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There were two great, abiding mysteries in my life when I was a young boy; mysteries that I puzzled over for years but never solved. I discovered them while lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Bedtimes are convenient for adults but they may or may not align themselves with the sleep patterns of a child. I was an overactive boy who had a hard time convincing his cerebral cortex to shut down after a day of full-throttled activity.

Many nights I lay in bed, watching the shadows deepen on the walls and listening to Bible stories or music on a record player. Waiting for sleep was grueling work. Minutes slowly ticked away, and a single hour was an eternity. It was in these mysterious hours of waiting that I discovered two mysteries which I could not explain or understand.

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

I love looking at old photographs; it's the closest thing to time travel that I know. I find myself staring at century-old black and white photos taken on the streets of large cities. I look at the people. I search their faces, wondering what was going on in their minds. Often they are turning toward the camera—an item that was much less common then—with a shocked expression. They seem as fascinated to be a part of the captured moment as I am to witness it.

Here's an odd question: How much time is captured in a still image? The shutter speeds of the earliest cameras were so slow that in some old photos you see the ghostly, blurred images of people who were walking by while the shutter was open. It's as if the camera was trying to show a full second of reality in a single image...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

If you were extremely wealthy, you could try to see everything. You could hop into a car and zoom across the United States, stopping in major cities and seeing the famous sites. You could pay a cabbie to wait for you while you hurried to the top of the Empire State Building for a quick look. Then you'd hop back in the cab and say, "To the Statue of Liberty, and step on it!"

You could bounce along the south rim of the Grand Canyon, stopping for a few moments at each viewing point before heading for Monument Valley. You could drive across the Golden Gate Bridge, snapping pictures and reading a brochure that tells you how many people have jumped off the bridge and how hard it is to keep it painted. You could move to Washington, D.C., and spend a year going through the Smithsonian Institute, taking notes and pictures of everything as you strolled through the buildings.

You could do these sorts of things for years and years, checking off each famous site in a little notebook before hopping a train to the next exciting destination. Eventually your notebook would be thick and full of notations that no one, including you, would ever read...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

It's interesting to observe Christianity's movement around the globe. Christianity thrives in cultures of oppressed people, but soon Christians rise in the social order and gain power. They then structure the Church into organizations and forms that match up with their culture. After that the faith becomes stale and seemingly irrelevant, and Christianity moves on. I once read that Christianity began as a religious movement in Judea, moved to Greece and became a philosophy, moved to Europe and became a feudalistic government, then came to America and became a business. That's a bit simplistic, but the idea behind it is true.

And of course in America, Christianity has taken on a business model based on growth and material success. The gospel of health and wealth was born right here in the USA. If God loves you, OF COURSE God will heal you of all your diseases, fix your problems, and shower you with material blessings. Amen and God bless America.

This month's Christian Century has a fascinating article that points to a disturbing trend. Apparently, the prosperity gospel has now moved into Africa, where it is quickly taking hold. And why not? Some of the poorest people in the world live in Africa. They are eager to hear how God might make them rich and successful.

The gospel of success does little to challenge this dysfunctional political structure. For one thing, many preachers openly claim that the political-economic system simply doesn't matter, because a born-again Christian will prosper under any political or economic regime...  I've heard a Winners pastor in Ghana even tell his congregation to stop complaining about the collapse of the currency...

Among the large churches promoting the prosperity gospel is the Nigerian multinational Living Faith Church Worldwide Inc., better known as Winners Chapel, founded in Lagos by David Oyedepo in 1983. Winners has over 400 branches in Nigeria and can be found in 40 African countries. It boasts that its facility in Lagos, which seats 50,400, is the biggest church auditorium in the world...

Winners exemplifies the emphasis on success. Last year Oyedepo made this pledge to all church members: "In 2006, everything that shall make your laughter complete and total shall be added unto you. The desires of everyone's heart shall be delivered. Every trial shall be turned to testimonies. Every struggle shall be turned to miracles. Every form of barrenness shall be turned to fruitfulness. Every frustration shall be turned to celebration. Every humiliation shall be turned into honor. Every shame shall be turned to glory. And every curse shall be turned into blessings."

Paul Gifford - Christian Century July 10, 2007

I don't know what to say about this. It's so terribly sad to me that my own faith tradition is so frequently warped and skewed, becoming hurtful to powerless people. I try to remind myself of one of our central doctrines - humanity is screwed up. And everything we get involved with - including religion, maybe especially religion - gets screwed up too.

Take a look at the article and let me know what you think. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

This is the sort of thing that authentic Christians around the world should publicly and loudly denounce.

rlp

United Church of Christ minister Norman Bendroth describes depression as a "Brainstorm" in the latest online issue of Christian Century. I've written extensively about my own depression - so much that I'm probably going to give it a rest for a time. But I am intrigued by his description of this condition. Remember that depression is just a word we use to describe something that needs a label. It may be a term that needs retiring. Perhaps it has become too loaded and narrow. Others have suggested "depletion" as an alternative. "Irrational Despair and Uncontrollable Thoughts" might be another possibility. Certainly Brainstorm is a term to consider.

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rlp

I always assumed that people who lived in prehistoric times had it rough. Bad housing, no toothbrushes, scratchy clothes and no protection from wild animals or marauding bands of thieves. I imagined a person from the ancient world working all day just to gather some edible roots and maybe kill a weasel to eat, only to be killed himself by a hungry saber-toothed cat or someone who wanted his campsite and the weasel dinner.

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

rlp

When I was young, the youth leader of our church would occasionally ask for someone to give a testimony during the worship service. All the kids would get quiet, shuffle their feet and squirm. For some reason I would feel the responsibility of the group shift slowly to my shoulders. The silence became more and more uncomfortable until at last I would give in and speak up.

"I'll do it," I would say, dragging the words out to make sure that my reluctance was duly noted. The moments leading up to the dreaded event were horrible. My anxiety would peak, my stomach would turn upside down, and I would bounce my right knee up and down furiously on the ball of my foot.

The first trick I discovered was telling myself it would be over soon...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

We are now asking the question that nations closer to active terrorists have been asking for years. What can be done about terrorism? It's easy to create a simple dichotomy with two solutions on the ends of a spectrum. We can either get angry, go out and find the terrorists and destroy them. Or we can try some diplomatic solution that seeks to address the causes of global terrorism.

Perhaps the first way makes us feel strong. It makes us feel like we are "doing something." Maybe the second way feels weak to some people. It doesn't seem tough enough for our nation's ego and status as the current world superpower.

I don't know what the answer is. I know we've tried the first way, and so far it is an ABSOLUTE disaster.

There is a pretty interesting article over at Christian Century entitled, "What If? The Missed Opportunity of 9-11. The author suggests that we face some hard realities: we will never be safe from terrorism, and indeed, we have some responsibility for the root causes of it.

I wonder what you think? Clearly there is no easy way out of Iraq. But as far as terrorism is concerned, where do we go from here?

I'd love to hear from you in the comments on this one.

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Christian Writing

rlp

Covenant Baptist Church Advent Set
3-sided rectangle with diagonal aisles and 2-chair offset rows
Click for larger view

I've been setting up chairs at our church since 1991. When I began, we were meeting in temporary places—a school, a fire station, and even a bar for a time. Setting up chairs and taking them down after worship is routine business for migrant churches.

I have handled many chairs over the years. There were the fancy wooden chairs at the Duck Blind Lounge. I used to set them up in three rows around three sides of the dance floor, facing the bar. If you got bored during my sermon, you could check out the variety of beers available on tap or look at the sign that told you when happy hour began.

You don't see that in church very often...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

In the 1900 Olympic games, Frank Jarvis won the gold medal in the 100 meter dash with a time of 11 seconds. He was a full second faster than the gold medal time of the previous Olympics.

That's never going to happen again.

These days records are broken by mere hundredths of a second. The reason is obvious; we are reaching the limits of human ability. Even in an imaginary future with genetically engineered sprinters, a person cannot run a hundred meters much faster than we do now...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

I have fought over the Bible and minor points of Christian theology. I know what this kind of fighting is like and the passion it can create.

I went off to Baylor University in 1980 to major in religious studies. The fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention had just begun. At issue was which group of Baptists had the stronger belief in scripture. Well, that was the stated issue anyway. I was into it. Fiercely for the moderates, I argued and harangued my way through college and seminary. Sometime in the early 90s it became clear that the Fundamentalists had won, and I ran out of steam. I have wondered what outsiders thought of our fight to the death over smalls points of theology and Biblical tradition.

Now I think I know.

Christian Century has an article by Sam Robinson called, “Infallible Preachers.” In it he outlines current internal struggles and debates between various Islamic mullahs representing different factions of Islam. It’s fascinating stuff. At issue are things that sound very familiar. Preaching styles, the authority of scripture, and the roles of women in religious practice. Even the proper posture of prayer is a matter of fierce debate.

Apparently the fight isn’t just between the Arab world and the rest of us. There is plenty to fight about at home as well. It all sounds very familiar to me. And very sad.

Rlp

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Christian Writing

rlp

Jason Byassee has an article in the current issue of Christian Century that interests me. He gives his impression and analysis of Jacob's Well, an emergent church in Kansas City.

The emergent and postmodern movement within Christianity is nothing new for ministers, but if you are not a part of the Church, you might not know about it. I think a revolution is happening. I don't think the current forms of the emergent movement are any more sacred than any that came before, but clearly many within the church are shrugging off a lot of excess baggage.

I'd be interested in your thoughts on Jacob's Well.

Here are some thoughts/questions I have about the emergent Christian movement:

First, I think if you are trying to be postmodern, you aren't postmodern. Be yourself. Do what you think is right and leave the results up to God, or whatever you want to call the intelligence behind the Cosmos. Emergent Christian churches have this feel to me. I like that. I notice that many people who attend Jacob's Well have never heard of Brian McLaren. That's a good thing.

Second, I like the emphasis on practice along with theology. This is an approach to spirituality that makes sense to people. And anyone who thinks practice and devotion are less important than doctrine has not been reading the gospels.

Finally, I like the idea that at Jacob's Well, you don't begin with doctrines and eventually find your way into the community. Instead, you can become a part of the community and see where it takes you. My friend George became a Christian in just such a way.

rlp

Someone left a a beautiful blue box on the front porch of our church recently. A note on the top said, "For Gordon." I opened the box and inside was an elegant, blue fountain pen with gold bands.

The pen was left by an Episcopal priest named Cristopher whom I met in a coffee shop several weeks ago. We had one of those, "You're a minister? Me too! Isn't preaching wonderful except when it's awful?" conversations that ministers often have. The next time I saw him there, I noticed he was writing with a fountain pen. And since he is left-handed, there was ink smeared all over his hand.

Writing with a fountain pen is a choice. And to do so as a left hander, meaning you will always be dragging your left hand through wet ink, indicates a serious commitment. It's like me using my grandfather's pocket watch, which loses about 6 minutes a day. It's not practical, nor does it make sense in an age where cheap, quartz watches lose less than a second a month...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

Perils of the Open Door

Let's face it. Christianity is a spectacular means to an end. We have a power structure that is open and accessible to people who have not earned or been granted much power from our culture. In local churches, there is money to be made, power to be had and opportunities to be seized. A man or woman who may not be successful in the business world can be chairman of the deacons, head of the parish committee or a member of the board of directors.

For some, Christianity is only the means to an end, and whenever that happens, things turn ugly...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson

A woman brought a small book to our church a couple of years ago. She put it on the wooden table in our worship room, right beside the guest book and the orders of worship. Inside the cover she wrote, "Prayers and Thoughts of Covenant People." She left a pencil beside the book but provided no instructions. She never mentioned the book publicly, so neither did I. Occasionally someone notices the book and is inspired to write in it, expressing whatever happens to be on her mind or in her heart. Over time it has become something like a cross between a diary and book of common prayers...

Click here to read the rest of this essay at The Christian Century online.

The Covenant Prayer Book
Click to see inside

Archive of Christian Century Articles by Gordon Atkinson