Over-spiritualizing

There is a strong propensity in Christian culture to over spiritualize.  I sometimes use the term "over-spiritualize" to define interpreting events in our life that exceed their intended meaning, or when an event is over-compensated with implications that God had orchestrated it.

As a follower of Jesus, it is tempting sometimes to find a profound spiritual meaning in something that moved me emotionally.  While there is certainly a spiritual nature to everything, sometimes we forget God made us as emotional beings so we feel deeply because we are made human, not because of divine intervention. 

In some ways we are afraid of not making something spiritual because we feel the need to legitimize the events or happenings in our ongoing life.  We want our experiences to be important, really important.  We fear not having an important life.  Sometimes the desire to live a life that matters can be the trigger for over-spiritualizing.

In other ways we have an over developed understanding of God’s sovereignty.   We think He’s personally intervening all the time.  If God is intervening in our stuff all the time we paint a picture of a God who is obsessed with the minutia of “my life” as much as I am.  When we credit God for intervening we come across ignorant of the reality that at this moment 29,000 mothers are begging God to save their starving child while we're convinced God made a certain song come on the radio just to send us a personal message.

Jesus purposed to point out reality verses God’s activity. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus mentioned a recent tragedy about some Galileans who were killed by the Romans.  Many expected Him to say that their deaths were from God’s hand.  Yet, in mentioning the collapse of the tower of Siloam, Jesus taught that events like these come upon everyone, regardless of their behavior.  Many of today's Christians would interpret such a situation as an act of God when it is actually a result of living in the world.

The danger in over-spiritualizing something is that we put too much value on one thing and in so doing take away value from the more important things.  The odd thing is, when we over-spiritualize we actually create emotional confusion about what God is up to in this world.  We create a consciousness that is waiting for a "movement of God."  We create a God that is without who intervenes in dramatic ways instead of a God who is within in the form of the Holy Spirit striving with us to bear fruit in the routine of our life.

Sure there's more of an emotional return to claim “God gave me such and such” or “told me such and such” but God’s activity is primarily birthed on the battle ground of relationships. The New Testament creates a new pipeline for His voice and this is through the gritty rub of a living into community.  The sober reality is that the Bible never uses the word “personal” to speak of God’s relating with us. There are no phrases throughout the entire New Testament like “a personal walk with God” or “a personal relationship with God.”  The supernatural and practical reality of a community struggling out submission to Jesus is the primary conduit in which we hear, see and feel God.  Over-spiritualizing can be really unspiritual.

Ten books from 2011

I love to read probably more than I like to talk. So stick me in a closet with a book and a flashlight and I’ll be happier than being at party with a crowd. Here are 10 books (not my top ten) I read this year that had me captivated, bored out of my mind or scratching my head.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero
I read this book 5 years ago and it messed me up again this year as much as it did back then. Peter Scazzero says you can’t be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. He really digs deep on how many adults are still emotional infants; unable to work through relational conflict, seeking attention for their personalities or accomplishments, not able to enter into world of others unselfishly, driven by instant emotional gratification and holding long grudges when personally offended. This is the stuff that often times goes unaddressed and eats away at community. This is well written and filled with practical disciplines to bring our emotional world into adulthood.


The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons
A book exposing the brewing expression of what Christians will look like in the coming century. I love futurist discussion packed with research. Gabe might make some people nervous by saying he hopes the Christian America concept and current Evangelical framework comes to an end. He is proposing that a new generation of Jesus followers is attempting to break free from a brand of Christianity that is easily offended by worldliness, critical of culture, seeking power or status, autonomous in their faith walk and has conversion as their bottom line. I love this discussion but I find that the greater church is not willing to give space to this fresh form of Christianity. Gabe is a conservative in many ways but labels only frustrate the “Next Christians”. After reading this book you can’t help but ask “Are we headed for another reformation?” Interesting...


The Bible Made impossible by Christian Smith
A feisty discussion on how to read the bible. The author really challenges the idea of the “plain-reading” of scripture (reading the bible to see what it says to me or inductive reading that interprets using modern definitions and literal methods). He brings to light the wild and varied interpretations we’ve come to as evangelicals and we call them “biblical”. Proof-texting is splintering modern Christianity (using isolated OT passages to tell us how to understand God or moralizing NT passages to help us live better lives). He proposes that we need to recover a contextualized approach that first constructs primarily from a 1st century Jewish or Greek perspective and uses the word made flesh (Jesus) as the lens to interpret all of scripture. I’ve heard many preachers claim to preach the bible but they really preach interpretive pluralism. They preach first for western application not Jewish contextualization. We’ve confused authoritative, bible thumping for being more biblical.


Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Totally old school but unbelievably relevant to the forming of community. This book works through the social and psychological ramifications of forming a Christian community and it ain’t always pretty. This book cuts through all the cliches and utopian ideals. Bonhoeffer lived it and comes across with full bodied credibility. Our current ideas of community rally around friendship, like interests, felt needs, a magnetic pastor or cute bible studies. If community is built on any of those previous things it will crumble given enough time. Bonhoeffer tells us to get our heads out of the clouds and press into the real gritty work of building a Kingdom community for the love of God.


Insurrection by Peter Rollins
Rollins tries to build a case that doubt is essential for faith in Christ. I agree with him on some level that doubt strips away pretense, empty cliches, therapeutic crutches and instead can push us deeper into understanding the suffering and reality of Jesus. But the rest of the book gets real loopy. Peter Rollins does so many philosophical gymnastics that he comes up with unsupported conclusions about the scriptures. At one point he says Jesus became an Athiest because he doubted whether God the Father existed when said “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” He uses a lot of reasoning to come to that conclusion and then builds the rest of the book on that premise. It’s easy to like Rollins writing because of his moving illustrations and sweeping prose but he leads you into weird rooms wondering how you got there. Plus, from my experience many people that go through seasons of doubt do it without a safety net of community and do not recover from it and Rollins never addresses that. Creating space for doubt inside a grace-filled community is essential but telling people Jesus was an Atheist is simply confusing and untrue.


Communicating for a Change by Andy Stanley
A primer on how to deliver captivating and practical sermons. I’ve always respected Andy Stanley and his delivery method. I love the way in which he assembles a one point sermon and builds around it so there is better understanding amongst those listening. But a part of me struggles with the premise of the modern sermon; one way communication. I’m not sure that what we’ve come to understand the sermon to be is what was happening in the early church. There are a few places were Paul delivers a tight presentation of Jesus (Mars Hill, Acts 17) but for the most part there was not a pulpit or a 30 min presentation. The early church did constructive interactive theology in their gatherings. The idea of our modern sermon comes more from the Greco-Roman style of presenting a philosophical argument. The more interactive communal approach to digesting biblical truth is a little messier and not as customer friendly but it is certainly more incarnational, hospitable to learners, slows down our opinionatedness, amps biblical-narrative literacy and creates more ownership.


Against Calvanism by Roger Olson
Two books came out this year Against Calvinism by Olson and For Calvinism by Michael Horton. I plan on reading For Calvinism later this year. Against Calvinism is a head on attack against the modern “Young Reformed and Restless” resurgence ignited by John Piper, John MacArthur, R.C Sproul and posse. This argument has been a long settled deal for me. I really wrestled through this 10 years ago. I have to say I love Olson’s approach. He brings to the forefront the issue I always had a problem with “Can God be good if He controls everything?” Olson dives into the poor handling of Romans by Calvinists, the uncontexutalized interpretation of “Jacob I loved, Esau I hated” and the hermeneutic of proof texting. The first quarter of the book is long and unnecessary as he belabors how many different types of Calvinism there are. But what I love is that he addresses the myth that Calvinism is the only serious and rich theological approach. I personally found the alternative to be more rigorous and demanding than Calvinism. I wouldn’t call myself an Arminian, more an Anabaptist if anything. He shows how Arminians in the classical sense are Reformed; believing God is glorious and we are indebted to the grace of God. Good read.


The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro
A modern vampire/zombie novel that is part of a Trilogy that has some biblical references to the sons of god and the Nephilim in Gensis 6. This book follows a small band of vampire hunters in NYC who are slowing realizing the origins of this world take over. Totally could become a movie.





The Social-Rhetorical Commentary on the Gospel of Mark by Ben Witherington
This commentary has really aided my teaching through the book of mark. This commentary is different than your tradition one. It works through the rhetoric from a Jewish perspective, dealing with how the 1st Century audience would hear it not how a 21st century American would. Witherington does little personal application (leaves that up to us) and mostly deals with why Jesus kept his identity a secret throughout his earthly ministry.


The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter
A book exploring the tension of missional communites and larger church gatherings. This pastor has been pioneering this approach in Denver and shares his stories and discoveries. I like the premise but the delivery is flat in some ways. It seems to me Halter is trying to build bridges and peace between the missional community camp and the attractional big church camp. I respect his attempt but in the process it seems most everything gets watered down and left up to “there’s no right answer” approach. He spends an appropriate amount of time teaching on how to wean people of consumerism church; consuming the sermon, the programs, the worship, the building and the pastoral services. I’m all over this but his remedy comes across like a dog without any bite.

The Surreal God

We all have a picture of God in our head. I call it the Surreal God. We have in our imagination a God that is “other” that stirs up a bit of emotion, reaction and passion in us. Most people when they speak or think of God filter out anything that is not super-human, super-sized, powerful and larger than life. Just forming the word God with our lips conjures up a Zeus-like looking character who is sitting on a golden throne high above the earth using his gavel to make sharp decisions about mankind. Infused into the word God is the idea of “Bigness.” Those who believe in God believe he is powerful and glorious.

Here is the odd thing; those that don’t believe in God especially in the conscience of New Atheism believe God is supposed to look Big as well. They have similar expectations on God if he did exist. In Christopher Hitchens book God Is Not Great he said “If God did exist he would eradicate evil, injustice, needless suffering, he would swoop in and fix this world.” His reasoning goes; since God doesn’t act like a god there must not be a God. In the mind’s eye of those who do believe and don’t believe I find similar expectations on God floating around. God is supposed to present himself in big ways. That’s what gods do, right?

It’s hard to know where we pick up the pieces that make up our Surreal God. They attach themselves overtime. It reminds me of when I was washing my car and discovered a layer of bugs on the front hood. I never remembered seeing them before. So I scrubbed and scrubbed but they wouldn’t come off. They somehow became one with my car. Our Surreal God situates himself in our mental/emotional world and holds a lot of influence on us. But with a bit of probing there is still a lingering question in all of us “What is God really like?”

2000 years ago the 1st Century population had the same troubles with the Surreal God. The Israelites, who had loads of content on God (Yahweh) and were convinced He would present himself in a big way. This would only make sense to them since their interpretation of the law and data led them to believe in a God who is “other.”

The Romans who did not believe in Yahweh interestingly believed God would present himself in the same way. When God was dying on a wooded cross they mocked him for claiming to be God saying “call you angels and bring yourself down if you’re God.” They had expectations that a god would look a certain way and Jesus sure did not look like any god they were familiar with.

At Christmas when we get past all the pageantry and Christian cliques, we are presented with a God that does not look like a god. They way he wields his glory does not look so glorious. Jesus' own disciple’s were confused about “Glory”. They expected glory to look a certain way, to them power presents itself with a certain feel, a certain look. At one point they’re arguing about glory. Jesus over hears and says “you don’t know what you are talking about.” Jesus knows that glory really is to reveal ones true character or true nature. Jesus follows up by expounding on glory and in his backdoor way tells them what God is really like “the first will be last… I have not come to be served but to serve and to give my life away.”

For some reason in our imaginations Jesus takes a back seat to our generic big God personality picture. But Jesus' arrival to planet earth was pivotal move on God’s behalf to tell us “What God is like”. Jesus came to shatter and bring down our Surreal God so that we could truly love the real God. Jesus shows all his cards when he says “in me all the fullness of God dwells in bodily form.”

It’s hard to love a God that is Surreal. Martin Luther, a 6th century monk with brutal honesty shares his struggle with the Surreal God when he journals this “I was supposed to love this God but I couldn’t stir any up. God disliked me and I was tempted to not like him in return… then I read the stories of the God who becomes human in Jesus. And I found myself undone with love. Look to the crib where God lays vulnerable, look to the God-man who has ears to hear silent human cries, who is drawn to the weak and weak are drawn to him, who gives himself over to love that leads to his nakedness and a humbling sacrifice. This vision will lay hold of your soul and give you a God to love.”

The Christmas Story

The Christmas Story through the eyes of children.

What Community is not: Part.2

Growing up is hard to do but it’s imperative for the building of a Kingdom Community. In 1 Corinthians 13 (the love chapter) we are given some clear tracks for growing up. Often times when you hear the love chapter its at weddings or on cute greeting cards. But this chapter needs to be situated in its real life context to understand how it’s the brutal antidote for what’s going down. This Corinthian church is the first church plant. When people talk about the early church they like to expound nostalgically about the church in Acts but the first real organized and intentional church plant is birthed in Acts 18 when the body in Corinth is started. Very soon this newbie church is a hot mess. Many like to rail on the church in Corinth as having an immorality problem. Their baseline problem was not immorality. Their mess revolved around the complication and explosiveness of doing community. Mashing together Jew, Gentile, Male, Female, Slave and Free was a potent combination. Most of what is happening in Corinth is messiness related to the selfishness of the human heart.

What happens when people really share life and mission together? They fight, they posture, they divide, they manipulate, the jockey for power, they hold grudges, they lie, they make their personal preferences idols and they eat each other alive. The real self is exposed. So when Paul give them an antidote he introduces it as “the more excellent way.” He essentially tells this bleeding body that the way forward through the mess is what follows. He tells them how to love. He exposes their love as smoke and mirrors (1 Cor 13:12). Dietrich Bonhoeffer says it well “our love for others might actually be an insidious form of selfishness” This is called Eros love and community cannot be built on it.

Eros Love seeks not serve but to be served. This love has stirred into it an expectation that something will come back in return. Eros love longs to be seen, clamors to be noticed, wants to be influential and seeks to be included in everything. In counseling I phrase it “the desire to be desired by those we desire.” But this insidious love is very elusive, frustrating and hard to measure. Someone who interacts and relates through this lens of love will always be exasperated. Someone will always offend them; they didn’t get invited to dinner, the pastor didn’t meet with them, they thought they would be on that leadership team, the person they desired did not ask them how they were doing etc.

In a distorted way Eros love makes us paranoid that we are missing out or are not getting our due. I’ve known people to rehearse scenarios for weeks in their head that were mole hills that now are emotional mountains to them. Eros love creates a mental tally of every little offense and then holds a grudge about every single one of them. This grudge turns to anger, which turns to judgment, which then becomes an accuser, which turns to bitterness, which then turns to disillusionment. There is an unverbalized social experience this Eros love is asking for. When it doesn’t come, the heart begins to get ugly.

What is Paul’s searing answer to this fool’s gold love and the sly way it postures; grow up. He says in 1 Corinthians 13:11 “When I was a child, I talked like a child; I thought like a child, I acted like a child. When I became an adult, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” He challenges them to wean themselves off of infant love; love that poses as love with expectations that are damaging. He calls them up to a love that community can be built on. A mature love is essential once the sexiness of community diminishes. To paraphrase Bonhoeffer “the sooner a community begins to shatter human ideals and human love as their thermometer the better of they are.” The question is do we want to growing up?