On Faith, Love, And Emotions

I meet with a group of pastors every Thursday for prayer. This is not just any prayer meeting. About six years ago, at a time when I deeply needed a group of people I could trust and be transparent with, God directed me to these pastors. And I’ve been with my band of brothers and sisters since. To me, the meeting is a life-line.

Last Thursday, I facilitated the meeting. Wanting to gather us around a subject to pray, I shared the following story.

“Yesterday I got this email from one of the underground church leaders in the Middle East telling me about this amazing house church that has become well known for her good works and tenacity. The members are true believers, whom in the midst of all kinds of hardship and persecution, are trying very hard to please God and stick to their Christian faith. If you knew their story, you’d see how much they have suffered for Christ and yet, they’ve not given up being faithful to their Lord and savior.

Perhaps above all, they’re not only solid followers of Christ, but they’re also doctrinally sound. The teaching you hear out of that church puts most of us to shame. Throughout the years, this church has stood up to many bad teachers, but they have proven all of them to be wrong and have kicked them out of the church. What I mean is that their teaching is very biblical.

Now, let’s be honest. How many of us wouldn’t desire to have a church like that? Is there one church in America that wouldn’t do everything she can to be known by these qualities? Yet, with all her fine virtues, this church has a major problem. Let me read you the email…”

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write:

These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.

Well, I tricked everyone. The church wasn’t in the Middle East, but Ephesus. There was no email. I was simply reading what the Lord told John about this church in the book of Revelation. What is troubling about this wonderful church is what Jesus says next,

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place. (Rev. 2:1-5) NIV

Apparently, according to the Cornerstone of the Church, Jesus, having all those wonderful qualities means nothing if you don’t have that first love. Without that love, the congregation in Ephesus is doomed/will cease to exist.

But what is the first love?

In all my years of being a follower of Christ, I don’t remember having heard too many messages on this subject. The ones I have heard always referred to the first love as witnessing for Jesus like you used to, reading your Bible like you used to, going to church like you used to, and so on. They completely overlooked the fact that according to Jesus, the Ephesians did not “used to” do all that, but were doing it at the moment, and yet they were in danger of being put out. In fact, one commentator says, “They had yielded to the temptation, ever-present to Christians, to put all their emphasis on sound teaching. In the process, they lost love…”

So, what is this first love?

To me, it all goes back to the Greatest Commandment in the Bible.

Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.” (Mk 12:29-31) The Message

The love that God requires of us, that first love, is an all-consuming love. It’s a type of love that demands of you everything that makes you, you. It requests not just your actions, but your zeal, passion, and yes, YOUR EMOTIONS and FEELINGS. In this love, the Beloved is the life-giving center of the lover’s life to the point that without him, life for the lover is meaningless.

If in loving us, God gave us of his own very essence, his only Son, then it’s only fair that in return, He requires the same from us, our very essence. This love demands that the lover becomes one with his/her Beloved. And in doing so, to wholly lose him/herself in him. His heart, his will, his thoughts, his strength, his feelings, and emotions become yours and vice versa.

Molana Rumi, the great Persian mystic poet of the 13^th century, describes such love with the following story.

There came one and knocked at the door of the Beloved.
And a voice answered and said, ‘Who is there?’
The lover replied, “It is I.”

“Go away,” returned the voice;
“there is no room within for YOU and me.”
Then came the lover a second time and knocked and again the voice demanded,
“Who is there?”
He answered, “It is you” “Only you are at the door”
The voice said, “Now, since you are me, O me, come in,
since there’s no room for two ‘me’s’ in the house.

And Paul, the Apostle puts it this way,

I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. (Gal. 2:20) The Message

As the author of The Cloud of Unknowing says, “Love is ‘ecstatic’ in that it takes us out of ourselves to live in the thing we love. If we love money, we live in money; if we love friends, we live in them, if we love them in God, we live in God. That means in love there is a real death.”

I’ve never claimed to be a theologian, but I’m convinced that what Paul is referring to is NOT some theological hypothesis, but an existential reality, which he has and is experiencing—a continued disappearing of Paul into Jesus. He realizes that to follow Jesus, it requires an actual dead to self/ego, a replacing of one identity with another, so that, as Rumi says, there are no longer “two me’s,” but only one “I AM.”

I believe the first love is the very river that guides every follower of Christ to strive to please him. Because when we learn to love with that intensity, we have no desire to do anything, but to please our Beloved.

But how does one learn to love with that intensity? Be assured that it isn’t something you just conjure up by yourself.

It first starts with God. He’s the one who initiates the relationship and comes after us. He’s the one who relentlessly pursues us until we are found in him. And as the Scripture says, He’s the one who first lavishes us with his unconditional love and makes us fall in love with him.

Have you ever been in love? When you fall in love, your lover is the total objective of your living. Every moment that you’re awake you think about him/her. Every breath you take, you take in his/her memory. You eat and drink dreaming of being with your lover. More than anything else, you desire to be in your lover’s presence even if he/she doesn’t utter a word. There’s nothing you will not do to be with him/her. As the song says,

Ain’t no mountain high enough

Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep you from getting to your lover

I love what Origen, one of the early Church Fathers, says about this love affair. “Without ceasing,” writes Origen, “the soul searches after the bridegroom, the Word, and when it finds him, it looks for him again, like an addict, in other things as well.” That kind of love is an addictive love. All one can do is to cry out for more of it and like a deer that pants after water pants after the Beloved — the only one who can satisfy that thirst.

Unfortunately, today, within much of western theology, this type of love is frowned upon because it is experiential and smacks of emotionalism. One of my Old Testament seminary professors used to say something like, “Through the influence of Hellenistic philosophy, we took a happy and emotion-filled religion (Judaism) and turned it into emotionless western Christianity.” And I can personally testify to that.

For most of my Christian life, my mentors taught me that my experiences and feelings are of little or no value because they can’t be trusted. Yet, as I read the Bible, I noticed that it is a book of human’s experiences with their Creator. Without those experiences, there wouldn’t have been a Bible. And if God wants me to love him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength, then my feelings got to fit in there somewhere. Is it possible that in our own western thinking we have created a type of love that requires no emotions or feelings? In his book, Surprised by the Presence of God, Jack Deer gives the following illustration:

Suppose a husband comes home after work and walks up to his wife, who is cooking in the kitchen and says, “Honey, I want you to know that I’ll always be faithful to our marriage vows. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will be your provider and protector for as long as I live. I’ll be a good father to our children. You will always have a roof over your head and food on the table. However, there’s one small issue that I hope you understand. I HAVE NO MORE FEELINGS FOR YOU!” How do you think the wife would react? One marriage counselor told me that he often hears wives complain that, “My husband is a good dad and provider, but he’s lost his passion for the marriage relationship.”

Is it possible that the church in Ephesus was being rebuked by our Lord for being guilty of the same thing? Like the above husband, she could be a perfect church, but without any passion and feelings, much like a robot? Are we guilty of the same thing in our relationship with our Savior? What if you had the exact conversation with Jesus, our Bridegroom?  How do you think He would feel when you tell him, “But I have no more feelings for you?”

I often ask people why they attend church on Sundays. They often give me sound theological answers:

• “I went to church because it is scriptural.”
• “I went to worship.”
• “I went to fellowship.”
• “I went to hear a message and get fed.”
• “I went to find a mate.”
• And finally, “I went to get away from my mate.”

But I have hardly ever heard anyone say, “I went to meet with God.” Because as far as they’re concerned, their hard work, their refusal to quit, not stomaching evil, weeding out apostolic pretenders, their persistence, their courage in God’s cause, and not wearing out must be enough in serving Christ.

Can we be honest here? Have you lost that first love?

 

IS SILENCE MORE THAN THE ABSENCE OF WORDS?

A friend told me how his sister talks a lot. She thinks people will judge her if there is a lull in the conversation. I don’t remember if he was serious, or joking, but the truth is that silence makes most of us feel uncomfortable.

Why do we constantly search for a shiny object to distract us? We can’t live without checking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, or other social media apps.

If we’re driving, we have to have some kind of noise coming out of our radio, iPod, or CD player (Does anyone even have a CD player in their car anymore?) Even while studying, we can’t stand the silence around us, so we stream music or shows to our iPad or laptops.

Do you want to make a group of people, especially in church, feel uncomfortable? All you need to do is say, “Let us be silent for a few moments.” And then watch them become restless and preoccupied with only one thought: “When will this be over?”

Do you know why?

The easy answer is silence often creates hostility, resentment, or feelings of loneliness. We experience boredom or anxiety stemming from having nothing to do.

To some silence is the absence of culture, which means every worldly distraction stops. It is a place without iPhones, iPads, laptops, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc.

If this is so, then the deeper answer is silence forces us to face our mortality, weaknesses, and defects.

Please understand that by silence I don’t mean the absence of words. There are many introverts who are happy to take part in a gathering without having to say a word.

What I mean by silence is stopping the thoughts in our heads. Our chattering minds are our biggest noisemakers. Our greatest struggles take place there.

For example, I don’t know about you, but in my own life, I often fall into an old trap. Before I am aware of it, I find myself wondering why someone hurt me, rejected me, or didn’t pay attention to me. Or I find myself moping over someone else’s success or my loneliness. Or I often catch myself daydreaming about becoming rich, powerful, and famous. And all this takes place without me saying a word.

Thousands of years ago, God told his people to, “Be still and know that I am God!” What he was saying was something like “Hey guys, while leaving matters to me, I want you to be silent and wait for me.” To me, that silence also applies to the anxious chatter in our minds.

About 2000 years ago, a group of men and women moved to the desert to separate themselves from the world. Known as the Desert Fathers and Mothers they wanted to draw closer to God. They believed our chattering minds are the greatest barriers to becoming aware of God and being at peace.

These men and women came to realize that by silencing our thoughts they lose power over us. Over time we begin to find peace in freedom from our desires, restlessness, and anxiety.

It’s through the discipline of silencing our thoughts that we can achieve peace. It’s through silence that we fit every loose thought, emotion, and impulse into a life shaped by Christ.

It’s by controlling our thoughts that we can then achieve what God expects of us. He wants us thinking about what is true, moral, right, pure, lovely, and admirable.

But with all the noise and distractions around us, how’s silence achieved? Are you interested in learning how to reach that goal? Do you desire to quiet down your chattering mind, so you can hear the gentle voice the Creator?

Come join me for that journey. Go to: pilgrimsofcontemplation.com and drop me a note.

WHERE DID WE GO WRONG TRYING TO LEAD OUR CHILDREN TO GOD?

A survey released recently by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) says that almost 20 percent of Americans belong to a category that transcends stereotypical religious identity. Any more, almost one-fifth of Americans identify themselves as spiritual and not religious.

On one hand, the study describes religious people as those who frequently attend worship services and consider religion to be an important factor in their personal lives. On the other hand, it describes spiritual people as those who somehow feel connected to something much larger than themselves, particularly, to the world around them and to a higher purpose. According to Tara Isabella Burton, “Often, people who have sought spirituality outside of organized religion have done so because they do not feel that there is a place for them in their childhood faith.”

This is what the study reveals about spiritual people:

They believe spirituality benefits them even if they see that spirituality as being opposed to organized religion. They are generally happier than nonspiritual people. They maintain links with a more formal religious identity and tradition even if they are not attending any services. The single greatest spiritual experience for this group is music.

To them, spiritual experiences can occur in unlikely places like artistic practices, nature, meditation, yoga, and personal ritualistic acts that provide similar feelings of transcendence. Yet they crave community, one thing that their solitary ritual practices are not able to provide them.

This study reminds me of the counter-culture movements of the 60s and 70s. At the time, many young people were running away from anything organized, especially religion. Yet, in the midst of all that running away, which included sex, drugs, and rock n roll, there was also an absolute longing to belong. And God used that longing to start the Jesus People movement.

“I am NOT religious! I’m a follower of Christ.” “Christianity is not a religion. It’s the way of life.” said many of the Jesus People. For us, (I became a follower during the movement) to follow Christ was a spiritual journey and not just following a set of mandates. However, eventually, most of us left the spiritual journey and along with our organizations/denominations, became so religious that today’s spiritual people are running away from us.

Where did we go wrong? How did we, the epitome of all that is spiritual, end up leaving our spiritual path and instead follow a set of rules and directives that our Christian communities/denominations had set for “true” followers of Christ?

Please don’t misunderstand me. I believe in rules and directives. I also know that many of today’s spiritual people don’t like organized religions/church because they want to live their lives free of any accountability, which requires some level of commitment to an authority. But I also believe that we have gone wrong.

During the Jesus Movement, we were like children who were in constant awe of the Creator. In the process of growing up, we lost the ability to wonder about God. We got so caught up in everyday affairs that our astonishment at Christ got pushed into the background. We became comfortable with replacing the awe and wonderment of the Divine with our rules and directives or to put it bluntly, SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY.

At one time, Christ and everything about him was new, something that gave rise to astonishment, but today, we accept him as a matter of course. Where in fact, this is where the followers of Christ should be a notable exception. A follower of Christ should NEVER quite get used to God. To him/her, God should continue to be unreasonable, bewildering, mysterious, and even enigmatic.

We need to decide if we are still children in awe of our Father or a bunch of grownups content with our limited knowledge of the Divine. If we’re no longer astonished by who God is, but more interested in keeping the status quo through our systematic theology, creeds, directives, and rules, then we are on thin ice. And we should no longer wonder why our young people are walking away from our churches in search of something bigger than their parents’ God.

This Is Where The Pilgrims Of Contemplation Differ!

I find it intriguing when an individual or a group of people take an old idea, change its name, wrap it in a new package, and introduce it to people as a brand-new product that the world can’t live without. This very thing has happened to the word “meditation,” a biblical discipline that the church has practiced for the last 2000 years.

When God commissioned Joshua, Moses’ successor, He told him,

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. — Josh 1:8

The Psalmist says, “I will consider all your works and meditate on all your mighty deeds.” —Ps. 77:12

And finally, Apostle Paul encouraged his disciple, Timothy, to: “Ponder (meditate) these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress may be evident to all.” — 1 Tim 4:15

However, there are many followers of Christ who are either unaware of this ancient and biblical practice, or they immediately relate it to some Eastern, or New Age cultish practice. Something that Mr. and Mrs. Regular American also did for years.

I vaguely remember the trend that emerged after the Beatles went to Rishikesh in northern India to study Transcendental Meditation (TM) with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. TM became a popular word throughout the late 60s and 70s. But like most fads, it eventually faded away. Yet lo and behold, it has been reinvented over three decades later.

We can mostly thank Jon Kabat-Zinn, who is the originator of the term “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” (MBSR). As you’ll see, the word “Meditation” has been replaced with the word “Mindfulness.”

How did this happen? According to Mary Sykes Wiley, it all started in 1979, when Kabat-Zinn, a 35-year-old student of Buddhist meditation and MIT-trained molecular biologist was on a meditation retreat. He had a vision of what his life’s work—his “karmic assignment”—would be.

While he sat alone one afternoon, it all came to him at once: he’d bring the ancient Eastern disciplines he’d followed for 13 years—mindfulness meditation and yoga—to people with chronic health conditions right here in modern America. What’s more, he’d bring these practices into the very belly of the Western scientific beast…

However, he had a slight problem. During the 70s the only people really interested in meditation were, New Age hippies, Asian studies scholars, and a small population of home-grown seekers (young middle-class adults, often left-wing Vietnam War dissenters at odds with consumer capitalism and looking for a spiritual lift they weren’t getting from drugs or the rejected Main Street religion of their parents).

So, if one was to mention meditation to Mr. and Mrs. Regular American, you might just get a blank look, or worse, they would ask, “Why would any normal person want to get caught up with one of those Eastern cults?” And this is where the genius of Mr. Zinn is revealed.

Kabat-Zinn repackaged Eastern meditation as a secular health intervention that wouldn’t frighten the locals. As he has said, “I bent over backward to structure it and find ways to speak about it that avoided as much as possible the risk of it being seen as Buddhist, New Age, Eastern Mysticism, or just plain flaky.” And instead of meditation, he called it mindfulness, a lesser known terminology. And millions of Americans rushed to sign up for it.

Some scientific research has shown that mindfulness and other meditative disciplines are genuinely useful to many people in many ways for many conditions. Mary Sykes says,

Today, more than 20,000 patients have participated in the UMass program, which has produced 1,000 certified MBSR instructors and MBSR programs in about 720 medical settings in more than 30 countries. Mindfulness training—and other forms of meditation are now used for an almost unimaginable range of medical conditions…This has made mindfulness meditation a multi-billion-dollar industry in the US.

As one who believes and has practiced biblical meditation for many years, I was interested to see what MBSR means by mindfulness and meditation. So, I did some research, and this is what I came up with.

According to Kathryn Remati,

By definition, “mindfulness” refers to the informal practice of present moment awareness that can be applied to any waking situation. It’s a way of being actively aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it.

It is an attempt at focusing completely on the full experience of a usually “mindless” chore such as taking a shower. Be aware of the temperature of the water and how it makes your skin feel, along with the texture and smell of the shampoo. “Engage all five senses and see if you are actually more relaxed and less stressed when it is all finished.” In his book, Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn says that “When unawareness dominates the mind, all our decisions and actions are affected.”

On the other hand,

Meditation is the formal practice of finding peace within. Awareness of peace is achieved when mental chatter is decreased… While meditating, we are mindful of our thoughts from the viewpoint of an observer, without clinging to the thoughts themselves. Our thoughts float by like clouds, while we learn something about our inner selves…

To me, this all sounds good, but this is nothing new. The practice of mindfulness can (I’m aware that they are not exactly the same) be equated to what, 1500 years ago, Saint Ignatius of Loyola called the “Prayer of Examen” where, in thoughtfulness, one ponders on every event of the last 24 hours (taking a shower, washing a dish, watching a bird fly, and so on) and be thankful to God for it. Or how a century later, Brother Lawrence, a lay member of a monastic order in Paris sought to live his life constantly in the presence of God even while doing “mindless” chores such as washing dishes.

Almost 2000 years ago, the Christian Desert Fathers and Mothers found peace within and overcame daily temptations by meditating on the Scriptures in solitude and silence. And by doing so, they introduced us to what eventually became one of the most fulfilling types of prayers called “Lectio Divina”.

In practice, there are some similarities between Eastern and biblical meditation. Learning how to avoid mental chatter to be quiet and find peace in silence are things that are common in both disciplines. However, what separates the Christian meditation from Eastern is the centrality of the Creator.

The Christian meditation is NOT for self-improvement—although that could very well be a part of it—but for drawing closer to the Divine. We do not empty ourselves of mental chatter to be filled with the universe, but we fit “every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by the ‘Creator’.” — 2 Cor. 10:5

For me, the following prayer by Saint Guigo II sums up all that Christian meditation is about.

Lord, you are not seen except by the pure of heart. I seek by reading and meditating what is true purity of heart. And how it may be had, so that with its help I may know you, if only a little. Lord, for long I meditated in my heart, seeking to see you face to face, it is the sight of you, Lord, that I have sought; and all the while in my meditation the fire of longing, the desire to know you more fully, has increased. When you break for me the bread of the sacred Scripture, you have shown yourself to me in the breaking of the bread, and the more I see you, the more I long to see you, no more from without, in the rind of the letter, but within, in the letter’s hidden meaning… So, give me, Lord, some pledge of what I hope to inherit, at least one drop of heavenly rain with which to refresh my thirst, for I’m on fire with love.

 

Do you want to draw closer to the Creator? Let’s walk the journey together. Go to my website, pilgrimsofcontemplation.com, and contact me.

From Bill Clinton To Harvey Weinstein: How American Culture Is Becoming More Shame-based

In his Nov. 18, 2017 New York Times article, What if Ken Starr Was Right?, Ross Douthat, writes, “(According to Clinton’s supporters)… our 42nd president was only guilty of being a horndog, his affairs were nobody’s business but his family’s, and oral sex with Monica Lewinsky was a small thing that should never have put his presidency in peril.”

I doubt if, deep inside, many of the above supporters didn’t think that President Clinton had committed an immoral act. Yet, at the same time, they felt that “the effort to impeach him was a hopeless attempt to legislate against dishonor.” Again, Mr. Ross says,

That narrative could not survive the current wave of outrage over male sexual misconduct. So now a new one may be forming for the age of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. In this story, Kenneth Starr and the Republicans are still dismissed as partisan witch hunters. But liberals might be willing to concede that the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal morally, a clear abuse of sexual power, for which Clinton probably should have been pressured to resign.

A question we should ask is, what changed? What is this new narrative that now says, “the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal”? To me, this new narrative is written by the social media community, which is using shame as a means to control those within her boundaries.

Here I need to explain what I mean by shame brought about by a community, or as it’s called a shamed-based community. The phrase “shame culture” was coined by Ruth Benedict in her book, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, where she described American culture as a “guilt culture” and Japanese culture as a “shame culture.”

A shame-based culture (Sometimes called shame/honor base) consists of a community where a continually reinforced feeling of shame and ostracism is used as the main instrument to control the people within that community. In those societies, a person is punished by coming short of the standard which her people have collectively chosen to be the norm. The punishment for acting against the norm is being shamed and shunned. As David Brooks puts it, “The desire to be embraced and praised by the community is intense. People dread being exiled and condemned. Moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong (As in a guilt base culture); it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion.”

Having been born and raised in Iran, I didn’t just study the shame culture, I lived in it for 19 years. After living in the guilt-based culture of America for almost 50 years, I still have nightmares about being exiled and condemned instead of being praised and embraced (honored) by my old Persian community. That’s because in that culture everybody is constantly living in fear of being at the mercy of a moral system based on inclusion and exclusion. There are no clear standards, just the shifting judgment of the crowd. It is a culture that compels all her members to just go along. By the way, that’s why I wrote my book, Shame On You.

For the last 15 years I’ve been teaching on shame and honor. And for that many years, I was sensing a shift in the American culture, but I couldn’t put it to words. I could sense that the younger generation was tilting more towards a culture of shame, but couldn’t quite see, or name the nuts and bolts that were creating such a society. Then, last year, I read Andy Crouch’s essay, The Return of Shame.

According to Andy, this above society is social media and the nuts and bolts are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.. The shame-based community of social media is the community of “constant display and observation” where the desire to be embraced and praised by the community is intense. People dread being exiled and condemned. Moral life is not built on the standard of right and wrong, but a standard of acceptance and rejection. By the way, how many Facebook “Likes” did you get on your last post?

In this community, each tribe demands instant respect and recognition for their group. They react with intense violence toward those who dare to disrespect the community by questioning their codes of conduct on some biblical values. As Crouch argues, the ultimate sin today, is to criticize a group, especially on moral grounds. Talk of good and bad has deferred to talk about respect and recognition. Crouch writes, “Talk of right and wrong is troubling when it is accompanied by seeming indifference to the experience of shame that accompanies judgments of ‘immorality.’”

Crouch calls the social media community a “fame” culture rather than a “shame” culture. Again, he correctly argues that this shame culture is different from the traditional shame cultures, of many third-world nations, for example. In traditional shame cultures the opposite of shame was honor or “face” — being known as a dignified and upstanding citizen. In the new shame culture, the opposite of shame is fame — to be attention-grabbing and aggressively unique on some media platform (Aka the Kardashians).

Going back to my original question, “What is this new narrative that now says, ‘the Lewinsky affair was a pretty big deal?’” As David Brooks puts it, it was “The shifting fancy of the crowd” and not a moral awaking. The community, in this case, “#me too” established a set of common behavior patterns. Then, the enforcers within the tribe went after everyone who broke the group code. Maybe Clinton’s supporters were correct—you can’t legislate against dishonor. But you can establish a culture where its enforcers can come after you when you break their codes of conduct. And this my friend, has all the nuts and bolts of a shame-based culture.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m delighted that almost every day more women are coming out to name their abusers and shame these predators. However, having experienced both cultures, I much rather live in a guilt-based culture where my identity is built on a moral code of right and wrong. It’s much less stressful. But here, all I’m talking about is a shift in the culture. If, along with many others, what I’m saying is true and there’s a cultural shift in the wind, then what is the church’s place in such a community?

How Many Millennials Do You Think Have Experienced God?

One of the best times in my life was when I taught at a Bible college. I taught from 2001 to 2006. I loved it! I spent many hours with about 400-500 young men and women. To some, I became more than just an adjunct professor; I was a caring pastor, who had them to his house at least once a week. Since then, via social media, I’ve kept my relationship with a number of them.

Reading some of their posts on Facebook over the past several years I realized that since graduation a percentage of my students have either left the church, do not consider themselves Christians, have become agnostic, or even atheists. I was deeply surprised and wanted to know why, so I began to ask questions. This is what I found out.

Some of them left the church because they were disappointed with the metanarrative style of teaching that has distilled Christianity down to a formula. You plug in the right numbers, and the outcome was a life of success, void of disappointments and pain. But these young people painfully asked, “How come my ministry, my marriage, or my business failed? I did all the right things according to what my mentors taught me.”

Some left because of the hypocrisy they saw in their leaders. They desired a level of transparency that was non-existent in their churches. Others left due to a crisis of faith. Once their beliefs were challenged in the real world—outside of their Christian bubble—they weren’t able to rise to the challenge, so they packed up and left. And finally, some left because as Apostle John says, “They did not really belong to us…”

I asked these students, “What made you believe you were a Christian, to begin with?” Some of their answers were: “Well, my parents were Christians.” “I raised my hand at an alter call.” “I went forward when I was 12.” “I said the Sinner’s Prayer when I was in high school.” “I got baptized when I was 8.” “My dad was a pastor and that’s why I went to Bible College.” “I wanted to please my Christian family.”

Almost all of these young men and women have one thing in common, they never experienced God.

Coming into the Kingdom from a Muslim background, I didn’t have a Christian upbringing. I’d never read the Bible. I never went to Church. I didn’t believe in Christ being divine, Son of God, or having died on the Cross. And I definitely never repeated the sinner’s prayer. So, it wasn’t my adequate knowledge of Christ, my moral values, or even the Bible that saved me. It was my “LA Road” experience of Jesus that saved my soul.

It was November 26, 1971. I was riding my motorcycle from Lancaster to Los Angeles, and I simply said, “Jesus if you’re really who these people (my Christian friends) tell me you are, I’ll accept you if…” I didn’t have a light or angels appear to me, but I experienced a presence, a peace that surpasses all understanding, an awareness of a hope that said, “Everything is going tobe OK.” As a result, I felt a sense of purpose for my life. No one can take this away from me. This is something, to my estimation, the above students haven’t experienced.

I realize many Christians believe the word “experience” is an anathema. They say, “Experience cannot be relied upon. After all, even heathens have experiences with the supernatural. What if your experience is from the devil?”

Is it fair to say that with all his knowledge, it was the Burning-Bush experience that brought Moses face to face with YHVH and changed his life forever? Is it correct to say that with all his theological knowledge, Saul, the Pharisee of Pharisees, would have never become Paul the Apostle if he’d not been knocked off his ass on his ass on the road to Damascus? I don’t see any place in the Bible where Paul’s experience was questioned by other Apostles as being suspect.And finally, I remember reading somewhere in my Bible where Jesus said,

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?”

Do you honestly believe God lets Satan step in when men or women sincerely ask the Lord to reveal himself because God is not into experiences? Is your god that weak and heartless?

Even after all these years, I will not be shaken because no one can ever take my experience away from me, or prove it wrong. Someone could shred the Bible in front of me and prove every word is a lie. They can question my faith and show me all the places in my life where God did not live up to his supposed promises. But it will mean nothing because I know I’ve been touched by someone transcendent, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am convinced with all my heart what this generation of Millennials needs is to experience the Creator, or as they like to call him, the Divine. Are we, the followers of Christ, equipped to create an environment where these young people can experience the living God? If you know the answer, please share it with us. And if you don’t, would you like to know how?

 

 

 

 

 

American Church And Muslim Immigrants!

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me an article about a pastor in some Southern state church who had decided to open his church doors to immigrants. It described how the pastor had let a group of immigrants start their own congregation in his building. The blog had been well circulated and received by many people. Among many comments, one that stood out to me was, “This is the kind of church that I want to attend.” It really puzzled me, and I had the following questions:

Really? Prior to his decision to “open his church doors” to immigrants, did the pastor stand on the doorstep and prevent the immigrants from coming in? And to those who were so impressed with this action to open his church doors to immigrants, is this the first time you’ve heard of an American pastor doing something like this? Have you been living under a rock?

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m a Muslim background Iranian believer. I immigrated to the US in 1969 and became a follower of Christ in 1971. Maybe this is something common in SoCal, but there are 100s of Anglo churches that share their buildings with immigrant churches.

In 1986, when the first Iranian church in the US (the church I had started 10 years earlier) was looking for a meeting place, The Church On The Way (TCOTW) in San Fernando Valley opened its facilities to us willingly and freely. From the very beginning, the pastor of the church, Jack Hayford, treaded me as one of his staff members even though I was never on the staff. But he never thought what he was doing was out of the ordinary because many other pastors had done similar things before him. In fact, the Hispanic congregation at TCOTW, which had been meeting there long before we came along, eventually became the largest Hispanic congregation in the nation.

I wouldn’t have thought too much about the above article if a couple of days ago I hadn’t seen Christianity Today’s article Missionaries Dreamed Of This Muslim Moment. The article lamented how as the result of President Trump’s “Muslim ban” “evangelical experts on Muslim missions express concerns…”

Before I go any further, it is important my readers understand that I was not a Mr. Trump supporter, nor did I agree with the decision to ban Muslims, regardless of their immigration status, from getting into the US. I believe that decision was extremely ill-advised. However, I do believe in sovereignty of all nations and the right for them to have borders.

Just by reading the title of this article, one could very easily walk away thinking that this administration’s decision has deeply hurt Muslim evangelism, even though it specifically says, “Last year, the United States admitted about 39,000 Muslim refugees, a record high yet survey after survey indicate that white evangelicals are the least excited about their new neighbors.”

In other words, the issue is not Mr. Trump’s decision, but the evangelicals’ lack of interest in reaching Muslims for Christ. By the way, I find it interesting that the survey did not say anything about how the black or Hispanic evangelicals feel about their new neighbors and making this to be solely a white evangelical issue.

I wholeheartedly agree with my dear friend, David Cashin, when he says, “This is the best case we’ve had in human history to share the love of Christ with Muslims.” Not because of what the Christians necessarily have done, but because of how Muslim leaders have exposed Islam for what it is truly about.

On the other hand, I disagree with David when he says,

Would a Muslim feel the American church is a safe place for them? The answer probably is they would not. The more evangelicals come out in favor of Trump’s policies, he said, the more they exclusively view Islam as a threat rather than a ministry opportunity.

First, I’ve worked with Iranian Muslims in America for more than 40 years and I’ve yet to see one who found the church to be an unsafe place. Second, for just as many years, I’ve been saying,

America is the greatest mission field God has given us. He’s brought people of every background to our doorsteps. We can change a whole nation overseas without ever leaving our homes by changing one man or woman. We can accomplish that just by taking a glass of water in Christ’s name to the man or woman who lives across the street from us, who speaks with an accent and wears a turban or a burka.

Unfortunately, in the last 40 years, regardless of the administration in charge, Democrats or Republicans, most evangelical churches of any color have shown very little to no interest in reaching out to their Muslim neighbors.

After reading my book, Shame On You, a friend who used to be the president of a Bible college told me, “Shah, the American church is NOT interested in what you have to offer. Have you thought about becoming a comedian?” I guess he really enjoyed my humorous writing skills.

For years, I took the above statement as a joke, but today I wonder…

Please, No More Information!

Recently I read an article that started with the following statement,

Do you know what your problem is? Your problem is not that you are uninformed. That is what you might have thought your problem was. Your problem is also not that you lack information. This is a common misconception. In fact, people nowadays have lots of information… Ezra Klein’s philosophy in running Vox.com has been precisely this: people do not need facts, they need explanations.

I didn’t agree with the article, but the above statement reminded of a church meeting I’d attended a few days earlier.

The meeting was good. After a great time of worship, the pastor introduced the guest speaker who spent 30 minutes or so talking about how every believer was a light and the salt of this world. He talked about the properties of salt and light. He said what it meant for each believer to have those qualities. He gave examples using a flashlight while the lights in the sanctuary were dimmed. He had us tell the person next to us how precious they were for being the light and salt of this earth. By the time he was done, most of us knew more about salt and light than we needed.

While sitting there, I wondered how many believers in that room weren’t already familiar with Christ’s teaching in Matt 5:13-14? How many needed more information about those verses? How many had not, over and over again, heard what salt and light do? I am sure that for most of those present, the problem was not lack of information, but what to do with it. I’m confident that everyone left the meeting feeling great about who they were in Christ, but to what end?

I am a practical follower of Christ. I believe, at this age, after being a believer for over 40 years, I don’t need more information on what it means to be a disciple/servant of Jesus. What I need is how to implement all I’ve learned about what it means to be a Christian.

I wish, unlike most teachers I’ve heard all these years, our teacher that night had sent us home with some practical steps on how to make our lights shine, or how to attract people to our saltiness, so they become thirsty for the things of God. I wish he had said something like:

Now that you know you are the light and the salt of this world. Now that you’ve become aware of who you are in Christ, I want you to implement what you learned tonight. Go from here and be the light and salt to your own neighborhoods. Fulfill God’s greatest commandment—loving your neighbor through God’s love—by, at least, getting to know your next-door neighbor’s name, offer to mow his/her lawn (if they need it), make a casserole dish and take it to them, or something like that.

In order to be the light and salt of this world, the majority of us doesn’t need any more facts and information on the subject. We need to put to work all that we already know. And for that, we need teachers who can give us simple and yet practical ways to achieve that goal. And for the Church to stop being just a hearer/information gatherer and become a doer also.

Vote For Trump! He’s A Christian.

A few years ago, I posted a blog, The $5 Sinner’s Prayer. In it, I shared a story about my encounter with a very shrewd homeless man. As I began to tell the man how Jesus had changed my life, he abruptly stopped me and said, “For $5, I will repeat the sinner’s prayer with you.” Apparently, he was used to evangelicals having him repeat a prayer that would supposedly make him a Christian.

Even from a psychological perspective, I thought he was worth the $5. I am sure he’d made many naïve evangelicals walk away with the satisfaction of thinking they’d made one more person a Christian by simply having him repeat some words. However, he was also an excellent businessman who’d learned what it was that those evangelicals wanted to hear, and would provide it for them.

Recently, I heard a rumor that went something like this, “Pray for Donald Trump. Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family recently reported that Donald had prayed with a good friend of his to receive Christ and to establish a personal relationship with Him.”

I have not heard or seen Donald make such a confession. In fact, in 2015 when moderator Frank Luntz asked him whether he had ever asked God for forgiveness for his actions, Trump said, “I am not sure I have. I just go on and try to do a better job from there,” he said. “I don’t think so. I think if I do something wrong, I think, I just try and make it right. I don’t bring God into that picture. I don’t.”

I do realize that as early as last June he softened the above words by saying he hopes not to ask God for “much” forgiveness, but I still have a question for my evangelical friends. If Mr. Trump has prayed a typical “sinner’s prayer” with Dr. Dobson’s friend’s uncle’s cleaning lady’s brother, would he have asked God for blanket forgiveness of all his sins, or just a little for some of the mistakes he might have made?

I know, I know! How dare I question a man’s faith when only God knows a man’s heart? You are absolutely correct. I don’t’ know Trump’s heart. So, I’m supposed to take Dobson’s friend at his words and believe what the man claims. Something that even Donald himself has not claimed.

I just wonder if the same evangelicals were willing to extend as much grace to President Obama, who not only attended church before getting elected, but also on many occasions has confessed to being a Christian? Many might say that they wouldn’t extend the same grace to Obama because “His actions didn’t match his confession!” Do Donald’s actions match his confession? Could it be that he is, like the above homeless man, just a shrewd businessman who knows what it is that we evangelicals need to hear?

You might say, “We need to give Mr. Trump time. After all, he is a new believer.” How much time? Do you honestly believe that a man in his 70s can change overnight because a few days ago, he repeated some magical words? And if this is true, don’t you think we’re setting the man up for failure since there’s no way he would be able to live up to the standards we expect of our Christian politicians—becoming a saint in the next few months before he takes office? How absolutely foolish! Unfortunately, we evangelicals are notorious for doing stuff like this. You have to be my age or older to remember what we did to Bob Dylan after he publically made a confession of faith.

Maybe it’s my Muslim background, or maybe it’s just common sense, but I’ve come to love even more Christ’s words, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” In this crooked age, we have to put aside our naiveté and take Jesus’ words much more seriously.

If you want to vote for Mr. Trump, do it because you’re voting your conscience, or as a man on a radio talk show said, “I am voting for Trump because Hillary is the devil that I know.” But PLEASE don’t do it because of a rumor that says he might have said a prayer and now he is a follower of Christ. That’s an insult to my Lord, my faith in my Savior, Jesus Christ and my intelligence.

 

Please Do Not Go To A Bible College 2

A few years ago, I posted a blog, Please Don’t Go To A Bible College. I wrote the article after teaching at a small Bible college for five years and noticing many students committing themselves to thousands of dollars in student loans to earn a four-year degree, which could only land them a job that

1. had nothing to do with so-called ministry and
2. they could have gotten with their high school degree — “Would you like whipped cream on top?”

At the time, I got a lot of feedback on the post, especially from some of my former students. However, a few months ago I received the following long email from David. A young man I’ve never met. To keep this blog as short as possible, I have only included the Reader’s Digest version of Steve’s email.

Mr. Afshar,

I’ve read your article on not going to Bible College over a dozen times. I agree with you 100%. You have one of the very, very, very few articles on the internet about this subject and I decided to finally email you asking for two things: 1) advice and 2) you write a follow-up article.

After high school, being terrified to be out of God’s will, rather than joining the military to work as a civil engineer, (An ASVAB test had highly qualified him for that position.) Steve, who comes from a Pentecostal background, felt he was called to be a missionary, so he went to a Bible college.

After finishing college, he tried to go to abroad as a missionary, but all his plans failed, so he tried to pursue a Master’s program to, as he put it, “…bring another skill to the table…” It was then that he found out his former Bible college’s accreditation was so poor that the only school that would accept him for graduate work was a seminary.

After the door on being a missionary closed, he applied all over the country for a youth pastor position while “volunteering everywhere like crazy” trying to build up his resume. But he was turned down everywhere mostly due to being single. He couldn’t find a job even at McDonalds or Starbucks.

Today, at the age of 28, Steve is back to school again starting from scratch. None of his credits, even English, was transferable. He has three more years to complete his BS. He’s already been awarded the engineering student of the year, been put on the board of directors for a non-profit organization that gives scholarships to qualified students, has an internship at an engineering firm, and is waiting to hear back from another organization regarding a grant for a summer project.

If it wasn’t for the following, we could all say, “All’s well that ends well.” However, this is not the end of the story. David continued with these sobering words:

Going through all of that has left me in a bad shape. I am cynical about the things of God. I have trouble seeing God as someone who is good and blesses. I constantly struggle with disappointment, disillusionment, anger, and regret. I remember countless sermons on hearing how God will, “open doors” ,”bless my sacrifices”, and etc. My anger is affecting my schoolwork now (My 3.81 GPA will drop down considerably after this semester). I don’t have a dating life because no women in her 20s want to marry a guy who doesn’t have a job and won’t get one for at least three years. I did ALL the things I was told to do and this is where it has left me. I’m ashamed of having gone to a Bible college, and these days I do not tell people.

Because I had many students who went through what Steve is experiencing — and I’m deeply sorry to say that some now consider themselves to be atheists — I wrote another post a few years back to deal exactly with the above issues and questions. Please see, Modernity, Post-Modernity, Metanarrative, And….

In that article I showed how the church, in general, has made God a being who operates like a computer: by correctly using a set of programs and algorithms, God will give you the right answer. And if the answers are not what you expected, it is due to your insufficient input (lack of faith, sin in your life, not reading your Bible enough, not praying hard enough, not being present at every church service, not tithing, and…) and hardly ever preparing us for the reaction of a sovereign God whose answers might often be, “NO.”

Steve ended his email with these questions,

How do I move on? How do I get past the regret and anger? How do I get into a good relationship with God? How do I let go? Do I need to see a therapist and who would I see or how do I find one? How do I heal? How do I deal with being sexually frustrated and not being able to do anything for at least three more years and when it is slim pickings in your 30s?

Could you please write another article in case there is anyone like me, who is going through the same thing?

Since receiving this email, I’ve spent a good hour talking to Steve on the phone. He’s a brilliant and articulate young man. I don’t know how much I was able to help him. That’s why I need you to help me answer the above questions. What would you say to Dave? Please give me some practical advice and not just spiritual clichés.