– Jared Wilson

I’ve been using the program for three months and I just set Tami, my wife, up this past week. 

Thanks to Abraham Piper at Desiring God you can find step-by-step instructions for getting started.  Follow the instructions below to add this site, Logosmadeflesh.wordpress.com, to your account. 

Setting Up Google Reader

1. Create a Google account.
2. Go to Google Reader and make sure you’re signed in.

Adding a Subscription in Google Reader

1. Select “Add Subscription” from the left column.
2. Type in the address of a blog you want to subscribe to and click “Add.”

 

When most Americans think of the Christian right, they think of scenes from television — great halls full of perfectly groomed people in pale suits and light-colored dresses, smiling and happy and full of the Holy Spirit, robotically singing hymns at the behest of some squeaky-clean pastor with a baritone voice and impossible hair. We don’t get to see the utterly batshit world they live in, when the cameras are turned off and their pastors are not afraid of saying the really dumb stuff, for fear of it turning up on CNN. In American evangelical Christianity, in other words, there’s a ready-for-prime-time stage act — toned down and lip-synced to match a set of PG lyrics that won’t scare the advertisers — and then there’s the real party backstage, where the spiritual hair really gets let down. I was about to go backstage, to personally take part in the indoctrination process for a major Southern evangelical church.

What I found disgustingly Ironic about Taibbi’s description of the relgious right is that he himself blantly lies in order to expose their supposed double nature.  It’s not as if Taibbi is an undercover police officer trying to put the mofia behind bars or even try to find a lead in a case.  Taibbi sole motivation for his dupicity is to mock those he refuses to understand – Christians who act with complete sincerity.   Take the following excerpt from the article for instance.  Taibbi records that after listening to a speaker he along with the rest of the participants of the weekend retreat seperated into small groups under a group leader.

Once Morgan had us all gathered together, we looked for table space in the cafeteria area of the main building. Ominously, each of the cafeteria tables had a fresh box of Kleenex resting on top of it.

“Well,” Morgan said, “I think what we’re going to do to start is this. I’m going to tell you my story about my wound, and then we’re going to go around in a circle, and each of us is going to just tell his story. Is that OK?”

Everyone nodded. I noted with displeasure that I was seated first after Morgan in clockwise order. Already I was panicking; what kind of wound could a human cipher like myself possibly confess to?

Morgan told his story. Even a perfunctory look at my fellow group members told me that we had people here with some very serious problems, and yet Morgan’s wound was a tale that wouldn’t have even ruined a week of my relatively privileged childhood, much less my whole life — something about being yelled at by his dad while he was out playing with remote-controlled airplanes with his friends as a thirteen-year-old. He hammed up his trauma over the incident in classically lachrymose Iron John-in-touch-with-his-inner-boy fashion (again, there is something very odd about modern Christian men — although fiercely pro-military in their politics and prehistorically macho in their attitudes toward women’s roles, on the level of day-to-day behavior they seem constantly ready to break out weeping like menopausal housewives), but his words were bouncing off a wall of unimpressed silence radiating from the group.

Blank stares. This was a tough crowd. Five minutes into our group acquaintance, we were at a full 9.5 out of 10 on the International Uncomfortable Silence scale.

Morgan turned, glanced again at my name tag and sighed.

“Well, uh, OK, then,” he said. “Matthew, do you want to tell your story?”

My heart was pounding. I obviously couldn’t use my real past — not only would it threaten my cover, but I was somewhat reluctant to expose anything like my real inner self to this ideologically unsettling process — but neither did I want to be trapped in a story too far from my own experience. What I settled on eventually was something that I thought was metaphorically similar to the truth about myself.

“Hello,” I said, taking a deep breath. “My name is Matt. My father was an alcoholic circus clown who used to beat me with his oversize shoes.”

The group twittered noticeably. Morgan’s eyes opened to tea-saucer size.

I closed my own eyes and kept going, immediately realizing what a mistake I’d made. There was no way this story was going to fly. But there was no turning back.

“He’d be sitting there in his costume, sucking down a beer and watching television,” I heard myself saying. “And then sometimes, even if I just walked in front of the TV, he’d pull off one of those big shoes and just, you know — whap!“

I looked around the table and saw three flatlined, plainly indifferent psyches plus one mildly unnerved Morgan staring back at me. I could tell that my coach and former soldier had been briefly possessed by the fear that a terrible joke was being played on his group. But then I actually saw him dismissing the thought — after all, who would do such a thing? I managed to tie up my confession with a tale about turning into a drug addict in my midtwenties — at least that much was true — and being startled into sobriety and religion after learning of my estranged clown father’s passing from cirrhosis.

It was a testament to how dysfunctional the group was that my story flew more or less without comment.

He infiltrates their community, lies to them and then mocks them for trusting him.  I’m sure the audience of Rolling Stones is rolling in the aisle.  But would it be as funny in a different group with a similar aim.  Would it have been as funny if Taibbi had infiltrated an AA meeting, told completely ridiculous stores and then question their sanity for trusting him. 

What Taibbi fails to realize is that their are places and situations in our lives where trust must be assumed.  What kind of relationship would we have if we had to question our significant others every time they stepped out the room.  What kind of life would we have if we doubted everything our Parents said.  The relationship expected in the situation Taibbi entered was trust.  Taibbi’s response was as juvenile as saying, “losersaywhat” and then laughing when the unsuspecting person says, “what?”  For Taibbi going undercover is not enough to understand the Christian community because he lacks the one thing that these people possess – sincerity. 

This may sound odd but I assure you my feet are firmly planted in the scripture. 

Sophia, the Greek word meaning wisdom, first appears as a character in the Old Testament book of Proverbs.  In Chapter one, we read,

Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; ²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out.

The writer of proverbs presents Sophia as the protection against the other woman, “the adulteress who flatters with her words” (Pro. 1:16) But more than a literary figure, Sophia in Proverbs is a semi-divine charachter who acts as God’s consort.

“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. ²³ “From everlasting I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. ²⁴ “When there were no depths I was brought forth, When there were no springs abounding with water… ³⁰ Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was daily His delight, Rejoicing always before Him, ³¹ Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of men.

Because Sophia is Wisdom of God, the writer of Proverbs encourages his readers to pursue her.

¹³How blessed is the man who finds wisdom, And the man who gains understanding. ¹⁴ For its profit is better than the profit of silver, And its gain than fine gold. ¹⁵ She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her.

But Proverbs isn’t the only place where we find wisdom personified.  The authors of some of the apocryphal books continue in the vein of Proverbs.  The Wisdom of Solomon for instance says,

She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; so nothing impure can find its way into her. ²⁶ For she is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God’s active power, and image of his goodness. 

The book of Ecclesiasticus has Wisdom/Sophia say,

³‘I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and I covered the earth like mist. ⁴ I had my tent in the heights, and my throne was a pillar of cloud. ⁵ Alone, I have made the circuit of the heavens and walked through the depths of the abyss. ⁶ Over the waves of the sea and over the whole earth, and over every people and nation I have held sway.

You can find the main passages related to the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 1-9, Ecclesiasticus 24, Wisdom of Solomon 6-8. 

How does this Woman relate to Jesus?  I’ll address that issue in my next post.

Unchurched adults interested in finding a congregation aren’t nearly as likely to visit one in person as a church member who is shopping for a new congregation. That means effective evangelism must begin outside the sanctuary in relationships between Christians and unbelievers, according to research from several recent studies from LifeWay Research…

You can find the full articles here. 

I think it’s time we stop giving over Sunday Mornings to unbelievers and instead use the time to build up the body of Christ.  Evangelism must be done but Sunday Morning isn’t the place to do it.  Even Willow Creek, the church who spearheaded the Seeker Sensitive approach is now rethinking its methods. 

What do you think?  Is this in step or out of step with the identity, purpose and mission of the Church?  Why or why not?

1. What comprises a healthy church? 
2. What is it that you look for in a church? 
3. What is it that keeps you going to the the church you attend? 
4. Why did you leave your church?
5. What do you believe is the role of the church? 
6. Why should we attend church at all?