In Print

The new book that Bob co-authored is hot off the press and will be available at Coram Deo and Amazon.com soon. For more, read this post at Musings.

u2niversalism

Discomfort from Bono's words at the U2 concert a couple weeks ago is still gnawing at me. I've been pondering the experience ever since the show ended. In a previous post, I suggested that Bono's message (that Jesus, Mohammed, and Jews are all 'sons of Abraham') was political in nature, yet could be interpreted wrongly by those steeped in a pluralist point of view. But maybe I'm wrong.

Derrick pointed me to this insightful article by a concert-goer whose experience (and angst) mirrors my own. See what you think.

Year-end Reflections: Missional Leadership

I have asked the core of Coram Deo to reflect on what it means to be a missional spiritual leader, and on whether you are fulfilling that calling. Here's a helpful thought from Alex McManus:

The role of a leader is to create a missional culture. This missional culture is one that legitimizes decisions that "work" for the outsiders - those we are trying to reach - over those decisions that "work" for insiders only. A cool articulation of this value in a mission statement isn't enough. This architecture must be embodied in a person in order for it to be real... it isn't enough to find someone who "wants" to plant a church. The right [leader] "has to" reach people, "must" impact culture, and he'll attempt it with or without our money, our buildings, and our structures.

So: do you WANT to reach people, or do you HAVE TO reach people?

Christmas Party

Capt. Lanker, thanks for hosting a pretty decent Christmas party. You do a fine job for a bachelor.

Ladies, I'm tellin' ya, Lanker is the most eligible bachelor among us. Come on! A house, a hoss Jeep, a sweet Air Force pilot job... AND he loves Jesus??? You gotta be kidding. Marry this guy.

The foregoing sentiments are entirely the opinions of the author and were not coerced in any way by Scott Lanker, his mother, or his cheek-pinching Aunt Sally who wants him to marry a nice Christian girl.

Deli-cious

Cultural News:

The greatest deli restaurant in the South is coming to Omaha. Jason's Deli, about to open at 70th and Dodge.

Can I get a witness? Any of you out there who can testify to the culinary delight of the Jason's Deli experience?

Added bonus: when we lived in Austin, kids ate free at Jason's on Sunday nights. If that's still the deal, expect to see my family there some Sunday in the very near future!

u2ology

So the u2 show last night was... pretty amazing. There's a reason they are one of the best bands of our time, and their excellence shone through in every aspect. However, I was a little troubled by Bono's rhetoric during the show which seemed to imply that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam were all valid ways to God.

He never actually said that. He was speaking against war, and taken in their proper context, his words were simply a plea for Christians, Jews, and Muslims to "coexist" in peace (his words). However, for an audience already immersed in pluralism by the popular media and the culture around them, his words had the effect of blurring the lines. I was disappointed.

He redeemed himself by ending the show with "Yahweh" and "40." At the end of "40", Bono took off his cross necklace, hung it on the microphone stand, and left a solitary spotlight shining on it as he walked off the stage. It was a clear attempt to leave the show's focus on Christ. Unfortunately, his earlier words had the effect (to an audience without a proper worldview) of making Jesus one of many instead of the unique Savior of the world.

Here's the set list they played:

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
I Will Follow
Still Haven’t Found
Beautiful Day
Original of the Species
Sometimes you Can’t Make it On Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride in the Name of Love
Where the Streets have no Name
One

First Encore:
Until the End of the World
Mysterious Ways
With or Without You

Second Encore:
Stuck in a Moment
Crumbs From Your Table
Yahweh
40

What Does "Love On" Mean?

There is an impostor among us: a phrase, utterly devoid of precendent in English diction, subtly making its way to primacy in the Coram Deo community. Is it original? Or is the leaven of this linguistic idiosyncrasy imported from somewhere else (Iowa or Wyoming?) with malicious intent? Could it be a sinister attempt to poison the verbiage of the Coram Deo community? I’ll leave it to you to speculate, or to claim it (if the phrase is your very own invention). The phrase is love on. As in, “We want to love on people.” Or, as it was used in a prayer recently, “Jesus, we’re just here to love on you.”

I revile this phrase. I am crusading for its utter abolishment. A few reasons:

1) It is a misuse of the English language. The verb “love” is designed to be followed by a direct object, not a prepositional phrase. As in, “I love you.” (Contrast with “I want to love on you,” which sounds creepy.)

2) Love is an action or disposition expressed toward somebody, not upon them.

3) To “love on” seems to me to turn love into a commodity instead of an affection or disposition or action. I put maple syrup on my pancakes; I put art on my walls; I put love on a person? How exactly does that work?

4) To “love on” someone seems to make them an object instead of a person. Persons must be loved – for love is personal. But objects can be “loved on.”

On the other side of the argument, some might propose that the phrase has biblical background. Consider Deuteronomy 7:7-8:

“The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

Though this verse uses the phrase “love on,” I think you can see from the context (synonym: choose) that this refers to God’s election of Israel, not to the ambiguous and creepy way in which some of us have used the phrase. God set his love on Israel the same way I set my love on my wife: choosing her above all others whom I could have loved, and choosing to set my love on her (i.e. remain faithful to her) no matter what. That has an entirely different connotation than saying that I want to "love on her," which suggests... well... we're trying to keep this blog PG, okay?

So you can't use the Bible to justify this creepy, strange, and logically inconsistent phrase.

I hereby suggest that the phrase to love on, and all of its cognates and related expressions, be banished to the outer darkness, to the Gehenna of the English language, to the same semantic Sheol which has consumed faddish terms like rad and NOT! Any disagreements?

What Kind of Church Would C.S. Lewis Plant?

Ah, church planting… what an incomparable venture. If you want to be criticized by anyone and everyone, try launching something new. Coram Deo has been attacked by traditionalists for being too conformed to the culture. It has been lambasted by progressives for being too structured and historic. A missional church committed to engaging the culture, yet reciting the Apostle’s Creed and preaching about Chalcedonian Christology… it seems we don’t fit nicely in anyone’s pre-existing boxes.

In some of my preparatory reading for our recent sermons on the Incarnation, I was reading one of the most important books in the history of the church on the topic: De Incarnatione Verbi Dei by Saint Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria from 328 to 373. The copy I own contains a prelude by C.S. Lewis that I have chosen to quote at length below. Lewis’ renowned wit and wisdom in this little introduction is second to none, and yet many of you would never have access to it (because you’re probably not reading Athanasius in your spare time). Lewis’ incomparable literary flair and tongue-in-cheek humor deserve the broadest audience; and his musings are directly applicable to our church-planting situation. Specifically, for those who are put off by our use of creeds and confessions and church history, Lewis has a thoughtful rejoinder:

Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. And I would give him this advice precisely because he is an amateur and therefore much less protected than the expert against the dangers of an exclusive contemporary diet. A new book is still on its trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages, and all its hidden implications (often unsuspected by the author himself) have to be brought to the light. Often it cannot be fully understood without the knowledge of a good many other modern books. If you join at eleven o’clock a conversation which began at eight you will often not see the real bearing of what is said… The only safety is to have a standard of plain, central Christianity (“mere Christianity” as Baxter called it) which puts the controversies of the moment in their proper perspective. Such a standard can only be acquired from the old books.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books… Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.

(About how "mere Christianity" unifies the church despite denominationalism): ...We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age… Once you are well soaked in it, if you then venture to speak, you will have an amusing experience. You will be thought a Papist when you are actually reproducing Bunyan, a pantheist when you are quoting Aquinas, and so forth.

[The current author might insert: you will be thought to be an Emergent-church defender when you are actually quoting Augustine, a postmodernist when you are teaching Van Til, and so forth…]