Deciding "Who" Instead of "What"

I was recently involved in a short thread on Facebook that ultimately lead to the ever-debated question (if I may paraphrase) of, "What religion is 'right'?"  As many continue to work this out in their own way, I just wanted to offer the following transcription from a sermon given by Bruxy Cavey of The Meeting House almost 5 years ago that I think describes a great way of reformatting this question in a way that may help some find what I also believe to be the right place to land.

Why am I typing this out?  So you can read it and process it, and because it's good stuff and helps me to digest and learn things better.  Will you make a "faith decision" based on this?  Probably not.  Should you?  No.  Are all world views represented?  No.  But it's a great principle to consider as you work through your questions.  And obviously Bruxy is a Christian.  He is here describing one process he clearly went through on his journey to become a Christ follower.  If you'd like to listen to the audio, which I also recommend, click HERE and scroll down to the 2007 sermon series entitled "Cruciformity" (from April 2007) and listen to the first sermon in the series.  What I've transcribed below picks up about 28 minutes into the sermon.  So in Bruxy's words...

"Let me just talk to those of you who are maybe at the starting point in all of this and saying, 'Alright you're talking about fully giving my life over to following the way of Jesus... becoming a disciple of Jesus.  I don't even know if Jesus is the guy I want to follow, like, I'm just checking things out... why Jesus?'

"Maybe that's where you are or maybe that's where some of your friends are at, and that's one of those questions they raise for you.  Often people will raise that question in the form of 'Why the Christian religion versus other religions?...What makes Christianity true and all other religions false?!'  A commonly asked question.  When people ask you that question, one of the ways I think you can and should respond is to help re-orient the focus of the question.  [I was] just having a conversation with someone this week who's attending [The Meeting House], probably here this morning, and we had a great conversation...someone who is not committed to Christ, but is attending regularly to investigate, and asks that great question, 'What makes Christianity true and not other religions?'  And what I was able to say to her as we kind of fleshed this out was to say, 'Actually nothing makes Christianity true... nothing makes it better than any other religion...it's not better than any other religion.  Let's list all the religions that are out there and then clear the deck (whoosh!)...  Let's get 'em out of the way.  Let's not play the game of "Christianity's Better Than Any Other Religion" because it really isn't.  It has a lousy track record. Who want's that?

"So we clear the deck and then flesh the question out a little, say, 'Let's dig a little deeper with the question itself.'  Instead of asking the question, 'What makes Christianity better than 'any other religion?'' let's say why Jesus, as opposed to the founder or prophet or revealer of 'any other religion?'  Because we're talking about the genesis of every world view or of every faith.  Now, as you can see this in your notes (see image below), my suggestion is that we stop trying to decide which religion to follow, but instead which founder or leader or revealer of truth is worthy of your allegiance.

"So, we look at Moses --- wonderful lawgiver, brings structure for a people.  But even embedded within the story of Moses is the promise that this is incomplete.  Deuteronomy 18 has the promise that another prophet that's similar, but different, to Moses is still needed to come --- another revealer of truth is still needed to come, who will flesh this out more [and] take it to the next level.  And then throughout the rest of the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, are prophecies of that one who is coming who will lead us into the fulfillment of the Torah that Moses brought; [lead us] into the new covenant.  Moses is great... just incomplete.  And that's what the Old Testament itself says.

"When we look instead of Hinduism, we look at Krishna --- now, it's hard to pin down any one particular founder for Hinduism, but Krishna would be top of the list if you had to pick one.  Krishna is that manifestation of the divine who appears to Arjuna --- Arjuna is a warrior and he's about to go into battle, and as Arjuna is about to go into battle he notices the tribe they're gonna fight against contains some of his family members... some of his cousins and uncles are facing him on the battlefield.  And he walks away and he says, 'I can't kill my own family just because our clans have decided to go to war.'  And Krishna appears to him and teaches him the way of dharma, teaches him the way of karma, and of castes, and says, 'Arjuna, you have been born into the warrior caste.  This is your calling.  This is what you must do.  It's your dharma.  You are not called to think it through.  You are not called to be personal in this, there's nothing personal.  This is your destiny.  This is what you were born to do, because you were born into this caste.  And so what you must learn is an emotional detachment from what is your destiny.  Now go and kill.  Kill your family, kill the clan.  It's what you're called to do.'

"And I say no!  I cannot follow the way of Krishna.  I cannot follow this commitment to the separation of personal responsibility.  It has led to sooo much suffering through the caste system around the world.  So I say 'No' to Krishna.  I know many wonderful Hindus.  They're wonderful, I would say, in spite of --- not because of --- the teaching of Krishna.

"Mohammed --- I think a step up from Krishna. That's not saying much.  Mohammed --- fierce monotheism.  Some great teaching, but Mohammed still leaves the door open to violence as a methodology to advance an earthly cause.  Mohammed on a couple of occasions leads preemptive strikes --- leads preemptive warfare against those who he perceives may be a threat to his people.  And it leaves the door open for that theology that says, 'You can launch an attack against someone you perceive to be an enemy and call it self-defense.'  And I say, 'No... I'm sorry Mohammed, you have not modeled for me a way of peace and reconciliation that obviously this world needs.'

"We look at the Buddha... [Bruxy reflects on his somewhat Buddha-esque body type and quietly repeats...] We look at the Buddha.  I like the Buddha!  He's a happy guy!  But a couple of problems... first of all, we just don't know if he even existed. The earliest --- as I've said before --- the earliest historical records we have of anyone called the Buddha or anyone that points back to [him] were written 500 years after... [interrupting himself]... the first documents we have written about the Buddha are written around the first century --- about the same time as our gospels are written about Jesus.  Except our gospels are written just a few decades after the fact. Buddha lived about 500 years earlier, yet the first written records we have are written about the same time as our New Testament.  And so after 500 years we just don't know if there actually was a person, or it's not just historically as valid as something written within decades of the actual events.  Even if there was a historical person, what the writings about the Buddha teach is that he also practiced a kind of --- now, he rejected the way of warfare (of Krishna), thankfully --- but he still isolated himself from relationship to say it is about personal pursuit of enlightenment.  So [much so] that he, for years, left his wife and newborn son in order to pursue personal enlightenment.  Finally obtained it, which is wonderful, but that isolationist mentality of detachment from all things, including family relationships, is again something that I don't think -- if practiced with passion --- makes this world a better place to live.

Bruxy Cavey

"When you compare the founders of faith... Jesus shines.  As one who comes to teach the radical love of God --- that the universe, the ultimate force behind everything that is... is love... and is bent towards you, passionately committed to who you are, wanting to engage you relationally.  And along with that comes, through Christ, a very passionate challenge to any religious systemitization of this relationship, any religious hypocrisy.  He comes and he invites people into that personal connection with the divine.  Rather than just comparing religions, compare people, and see God revealed in Christ.  Uniquely attractive.

"And so the apostle Paul says this... in Galatians 4:19, 'My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you...'  [Bruxy then paraphrases...] [Paul] says, 'You're children, and I feel like I'm also (along with the Holy Spirit) in the pains of childbirth because I want to see Christ fully formed in you.'  He uses an embryonic analogy --- 'Jesus is in you, in embryo form, and I want him to develop and grow inside you!  I want his heart, his mind, his attitude, his presence to not just be an embryonic form, but to fully develop inside you.'  

"This is my heart.  It's not just mechanically following a guy from 2000 years ago; but having an ongoing internal communion and connection with him.  This is Paul's prayer for those Christians he was mentoring, that he was discipling, and it's my prayer for us as a community." ~ Bruxy Cavey

Pretty good stuff, I'd say.  Hope you found reading this (or listening to it) was worth your while.  God bless you as you seek truth.  I believe it's in Jesus.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the father except through me."

~ Jesus of Nazareth   |   John 14:6 ~

The Cross and the St. Louis Cardinals

by Jonathan Parnell  |  November 3, 2011

What does Jonathan Edwards have to do with baseball? It relates to how he saw the world. The technical term is typology — the mechanism of his God-entranced vision of all things. He explains,

God does purposely make and order one thing to be in agreeableness and harmony with another. And if so, why should not we suppose that he makes the inferior in imitation of the superior, the material of the spiritual, on purpose to have a resemblance and shadow of them? We see that even in the material world God makes one part of it strangely to agree with another; and why it is not reasonable to suppose he makes the whole as a shadow of the spiritual world? . . . ("Images of Diving Things," A Jonathan Edwards Reader, [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995], 16).

Edwards saw it in the experience of walking down a hill, in the diet of ravens, and in the life of silkworms. And sports fans just saw it in the 2011 World Series.

The World Series, Really?

What made this Series so great wasn’t the mere fact that I love the St. Louis Cardinals and they won. It was the whole manner of how it happened. It's the fact that the Cardinals were trailing 10.5 games on August 25. They had no chance of making the playoffs, it seemed. It was the time to start looking at next year—the time when the "maybe-next-season" wishes are reluctantly announced.

But then they started winning. Their late-season success allowed them to slip into the playoffs on the final game of the season. That was amazing enough. Then they beat the league-best Phillies. Then the potent Brewers. And then there they were—like out of no where—in the World Series.

Learning from Edwards, let’s keep tracking the "agreeableness and harmony" that goes much deeper than America’s pastime. The Cardinals were the underdog, if there ever were one. They shouldn't even be in the playoffs, not to mention in the World Series competing against the repeat American League champion Texas Rangers. Every commentator wrote them off — "it was nice they made it this far, but they just aren’t championship caliber."

Weakness Exposed

When Texas won two in a row to take a 3-2 series lead, we expected that the Cards would finally fold. And during Game 6, when they came down to two outs and two strikes away from losing — twice! — hopes were dashed for Cardinal Nation. The consoling began, remembering the season really should have ended in September, that they really didn't have a World Series-quality team, that it's time again to start the "maybe next season" concessions.

The team’s weakness at last was seen as weakness, and the dream of winning the World Series was confronted with the reality that things really don't happen this way. It was like a Friday afternoon wake-up call from Golgotha.

But wait a minute. Isn’t this the way all the best stories go? Cue Edwards.

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey, but it could have been a stallion leading an unbeatable legion of Jewish revolutionaries. He could have been taller, a handsome king that looked more like a Disney prince instead of a Galilean peasant. There could have been no agony, no cross, no tomb. There could have been, but there wasn’t.

When Hope Seems Lost

And this was God’s design — in his universe, there is more beauty when victory rises out of weakness. The morning shines brighter after a tumultuousness night. The glory is greater at the end of three silent days, when the Lamb has been slain, when all hope seems lost.

That’s where this World Series was pointing. Game 6 made this clear. The Cardinals were finished. It was over. Over. Well, over until David Freese's two-run triple in the bottom of the 9th, then Berkman's RBI single in the 10th, then Freese's walk-off homer in the 11th. Almost too good to be true. Like an out-of-breath Mary flinging open the disciples’ door to announce an empty tomb. Then Game 7 came, and the Cards won that one, too. 

It was an unforgettable Series, one that reaches deep into the human soul, resonating with the imprint of our Creator and reminding us why the good stories are, well, so good.

Joyful Noise, Take 2

Location, location, location.  What a difference a seat can make at a concert.  Back in April I blogged about the Skillet and TobyMac concert at Liberty University (see "Joyful Noise").  I was disappointed about the seats we got (General Admission + not arriving early enough = FAIL), and also that Rebecca couldn't come along.  But last night, lo and behold... God gave me a second chance.  The tour ended last night in our hometown.  My brother-in-law and I went to the Salem Civic Center a couple months back to get tickets and make sure we had decent seats.  Boy, did we pick out some decent seats.
I don't necessarily want to recap everything the way I did for the previous concert, but man, as good as it was back in April... last night was infinitely greater.  No exaggeration here... I think it was the best concert experience of my life.  Please re-read.  Okay, I did not say it was the greatest concert ever.  What was?  I don't know.  Not qualified.  But last night was the greatest concert experience ever... for me.
After "Shonlock" (Desean Bullock) warmed things up a bit, Skillet set the place on fire... almost literally with a nice touch of pyrotechnics.  They are a band worthy of their own headlining tours.  Lead singer and bass player John Cooper is a rockstar/performer/screamer/vocalist that I think tries to lose his voice during every show.  His wife, Korey Cooper, jams along side him on rhythm guitar and keyboard.  Ben Kasica is their well-qualified lead guitarist (meaning he can play the guitar behind his head... really well).  And if you don't love their back-up vocalist and drummer chick extraordinaire, Jen Ledger, by the end of the night... leave your man card at the door.  Anyway, big props to Skillet... again the best band out there with the worst name.  And I recently read that John Cooper would agree with me about the name.

John Cooper of Skillet.

To quote some of his Funky Jesus Music lyrics, TobyMac and the Diverse City Band brought "that hip, that rock, that funky soul" and we watched that tour finale party grow! Yes, the night got better (as you should expect).  Toby did his thing, and while I didn't document the entire night because I was just trying to take it all in, enjoy it, and worship God in the most exciting way for me, here's what else I want to remember and share about this concert: (a) God was in it -- I'm not a Christian hand-raiser (you know who you are and what I mean), but I was last night, and I wanted to show God not just with my heart, but publicly with my hands that I am His, and in some of those moments of true worship it almost seemed quiet in there; there's my touchy-feely thought for the day; (b) it felt like my wife and I were actually on a date, which there aren't enough of these days; (c) again... GREAT seats; (d) Toby's participation in the crowd -- Toby popped up at one point in the stands, and this teeny-bopper girl is freaked out next to him, and as he made his way back to the stage climbing across the chairs directly in front of us... OMG, I touched him with a manly slap on the back! You're jealous; (e) the acoustic set with Toby, Gabe Patillo (beat-boxing fool) and Tim Rosenau (guitar) -- happened right in front of us (see pic below -- no zoom, iPhone pic) and Toby gave us some scripture from 1 John 1;

Toby, Gabe, T-Rose.

(f) although Toby sported a green and black Houston Astros cap during his performance, he originally came out with a St. Louis Cardinals cap on -- and my "man crush" was official; (g) jammed some of my favorites: Tonight (tour/album title track), Extreme Days, Lose My Soul, Made to Love, City On Our Knees (with God of This City finish on it), and of course, J Train to name a few; and (h) the Winter Wonder Slam finale complete with white paper confetti snow and during which the Burger King Bandit (yes, that one) busted in and "shared" some Whoppers.  Silly...


Enough said.  It was a good night.  Another memorable night of joyful noise.

Today's Good Read: Psalm 33:3

The Christian Atheist

I am by no means a book critic.  More accurately, I am an aspiring bookworm.  That is, I really enjoy reading, but I have to learn to stay awake long enough to finish books in a timely fashion.  I actually end up reading the same pages and paragraphs and two or three times because I nod off, twitch back into alert mode, re-read, and repeat as necessary until I give up and turn off the light.  I'm sure some of you can relate.
Anyway, I recently managed to finish a new book that I thought I would recommend to anyone who claims Jesus as their Lord, Savior, et al., but whose faith could easily be challenged or "called out" (with regard to their "un-Christian" behavior) by friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, and in this day and age... Facebook friends -- yup, you see it all the time in status updates... "Praise God!" one day, and "I got hammered" the next.  Heck, I'd be willing to bet you've seen, "Praise God, I got hammered!"
So the book is perfectly titled The Christian Atheist by Craig Groeschel (pastor, LifeChurch.tv).  It's about "believing in God but living as if He doesn't exist."  It's a book for the self-proclaimed Christ follower that: doesn't really take the time to get to know God; doesn't pray as often as he should; doesn't always think God is fair; doesn't always forgive on the level he has been forgiven; doesn't think God can change his ways; continues to worry all the time; doesn't share his faith; wants to claim Christ but not be a part of His church; and more.
On levels fortunately much lower than they were ten years ago, I still wrestle with my newly defined "Christian Atheism" daily, but I believe God can change me, has changed me, and is changing me.  This book actually helped me identify some specific areas I can improve on and better represent Christ to the people around me.

Today's Good Read: Titus 1:16

Joyful Noise

I expressed to my church family yesterday that the concert my friends and I attended Saturday night was filled with music that many would likely consider "just a bunch of noise."  I am here to testify that Skillet and TobyMac make incredibly joyful noise.  The Vines Center at Liberty University has officially been rocked.
The concert was great and I left only wishing (a) that Rebecca could've come, (b) that we got there sooner because (c) our seats left much to be desired (vision, sound... oy!), and (d) that Kirk Franklin was there to sing his part of Lose My Soul.  A concert like this is not meant to be experienced in general admission seats.  I mean, I could still hear when I left.  That won't happen again.
What was awesome was (a) the company (Wilson, Matt, Catherine, and thousands of others); (b) Skillet busted out the pyrotechnics... yes, enormous burst of flames that may have claimed a few eyebrows before the night was over; (c) Tobymac opened on a small platform at the back end of the floor (right where my seats for his previous concert were... doh!) and then proceeded through the crowd, eventually body surfing to the stage; (d) Skillet's girl drummer/back-up singer -- who banged out a solid solo at one point; (e) Toby's participation in the crowd; (f) the acoustic set also done from the small platform; (g) that we were able to move over to some better seats for the last 4 songs, including the Jesus Freak finale; (h) Skillet playing Monster; (i) TobyMac mixing in some familiar secular sounds (i.e. We Are Family by Sister Sledge and Imma Be by the Black Eyed Peas) and medleys of tracks from prior albums including... (j) J? J Train, of course.
There is likely much more that I'm leaving out that I might have caught if I had better seats.  Regardless, it was a good time, and in the end I realized that there were a bunch of young people there (college students, high school students that were also there for Liberty's "College for a Weekend" program, and kids even younger than that) that all likely also listen to a lot of music/noise that isn't as good for the soul as Skillet and TobyMac.  And I praise God that there are some solids artists out there looking to praise Him with a bunch of really cool noise. 

Today's Good Read: Psalm 100

All Things New

Happy Easter!  I couldn't have planned a better day to write my first blog entry on McMahonhood.  If you're a Christian, this is the most celebrated day of the year, and it could not be more beautiful from where I sit and write.  I even caught the sunrise around 7:15 this morning from my porch.  I don't know why it is different for me (in a good way) this year, other than that I believe God can make any and every day new and special.  This is without a doubt a special day.  Our church service was filled with songs that felt like anthems and we sung them out, especially the Resurrection Hymn (and I'm not usually overwhelmed by "hymns").  Man, it can be really powerful if you allow it to be.  Darren brought a great Easter message, too.
Certainly a lot of my excitement is about meeting my little girl in about a month.  I totally remember the awe of Isaac's birth (I'm not sure it ever left) and I know it's going to be just as incredible the second time around.  So I/we wait patiently, but with much anticipation for baby Ella.
I'm also jacked up about baseball starting up.  Easter and baseball and a new baby - Spring has finally sprung for me.  And I'm looking forward to and expecting a big year from Albert and the Cardinals.  No one saw them coming when they got healthy late in 2006 just in time to put a beat down on the Tigers in the World Series, and this year they have a killer roster.  It's really theirs to lose.  So I'm excited to sit in my chair and watch some baseball with the fam... well... I know I can at least make Ella sit with me when she gets here.  And I will give Rebecca some props - she's has become a Cardinals fan over the years and actually watched EVERY game of the 2006 playoffs (that was like 14 games!).  That's my girl.
Anyway, take a deep breath yourself... God is good.  Easter's for real.  All things are being made new.

Happy Easter!

Today's Good Read: Revelation 21:5