And as you can imagine, that's a big commitment. So I just don't have a lot of time to devote to keep track of additional social media platforms.

Still, there are moments, not a lot, but a few, where I'd like an outlet to put out more personal items. Stuff of life kinds of things, the things you see on Instagram and Facebook.

Add to this the fact that I don't blog a whole lot about myself. My life isn't all that interesting, but I do think that some of you might want to get to know me a bit better, the person behind the blog and books.

So let me introduce you to our new Friday series which I'm calling "Personal Days." The idea behind "Personal Days" is simple: I'll be using Friday posts as if they were Facebook and Instagram, posting pictures and moments from my life. 

And to start us off, let me introduce you to our recurring cast of characters...

First, there is my oldest son, Brenden. Brenden is a senior at Abilene Christian Schools and heading to ACU next year. He's still thinking about a major. This is Brenden and I at his last ACS football game

Here's my youngest son, Aidan. Aidan is a freshmen at ACS. Aidan just got his driver's permit and this is a picture of him right before driving a car for the first time, his first driving lesson with Dad. And look at that Johnny Cash shirt he's wearing! That's my boy!

Finally, the love of my life, Jana. This year will be our 25th wedding anniversary. Jana is the middle school and high school drama teacher at ACS. Every year, both Brenden and Aidan choose to take their Mom's drama class as an elective and they always audition for her plays. Because of Jana we are very theatrical family! In fact, that's how Jana and I first met. We were both auditioning for a play at ACU. We saw each other in the lobby.

She walked over and said Hi.

In the last two posts I pointed out why I think progressive Christians are well-suited for the Ben Op. Specifically, when we compare the Ben Op of the Pharisees versus the Ben Op of Jesus, progressive Christians are energized by a vision of a Ben Op that is rooted in radical hospitality. In addition, progressive Christians will tend to be egalitarian, making their Ben Op communities safer for women and children.

In this post I want to focus why progressive Christians need the Ben Op. 

Again, what is the Ben Op and why do we need it?

According to Rod Dreher, the Ben Op involves Christians who "construct local forms of community as loci of Christian resistance against what the empire represents."

And why do we need the Ben Op? Because of the corrosive effects of modernity upon the Christian faith and community. Keeping my eye on progressive Christians, some of the corrosive effects I've mentioned in the first three posts include:

1. Statism
The belief that the state is the sole and final arbiter of social and moral affairs and thus reducing Christian social action to taking control of the state.

2. Individualism
A fierce commitment to radical autonomy and independence making it impossible for us to form communities that participate God's ongoing story of covenantal promise and fidelity.

3. Functional atheism
Pervasive doubt and agnosticism, along with an inability to articulate anything particularly or distinctively Christian in prophetic contrast to the prevailing liberal and humanistic consensus.

There is a whole lot that is packed into this summary list.

For example, related to individualism is consumerism. We can't form covenantal communities because we approach church as spiritual consumers. Churches have to attract us with religious goods and services. The binding agent--the glue holding modern Christians together--is liking rather than covenant. I've written about this issue before:

One of the questions I often ask myself about my church, which is reflective of most churches I suspect, is this: What binds us together as a community?

As best I can tell what binds us together is liking. We're at our church because we like it. Because we like the sermons. Or like the worship. Or like the programs. Or like the bible classes. Or like the people.

We are there--we are a "church," a gathering--because we like the same things.

Obviously, this is a very thin web of support--our liking, our preferences--that is holding us together. What happens when we get a new preacher and we don't like the sermons as much anymore? Or what if the worship style changes and we stop liking it?

What happens when the going gets tough? When sin needs to be confronted, when discipleship gets costly, when love gets sacrificial or when deep disagreements are aired? What happens when doubts deepen and faith grows cold?

Will liking be enough to bind us together during these seasons?

There needs to be something more than liking. So what might it look like if a church was bound together by promises rather than preferences?

Because love, it seems to me, is less about liking than it is about promising. 

A problem related to statism, one I mentioned in the earlier posts, is how we trade in the corporal works of mercy for political activism. This is not to dismiss the vital and important role of political activism, but Christan social action has always been rooted in the very personal, local, face-to-face practices of the works of mercy--you and I, personally, today, feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, quenching the thirst of the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, and visiting the incarcerated.

I might say it this way, infected by statism progressive Christians have lost their Franciscan imagination.

And again, this isn't a forced choice or a false dichotomy, the works of mercy vs. political activism. I encourage any progressive Christian, especially if you're interested in the Ben Op, to make a close study of the life and witness of Dorothy Day. When it comes to activism and the works of mercy Christians can and must do both. But if you had to choose, a Christian goes with Jesus: you--personally--perform the works of mercy. That's the line in the sand Jesus placed between the sheep and the goats. 

Incidentally, this is yet another location where I think progressive Christians are well suited for the Ben Op. Where many Ben Op communities will place cultic practices and boundary markers (e.g., liturgy, orthodoxy) at the heart of their communities, progressive Ben Op communities will be much more likely to place Matthew 25 at their heart. As examples of these progressive Matthew 25 Ben Op communities, again see the Catholic Workers and the new monastic movement as discussed by Rod and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove.

(The question I'll be asked here is if progressive Ben Ops have to take on Catholic Worker and new monastic expressions. The answer is no. In the last two posts of this series I'll be describing how the Ben Op looks for local churches filled with regular folk, people with mortgages, families and day jobs.)

Lastly, there is also much that could be said about progressive Christians being functional atheists. Many progressive Christians are so crippled by doubts that their Christianity is only vestigial, a religious ornament one hangs on the reigning liberal consensus. And that feeds into statism. When your faith has evaporated and there is no daylight between Christianity and liberalism, the only Messiah left in your life is the state.

All that to say, progressive Christians need the Ben Op so that they can find the time, space and community to revitalize and re-energize their flagging faith. A time, space, and community where the faith, in all its distinctive particularities, is joyfully and enthusiastically embraced, cherished and celebrated.

Finally, before concluding this post let me bring in a fourth reason we need the Ben Op:

4. Scarcity, Exhaustion and the Never Enough Problem
The competitive meritocracy of capitalism fills our lives with neurotic status anxiety--what Brené Brown calls "the shame-based fear of being ordinary"--which drives us to emotional and physical exhaustion as we work and perform for self-esteem, success and significance.

The fuel of capitalism is our neurotic anxiety, our fears of being a failure and a loser. The dark genius of capitalism is that it leverages our neuroses into productivity. This neurosis is rooted in a felt sense of scarcity, what Brené Brown calls the "never enough problem," a feeling that we are always inadequate, always behind, always losing. And social media just exacerbates this problem as we compare our lives to the happiness and successes we see on Facebook. To say nothing of how a capitalist marketing, advertisement, media and entertainment environment saturates you with images of bright, shiny people who are successful, fit, happy and attractive.

And so we push ourselves to catch up. Anyone make any New Year's resolutions?

We don't want to be ordinary. We don't want to be left behind. But the pricetag of all this pushing and striving is emotional and physical exhaustion, along with all the sacrifices demanded to make it to the top, sacrifices that fall most heavily upon our loved ones. Pushing to "make it" in the meritocracy we ruin our bodies, minds, and relationships.

And if we can't catch up--if our lot is to be one of the failures and losers--we can drown our embarrassment, failures, insecurities and shame in food, drink, medications, and entertainments. If you're poor it's nicotine, cheap beer, meth, fast food, video games, porn, Facebook and TV. If you're more well-to-do you can upgrade many of these to more "sophisticated" pleasures and distractions. You might hate cheap cigarettes, beer and UFC wrestling but you love your cigars, expensive whiskey and golf outings. Either way, it's all the numbing decadence of empire. 

Late modern capitalism is killing us. That's why Christians, conservative and progressive, need the Ben Op.

It's time for Christians to start opting out.

[Programming note to readers following this series. Parts 5 and 6 of this six-part series will appear next week on Monday and Tuesday.]

As I noted in yesterday's post, Rod Dreher, father of the Ben Op, recently asked for input about how a Ben Op group can become toxic.

As I described yesterday, Ben Op communities go "dark side" when they become pharisaical, inward-looking communities focused on moral policing and purity boundaries. Rod gives an example of what this looks like in his post:

True story: some years ago, long before the words “Benedict Option” ever occurred to me, I was thinking of moving to a particular conservative Catholic enclave, which struck me from the outside as a good place to raise a family. Turns out that somebody who lives there was a friend of a friend, and our mutual pal put us in touch. The person who lived in the community warned against it. This shocked me, because I had been told that this person, whom I’ll call X., was an orthodox Catholic, just like me.

X. was, but said this community was not a healthy one. It was driven by fear and extremism, and far too many people were obsessed by policing the boundaries on negligible things. I was trying to wrap my mind around what X. was saying, and put it to X. like this: “Are you saying this is the kind of place where, if I had a daughter someday and let her wear pants instead of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ dresses, people would shun us?'”

“That’s exactly what it’s like,” said X, and then gave me more examples like this.

I crossed that place off my list, though it’s a place that looked good from the outside.

What Rod is describing here is exactly what I described in my last post, the pharisaical temptation that will haunt Ben Op communities that define themselves as a group of the morally pure and righteous holding the line against the impure and unrighteous.

So that's one way a Ben Op goes dark side, a pharisaical pursuit of moral purity and righteousness over against depraved and unclean outsiders.

In this post I want to mention a second reason Ben Op expressions go dark side.

The point is simply made, conservative Ben Op expressions are dangerous because of patriarchalism.

Insular and patriarchal communities are simply not safe for women and children. To be clear, this is not to say that insular and patriarchal communities are inevitably and always unsafe to women and children. Just that insular and patriarchal communities are more prone to harm women and children than are more open and egalitarian communities. Women and children are always safer in communities where women share leadership with men. Especially in communities which are insular and cut-off from the world.

And many Ben Op proponents gravitate toward the insular. The Ben Op has been described as a sort of "withdrawal" from the world. Next week, in Part 5, I'll give my progressive take on the Ben Op withdrawal. But for this post we're focusing on the safety of Ben Op expressions that involve some sort of separation from the world--socially and/or geographically.

Insular groups, because of their insularity, are prone to abuse for a variety of reasons rooted in group psychology (e.g., groupthink, conformity, obedience to authority). Insular groups lack the social resources, due to their insularity, to combat dark turns. And when an insular group goes dark the most vulnerable members of the group, the women and the children, will be the most likely to be harmed and abused.

Again, insular groups aren't inherently evil. But insular groups are vulnerable. Insular groups are risky. I'd go so far to say that insular groups are dangerous. So any call for the Ben Op has to have an honest reckoning with that risk. And the conclusion I draw from this is that if a group chooses to become insular--as many Ben Op proponents suggest--it must take preventative measures to protect the most vulnerable members of its community.

And the simplest and most reliable way to accomplish this is that Ben Op communities must be egalitarian. Women and men have to share leadership responsibilities in Ben Op communities if they want to protect their women and children. This is another reason why progressive Christians are well suited for the Ben Op. When progressive Christians turn inward they will have women in leadership positions. Conservative Ben Op communities, by contrast, will exclude women from leadership, placing the women and children of the community at greater risk should the community go dark.

I'm not trying to be provocative with this assessment. Poll woman with this question: Would you feel safer moving with your children into an insular, patriarchal community or into a community where single women, wives and mothers shared leadership with men, and where you yourself could be a leader?

And if you're a man ask yourself the same question: If you were a woman which community would you feel safer in?

Rod, the father of the Ben Op, has asked a very important question. What are the factors that will cause the Ben Op to go dark?

I think one answer is clear. When you hear a tale of a Ben Op going dark it will be, more often than not, a story from an insular, patriarchal community.

And what this suggests to me is that for the Ben Op to thrive it has to be egalitarian, with both women and men in leadership.