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Soul Search's Swan Song

The final exchange for the Toilet Paper's Soul Search column:

NOEL: Well Rob, here we are at the end of The Toilet Paper's print edition (though let it be known we will still be around at www.toiletpaperonline.com) and the end of our Soul Search column (heaving sigh). Have we accomplished anything? While I knew my chances for turning you gay were slim, I thought I had a pretty good chance of turning you into a devout worshipper of Satan. But alas, I have failed.

ROB: You know, it's with a twinge of sadness that I start this final TP dialogue. There is some consolation as I remember that emotional moment when you knelt down and got born again. And like they always say, if the whole thing reached just one person...there had to be a cheaper and less time-intensive way to do it. But still, it's all worth it knowing that you'll be walking the straight and narrow from now on.

I'm reminded of the conversation that conceived Soul Search. You and I and Joe Coleman sat in a booth at Blue Star exchanging views on a variety of subjects. We debated a few ideas vigorously, and Joe pontificated and said several profound things, and we walked away friends. Something about that meeting of worlds and being okay with it gave us the idea for a column where worldviews could connect and collide and it could all be relatively civilized and we could do some small bit to unify rather than divide our community. A year later, I'm not sure whether we accomplished that. But I've gotten to know a bunch of people I would surely not have otherwise. And now I get the joy of supplemental pontifications from Joe whenever my wife and I dine at Blue Star. I feel a little more like a citizen of Colorado Springs and a little less like a citizen of North Academy Boulevard. I suppose those benefits alone would make a thousand Soul Searches worthwhile.

Jewish Perspective on Evangelicals

This is an interesting story from a Rabbi in Denver...

Confessions Of A Neocon Rabbi
Bruce Dollin

Thirty years of being a registered Democrat came to an end this week and I thought it prudent to pause a moment to reflect.

It has been a slow and uncomfortable transformation for this pulpit rabbi, preaching each week to an overwhelmingly liberal congregation. I haven’t come out of the closet to them — yet. I thought I would take a risk with all of you first, as you live halfway across the country from my hometown. I have heard that most Jews in New York City tend to the left as well.

Read the whole article at: http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=4944

Tithes

Here is a great question on a very relevant and important subject:

Rob,

Recently, I have read Deut 14:22-27 and it has brought about many questions for me in regard to the tithe. As I began to research the tithe within the Old Testament, I have found several scriptures declaring that 1/10 goes to the Levites (Numbers 18). It seems to be since there was not a “church” set up as there is today, the offering went to give wages unto the priests (Levites). I realize the Levites were placed by the Lord after the Israelites were set free from Egypt and the Lord killed all the first born sons. He set apart the firstborn of Israel and declared them as His and placed these Levites under the direction of Aaron.

The church has taught that 1/10 of our first fruits are to be presented to the church. Back in the Old Testament, there was not a church only a priest who cared for the tabernacle. The church as we know today did not come into place until the New Testament. Where is there a transition mentioned from tithing a tenth to the priest and change to referring to the Church? Deuteronomy 14 has really got me stumped because there the Lord is asking us to take the first fruits and partake of it in the form of fermented drink, meat etc.

I then read Malachi, but in the context of the tithe/offering there, it seems as though Malachi is referring to the how the priest have misused the tithe given. It doesn’t seem like Malachi is referring to the body as robbing God, but more the leadership of the temple.

I have been spinning my wheels on this for several days and praying you can give me some theological insight.

Malachi 3:6-12 6“I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ 8“Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. “But you ask, ‘How do we rob you?’ “In tithes and offerings. 9You are under a curse—the whole nation of you—because you are robbing me. 10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it. 11I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit,” says the Lord Almighty. 12“Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

In this section, the Lord addresses the “descendants of Jacob.” That is the whole nation of Israel. Were he addressing the priests exclusively, this would have read something like “descendants of Levi” instead. And He concludes the discourse with the promise that, in response to their obedience, “all the nations will call [them] blessed,” and theirs “will be a delightful land.” It seems unlikely that the blessing for their obedience would be that other peoples would call the priests blessed, or that the priests’ land would be delightful. In fact, when God divided up the promised land, the Levites did not receive a share. God’s promise to them instead was that He would be their portion.

As to whom—or, as it were, where—the tithe should be brought to, verse 10 instructs, “bring the whole tithe into the storehouse…” The generally accepted interpretation of this idea is that the storehouse is the local church, in order “that there may be food in my house.” This refers to the ability for the church to target resources en masse wherever there is need.

And as to whether the tithe is an exclusively Old Testament concept (I know you didn’t ask me for this, but it’s a question that comes up sometimes), Jesus responded to the Pharisee who gets uptight over Jesus’ not washing before a meal in Luke 11:42, “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Jesus validates the New Testament relevance of the idea of the tithe, and then ups the ante by addressing the corrosion in their hearts.

In the Meantime in Leadership Journal

The latest issue of Leadership journal features an excerpt from my new book, In the Meantime. This being my debut as a contributor to this hallowed publication, I'm not so sure I would have chosen this excerpt...but it's an excerpt nonetheless.

Whack-a-mole and Sin Management

The classic game is a bad approach to dealing with recurring transgression.

Remember the game whack-a-mole? There were six holes and a padded mallet with which to whack the moles that pop up randomly in the holes. The more moles you whack, the more tickets you earned at Chuck E. Cheese. So, you’d stand in front of the machine, watching for a mole to pop up, and then trying to whack it when it did.

That’s the way many of us approach sin. Rather than identifying the Enemy’s footholds and forcefully ripping them out, we sit back and wait for sinful tendencies to show up, and then we try to whack them back down. We’re content to treat symptoms of sin rather than going after the root cause. The problem with this approach is that the sin nature is in control, and we simply respond to it. We never overcome. There is no victory. We stay chained to our sinful habits and desires, vainly whacking the sin back down after it surfaces, but never ultimately winning.

I meet people every week who unwittingly subscribe to whack-a-mole holiness. They have clearly identified the holes in their lives where sin will pop out-pornography or anger or jealousy or whatever-and they position themselves vigilantly to smack at the sin once it appears.

They typically go to accountability groups and confess, repent of the sin with great remorse, over and over until the sin and their reaction to it end up defining them. The trouble is, they never address the root cause. Whack-a-mole Christians are chronically unwilling to look deep inside, identify sin’s secret source, invite the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and roll up their sleeves and develop true holiness.

Another way people play into the Enemy’s hand is by playing “sin management.” While whack-a-molers treat the symptoms of sin without addressing the cause, sin-portfolio managers live this way as a calculated choice. They approach godliness with the brazen misunderstanding that they, on their own, are more powerful than the enemy of their souls.

The classic example of sin management is masturbation. Having spent hundreds of hours talking with young masturbators over the years, my contention is that masturbation is a manifestation of what the Bible calls sexual immorality; sexual activity outside of God’s parameters. It’s sex with oneself. God’s idea of sexuality is one man and one woman in a marriage covenant.

Some argue that masturbation is fine so long as it is not accompanied by lustful thoughts. While this may be theoretically true, young men know that it’s practically irrelevant; they know that divorcing the act from the thought is hopeless. Trying to keep masturbation “under control” is sin management.

Portfolio managers live close to the line because they like it there. Never Fully submitting to Christ’s lordship, they buy the Devil’s tawdry line that he is not really interested in possessing them; he just wants to make them a little bit bad. Wittingly or unwittingly, they strike a deal and naively believe the Devil is going to keep his end of the bargain.

Adapted from In the Meantime, Copyright 2005 by Rob Brendle. Used by permission of Waterbrook Press, Colorado Springs, CO. All rights reserved.

I'm pleased to announce the release of my first book, In the Meantime: The Practice of Proactive Waiting.

From the forward by Ted Haggard:

[Rob] understands the difference between "living" and "living into." That's one of my favorite phrases in this book: "living into the calling." Life is a journey, and even if we know what we want our destination to be--even if we know exactly who we want to marry or exactly what kind of work we want to do--we can't always see that result in the road just ahead. Sometimes God keeps us from arriving for a very good reason. Sometimes the path toward our calling is in fact our calling. The process of moving toward the calling is an important part of the calling itself.

Rob also articulates the value of this process--its "in the meantime" significance. While we are working toward God's destination for us, if we will see where we are today, we will realize that both our current situations and our eventual destinations have equal import. If we have questions, we can live into the answers. If we have been called, we can live into the calling. In the meantime, we can do life well, whatever is required of us....

Rob expounds on all these ideas in these pages, and he does it wonderfully. His stories are funny and gripping, his insights profound. My only concern after putting the book down is that I wished it had been written twenty years ago. I have needed this book for a long time.

The book will be in stores Tuesday, December 13. You can also get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the New Life Church online store.

Where is the ACLU when you need them?

Someone please make sure this woman is not talking to these cadets about religion, becuase that would be offensive and emotionally troubling.

Recently, an Air Force Academy alum-turned-civilian-lawyer filed a preposterous lawsuit against the branch of service that funded his and his two sons’ education. Alleging that the academy’s religious climate violated his sons’ First Amendment right to religious freedom, he is seeking a permanent injunction prohibiting Air Force personnel from persuading others of anything religious while on duty.

The premise is absurd—we entrust these people with the world’s most advanced weaponry and assign them to analyze the most sensitive geopolitical issues, but we can’t trust them to discuss religion without government supervision! The implications of the suit are alarming for the church in America, as it would establish a precedent of the federal government’s moderating religious discourse. It is ironic that the intent of the legal action is to rectify a civil liberties complaint, as its success would mandate a First Amendment travesty with enduring nationwide implications. 

This situation points to a rising cultural resistance to evangelicalism in America. A small but vocal minority is duping the rest of the country—people who believe in God, want Christmas trees to be called Christmas trees, and presume that Constitutional free speech rights apply to everyone—into thinking that free religious discourse violates our national charter.

There are two strands of this thinking. The first is that religious people for some reason ought to be regulated in their participation in public discussion. Having any faith conviction, the thought would go, makes a person dangerous. Therefore faith should preclude a person from full, unfettered access to the right to free speech.

Second is that public institutions need to be restrained from religious expression, presumably lest any differently believing person be offended by the reminder that a majority of Americans believe one way. It is egregious that national expression would reflect national tradition.

Of course, these sentiments are always cloaked in outrage at any such act’s establishment of a state religion. But that argument is a straw man: no one on any side is advocating that America abolish the Establishment Clause and make Christianity the official state religion. This noisy minority’s real gripe is that, well, they are a minority. They hate the fact that, any way you slice it, most Americans believe something.

Opponents of religious organizations’ political speech are quick to point to the IRS regulations governing the political activity of a non-profit organization. But there is nothing in the IRS rule that is constitutionally mandated. In fact, it didn’t even come to be until the 1960s, evolving from an executive order passed by Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam War to limit the expression of religious organizations. (Liberal churches across America were speaking critically of Johnson’s administration and its conduct of the war.) For nearly two centuries, the religious community’s contribution to public discourse—and specifically, to the political process—was not only tolerated, it was celebrated. It was expected.

The IRS rules are part of civil law, and so we submit to them. But we do not have to pretend they are right. The Johnson administration infringed on millions of Americans’ most basic and sacred rights, and that intrusion has given license for anti-freedom zealots to continue trampling the rights of religious organizations. As evangelical leaders, we should be the staunchest defenders of freedom. Someone needs to do the ACLU’s job, since they’ve abdicated their role as First Amendment vanguard in favor of hyper-liberal activism. Who better to defend civil liberty than we? After all, “it was for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

Super-Sized Kids

Obesity is a greater threat by far to our nation than bird flu. "Along with the rise in childhood obesity, there has been an increase in the incidence and prevalence of medical conditions in children and adolescents that had been rare in the past," reports the American Obesity Association. "Pediatricians and childhood obesity researchers are reporting more frequent cases of obesity-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes, asthma and hypertension that once were considered adult conditions." Our nation's scientific and technological maturity and disease vigilance make an infectuous outbreak on our shores seem unlikely. Fatness is our pandemic, and we're doing it to ourselves even as we're helping the world stamp out the most complex viruses.

This from the AP:

Fast Food Dangerous to Toddlers

As toddlers begin eating "grown-up" food, they may also develop grown-up eating habits - like too much junk food and too few vegetables - warn doctors who want parents to change their ways.

Within the childhood obesity outbreak is an increasing number of overweight two-year-olds, according to pediatric experts. In an effort to address the problem, the American Heart Association is offering this advice to parents: Children two and older should eat mostly fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat and non-fat dairy products, beans, fish and lean meat.

"These guidelines are not that different from what you as a parent should be following," said Lona Sandon, a dietitian and assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Kids will follow the example of their parents if the example is there."

The Politics of Bird Flu

For those of you like me who are trying to make sense of bird flu, you'll appreciate this article. It was sent to me by a friend who works for the Depart of Health and Human Services, whose office has been busy for months preparing the recently released flu plan. The article captures the tortuous process of getting to this point.

Here's an excerpt; click on the continuation to read the entire article. It'll take a few minutes, but it is worth it to understand this pressing issue.

From "Long-Predicted Flu Finally Tops Agenda" by David Brown
Washington Post

Monday, November 7, 2005

...the seemingly overnight appearance of worries about pandemic flu on the front pages and in water-cooler conversations is misleading. The subject has been evolving out of sight for years -- much like the virus itself.

"I think there was always rather intense interest at the level of the [HHS] department," said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a chief adviser of the past two secretaries. "Influenza has always been at the very top of my short list of things to be concerned about."

"The idea that pandemic flu has just gotten traction is not strictly accurate," said Martin G. Myers, former head of the National Vaccine Program Office and now a professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. He said a draft was presented in 1998 to Donna E. Shalala, HHS secretary in the Clinton administration.

An influenza pandemic occurs when a strain of flu virus emerges that has the capacity to be transmitted easily from person to person but is so different from previously circulating strains that just about everyone is susceptible to it. It occurred only three times in the 20th century -- 1918, 1957 and 1968.

Over a long enough period of time, a flu pandemic is inevitable. But the intervals can be long enough that an entire generation reaches maturity with no recollection of one. "Flu people have a saying: 'The clock is ticking. We just don't know what time it is,'" Myers said.

A hint that pandemic hour might be nigh occurred in 1997 when an unusually virulent form of avian influenza called A/H5N1 appeared in Hong Kong. The virus swept through chicken flocks causing close to 100 percent mortality. More troubling, it occasionally infected people who came into contact with the birds. Over several weeks, 18 people got it and six died.

Archaeology Continues to Prove the Bible's Accuracy

This is an interesting AP release about a recent find at an archaeological dig which further establishes the Bible's historical truthfulness. It is remarkable that the more modern science is able to find, the more those findings agree with the oral and written accounts recorder millenia earlier...

JERUSALEM – Archaeologists digging at the purported biblical home of Goliath have unearthed a shard of pottery bearing an inscription of the Philistine’s name, a find they claimed lends historical credence to the Bible’s tale of David’s battle with the giant.

. . .

Some scholars assert the story of David slaying the giant Goliath is a myth written down hundreds of years later. Maeir said finding the scraps lends historical credence to the biblical story.

The shard dates back to around 950 B.C., within 70 years of when biblical chronology asserts David squared off against Goliath, making it the oldest Philistine inscription ever found, the archaeologists said.

For the complete article, click here.

On Church Diplomacy

Did you catch this story in the Gazette this week? It's nothing new that liberal politicians would like to use the IRS non-profit rules to impose government controls on the religious community's--er, the evangelical Christian community's (really, what liberal doesn't love a good activist Muslim, Jew, or Wiccan?)--voice in the public discourse. It is the way of liberals in the public discourse to presume to know who should and should not be allowed to participate.

The most interesting angle of this story is the cooperation between evangelicals and liberals within the Christian community. The only two unliklier bedfellows than the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Council of Churches would be the NAE and the ACLU. (For those of you outside the Christian community, the NAE represents Bible-believing, born-again-type churches and the NCC is comprised of the liberal, denominational churches we used to call "mainline.")

Oh, and have you heard that the ACLU is contemplating jumping on board to defend the civil liberties of our uniformed service members over at the Air Force Academy? That venerable organization is the vanguard of individual freedom, no? Three cheers for free speech.

From the Gazette, Tuesday, Nov 8:

LOS ANGELES - The IRS threat to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election is part of a larger, controversial federal probe of political activity at churches and nonprofit groups.

Over the past year, the Internal Revenue Service has looked at more than 100 tax-exempt organizations across the United States for allegations of promoting — either explicitly or implicitly — candidates on both ends of the political spectrum, according to the IRS. None have lost their nonprofit status, though investigations continue into about 60 of those.

The IRS denies any political motivation behind the initiative it started last year. The Treasury Department’s inspector general found in February that there was some mismanagement of the investigations but no indication of them being used as a political tool to silence critics of the Bush administration.

The IRS action, however, has triggered an unusual coalition of critics, who say they are concerned about the impact on freedom of speech and religion.

When Ted Haggard, head of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the 12,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, heard about the All Saints case Monday morning, he told his staff to contact the National Council of Churches, a more liberal group.

Haggard said he personally supports the war in Iraq and probably would not agree with much in the Rev. George Regas’ 2004 sermon at All Saints, which was cited by the IRS as the basis for its probe.

But Haggard said he wants to work with the church council “in doing whatever it takes to get the IRS to stop” such actions.

“It is a violation of the Constitution for the IRS to threaten that church. It may not be a violation of IRS regulations, but IRS regulations have been wrong,” Haggard said.

Robert Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, cheered when he heard of Haggard’s offer, which Edgar said represented a rare reaching out by the evangelical group to the council.

Edgar, a United Methodist minister, former Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania and ex-president of the Claremont School of Theology, said the IRS move against All Saints appears to be “a political witch hunt on George Regas and progressive ideology. It’s got to stop.” He stressed that Regas did not endorse a candidate in the sermon.

For the full story, click here.