Month: July 2008

Today I am leaving paradise to return to my normal life. Since I still need to work for a living I knew this day would come quickly. An amazing week on Captiva Island, Florida with my lovely bride and great friends was soothing for the soul.

I was so soothed that I completely neglected the tens of readers for the week. I suspect the net results of that decision was summarized on Sunday by one of my favorite comic strips, Pearls Before Swine. The intellectual member of the gang, Goat, is looking dismayed. Resident cynic Rat asks him what the problem is and Goat responds that internet problems have kept him from posting his blog that day. Rat goes to window, looks outside, ponders for a moment and then announces this little bit of truth.

“And yet somehow the world goes on.”

I am sure the world went on just fine without pithy comments from your humble rambler. As I reflect on a week in paradise one memory keeps coming to mind. We were blessed to be on the beach when a couple of folks pulled up to a marked sea turtle nest one morning. To our surprise they began to dig into the nest. Having an inquiring mind I asked what they were doing. I learned that the eggs in this nest had hatched seventy-two hours earlier. These dedicated volunteers had marked the nest over fifty days earlier and monitored the site everyday since. Volunteers watch over hundreds of sea turtle nests each season. When the eggs have hatched the men and women dig up the nest, count the hatched eggs and also the eggs that did not hatch. An average nest contains about 120 eggs.

But what happened next amazed and inspired me. While digging deep in the nest the volunteer pulled up a struggling but very alive baby turtle. Moments later another turtle with legs flailing was brought to the surface after being buried in two feet of sand just moments earlier.

Our new friend Sam explained how this happens.

“When the eggs hatch the baby turtles climb on top of the other eggs and each other to reach the beach. These little guys missed the ‘elevator’ to the surface.”

I was amazed that they could breath for three days underground.

“They found pockets of air among the shells that kept them alive. Now we will keep them safe until tonight and we will release them into the sea. About one of one thousand will make it to adult hood. And if they do make it they will use a natural GPS to return from the sea to this spot to lay eggs.”

In an earlier blog I wrote that I often find sacred moments in unlikely places. This was one of those moments. Later I thought about the miracle of those two little turtles surviving  despite very unlikely odds to at least get to the sea.

I thought about how it related to the message I tried (so far nearly anonymously) to communicate in my second book, “Bring’em Back Alive”.

That every believer is a precious part of Christ’s body. When even one is missing, the church lacks power and is less than whole. Whether we’re victims, perpetrators, or innocent bystanders we’re called by God to seek restoration. And when one of God’s sheep goes missing we have no choice: We must Bring ’Em Back Alive.

That message was demonstrated admirably by the sea turtle rescuers. Part of the survival of the turtles was related to their created will to live. But for those two particular baby sea turtles survival was entirely because two people cared enough to volunteer their time to pursue them. They cared enough to dig deep into the sand with no assurance of success. They cared enough to care for the babies and then give up more of their time to return to the sea that night to release the turtles to their destiny. And I suddenly felt saddened. Sad that really cool people like Sam will do that for baby turtles and that so many followers of Jesus can’t or won’t find the time to do that for fellow believers buried deep in the hole of despair and woundedness.

I was awed by the amazing drama of nature. Touched by the goodness of many people on this earth. And challenged by the thought that someone may be gasping for spiritual air today just waiting for me to care enough to dig a bit into their story and heart.

Today I am back to reality. Someday I will enjoy paradise that will make Captiva look shabby (what a thought!). But in the meantime I pray I will have a tender spirit that will seek, rescue and restore God’s wounded lambs with the same commitment that Sam and countless others rescue those plucky baby turtles.

 

 

I’m not gonna lie to you…I always hesitate before I write about controversial issues in Christianity. I hesitate because I know I will receive ungraceful responses that will cause painful memories to resurface. Painful memories of being restricted by the electronic fence of legalism. I have come to realize that many leaders choose that method of “controlling” the flock. Some don’t know anything else. Some don’t wish to risk the messy and dirty work of being a real shepherd. But the damage is devastating to trusting sheep who are wounded.

I knew that writing about The Shack would stir up some ugly responses from a few readers. Perhaps my disclaimer in the original post deterred a few negative responders. Perhaps some have simply given up on me. But most of the comments have been legitimate and thoughtful. I wrote a response to a blog written by David Robinson about my original article. He graciously responded to my followup and asked some fair questions. Here is David’s response.

Dave,

I appreciate your desire to address this matter objectively and compassionately. You demonstrate a lot of Christian charity to me in what you say, and I am grateful for it.

My question is this: do you feel (Tim) Challies’ review was in any way less than fully gracious, caring, and balanced? Or do you feel it was a model of the kind of gentleness and balance you wish to see from Christians in this kind of matter?

Response: This gives me a chance to make an important clarification. I feel that both of the articles I referenced gave a thoughtful analysis of the book from very different perspectives. My pleas were addressed to the angry and often strident comments I encountered on many websites and blogs. My desire to balance the debate was to offer both sides and some thoughts on how to communicate your take on the book with grace and love.

I have a less specific question to ask: is it wrong to disparage or even mock a book, speech, or other communication that blurs or even distorts essential doctrine?

Response: Okay, you asked me. I think it is always wrong to disparage and mock another persons point of view because it shuts down communication. That doesn’t mean you let it slide. I used Paul’s response to the citizens of Athens as my role model. He was ticked off by what he saw. I can imagine how it would have looked if Paul had addressed this situation like some ministries do today.

Dateline – Athens. Saint Paul announced a boycott of tourism to Athens, Greece in a sharply worded press release today. “The followers of Jesus can no longer support these godless pagans,” Paul declared from a protest outside the Parthenon. “God will judge these vile sinners.” Dozens of sign waving Christians shouted at those visiting the various shrines of false gods. Paul left the city and planned to spread his protest throughout the civilized world.

Instead Paul chose to stay and preach the truth in love. And the book of Acts reports that  some believed. I believe that God can use any communication of Biblical truth. He is, after all, God. But isn’t it reasonable to believe that we are far more effective ambassadors when we stay on the dual tracks of truth and grace? Getting off either track can be deadly. I have to be honest and tell you I dismiss anyone who mocks or disparages my views. If they show a shred of grace I respond and the results are often good. Wounded people will almost always go into hiddenness when they are mocked or disparaged. And they will take it personally if you mock or disparage something they feel is good even if your heart is to help or protect them.

I will just put myself out there by saying this: I believe every major heresy gets a large portion of the truth of God correct. But what makes it a cult, and not orthodox Christianity, is that it distorts an essential aspect of the God’s self-revelation in the process. All the critiques I have read take the book to task for exactly that reason.

Response: I agree. But instead of taking a sincere person to task I am suggesting you equip yourself with the facts about the book and then engage them. Ask questions to see how the book affected them.

“What did you like about the book?”
“How did it change your views?”

The answers will give you insight into their heart, their past and their theology. From that foundation you can come alongside that person and help them address what is really going on. Some people will simply see The Shack as a work of fiction and the doctrinal points will have no impact. Others will find some interesting thoughts and dismiss other parts of the book. That was my take.  I suspect that only a few will go off a theological cliff because of this book. I remember that there was so much concern about The DaVinci Code, The Gospel of Judas, The Golden Compass and so on. Each of those events had a much lesser impact than some feared. Most of the Christians I know are intelligent enough to test the spirits. We should instruct and not condemn those who are not discerning.

Thank you for your grace to me personally, and your candor with regard to my comments.

Thank you for the same. Isn’t graceful dialogue fun?

Another writer raised some good questions.

 Reader Matt posed a couple of concerns.  

I have a lot of mixed emotions about The Shack. Rather than emoting on your blog (I’ll save that for mine), let me just ask: what did you think of it? Did you think Tim’s assessment was fair? Also, in the interest of full disclosure, maybe your statement about author Wayne Jacobson’s response should include the fact that he is the publisher of The Shack.

Response: You just disclaimed Mr. Jacobson’s connection for me. Thanks. I liked The Shack. I love to be challenged in my thinking. Do I agree with all or even most of the theology presented? No. But the portrayal of God’s grace and caring was profound and can be helpful to wounded souls. God’s grace and love is truth. If we can get hurting people to trust that then we have a chance to restore many wounded lambs to the body of Christ.

And for (blog commenter) David, who said: I understood what the author was doing in attempting to get his point across…what was he trying to get across, exactly? Most everyone I’ve read on the blogosphere describes the book as giving them insights on God that they’ve never gotten before. Do you agree with that? And if so, does it bother you that people are getting insights about God from someplace other than His Word?

I think the message is simple. God does not give up on you. He loves you. Because of evil and sin bad things happen but God is not uncaring about those events. It does not bother me at all that people get insights from places other than His Word. I get insight from books, music, movies and countless other sources. I do have a biblical responsibility to weigh my insights against scripture and see if they are true. But God can speak through anything from nature to media to music. Don’t limit His creative and your own ability to find something sacred in unlikely places. You will limit your capacity for God to use all of His glorious creation to speak to your heart. Try looking for Him in unexpected places. You may be surprised to find Him there.

 

 

For new inductees to this site a brief update might be in order. The iPod Devotional Series is a periodic item that involves, not surprisingly, my trusty iPod and the shuffle feature. I fire up the device, go to the shuffle button, hit play and I write about whatever song is randomly selected from the 1,000 plus songs I have downloaded (all legally). My musical taste is quite eclectic so  this little feature is a bit risky. But we have already had a devotion based on Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar so how much further south can we go?

Today’s song is from a artist called Five for Fighting and the selection is “Freedom Never Cries”. Wow. The shuffle could not have been more timely. Writer/singer John Ondrasik has become one of my favorites. Five for Fighting’s new CD (Two Lights) is incredible. Ondrasik writes personal and powerful songs that resonate with me. “Freedom Never Cries” is a song about how we take freedom for granted. Ondrasik talked about the song in an interview posted at liveDaily.

It was definitely a statement song that has a point of view. I think it kind of speaks to the fact that, I know at least for myself, we tend to only appreciate things when we need them. The chorus of that song says “I never loved the soldier until there was a war / Or thought about tomorrow ’til my baby hit the floor.” I know I never started thinking about my future until I had my children. I never talked to God until somebody was about to die. My grandmother passed away last year–she was 93. She had a great life. It’s funny that I tend to find religion when I need it. Or when somebody’s sick. My dad had heart surgery this year, and it’s amazing how religious I was that week. Freedom’s similar. Growing up here in the bubble of the United States, we are statistically lucky to be born into this country where freedom, to us, seems natural. We couldn’t imagine anything else. I think sometimes we don’t recognize that. Freedom never cries. Freedom doesn’t sit in the corner and whine and make us recognize it, per se. I think if you look at the world in general today, many countries don’t experience the same freedom of expression, freedom of religion, women’s rights, freedom of the press that we have. Obviously, that leads to a majority of the world’s conflicts today. I wanted to recognize that, “Hey, freedom has a price, it’s not a gift.” It’s a little reminder to ourselves, we’re some of the lucky ones here.

The song is powerful. And the timing is sobering as we head into the celebration of the struggle to gain the incredible freedoms we have been granted. The freedom to vote. Freedom of religion. Freedom of speech. In a few months we face the awesome responsibility of voting. How you can even consider not exercising that precious gift? Freedom is like health. You don’t appreciate either one until they are gone.

H.L.Mencen once said, “We must be willing to pay a price for freedom, for no price that is ever asked for it is half the cost of doing without it.” Think about that.

And think about the lyrics of this song.

I never loved the soldier until there was a war
Or thought about tomorrow
’til my baby hit the floor
I Only talk to God when somebody’s about to die
I Never cherished Freedom

Freedom never cries…

Thank God today for the blessing of freedom. Thank God for the men and women who will not be home this holiday as they serve to keep our freedoms intact. I cherish freedom.

I also cherish another kind of freedom.

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5  NASB

Cherish both freedoms as a citizen of the United States and as a citizen of heaven. And take neither for granted.

 

 

For the most part the responses to my recent post about the popular book The Shack have been thoughtful and graceful. Alert reader Kristie sent me a link to a response that she thought I would find entertaining.

The website is called postmortemism and author David Robinson made some interesting observations about your humble rambler. He decided that I am illogical, condescending and ignorant. Not much in that list that I can disagree with in the big picture. I have been all of those things now and again. I do believe that in this one little instance Mr.Robinson assigned a lot of motives to my blog that I was unaware of until he pointed them out. So let’s examine where I have gone astray.

In my article I suggested that followers of Jesus be careful about attacking the author of The Shack and to be careful about how we condemn the book to those who have read it. Here is a snippet of that point.

When his theology goes astray I am suggesting that we gracefully point out those areas and don’t attack Mr. Young. Defending truth with grace is always the most effective tactic. But our passion for truth too often makes grace the first thing we jettison.

Mr.Robinson decided that I had an agenda with those points about being careful.

The first two “Be careful” comments can be thrown out the door.  Of course, “careful” is only defined by what Burchett wants it to mean.  To him, it means not saying certain things that would dismiss the competency or veracity of the author and the book.  But those who disagree with the book are “careful” by examining the core ideas within and underneath the text to ascertain certain errors.  And it is very “caring” of them to share their “concerns” with others since it may prevent others from having a wrong view of God distort their thinking.

Uhhhhhh….when I said be “careful” what I meant to say was to be “careful”. The definition at dictionary.com was basically what I meant.

Careful…to be cautious in one’s actions.

That’s about all I had in mind when I chose that word. Since I wrote the piece I am pretty sure that to me I believed we could have a better dialogue if we discussed ideas and not attacked people. This was a part of my “careful” point.

Be careful how you share your concerns with others. When I read comments like “are these people just blind to heresy?” I cringe. Because you reinforce the feelings of so many people that are moved by this book. They have experienced a Christianity that is judgmental and sometimes downright mean. If your heart is to be a guardian of truth you will damage that worthy desire by harsh criticism of those who are touched by The Shack.

Later I made it clear that theological areas should be pointed out and discussed. I was simply asking for grace in the debate.

The next point really left me scratching my head. Here is what I wrote.

Be prayerful about why this book has connected so surprisingly with millions. I think I know some reasons why this book is resonating with so many. Those of us raised in the desert of legalism are desperate for the cool, refreshing waters of grace. Those of us who have been wounded by other Christians want more than anything to believe that Jesus does love us and our experience is not how it should be in the church. We need guardians of the truth of God’s Word but we also need those guardians to be shepherds that care and not just condemn.

Here is how Mr.Robinson received those thoughts.

The third command is based on the assumption that prayer and cognition are somehow at odds with each other.  It’s not enough to understand why the book is so popular; one must pray in order to have some sort of mystical conformity from God to grasp this unusual and mysterious phenomenon.

I am pretty sure that all I meant was to be prayerful about people that have been wounded, how we can come alongside them, love them and restore them to the body of Christ. Separating prayer and cognition never, to quote Tweety Bird, “ cwossed my wittle bwain”. The critique continues.

I love the fourth comment, especially the use of “Dogmatically”.  Who doesn’t have a worldview?  Who’s worldview doesn’t guide what they think and how they respond to different kinds of ideas?  Even ignorance and apathy are a dogma.  Burchett simply doesn’t like dogma that goes against this book.  Don’t respond dogmatically?  Ok…well I’ll try.  But if I read the book, and I don’t like it, can I tell someone “caringly” that they shouldn’t read it?

Honestly, all I really meant was that people hurt by legalism need grace. I have made my worldview clear in blogs and books. Where did I say that I don’t like any dogma that goes against the book? What I said was that this book opens doors to discussion that addresses orthodox theology and how scripture varies from this story. Of course you can tell people not to read the book. You can tell them whatever you desire and you will be accountable for your heart. I am accountable for my heart. The writer assigned lots of motives to my heart that are simply not accurate. I have no ax to grind with David Robinson. Seemed like a good guy when I perused his website. I just cannot understand how he made the judgments about my motives based on what I wrote.

I have had significant ministry success by looking for cultural open doors. I read the DaVinci Code. I watched The Book of Daniel on TV. I read the books by atheists and skeptics. That doesn’t make me special or spiritual. It is simply the ministry I have chosen in my very secular job and environment. I want to be prepared to offer a defense of the gospel whenever a door is open by cultural events, debates and even controversies. Paul confronted false gods in Athens. He chose to engage in debate instead of condemning the citizens for false ideas. And he addressed them with truth and grace.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city. He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.

 He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods.”

 Then they took him to the high council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said. “You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.” It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)

 So Paul, standing before the council,  addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

 “He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. 26 From one man  he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

 “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us. 28 For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

  “God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him. For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”

 When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.” That ended Paul’s discussion with them, but some joined him and became believers.

Paul went through an open door. He was prepared. He knew his theology and he demonstrated grace. That is all I am saying about how we as followers of Christ should respond to controversial issues.

I disagree with the motives assigned to me by Mr.Robinson. But I believe that he has a genuine heart to proclaim the precious gospel of Jesus Christ. I hope that we can focus on what unites us as we both seek to serve our Lord.