…but if you can explain them away, that’s totally cool.

We are all human. And as such, true scholarly criticism of our own thinking strongly suggests the almost near impossibility of reading or learning something without unconsciously injecting something of our own thoughts, bias, or experience into it. So then at what point do we start to question our own reading of the Bible? In other words, how many theological backflips before we start to go, ‘Hold on here.’

In my lifetime, I have seen huge changes amongst even the most fundamental churches in how we explain Jesus’ teachings on divorce in Matthew 5, Paul’s teachings on women pastors and just women in general, and the Levitical office of priests according to how it pertains to our pastors today…just to name a few. In order to explain them in their current interpretations, a great deal of “exposition” is needed. It is completely dishonest and disingenuous to say that we believe the Bible in its entirety, but use the loophole of “exposition”, or the current trendy phrase “unpacking”, to in essence get rid of the passages we no longer like or that no longer coincide with culture.

It is true that many things in the Bible need deep study. The problem is when the conclusions from that “deep study” change so constantly, when we are always so fond of quoting our last year’s trend or interpretation as absolute infallible truth, and “praying for” the poor souls who dare to question the interpretation. And more often than not, just a few short months later, we’re championing a new interpretation as infallible truth, forgetting about all the people we stepped on or turned off from God by calling truth that which we now believe to be heresy.

It’s time that us general lay Christians learn the simple basics of scholarly criticism, and not only apply it to the Bible, but what may be infinitely more important, applying scholarly criticism to our own reading and our denominations’ reading, of the Bible. If the Lord does not change, as stated in Malachi 3, then what He is trying to tell us through the Bible is either right or wrong. Pretending that our theology is complete, constant, and unchanging, while using exposition and theological “backflips” to explain away the lack of completeness and constancy, is extremely disingenuous, and we are quite quick to point out those inconsistencies and hypocrisy in other religions. If God is truth, then that truth should be able to stand up to the most trying of critical methods of study. It shouldn’t need us to explain things away. We need to start being critical (in a scholarly sense) of our own interpretations, those who interpret it, and the way the Bible was compiled. This is not news to most theologians today and in history…but to us lay Christians, this may be new territory. For some reason, we’ve been taught not to question our faith. We say this is the most important being and the most important book to ever exist. And we so often act as if they’re anything but. Some even go so far as to say our criticism of the Bible and the church are evidence of us leaving the faith. On the contrary, I believe they are evidence that we are finally starting to take it seriously.

Sincerely,
Karl

P.S. As alluded to in the post, I am using the word “criticism” in a literary sense, to mean “the analysis and judgment of the merits and faults”, as opposed to the more colloquial meaning of baselessly deriding something.

It’s not because people hate God. It’s not because of the “war on Christianity.” And it’s not because somehow thousands and thousands of scientists are involved in a conspiracy to discredit our religion.

The truth is rarely exciting enough to make it on a meme, or a catchy sermon one-liner. And the truth is that the majority of what is considered scientific theory is peer-reviewed. That’s it. The very simple idea that one person or one research team or one school of thought cannot logically be trusted without multiple perspectives lending their expertise and diverse viewpoints. Meanwhile, the church takes each and every word of its pastor’s sermon as infallible truth; a sermon that has been reviewed by no one, and that often times (go back and listen to older podcasts) contradicts previous sermons that were also thought of as infallible truth. Simply because a prayer was said asking God to speak through the pastor. And we assume that He has, even if there are contradictory statements with previous sermons, with the Bible itself, or with the other pastor down the street who has also prayed that God would speak through him.

What is worse, that we as a church also often hang a great deal of our theology on whatever Facebook meme or out-of-context book quote we have just come across. Again, with little to no reviewing (probably no reviewing, but I’m trying to give the benefit of the doubt) by differing perspectives, or even the same perspectives. We attribute these words as the mind and will of the Creator of the Universe, without ever even double-checking, let alone putting them through a scholarly review. It’s madness.

Science has Christianity beat, and I don’t know why. If we truly believe this God deal, wouldn’t we want to make sure we were saying and learning and believing as close to the truth as we are capable? I think it’s high time we brought back the peer review in our churches, podcasts, and books, and stopped basing our week’s theology off of 140 characters and an half an hour message put together the night before. Perhaps even, structuring our entire study of the Bible as a peer review, instead of the focus on just one person whose spiritual giftings of teaching and possibly shepherding do not necessarily preclude a Tony Robbins style of church.

We continually claim to hold the keys to life, and continue to take that claim so incredibly lightly. I love you, church; and we can do so much better.

Have you ever had someone genuinely curious about your religion, and by the end of the conversation you’ve realized that what you thought was a following of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth was actually little more than a socio-economical peer group following select Pauline writings?

Most of my friends are incredibly respectful of my religion; just amused at how much more they thought it would mean to me.

We can do better, and we must do better.

I just want to wish you all a merry Christmas.

I don’t want to wish you a happy advent, or come up with a new and more marketable way to say Christmas, I don’t want to fight a ratings-boosting media war on how we wish each other cheer, and I don’t want to rehearse O Holy Night so much that we miss the lyrics for the high notes, or the meaning for the modulation, and I wish that last part didn’t alliterate. I don’t want to buy Christmas, I don’t want to sell Christmas, and I certainly don’t want to buy Kirk Cameron’s coffee beans so that he can tell me Christmas isn’t about commercialism. And I don’t want to try so hard to make memories that my only memories are stressing out by trying so hard.

I just want to hold my family close, maybe see a few lights, and tell God thank you by giving to my fellow inhabitors of this earth. Thank you, Jesus, for another year passed, and blessings had, by your grace.

Merry Christmas to you all!
Karl

P.S. If rehearsing O Holy Night, Kirk Cameron’s coffee beans, or stressing through events actually does help you focus on God, which they very well might, then by all means go for it. It’s not about dogmas; just about each of us making a personal choice to worship God and Him only. And no one can make that choice but us. I hope we do.

“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write,

‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.”

We have so many things right. We’re focused on trying to come to a sound theology, we’re now trying not to just stay within the four walls of our churches, and we probably work harder at ministry than other culture before us. But our problem remains, as it has for countless other cultures before us, idolatry.

I think the root of our constant struggles with idolatry can be summed up in these words from T.S. Eliot: “Life is very long.” It is very difficult for us humans to remain truly passionate about anything for an extended period of time. Our marriages, our hobbies, our families, our jobs, even our simple likes and dislikes. Much less an invisible God. So we turn to what is visible…lights, stages, churches, worship bands, pastors, flow charts, jump-cut-edited-videos with delayed piano notes over a washy guitar and floating lyrics from podcasts, and call them God.

When was the last time we were truly excited about God? Just God. Apart from worship bands, apart from the podcasts of pastors we always refer to as just their last name as if they’re a quarterback, apart from the warm feelings of togetherness at church, and apart from guitar tone. ( ) I’m truly asking you to ask yourself this. Because when I did a couple years ago, I knew I was still excited about God. And when I asked again. And again. It took me a few times to truly bare my soul and realize that I thought I was excited about God because I had started calling all the elements of which we serve Him, by His own name. And that is idolatry.

What I had to finally ask myself was to remember a time when I was passionate about Jesus when it wasn’t connected to something in our culture. When was the last time I came home from church and talked about God? I would say, “God really moved through the worship music”, or “You’d never believe what my pastor said!” or “It was so good to see that person!” Is that bad? Yes, if I never seem to have an experience about just God. We have a culture of worship leaders who only worship when they’re in front of people. Worship leaders…when was the last time you worshiped God when not on stage? When not in front of people? Without a guitar? Pastors…when was the last time you studied the Bible without thinking of it in terms of a sermon or church authority? When was the last time we listened to a podcast without thinking how exciting “Chandler” is, but how amazing God is?

In our culture, God almost doesn’t exist apart from worship bands, church corporations, podcasts, and the occasional political rhetoric. When we think of God, it is almost always in those contexts. And we use the excuse, “Well it’s not perfect, but at least people are coming to God.” I’m just not satisfied with that anymore. Can people come to God and at the same time we have a proper view and passion about Him? No more excuses…I think we can, and I think it’s high time we started trying to do that, instead of hiding behind ministry as an excuse for our lackluster and rockstar-driven approach to all things God.

Our entire church culture is saturated with distractions. Distractions that were originally intended for good…and then the props became the thing itself. And then we actually pray from the stage that God would “allow us to look past all this, and just see Him.” I’m not buying that anymore. If I am having trouble in my marriage because I can’t seem to focus on my wife’s needs due to work, even though I am working for her and out of love for her to support her, it would be pretty horrifying if I were counseled to just look past it all and work harder for her needs. No, the logical and Biblical thing to do would be to go to the root of the problem and start cleaning house so that I could be passionate about her again.

It’s time to clean house. Turning over tables and smashing everything our Christian culture sells? If it’s keeping us from being passionate about just God, our first love, then yes. That may seem drastic, but so does plucking out your eye…and Jesus espouses both of those, as uncomfortable as we may be with those sentiments. We must find a way to be passionate about Jesus. My regular friends have a far different, and more often than not, better idea of what Christianity should be. They assume we recklessly follow the teachings of Jesus and are in love with Him. Because that’s what we say. It would be nice if it were true.

Just God. Not just God, and here are the super cool things we call God. The Creator died for us, and if we believe that, it should make us passionate enough to live it even when not on stage. If I haven’t worshiped Him, just me and Him, apart from music, church, podcasts, and an inviting culture, than I have left my first love.

Splendid.
Karl.

Since quitting my career as a worship pastor about a year and a half ago, all my musical endeavors have been outside of worship music, and all my worship service leading has been in a home setting. It’s been super nice to keep musicianship and giving God praise separate for the time being. My mindset for all worship leading in a home or small context has been, “How can we worship in the simplest, least distracting and least selfish way possible?” Which has led to the worship taking precedence, and the music’s only purpose being to support the melody so that we can sing together. Oddly enough, as is often the case, that simplicity has actually taken more musical skill than any guitar solo I’ve ever played. It’s just that the skill is mental and comes prior to the actual worship leading.

So when it came time last weekend to lead worship in a production setting for a retreat that I had committed to a year and a half ago, it was an interesting experience to try to balance making the music just the backdrop for the worship, with standing on a stage in front of hundreds of people. And sure, we always say the music is just the backdrop, but then we go on to spend so much time getting all the stops and beats right and the band tight, that we rehearse right on through prayer time. And then we throw in a 1 minute intro and a 30 second guitar solo, leaving only a couple minutes for lyrics we tried to make so artsy that they’re barely recognizable as God-centered. And then we judge how many people gave God glory with how loud the applause was after our big concert ending, rather than asking folks afterwards if they felt God was the center. Honestly? I’m tired of all that and I think we’re bordering on blasphemy.

It was a very difficult balance to walk, and I’m pretty sure I screwed up more than a few times, and not just in playing the wrong chords…which also happened. A few of my observations…and yes, we’re back to the beloved/hated bullet posts:

• I tried very hard not to use prayer as a “transition tool.” And you know what? The world did not implode in the five seconds it took me to put down my electric and grab my acoustic.
• We rehearsed up to the point where the song wouldn’t fall apart, and no further. After that, it was worship only. Incredibly freeing. I could actually worship. I’m not sure Capitol Records would’ve signed us, but then trying to land a record deal shouldn’t really be the point of worship, should it.
• I definitely took too many guitar solos. The tone got to me and I self-indulged a few times. Failure. And I could feel from the folks singing that they really just wanted to sing to God more.
• The mic shocked my every time I put my lips on it. Made things more interesting.
• Over 150 people came up to me and said that worship was pretty good, but would have been much better had the delay been with a Timeline instead of my Echo Park. Nope. That didn’t happen.
• We did lots of accapella. Pretty much overshadowed all the times we were playing with the full band.
• I played with my Matchless because it didn’t sell yet, and it was wonderful. I know that you shouldn’t need a multiple thousands of dollars amp to worship…not in the slightest. Yet at times I felt that you do. Yikes, I’ve got a long way to go.
• The musician in me is a transition fiend. I like flow and beautiful sounds. So I had to force myself to allow song choices to not flow if the theological content called for it. Meaning we jumped keys and tempos and styles and had abrupt changes so that we could do only songs that glorified God implicitly. And oddly enough, though I felt the clunky transitions, as soon as we started in singing the God-centered lyrics, the clunkiness was immediately overshadowed.
• In choosing songs, I realized that there are a lot of modern worship songs that I’m not sure we would even classify as ‘worshiping of God’ were they not done by ‘worship bands.’ There are many, many songs, and even hymns, focused on us and our feelings almost exclusively. Are our feelings bad to focus on? No. Is it bad that sometimes we miss entire worship services because none of the songs have the intent of glorifying God? Yes.
• You know what mattered most to everyone? Not our impeccable musicianship. That we treated the sound guy nice.
• Oh yes, and our musicianship was far from impeccable.

It was a great experience to try to lead worship in a God-honoring way, or a way that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. It’s a mental shift of course, but a mental shift that isn’t worth anything if not accompanied by some tangible changes. There were also a lot of failures, and there’s a long way to go. I still feel as if it might have been better if we just chanted some psalms. But the journey is on, and this is where I document it. Take it as you will, but at the very least, let’s remember that worship is not a platform for our musical skills or even our feelings. It should be about God, and if anything seems like it might not be, scrap it.

Splendid.
Karl.

The perfectly hued lights cast shadows in all the most dramatic places on the worship leader’s face as it is stared at by thousands on the video screen as they chant the lyrics they know so well from who has been described by themselves as their favorite band from the cd being sold in the lobby, and the music swells to a screaming crescendo as the guitar player trem picks open the ears of heaven so at the perfect moment the worship leader can scream, “I must decrease so He can increase!” Downbeat stop lights out. Punch in full lights. And the crowd goes wild.

Curious culture we’ve made for ourselves.

Not all of it is bad, but I think we need to pull it back a bit and ground ourselves once again in who it is we’re worshiping, before we come to a crash. The most frightening thing is that if we don’t, I’m not even sure we’re going to realize it when we do crash.

Splendid.
Karl.