We’ve treated our sinfulness as the most true thing about us as humans, rather than our identity as created and loved by God
God Attachment pg 110
Empathy
if you are always dodging your emotions, you will avoid your own experience, as well as avoiding the experience of others. If you always ignore your own emotional suffering, you’ll likely take the same approach to the suffering of others.
There’s always risk when stepping into someone else’s shoes: we might feel a little bit of what they are feeling, which akc touches on a little bit of what we are feeling. As Brené Brown says, “Empathy is a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something within. that knows that feeling.’
God Attachment https://www.amazon.com/God-Attachment-Believe-Feel-About/dp/1501108131
What Christian Leaders Should Be Like
In my early 20s, I attended an event where Tim Keller, an orthodox, evangelical Presbyterian pastor, was having a public debate with a secular humanist. In the nearly 20 years that have passed since the event, I still recall one moment distinctly. The secular humanist struggled with a point he was making and was unclear, something that happens often enough in public speaking. Keller could have chosen to go in for the kill rhetorically and make his opponent look foolish. Instead, he paused and asked, “Is this what you mean?” Keller then restated the secular argument in a clearer, better way, arguing against his own point of view. The other speaker agreed that was what he had meant, and Keller continued, countering the (now much stronger) point.
This generosity and understanding toward those with whom we disagree helped shape the way I now see the world. It had more of an impact on me, as a Christian, than any argument could. Keller refused the easier route of debate, insisting on finding the best argument of others, even if it meant strengthening his opponent’s case. He was in pursuit of truth and kindness, not point-scoring. That night I saw what Christian leaders should be like
Trish Harrison Warren
Lament
If we lock our emotions in the basement in an attempt to keep God close, something else happens: we end up feeling distant. Intimacy happens in the emotional interactions of a relationship and when we hide our emotions from God, we never get the closeness we long for. Bonding is built on responsiveness, feeling that others understand our emotional experiences and that they care. It’s how we know we matter to others. But if we don’t ever share our emotions with God, true bonding never happens.
Suppressing our emotions also cripples our ability to engage in true community with others. When we can’t share our emotions, or respond to the emotions of others, we never experience the belonging we were built for, We might feel like teammates or co-workers but never the family that the apostle Paul describes in his letters to the church. We show up with our bodies but have trouble connecting heart-to-heart, Our Life of faith ends up feeling lonely.
God Attachment https://www.amazon.com/God-Attachment-Believe-Feel-About/dp/1501108131
Waiting
“The church is the community that believes it is not the star of its own story.”
When we refuse to wait we become the star of our own story; when we wait we become supporting actors to Jesus, who is the star.
“With our attention on the anxiety to survive and the rush to do something, God is inevitably replaced as the star of the church’s story. It becomes so easy, particularly in our secular age, for God to be just a subplot of our congregational life.”
When Church Stops Working – Andrew Root and Blair D. Bertrand
Evil in disguise
…it is almost impossible for any social grouping to be corporately or consistently selfless.
It has to maintain and promote itself first at virtually any cost—sacrificing even its own stated ethics and morality. If we cannot see this, it might reveal the depth of the disguise of institutionalized evil.
Evil finds its almost perfect camouflage in the silent agreements of the group when it appears personally advantageous. Such unconscious “deadness” will continue to show itself in every age, I believe. This is why I can’t throw the word “sin” out entirely. If we do not see the true shape of evil or recognize how we are fully complicit in it, it will fully control us, while not looking the least like sin. Would “agreed-upon delusion” be a better description? We cannot recognize it or overcome it as isolated individuals, mostly because it is held together by the group consensus.
Richard Rohr
Social media
Krista Boan: We hear from families that technology is the No. 1 battleground in their homes. Qustodio, a leader in online safety, recently released its annual report and found that 70 percent of parents assert that screens and technology are now a distraction from family time and device use causes weekly or daily arguments in nearly 50 percent of households. A big new study from Cambridge University, in which researchers looked at 84,000 people of all ages, found that social media use was strongly associated with worse mental health during certain sensitive life periods, including for girls ages 11 to 13. Compared with their counterparts in the 2000s, today’s teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver’s licenses or play youth sports.
Consciousness
… until we move to self-reflective, self-critical thinking, we don’t move to any deep level of consciousness at all. In fact, we largely remain unconscious, falsely innocent, and unaware. Thus, most people choose to remain in that first stage of consciousness, secure and consoled. It’s great to think we’re the best and the center of the world. It even passes for holiness, but it isn’t holy at all.
Richard Rohr
Viktor Frankl discovered that while the body grows according to what it consumes, the soul grows by the measure of love it pours out.
… consider the possibility that a creature of infinite love has made a promise to us. Consider the possibility that we are the ones committed to, the objects of an infinite commitment and that the commitment is to redeem us and bring us home. That is why religion is hope. I am a wandering Jew and a very confused Christian, but how quick is my pace, how open are my possibilities, and how vast are my hopes
David Brooks The Second Mountain Page 270
View from the Front Porch
Bait & Switch Christianity – Richard Beck
To start, a story.
A few years ago a female student wanted to visit with me about some difficulties she was having, mainly with her family life. As is my practice, we walked around campus as we talked.
After talking for some time about her family situation we turned to other areas of her life. When she reached spiritual matters we had the following exchange:
“I need to spend more time working on my relationship with God.”
I responded, “Why would you want to do that?”
Startled she says, “What do you mean?”
“Well, why would you want to spend any time at all on working on your relationship with God?”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
“Let me answer by asking you a question. Can you think of anyone, right now, to whom you need to apologize? Anyone you’ve wronged?”
She thinks and answers, “Yes.”
“Well, why don’t you give them a call today and ask for their forgiveness. That might be a better use of your time than working on your relationship with God.”
Obviously, I was being a bit provocative with the student. And I did go on to clarify. But I was trying to push back on a strain of Christianity I see in both my students and the larger Christian culture. Specifically, when the student said “I need to work on my relationship with God” I knew exactly what she meant. It meant praying more, getting up early to study the bible, to start going back to church. Things along those lines. The goal of these activities is to get “closer” to God. To “waste time with Jesus.” Of course, please hear me on this point, nothing is wrong with those activities. Personal acts of piety and devotion are vital to a vibrant spiritual life and continued spiritual formation. But all too often “working on my relationship with God” has almost nothing to do with trying to become a more decent human being.
The trouble with contemporary Christianity is that a massive bait and switch is going on. “Christianity” has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed “spiritual” substitute. For example, rather than being a decent human being the following is a list of some commonly acceptable substitutes:
Going to church
Worship
Praying
Spiritual disciplines (e.g., fasting)
Bible study
Voting Republican
Going on spiritual retreats
Reading religious books
Arguing with evolutionists
Sending your child to a Christian school or providing education at home
Using religious language
Avoiding R-rated movies
Not reading Harry Potter.
The point is that one can fill a life full of spiritual activities without ever, actually, trying to become a more decent human being. Much of this activity can actually distract one from becoming a more decent human being. In fact, some of these activities make you worse, interpersonally speaking. Many churches are jerk factories.
… contemporary Christianity has lost its way. Christians don’t wake up every morning thinking about how to become a more decent human being. Instead, they wake up trying to “work on their relationship with God” which very often has nothing to do with treating people better.
I need to be a more decent human being…
STILL ON THE JOURNEY