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There have been many times in my church career when opening my big mouth has led to my departure. The first time I was naive and challenged something thinking that someone would care. The next time I was less naive but still nervous that I wouldn’t be heard. The next time after that I absolutely knew that opening my mouth about an issue would lead to my dismissal.

It had even been suggested to me that I should run all my thoughts and cartoons and writing through my superiors before publishing them.

I hate gag orders both real and implied. On one dismissal I was actually told to sign a gag order in order to receive not only a severance package but the rest of my pay that was owed me. I refused to sign. Call it stubborn. Call it stupid. But I walked away free. I hear from people every day who have done the same thing. It’s more common than we know because once you’re outside the system you can lose the venue where they can be heard. Unless you start a blog or something.

There are times in our lives when we absolutely know that taking the risk and opening our big mouths is going to cost us something. Certainly we know it is going to upset the order of things. Things will change. Maybe not the thing your challenging but your association with it and its association with you.

I was just talking to someone the other day who misses church. But he can’t bring himself to go because he said he has to compromise too much, he has to concede too much, he has to effectively shut off the largest part of who he is. And he’s not willing to make that deal.

The woman in this cartoon… her partner doesn’t realize that her big mouth is attached to a big mind. He would rather play by the rules so he can continue playing the game. She’d rather not. They have some talking to do.

If you can find a place where you don’t have to play the gag game, then I celebrate that with you. If you can’t, then simply admit it and find a way to move on from there.

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It is a matter of perspective. All or nothing.

Tomorrow on The Lasting Supper we are having a Potluck hangout, a video conference, called “Hypo-Allergenic Spiritual Practices for the Religiously Fed-Up”. That is, we are going to talk about how to proceed with our spirituality independently after we’ve become burned out and our old ways have lost their meaning. The above cartoon is the kind of things we talk about. I invite you to join us.

(click on this image if you would like to buy a print of it)

Tony Jones has been accused of making offensive statements and he’s come to his own defense in his post “I’m Tired of Being Called a Racist”. If we are interested in clear and clean communication within the theological community, then there are few lessons to be learned from this unfolding story.

1. It might be time to look inward if we have been accused of something more than once. Actually, Jones has been accused of saying things that were “borderline racist.” That’s not necessarily the same as being called a racist. But there is systemic racism that white males are complicit in and that no matter how hard we try to think, speak and act free of it, we are entangled in a racist system that is still breathing. I believe it is humble, honest and helpful to admit this before we move forward in our theological conversations.

2. The cries of discrimination must be considered valid immediately, especially when rising from those who are or even feel discriminated against. There is no way to move forward if accusations of discrimination are dismissed, excused, explained away or defended against. If you take some time to read the over 174 comments to the above post link, there’s some good reading there. I don’t want to labor those points all over again.

But the one issue I really want to address is what I believe started the whole thing. Here’s a summary (I’m getting these quotes from Jones’ own article). He said,

“We have a better version of the gospel than the regnant view of the gospel in the West today.”

The person who responded to that statement, an African-American woman, said,

“As a minority group member sitting in the audience, I found his statement to be unfriendly to diverse voices… Most blatantly, the statement violates the metaphor of the interdependent and multifaceted body of Christ. How can a gospel that is mostly (if not entirely) interpreted and articulated by a homogenous group of people (in this case, white, well-educated males) be the “better version”? But in a more subtle way, his statement sent a clear and powerful message to all of the diverse people in the room (e.g., women, people of color, people without advanced degrees, etc.). No need to join our movement; we don’t need diverse voices. We’ve already got the best version of the Gospel and we only needed white, well-educated men to figure it out. Diverse people need not apply.”

Another incident where Jones claimed that Pentecostal theology “isn’t the best theology out there”, a woman, also African-American, responded:

“To say that the Pentecostal theology is weak and that the American theology is sophisticated, I just, I cringe at that. If there’s one thing that I’ve learned here at Fuller…I’ve learned that all theology is contextual, and to say that your American theology — and you have to think about the fact, I mean, I hate to bring up race, but, I can’t avoid it, I’m sorry but, as a Caucasian man living in America, to say that your theology is sophisticated and to say that the theology of Latin America and South America is weak, I mean, it’s appalling, it’s shocking for me to hear that, it’s offensive, it’s borderline racist, and it’s very closed-minded.”

Jones’ shouldn’t have said “better”. He responds that at least he didn’t say “best”. But this is exactly the problem. If one theology is better than the other than the implication is that smart people will choose the better one, which is presumably his. I suggest that we need to consider all theology as cumulative. We are all contributing to the conversation and hopefully to a good conclusion. Like all good processes, nothing is wasted but folded into the further development of what is best. Jones, as well as the woman who responded to his ideas, are both potentially engaged in the evolution of a better theology.

Actually, in my opinion, the woman sounds more concerned for inclusivity in the theological process than Jones who sounds more competitive in that statement. If we are working for diversity in the theological community then no one should claim dominance over but rather submit contributions to the conversation. What is every school of theology bringing to the table? Let’s submit every word from every corner to corporate judgement. This isn’t a race.

If we want to build a better theological community then first of all we need to humbly give and receive criticism about the foundations that are still riddled with structural flaws such as racism. The theological machine driven by straight white males is beset with blind spots. And the problem with blind spots is that we aren’t aware of them until we cause an accident and someone gets hurt, as Jones should have discovered and we as witnesses should learn from.

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Liar. Maybe intentionally. Maybe naively.

Paul said we’ve been bought with a price, so don’t become the slaves of men again (1 Corinthians 6:20). He meant we are already free. Freedom is ours. It is a reality. These people don’t know it. The keys to their own freedom lie everywhere. The same for the teacher. Unfortunately, they are a part of a system that supports slavery but they can’t see it.

There is a difference between formal freedom and actual freedom. Formal freedom is when we are permitted to make choices within a given system or ideology. Actual freedom is when we question the very structure that grants us formal freedom to the point of undermining its power over us altogether.

Perhaps, like me, you became tired of operating within the system, constantly tweaking and reinventing and renovating it and constantly shifting yourself to comfortably fit in it. You eventually realized that we’ve already been doing that forever without any substantial change.

Perhaps, like me, you realized that you wanted real freedom, authentic freedom, actual freedom, and that the only way to do that was to throw the whole system into question by leaving it.

Perhaps, like me, your departure from the system was a testimony to your family and friends and the system that you believe it had failed and would continue failing to create the culture of actual freedom.

(Does this describe you? I invite you to join The Lasting Supper.)

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Recently Mark Driscoll said,

“I know who made the environment and he’s coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.”

He apparently received so much backlash from it that he decided to issue an apology. But it’s not an apology. It’s an explanation.

Here’s a short lesson in apologies.

A good apology is when:

1. you apologize for something you said or did
2. you take responsibility for your words or actions
3. you promise to change

A bad apology is when:

1. you apologize for how your words or actions were received
2. you blame them for being hurt by your words or actions
3. you tell them they need to change so they won’t be hurt in the future

Like the cartoon says, Mark Driscoll used this as just another opportunity to rebuke and ridicule.

Oh… and when you instruct me on how or when I am supposed to laugh, you’ve already lost. I don’t care how long or biblical your instruction is.

(If you like, you can read Hemant Mehta’s critique of his apology.)

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I appreciate people sending me ideas for cartoons. So yesterday I had several people inform me that Pat Robertson was up to it again. Sometimes things are served to you on a silver platter. And sometimes I get tired of the same old stuff. But I couldn’t let this one go. This man has a lot of influence so I felt like taking this one on.

You can check out the video where Robertson responds to a woman asking how to forgive her husband who cheated on her. His advice? Men have a tendency to wander, so she needs to make the home more enticing so he doesn’t want to stray. Men cheat. He also advises her to quit complaining if he provides her with a home to live in, food to eat, and clothes to wear. It’s a plus if he’s nice to the kids and handsome. Her job is to make the home so wonderful that he or his eyes won’t want to wander or look at porn. It reminds me of when he said that “awful-looking women” can cause marriages to fail. Women shouldn’t just lie there all “slatternly looking”. They’ve got to fix themselves up and look pretty. She should quit complaining about her husband’s infidelity or flirtatiousness with other women or hassling him about it and just make herself as attractive as possible. I bet that made her feel better!

I suggest that Robertson is just the most obvious presentation of a prevalent, deep-rooted attitude towards women. We see it every day in the news where women are blamed for rape, sexual harassment and abuse.

Women are the scapegoats for male and rape culture. The idea of the scapegoat is that the sins of the people are put upon the goat, and then the goat is exiled into the wilderness or sacrificed, taking the sin with it. So, as Robertson suggests, a husband can sin against his wife, place the burden of blame for his sin upon her, then punish her for it, leaving him exonerated and innocent.

The woman in the cartoon is the scapegoat for the company she works for. She’s been sexually harassed by a man at the company. Maybe he holds an important position there. She reports the incident. The sin is placed upon her and she is sacrificed for the sake of the company. She is exiled from the community, leaving the community exonerated and innocent and able to go on with its business as usual with a clean slate.

The concept of the scapegoat is entirely biblical so it must be okay (Leviticus 16:10).

Tell me this ain’t so.

The Lasting Supper

(click on image to check out David’s online gallery of art for sale)

I remember the trouble I caused when I first posted this cartoon years ago. It upset a lot of people. But that exactly is the problem. If we are not able to hold two contradictory ideas in our mind at the same time then we are unable to think maturely, deeply or wisely.

Integrative thinking looks at this cartoon and says, “Of course. This happens. Both are right.”

The inability to do this is called fundamentalism, plain and simple.

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I like the writing of Steven Olsen. For example, his recent post, “Gorilla’s, Starship Commanders and Your Brain” is a good read. Interesting and informative. And I like his sense of humor. Olsen writes for the atheist channel at Patheos. I read atheist writers and blogs for many reasons. One of the most important reasons is that I believe many atheists help to keep me honest. I have an inner atheist and so I think it wise to take care of that part of me. They can also teach me how to communicate what I mean more clearly.

He wrote an article a while back, “About That Personal Experience of Yours”. I was smiling as I read it because I felt like I was back in Personal Evangelism class in Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri… which is where Olsen lives actually. He gives instructions on how to communicate with a believer; how to “debate with a theist”; how to “guide someone out of a belief”; how to “reach” believers effectively. So it’s about evangelism.

Olsen describes for atheists how Christians believe:

1. Religion doesn’t have evidence so it relies on experience for validation.
2. These experiences, though meaningful to believers, aren’t testable.
3. Since they are not testable, they are “indistinguishable from a fabrication”.
4. So the believer must demonstrate why God should be more real than Bigfoot.
5. Specifically, Christianity’s god is cruel for creating Hell for unbelievers as well as immoral since he hides from them.
6. Worse, since Christians believe in the Devil, how do they know their spiritual experience isn’t just a deception?
7. No matter how convincing your logic is, they may return to superstition because of the meaningfulness of their experiences.

I’ve never understood how some atheists leap from God to Bigfoot. Some ideas or theories are valid to consider and others are not. I think the possible existence of God, or the idea of God, or the theory of God, is more valid to explore than the possible existence of Bigfoot, or the idea of Bigfoot, or the theory of Bigfoot. Some ideas, some possibilities, have better legs than others. I agree that experiences do not prove the existence of God, but I am not willing to entirely dismiss them as irrelevant to the case, along with all the theories about the idea of God or those that thought or think them.

I also find it curious how quickly and easily some atheists solve the age old problem of evil. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus stated the argument this way:

1. If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
2. There is evil in the world.
3. Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist.

But that isn’t the end of the argument. Epicurus’ is not the only solution on the table. There are all kinds of others theories out there. His argument might appear logical, but many thinkers down through the ages have challenged the first part of the equation and wrestled with the problem of evil along with the possibility of the existence of God. It continues today. If the first part is faulty then the rest of the logic fails. This whole area of thought is called theodicy and has been going on for centuries. We are allowed to ignore all other arguments but Epicurus’, but I think we would be placing unreasonable restrictions on our minds.

G. K. Chesterton had something to say about this:

“Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut.”

Chesterton’s concern is with free will and freedom of thought. He believed spiritual doctrines opened the mind to a limitless freedom of possibilities, whereas the other is “the worst chain that ever fettered a human being” because without free thought you don’t have free will.

One experiences the Divine one day and experiences evil another. Which is more or less real than the other? How is this testable or measurable? How are these confirmed? Many say there is no Divine. Many say there is no evil. Who judges who is right or wrong? And how?

Anyway, I enjoyed reading the article because, like I said, it was interesting to see how an atheist would try to convert a believer. It reminded me that, in many ways, atheists and believers are the same. Everyone believes their religion, belief or philosophy is the right one or they wouldn’t embrace it, and, therefore, everyone believes that everyone else should subscribe to it or they wouldn’t themselves. But, even though Olsen is obviously trying to be gracious, there is a slight tone of condescension in the article that smells like the condescension some believers have towards atheists. Like some believers talk about atheists, Olsen talks about believers like they have a mental illness and need to be treated with pity. He closes:

“Every single believer is different and you won’t reach them unless you tailor your argument to who they are, and acknowledge that while you have good reasons not to believe, that doesn’t diminish the effect the event had on them. Your logic will have better mileage when you mix it with empathy.”

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I’ve been busy creating my Sophia book, “The Liberation of Sophia”. I have over 50 drawings. There are still some originals available, and they are all available as fine art prints. I’m compiling the several posts I have already written about her and tweaking them.

I love the one and only canonical story about Jesus as a boy found in Luke 2: 41-52. His mom and dad took him on a trip to Jerusalem. On their way home they realize he isn’t with them. They desperately search for him. After three or four days they find him back in Jerusalem sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Mary freaks out and he responds that they didn’t need to worry. He had to be about his father’s business.

I often wonder if this one story found its way into the gospels to show the continuity of Jesus’ life. Never could anyone say, “Jesus, you’ve changed!” No. He was the same as an adult as he was as a boy. In fact, the way he was as a boy became more pronounced as a man. He was uncontrollable. He could not be tethered. Sometimes he couldn’t be tracked down. He had his own schedule and his own to-do list. He was on a mission. He was a teacher. He was passionate about the things of God. He was free. He was accountable to no one but his Father. That never changed. This was, for Jesus, typical.

I was working on this Sophia image and story today, “Hills”. Sophia dreams about her childhood. She remembers walking alone in the woods feeling so brave and free. In fact, she wasn’t even intentionally brave. She just felt as though the world was hers and that she belonged in it and lived in it comfortably. She loved life. She loved herself. She had no fear of her future.

Now, as a young woman, she wonders how she lost her innocence. Why did she forsake her freedom? Why did she surrender the things that came naturally to her just for security? Why did she let people change her, and why did she change herself just to please them? Why is she so afraid all the time now? Why does she feel so stuck?

In the dream she is looking to the hills. Where will her help come from? She awakens to decide that first she must help herself.

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Eric Metaxas has written a new book, Seven Men and the Secret of Their Greatness. I can’t talk about the book since I haven’t read it. But he has been interviewed about it by Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review in her article, “Raising Good Men”. I love her opening question: “Why a book about men? Does this prove that there is a Christian disdain for women?” She also asked why he wanted to return to “Father Knows Best”. I think it betrays her suspicion of Metaxas’ theory. I’m suspicious too. I thought I’d run it by you. What do you think?

First, let me give what I think is a fair summary of his thought. Metaxas believes there is a crisis of manhood in our culture and that we are “afraid to talk about what it means to be a man.” We can’t admit, because it has become politically incorrect, that men and women are different. He claims that “in the last 40 years we lost our idea of what a man is.” Every parent knows that young men need to know what it means to be a man. They need heroes for this. Male heroes. We have denigrated the idea of heroes to the point that the only ones available today are in video games. Men should take a bullet for women. Women should be able to dive behind the protection of men. That’s how God made us. God made men to shield women. This is how men are supposed to express their love. Men instinctively want to protect others even if it means dying to do so. Women typically don’t do this because they express their love in different ways. Metaxas insists that we need to be talking about God’s idea of what a man is and celebrating that rather than lazily floating down the cultural river away from true manhood. If men don’t learn how to be real men it will be women who suffer the most.

My first response to this interview is confusion. It leaves me with more questions than answers. I’m all into questions, as you may know. But when someone claims to make claims I think there needs to be some clarity to the claims.

Here are just some of my concerns:

Are all heroes only men? He does claim that women don’t express their love by protecting others, at least in the same way men do. It is more than implied that women are not supposed to protect others at the expense of their own lives. God made men to do that. I’m going to be lazy here and not gather names, but how many females have given their lives for others? We couldn’t even begin to count. Could we?

What is Metaxas’ definition of a hero? He wanted to give the seven men as examples of people “worthy of emulation… who faced monumental difficulties with courage and grace.” I would agree that this is a good definition of a hero, but I certainly don’t confine it to men. Does he? Countless women fit this description. He talks about men who have made sacrifices for political reasons; men who have kept their religious convictions in the face of incredible pressure to forsake them; men who have fought long and hard with integrity to liberate others; and men who have forsaken sexual intimacy in order to serve a higher purpose. I hope he would agree that there are countless women who have done the same. But they are not mentioned because, for some reason, he feels it is important for men to see this as a description of a heroic man.

How do I communicate this idea to my children? I’ve raised three… two boys and a girl, now adults. Never once in my whole career as a parent and father did I consider the need to differentiate between male and female when talking about the inspiring lives of others. We’ve always taught our children that there are many ways to be, many ways to love, many ways to protect, many ways to be courageous, many ways to be a hero. I want all three of our kids to be courageous. But I want my sons to be gentle if need be and I would want my daughter to be fierce if need be. And they are.

I’ve also never said to my sons, “Real men don’t do that” or to my daughter, “Real women don’t do that.” Never. And I never intend to. Would Metaxas, as the interviewer detected, like to return to a much earlier time when men were men and women were women, when it was clear what men’s roles were and what women’s roles were, when men had their place and women had theirs? He replies, “Yes, I want to turn the clock all the way back to when dinosaurs roamed the earth, about 6,000 years ago. Is that so wrong?”

He must have been joking. Because, yes, it would be wrong. It would be wrong for me as a man, and it would be wrong for my wife and for my daughter as women. They wouldn’t want to go back. Neither would my sons. Neither do I. Do you? Even though policy is slow to change, I believe we are making some significant advances in gender awareness. I am suspicious that Metaxas’ ideas about gender roles won’t help.