Trouble

Greetings one and all,

I've spent my life trying to prove that Jesus was a liar. I want him to be a liar, not on everything of course, I’m good with 99.999999% of his words (at least so far this morning) but when he says ‘in this world you will have tribulation,’ well, THAT’s where I want to prove him to be a liar.

I have this fantasy where there is this place in this life on this planet when trouble slips back into the darkness and leaves me alone. When I was in high school I thought that place was college. When I was single I thought that place was marriage. When I was in Illinois I thought that place was any of the other 49 states. When I was young I thought it would be when I was old. Now I am out of college, married for the second time, living in Tennessee and old. Why is trouble still staring me in the face?

I really, really want Jesus to be a liar these days. But as Ray LaMontagne sings on the insurance commercial with the worried dog: ‘Trouble Been doggin' my soul since the day I was born. Worry Just will not seem to leave my mind alone…Trouble Feels like every time I get back on my feet she come around and knock me down again. Worry Sometimes I swear it feels like this worry is my only friend.’

Maybe I don’t want Jesus to be a liar, maybe I just want to rewrite what he said to suit my own selfish ends. I mean, everybody’s doing it these days why can’t I? So let’s reinterpret ‘I have overcome the world’ to mean I will banish aggravation and idiots from your life. It kind of rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? In this world you will have tribulation but I have banished aggravation and idiots from your life.

That does sound good until it is actually fulfilled in my presence and I realize that I, me, wonderful me have now been banished from my own life.

You see things out there somewhere have NEVER been my problem. It is inside me where my trouble resides. Here I am at this point in my life still trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up and realizing just how far I have to go to get there.

The way it looks now I may need two or three lifetimes just to grow up. Because, there is this huge reservoir of trouble still residing in my heart even though I have been in a process of exterminating it for 51 years. When I was young the pile of…sh...trouble in my heart didn't look all that big. Take care of these couple of things and life will be smooth sailing. But those couple of things turned out to be the part of the iceberg that was above the water. Every time I chip those things off it allows the things below to push above the surface. I need Jacque Cousteau to dive down under the surface and tell me how big this thing is but he’d probably need one of those small mini-subs to get down deep enough and I can’t afford that these days. Besides, I think he’s dead anyway.

So now I am stuck between the horns of a dilemma because if one little statement of Jesus isn’t a lie and I can’t reinterpret it to my advantage then the whole word of God needs to be a lie because from Genesis three on (ok the first two chapters can be true) the underlying presupposition about the human race is this: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…

I long for the days of my youth when I believed all those lying preachers who told me I would not be on the planet past the age of 25. I long to believe the gutters (those who cut open and take the insides out not water removal systems) of truth when they say it’s all good, we’re all good; there is no trouble in our hearts. I long to keep holding on to lies but it is the truth that will set me free – not from trouble but from me. I am my own worst enemy. I am all the trouble that I want to escape from. I want to get away from me.

Maybe I could be you for a couple of days.

Brad

Chemistry Class

Morning,

Well, another week goes by in the blink of an eye. Time goes by so quickly and I learn what I need to know so slowly. When I stop and think about it I can get pretty frustrated and yet... I’ve been thinking about an old friend of mine the last few weeks. We were business partners for a while, lost a lot of money together some 20 years ago. We haven’t talked much since, not because of bad blood or anything, life just brought our paths together for about 5 or 6 years and then had them head off in different directions again with both of us a lot poorer and a lot farther south.

It crossed my mind the other day that the reason I am about to enter a new phase of life with regard to pursing my doctorate is because he crossed my path. We both worked at McDonalds together in Beloit, WI several lifetimes ago. He was a store manager and I had somehow landed a gig as facilities manager of an entire corporate region, 16 stores. I was winding down trying to be a church planter for John Wimber’s new denomination – Vineyard Christian Fellowship after running away from pastoring a small Southern Baptist church (Welcome to my nightmare).

We hit it off right away; if I remember correctly, and not long after we met he invited my family to come to church with him and his wife. Although I didn’t know it then; my life would never be the same because it was there, in that Assemblies of God church, that I first encountered the writing of RJ Rushdoony. (Side note: My friend, who also had a house sized satellite dish in his back yard, also introduced me to Dr. Gene Scott who strongly influenced my ideas of what Reverend Brian Whitehead would be in my books).

My life took a 180 degree turn during those years and the continual change and growth over the last 25 years has caused me a lot of pain and given me a lot of joy. I’m nowhere near recovering from my mistakes, I may never, but I have gained so much more than I have lost.

After 25 years of percolating it may be that whatever it is that’s been brewing is about ready to be served. Whatever it is, it can no longer be written off as youthful zeal, because I’m certainly not young anymore and I can’t say that I’m filled with zeal, it’s more of a continual shifting between guarded hope and resigned angst. I’m less sure of where I’m headed than ever before yet I am more confident of the rock on which I stand than I ever thought possible.

At the same time that this slow percolating has been going on I’ve recently noticed that things are changing rapidly or at least I think I’m noticing that. I'm changing physically and mentally, in part because of this whole learning to take dominion over my own self thing I’ve been musing on and implementing in the last few months. It may have started to take hold in ways I can’t explain. I think I’m changing and as I do it affects (or effects; you choose the correct one because I can never remember) people I come in contact with – even strangers.

I have yet to determine whether these effects/affects are good or bad; though I do know weird is appropriate. It is interesting how change is never static and it is never just personal. None of us is simply an individual. We are all a part of various types of relationships and interconnectedness among varying alignments of peoples in varying degrees: When one part changes it changes the whole. Now maybe those changes will have no lasting aeffect (I like that word) but maybe an entire new substance is forming. Kind of like: What did the Hydrogen atom say to his Oxygen wife the first time they invited her twin sister over for dinner? Whatta surprise. (bad joke I know).

I’m just beginning to realize that a 25 year old 180 degree change is still rippling through my life. I’m reminded of an old Elvis Costello song: You've got a chemistry class I want a piece of your mind. You don't know what you started when you mixed it up with mine. Are you ready for the final solution? Oh. Oh.

One person comes into my life and begins a chain reaction of grace that totally transforms the rest of my days. Oh the secret things of God. I pray that I can be that person in other people’s lives.

What d’ya say we pour a cup of Whatta surprise out of the percolator?

Grace and peace,

Brad

Every Grain of Sand

Morning One and all,

I saw a picture the other day of my oldest daughter riding on the shoulders of her husband and it caused me to open doors that for the most part I have nailed shut. Actually, it was my Grandson that was riding on his father’s shoulders but the resemblance of son to mother caused me to have flashbacks. Flashback of me 45 pounds lighter and completely clueless about life.

It was when my daughter was about that age with a cute little blond mullet that I nearly went to jail one Sunday morning for taking my family hostage at gun point in the church I was pastoring. I know it sounds unbelievable but it’s true. Needless to say I was a bit dazed and confused when the police came bursting into my office with their service revolvers pointed at my head.

Actually, some nosey neighbor who lived almost 2 football fields away from the parsonage saw me walking my young family to church, mistook a guitar for a shotgun at that distance and called the police. There was plenty to talk about at church that day, I’m sure. I barely remember anything from those days these days. But I need to.

I need to remember what it was like when I was 23. I need to remember the old me so that I can have hope for the future. I know I say this a lot or if I don’t it feels like I do, but I need to remember if that brat named Brad can become this Brad then there is hope for us all. God can save anybody. God can change anybody into anything he wants if what I was can become what I am.

I meet the old me in other people from time to time here and there and most of the time I want to strangle me. I see the old me in the Occupy Wall Street crowd screaming injustice at the corporate greed through the tools created by the very same corporations they protest against. I hear the old me and the passion and love I had (have) for Christ in the Emergent church. I see the old me in the tattoos that continue to multiply like rabbits on the flesh of the young and I feel that old desperation that I had to fit in and make a statement against the past at the same time. I see the old me in the cluelessness of the young to understand the necessity of hard work to provide for your family. Herman Cain is right when he talks about the jealousy and envy. I am all too acquainted with those passions.

How did I get from there to here? Why did it take so long? How much further (or is it farther?) do I have to go? I’m reminded of the Bob Dylan song: Every grain of Sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand

I look back on the mess that has been my life and I realize that there is no one to blame but me. I am where I am today because of choices I made when I was 5, and 10, and 20, and 30 and yesterday. Yes, God in his graciousness has from day to day taken me where I needed to be to make me what I need to be for his glory but that doesn’t take away the meaningfulness and the ill effects of my choices throughout time. God uses me to break me down. He gives me what I want and then lets me experience the consequences of that which I desire most. Then he loves me enough to let me learn from those bad choices.

I need to remember all those bad choices that seemed like good ideas at the time because in the words of Nick Lowe: Even in my darkest hour there was still a light somewhere letting me know by its glow that I’d find comfort there. I walked a lonely street waiting for love to come and if even I can find someone there’s hope for us all.

If I can change there is much hope for the future. If I am not too screwed up for God to fix then there is much hope – grace is more powerful than you can even begin to imagine. If you are in Christ then every time you put your hand on the burner of the stove grace will use the blisters to bring change. I can show you the scars. Nowadays, as Sara Groves sings: “they look less scars and more like character.” I’m grateful for that.

Grace and Peace,

Brad

PS If you want to laugh at a complete idiot check out Brian Whitehead's new music video "She don't know Jack" on the latest episode of The Final Word http://www.youtube.com/bradleyscotstephens

100 years

A big Boy Howdy to you all,

I’ve been listening to Blues Traveler’s first album lately; one of the songs on there is called 100 years. The last verse says: Sit at the pier watch the sun go down Another lost little boy in a big old town I want to laugh I want to cry but no matter how hard I try; It won’t mean a thing in a 100 years.

I hope that’s not true. If you have known me over the last decade you know that I’ve gotten myself in trouble over trying to plan ahead for the next 100 years. Now, I’m pastoring a church that is celebrating its 100th year. I want what I’m doing here, now, in the present day to mean something to the lives of my great, great, great grandchildren. I want to place stones in the walls of the kingdom of God that will still be a part of a solid foundation for them and others.

I guess that’s why I’m pressing so hard to understand how to think Christianly in every area of life. I’m reading books that purport to be written in English with an eye toward assimilating them into everyday speak so that people can really get it. Academics tend to speak and write in a language that is alien to the blue collar man and woman. That needs to stop.

I am becoming more aware with each passing day that the church in our generation is enamored with forms. We think form is everything. If we just change the form then everything will be alright. We look for the forms that will cause church growth. But the truth is that if it is your form that is causing your growth your house is built on the sand. New forms are not the Holy Spirit. Increased numbers are not church growth.

In the church growth movement the form has begun to change to look like the very things that I’ve been studying. I hear and read words like Dominion and Spheres of Authority being used. They are good words co-opted from writers such as Rushdoony and Kuyper but when used by the church growth movement they are words out of their original context. They are the new form of the old ideas cut free from their foundation. That makes me nervous and at the same time it brings me encouragement.

It makes me nervous because it means that nothing has really changed; the emperor has another new set of clothes but he’s the same old naked emperor as gullible as ever. On the other hand, it encourages me because it tells me that there may be something to the words when they are in the right context. Why else would someone try to co-opt them?

My wife, ever the optimist, has found another reason to believe that I am ever the pessimist when it comes to the church. We both heard C. Peter Wagner on NPR the other day being interviewed about this new form which calls itself the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation). She was optimistic and in my own opinion I was a realist. I’m reminded of John 2 where it says: Many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.  But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,  and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

For me it’s not how many people get saved, or how big of crowds you can attract; it’s, how are you preserving culture from decay and revealing the darkness? Is the church transforming the culture or is it simply allowing the culture to stay the same? You see if at the next election Christians were placed in every single seat of congress, the Whitehouse, the Supreme Court and all the other courts along with the entire governmental bureaucracy, I would be moving to a different country because it would be a recipe for disaster. Good intentioned people with faulty foundations do some horrendous things in the name of good.

Why would it be a disaster for Christians to be in charge? Because most Christians don’t think biblically; they don’t even think that it is possible to think biblically because they have swallowed the lie that the only place the bible applies is to religion. They think like humanists in every other area of life. That is why the neo-conservative movement was able to co-opt the religious right so easily.  They made us believe that conservative rationalism was Christianity but it’s not; it’s just a slower form of encroaching darkness. But we ate it up hook line and sinker after we got tired of eating up the fast form of encroaching darkness we like to think of as liberalism. Both sides of the coin in the game of politics in the US are based on rationalism, humanism, unbelief.

I find myself wary of the NAR not because I don’t believe in apostles and prophets and the gifts of the spirit but because when I was a part of what was called the third wave (the church growth movement loves snazzy catch phrases and titles) I got tired of hearing prophets say things that sounded spiritual but when it came down to it weren’t biblical. I saw twenty years ago (and before that) a tendency to be both non-biblical or at least only 1/3 biblical and spiritually legalistic. We don’t want the Old Testament law that’s bondage (even if though scripture calls it the path of life) but we will make all kinds of extra biblical rules for you to follow so you can get really spiritual (oh by the way that’s NOT bondage). Good bye freedom if they ever get in office. Good bye freedom if the neo-cons stay in office or the liberals for that matter. Freedom is only found on the biblical path of life. Death is never freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ set us free: Freedom to walk on the path of life with no additions and no subtractions. See, I don’t want people telling me what I can or cannot drink, eat or smoke; or how I can or can’t make love to my wife if scripture doesn’t tell me those things. I don’t want people forcing me to be safe for my own good. I want to be free to live within the confines of the law of God and free to fall flat on my face without a safety net because falling is about the only thing that causes me to grow up and the law of God is the only thing that can ensure my safety.

The truth be told I would rather have an relatively honest unbeliever running the government than a good intentioned Christian who doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground (Randy Newman would have said it differently) trying to do what’s right in his own eyes and ignoring two thirds of scripture. I don’t want a form of godliness without the power paving the road to hell for me.

There are no easy answers. If we are unwilling to think biblically in every area of life before we try to get into government- there are no answers at all that won’t lead to our destruction. If we are willing to think biblically in every area of life but don’t translate those thoughts and ideas into the language of everyday people so that they can be applied in real life situations then we won’t leave the path of destruction either. If we aren’t willing to live biblically in every area of life why bother pretending to be Christians? If you love me KEEP my commandments.

The question remains whose kingdom are we wanting to build? The kingdom of God or the kingdom of man? I would love to think that the kingdom of man won’t mean a thing in 100 years but I won’t hold my breath.

Grace and Peace from the pessimistic optimist,

Brad