Blazing a Third Way – Joshua Graves: Exploring the Collision of Culture & Faith

Blazing a Third Way

January 21, 2009

The debate is all over the air-waves, literature, university campuses and coffee shops in America: Is Christianity (and religion in general) good for society?

Some thinkers say religion is dangerous. This group would include Christopher Hitchens (author of God is Not Great) and others who point out the tragedies and violence done in the name of religion. They point to The Crusades, Constantine’s Army, Catholic/Protestant Wars, Holocaust (Germany was overwhelmingly Lutheran at the time), along with bloodshed caused by Islam and modern day Israel. They point out that more people died in the twentieth century, the height of Christendom’s influence in the world, than in all the previous nineteen centuries combined. And, I haven’t even pointed out the Christian/Muslim tension in the world today. They look to Nietzsche and his premise that religion is the opiate of the masses, a crutch that helps less intelligent folks make sense of their lives (especially mortality).

Other thinkers say religion is not dangerous. This group would include many political conservative and (some) liberal thinkers, fundamentalists, evangelicals, and (some) mainline leaders along with other loyalists to a particular re-telling of America’s inception. This group would point to the influence of Judeo-Christian values in the U.S. Constitution, the building of hospitals in India, the modern day school system, work with the poor, literacy, Civil Rights Movement (led by a black Baptist minister), Red Cross, A.I.D.S. relief in Africa, along with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Desmond Tutu was unapologetically Christian in his leadership of this incredible work . . . what N.T. Wright has called the “most significant accomplishment of Christianity in the twentieth century”).

Those who argue that religion/Christianity is poisonous to civilization tend to ignore the accomplishments and sheer will of Christian passion over the last several centuries. While they are correct in pointing out slavery (America’s original sin), they gloss over the fact that a Christian (William Wilberforce) helped to end the peculiar institution.

Those who argue that religion/Christianity is necessary and good for civilization tend to ignore the aforementioned skeletons in the proverbial religious closet. They are limited in their understanding of the way in which religion has promoted evil, division and hate in some parts of the world. They are easily duped by nostalgia and wishful thinking.

I hope to be a part of a church that is a blazing a third way. A way that owns up to the sins of our past and present (my generation loves to point out the racism of our parents and grandparents while ignoring the plank of materialism, apathy, and indifference in our own collective eye) while also having the courage to point out what is good, just, and right about Christianity and other religions.

Christians, it seems to me, suffer from a lack of imagination. We lack the imagination to see a way in which we can make a sustained difference on issues of abortion (I’m pro-life and I’m committed to providing care for young mothers and children born into poverty), war (particularly the re-integration of soldiers into “civilian life”), poverty, addiction (drug, alcohol, eating disorders, gambling, sexual, among others) divorce, abuse, and depression. We feel powerless, as if we cannot make a real dent in the destruction and decay of life as we know and accept it.

God’s Spirit is able to blaze a path in the midst of overwhelming odds. I want to be a part of a church that rises above these old dichotomies, into a new set of questions, dreams, and possibilities.

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

Labels: Church, Ecclesiology, Mission

10 Comments

Since the first century, there have been people who were pretty good at following Christ … and lots more who said they were.

That’s a pretty poor excuse for trashing all believers. Could an atheist defend trashing the justice system because it isn’t just all the time? Calling all philanthropists selfish because some of them spend money on food and clothing for themselves? Firing all the staff at NOAA because they’re not right about the weather all the time?

Well, sure he/she could. Whatever is right to an atheist is right to an atheist.

I can’t really think of any civilization-building, people-lifting, nation-mending activities done in the name of atheism.

Maybe that’s because Christians are called to believe in God and love others as themselves, and atheists just believe in and love themselves.

by Keith Brenton (Jan 21 2009, 7:43 pm)

Keith,

I want to give you the benefit of the doubt but your tone surprises me.

I don’t think you know many atheists based upon your comments. Have you done much reading in the Civil Rights era. Some of King’s strongest supporters were agnostics/atheists.

I never thought I’d be defending atheists on this blog. I do think Christians need to listen to what atheists are pointing out and that is Christianity when mixed with the Empire is dangerous.

Again, I want to give you the benefit of the doubt but your comment comes off a bit angry. I don’t think “firing the staff at the NOAA” is a good comparison to slavery in the US or the Holocaust. Do you really want to let those two stand by each other?

Written with humility and love.

Josh

by Josh Graves (Jan 21 2009, 9:43 pm)

“Christians, it seems to me, suffer from a lack of imagination.”

Bullseye Josh! Proverbs tells us as much…”Where there is no vision, the people perish” Pr. 29:18 KJV

By the way, I love atheists, after all they do make the best converts ;)

by Barecycles (Jan 22 2009, 6:08 am)

Josh, I think your outreach is wonderful. But in embracing those who don’t believe, you don’t have to embrace the deeply flawed rhetoric of the most hateful among atheists.

I don’t think Christians today have to “own up” to atrocities committed by people who said they were Christians but were not following Christ at all – people of seared conscience who put their desires first and called them “God.” I think we should stand beside atheists who condemn those acts as moral outrages, rather than admit some sort of second-hand culpability that implies Jesus was somehow a part of it.

Example: I do not hold Islam responsible for 9/11. That’s just flawed logic. I hold responsible those who planned and executed it; those who taught them hate in the name of Islam.

You read my tone correctly. I am angry when anyone – atheist or Christian or anyone else – supergeneralizes and categorizes and condemns “all” because of the actions of “some.”

You don’t have to defend that and still be able to love people who don’t believe.

Your brother,

- Keith

by Keith Brenton (Jan 22 2009, 6:25 am)

Keith,

Thanks for the further comments. Your second set of comments presents your position in a different light than the first set.

I just noticed it isn’t showing up on the blog. I’ll go look for it. :)

by Josh Graves (Jan 22 2009, 1:26 pm)

Keith,

You wrote:

“I think your outreach is wonderful. But in embracing those who don’t believe, you don’t have to embrace the deeply flawed rhetoric of the most hateful among atheists.” I think that’s precisely what I said towards the end of the blog. Did you read the whole thing?

You also wrote: “I don’t think Christians today have to “own up” to atrocities committed by people who said they were Christians but were not following Christ at all”

I guess that means you are not, in any part of your life guilty of watering down the story of Jesus. If you hang around many post-Christians, post-modern type (Not sure if you do), you don’t have a choice to be savvy regarding Christianity’s rep among many.

Again, I want to lift up the great things accomplished (schools, Civil Rights, care for the poor, hosptials, Momma T) BUT I refuse to do that and forget the skeletons in the closet . . . including my own.

by Josh Graves (Jan 22 2009, 1:34 pm)

I meant to say, I appreciate the dialog and engagement and enjoy being able to talk about difficult things in a civil way.

That’s an accomplishment in and of itself.

Thanks Keith.

by Josh Graves (Jan 22 2009, 1:35 pm)

I think I made an unwarranted assumption, Josh, and connected your recap of the accusations of some prominent atheists in the second paragraph with “owning up to the sins of the past and present” in the sixth. (Yup, I did read the whole post, and that seeming disconnect with the closing paragraphs was what struck me the wrong way!)

I just think the skeletons in my own closet are more than enough to own up to (including my own faulty logic, anger, and watering down the gospel – hopefully no murderous atrocities) without having to let all of current Christianity wear the hair shirt of guilt for every horror perpetrated by Christians – or Americans, or white people – of eras long before this generation was even born.

We doubtless agree it’s just faulty logic to blame Christianity – the attempt to be like Christ – for the Holocaust or Islam for 9/11 or atheism for the slaughter of Russians in the early twentieth century. People did those things – people with an insufficiently magnetized moral compass. Most religions, belief systems – even the writings of Nietzsche – are an attempt to polarize some moral mettle to point in a positive direction.

Atheism simply can’t draw on the same lodestone strength that can be found in Christ.

I don’t know a lot of atheists, or even agnostics. I am old and probably cloistered. But the ones I have read aren’t especially logical or likeable, and a couple of good friends of many years have left Christianity in the rear-view mirror over the kind of generalizations those authors have touted.

So, yes, it’s personal to a degree – and that probably goes a long way toward explaining why I reacted with anger.

- I, too, very much enjoyed and appreciated the chance to civilly trade thoughts with you!

And if I was not civil, I do apologize.

by Keith Brenton (Jan 22 2009, 8:57 pm)

Thanks for the further thoughts Keith. We are all shaped by our experiences, as you point out. My experience has been great (per agnostics and atheists). They are courious about Jesus and spirituality but highly suspicious of Church and religion (to use and overused dichotomoy).

Thanks again for the dialog. I enjoy reading your blog.

by Josh Graves (Jan 23 2009, 6:28 am)

It is thought-provoking and spirit-filled conversations such as these that make me proud and humble to be able to consider you a friend, Josh, and that through the continued dialogue and efforts of the worst and the best, we as a people pursuing the God of our creation, will in the fullness of time, be what He made us to be.

Thanks….

Your brother-in-Christ,
Jim

by Navalpride (Jan 23 2009, 1:19 pm)