A Jesus Manifesto

While both Dave and I love to promote other Christian endeavors, we love to promote Christ above all.

So while we have both agreed that Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola's A Jesus Manifesto that is wandering around the net isn't the first thing we would put our names on, not at least without clearing some stuff up anyway, I do want to link to Mark Van Steenwyk's kindly review of it. I think both the work and the review have some very good things to say. Things the Church needs to hear.

For more of thoughts on this subject, see Beloved Bride.

Beloved Bride

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Frank Viola receives a lot of flak; a good deal of it may be deserved, but I think he is onto something. Yes, returning to more "Biblical" church practices and fellowship is necessary, but Viola sometimes says things that sound ... just a little too aggressive. In his recent blog tour of interviews, he at one point chose to not use the word "church" because it carried too much baggage.

Ken Sweers, a very wise brother, has allowed me to post his response here. This is something we all need to remember, the sovereignty and unconditional love of God.

“Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.”

Which church? Wait … the word church has too much baggage, so let’s not use that term. Wait … the word wife has too much baggage as well, so let’s redefine marriage altogether.

Why not simply go back to the basics? If the bride is confused, or defiled, or emaciated, or unfaithful, or whatever, the Groom will deal with her. She is still the bride. Marriage vows represent an unconditional commitment to an imperfect person. That’s how Jesus loves His church. The church did not disappear when Constantine empowered her with the state, although she did become defiled and adulteress-like. As in the prophetical analogy of Hosea, God did not let loose of her. He did not forsake her and become a recluse hermit unless or until she cleaned herself up and came crawling back to Him. Unlike Hosea, God was and always is in control, always working all things to good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. There are not two churches – the traditional-institutional and the emerging. There is but one church, and although I believe she is indeed in a transitional state, I do not believe Jesus loves one ’stage’ of the transitional church over the other.

I see this as a very ambivalent time for the church – much like the emotional state of Israel at the end of Ezra 3: the traditional-institutional church weeps and mourns as she remembers her former glory while the emerging church gives great shouts of praise as the new foundations are becoming visible. As there was only one Israel in Ezra’s day of renewal, so there is only one church today. Let us be careful to honor our heritage and take with us the lessons learned as we progress forward in God’s purposes for, in, and through His church..."

As nothing happens that is not either Divinely instigated or permitted, I think it prudent that Viola and those lead towards (yet another) Church reform (and that includes me) need to remember that the whole history of the Church, in all its pomp and splendor, as well as warring and arrogant abjectedness, still falls under the Lord's all powerful hand. What He has purposed us for is beyond measure, but our road there will not always be a peaceful and scenic one. Did God allow the Constantinian era in order to quickly spread the Message, permitting basilica and priest centered practices as a "bridge" to the pagan nations that couldn't image a god in any other way? Once the people were in and enlightened, matured and freed, the Bride emerges, once again in a state of beauty? Bunyan's Christian goes through much till he is brought from the river on the other side and welcomed. But He was welcomed from the very beginning.

I don't know. I don't know much. But one thing I do know is that God knows. And He has His purpose and it will not fail. His Will does not return unaccomplished.

Against the Flow

“For me the dynamic of a commitment to Scripture is not “we believe the Bible, so there is no more to be learned,” but rather “we believe the Bible, so we had better discover all the things in it to which our traditions, including our ‘protestant’ or ‘evangelical’ traditions, which have supposed themselves to be ‘biblical’ but are sometimes demonstrably not, have made us blind.”

N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, pg 17

How arrogant are we to think we control the market on “Truth?”
Many un-believers ask Christians the same question I now ask you. Many deny Christ because they (sometimes rightly) see the hypocrisy of our arrogance and the infighting that ensues. Just the same many Christians have gotten angry reading these recent posts. Forgive me, but so be it. However, it is not my purpose to divide, rather to gather.

Lately I have used the term ‘heretic’ rather flippantly. For that, excuse me. I merely wish to point out that in leaving tradition unquestioned we have often used “doctrine,” not as a guide, but as a heavy wooden cricket bat against those who don’t hold our same views. Watchman Nee said that denominations cause sin by division in the Oneness we inherited in Christ. I wholeheartedly agree and therefore claim none nor denounce any. (1)

Causing division is a terrible sin! Father, forgive me for how many times I have birthed it myself! Christ said as He and the Father are One, we are to be One. The world will know us by our love for one another; we are to abide, along side one another, in Him, not in tradition, nor doctrine. How silly are we to abide in doctrine? History points clearly to the division our own hard, scaly pride causes in the guise of “doctrine.”(2) Many claim to have the truth and the light, persecuting those who don’t agree. Watchman Nee responded to those minds, “You may well have light and truth, but knowledge alone will benefit you nothing.”(3) It is Christ Himself that we long for and to Him we put our trust, not laws, traditions, doctrines nor deeds. Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, alone saves.

Protestants argue with Catholics that the Bible must take precedence over Tradition, but when it comes to Protestants’ own tradition, we label it “common grace” or whatnot. Christians claiming to “do it by the Bible” protest against those who do not, yet much of what is practiced is nowhere to be found in the Good Book. Let us not care so much for legality – that is what it is, after all – but for the One whom it points.

Granted, there are wrong beliefs. To those who think otherwise, friends you may be, but Mormons, Freemasons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, even Christians claiming homosexuality to be “ok,” I must simply say, sorry, the Bible says otherwise and leave it at that. Argue you might, but we must end in the Word. I love you either way, but God’s Word must be sufficient and I trust that it is.

It is not for us to proclaim what is right or wrong; we simply point to the Bible for that, we are to discern according to the Word. That is why we have it. “Then it becomes subject to interpretation,” you say. No, I would argue that interpretation becomes subject to pride. I can look anywhere for a verse to justify what I do. In fact, Satan does that all the time. Indeed it is usually his first tactic. What did Satan say to Eve in the garden but to begin by quoting God? “Did God really say…?” Then of course he hits us with what we really want to hear, “You will become like God…!”

It wasn’t merely that we broke God’s command, but that we chose to decide what is right and wrong wholly apart from our relationship to God. We take upon ourselves daily what is rightfully His; we make ourselves judge, king of our own realm and master of our own destinies. We were made for relationship, communion, instead we chose to stand alone. [0]

Horribly, we repeat this every time we declare our knowledge or version of it superior to someone else’s. In claiming ‘our way right,’ or ‘your interpretation wrong,’ we are claiming our works or our thoughts or doctrine as the saving factor, yet it is Christ alone.

Christ said He comes not to condemn but to save. The Word He has spoken will be the Judge. We are to live in a holy relationship with Him, let His love shine among the nations and call those that He would call. The rest, we must leave to Him and Trust in His Judgment. We are not to argue about doctrines nor laws, or did the book of Romans get thrown out? These do not save you. Christ does.

So, because the word ‘heresy’ gets thrown around by so many people claiming right doctrine, I must ask, how proud are we to think that we are the only ones to hold the Truth? Christ is the Mystery of God. We don’t hold the Truth, It holds us, He holds us! Bathe in Him, dive deep into the Mystery and Wonder that is the Lord God! No wonder un-believers sneer as they watch us wrestle with each other to grasp what even the infinite universe cannot contain. In calling on God and declaring one’s own version of truth the ‘God-approved one,’ don’t we break the commandment, “Thou shalt not make wrongful use of My Name?”

Let’s be very careful then by what measure we shout “heretic.”

(1) Therefore I agree with Watchman Nee, but disagree with his pupil Witness Lee who denounced denominations, Catholics and Protestants as the harlot of Babylon. Yet another wooden bat.
(2) Hearing that we are proud is hard medicine. It’s easy reading in the Word because it seems distant, subtracted from reality, but almost impossible to hear an actual person say it. Why? We are all proud and no one likes the pot calling the kettle black. But it is true, nonetheless.
(3) Watchman Nee was often criticized and persecuted for his teachings against denominations, that division is sin. But the things to which many attributed him were simply not true. He once said in response, “The Watchman Nee portrayed by them I would also condemn.”