Interview with Matthew Lee on The Heart of Religion

November 18, 2012 by

CLICK THE COVER to visit the book’s Amazon page.Be grateful.
If you care about your congregation—for just a moment set aside all of your fears. You know the fears that we’re talking about: The roof may leak. Our members are too old. We are shrinking. Our pastor isn’t an effective preacher. Another church is taking all of our members. Our choir isn’t good enough to compete with the music at other churches. On and on … You—and thousands of other people in congregations nationwide—share these anxieties.

But, listen now to the Good News from a first-rate array of scholars at leading universities nationwide who, after four years of research, are releasing their remarkable conclusions in Oxford University Press’s new: The Heart of Religion: Spiritual Empowerment, Benevolence, and the Experience of God’s Love. Buy a copy by clicking on the cover, at right, then read it—and discuss it with friends at church.

In Part 1 of our coverage of this important new book, we summarized its findings and published brief excerpts. Today, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm interviews Dr. Matthew Lee, Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Akron and one of this new book’s three co-authors.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW WITH
SOCIOLOGIST DR. MATTHEW LEE ON THE HEART OF RELIGION

DAVID: Let me try to quickly summarize your key findings: There is a close relationship between our faith in a loving God—and the spiritual practices that deepen our faith—with real benevolent actions we share in the world. We’re not doing this because we expect any benefit. If we’ve felt God’s love then we sincerely want to share that love with others. So, how did I do? Your book is packed with so many fascinating facts—but is this a fair 50-word summary?

MATTHEW: That’s great. But there is one other thing I would add to even a short summary of our book. It’s a point that ReadTheSpirit makes in your own Ten Principles you have posted on your website. It’s your Number 5: “The most powerful spiritual stories are in the lives of the ordinary people we meet.” We found that to be true throughout our work. When we began interviewing people in our study, we had no idea they had these dramatic stories in their lives—until we asked them.

DAVID: You discovered that people did not want this described as “altruism.” You say that “altruism” is a word that implies a benefit people are seeking in their service, right?

MATTHEW: Yes, when people hear the term “altruism,” it implies a cost-benefit motivation. The people we interviewed told us they didn’t want us to use that term: altruism. People do what they do as an expression of love, not because they are expecting something in return. That’s what we found. And I’m talking here about finding this in the lives of ordinary people all across this country—not just in famous people like Mother Teresa.

DAVID: I am impressed with the way your study cuts to a deeper meaning and purpose in religion. Most of the other major research efforts on religion in America look at things like beliefs and customs, voting patterns and moral claims. I can’t recall another study that explored this particular set of questions.

MATTHEW: What has happened with scholarship on religion is that most of the attention is paid to the structural shell of religion: denominations, creeds, demographics and other elements of the shell that we study in great depth. We’re looking here at something deeper that drives religious experience.

DAVID: Just to clarify for readers of our interview today—your new book is not a How To guide. There is no section of 10 Sure-Fire Steps to Grow Your Congregation.

MATTHEW: We are talking about something that often is an experience of the Spirit breaking through in people’s lives—almost like a trump card that changes the game in our lives. This isn’t a case of our showing you something that you can bottle and sell.

OTHER MOVEMENTS TOWARD LOVE AND SERVICE:
CIVILITY, HOSPITALITY, GENEROSITY, KINDNESS

DAVID: Regular readers of our online magazine know that we have been tracking other groups across the U.S. who are trying to promote a fresh appreciation for qualities that are sometimes described as Civility, Hospitality, Generosity or Kindness. Do you see those efforts as close to your own findings?

MATTHEW: Yes, these things absolutely are related. In my own discipline in sociology, there has been such a strong emphasis over the years on the dark side of human behavior. I think we are emerging from that focus to look in new ways at positive issues. Psychology has gone through this process, too, from a focus on abnormal psychology to more positive psychological issues. The Templeton Foundation has been supportive of a lot of these movements. There is now a generosity project. There is a gratitude project. There are now resources researchers can get to look at these issues in new ways. I think it’s good that the interest is no longer exclusively on: How do we identify pathology? I think it’s good that we are able to ask questions like: How do we foster benevolence?

DAVID: There is a purity and simplicity to this relationship you uncovered that I think anyone who cares about church life will find very refreshing and inspiring. I suspect that coming through the get-rich decades of the 1980s and 1990s, and now crawling out of the crash over the past five years or so, there is a strong belief out there that everything we do has to be argued in terms of cost-benefit. Why do we do anything in this world? The most popular answer these days is: To make money. To get ahead. Joel Osteen’s extremely popular message essentially is that God mainly wants us healthy, wealthy and happy. That’s not the spiritual process you found driving the faith of millions, today.

MATTHEW: Religion is a very complicated thing and there is a lot going on in what we call religion. But what struck us in our face-to-face interviews with men and women everywhere we went was the extent to which they described being taken by surprise by their experience of God’s love. And that love led them in directions they didn’t expect. As a result, they may even decline to pursue material goals in their life. This isn’t about a cost-benefit response.

THE HEART OF RELIGION: WHAT IS LOVE?

DAVID: So, what is this love you’re talking about? I hope that our readers will buy your book and read the whole thing to understand the deeper relationships you’re describing. But give us a quick answer here: It’s not romantic love. It’s not shallow greeting-card sentiment. And some people might even choose other words than love to describe this principle.

MATTHEW: In our meetings of the research team, we would talk about how we can effectively study and talk about “love” and one member of our team would keep saying that we should talk about “justice.” For him, it didn’t make any sense to talk about love without justice. And, it’s true: Many people conceptualize love—and expressions of love—as only making sense when there is justice involved. People have many kinds of experiences they describe as love. That’s what we were trying to unpack in our study—and we describe this in the book. For many, this love is an emotionally, personally affective experience. For some, this is closely related to experiencing what people might describe as justice. But overall, our team decided that this whole range of experiences could be described as starting with a sense of “divine love.” People experience this divine love, then this moves them to express “love” to others.

DAVID: You also describe it as more than a one-time, one-shot experience in the lives of many people. You’ve got charts in the book that show these “loops” that form of renewed experiences of divine love fueling more benevolent expressions of love that people want to share in the world. It’s not a single experience. For millions of people, it’s more like a flowing circuit.

MATTHEW: People would burn out except for the renewal that comes from a deep experience of love. We saw this over and over again. I’m not saying that some people didn’t report getting depressed. They do have trials and tribulations, but even in hard times they have a sense that they’re not suffering alone. They’re part of a bigger story. This gives them a larger sense of meaning in their lives—even when they hit seemingly insurmountable barriers. They are refreshed by this ongoing encounter with divine love.

DAVID: Do you reject the Pay-It-Forward idea? That tends to be an argument that we all will somehow benefit if we are generous with other people in our community.

MATTHEW: That’s an interesting question. For many of the folks we interviewed, again and again, they described being able to see beyond their immediate circumstances. They see their lives as part of a broader story. But many of these people would describe that Pay-It-Forward idea in a different way than you’re describing it. They often told us something like: I’ve already received the greatest gift that I could receive in life from God, so now I’m simply enjoying living that out. Knowing God’s love, we live by giving away God’s love. A lot of people feel that it’s God’s love that has been paid forward into their lives and they are sharing those blessings.

THE HEART OF RELIGION: WHY SO MUCH FRICTION?

DAVID: At ReadTheSpirit, we have been working with Michigan State University’s School of Journalism on efforts to combat bullying in our school and communities. And, frankly, anyone who watched television in the past six months is well aware of the extreme friction among Americans, often because of strong religious beliefs. If what you are describing is true, I’m sure our readers are wondering: Why so much friction?

MATTHEW: One of the criticisms we’ve received from people who haven’t fully read about our work is that we’re somehow blindly promoting an ideology of love and holding up our interviewees as examples to be emulated. It’s important to understand that while we have shown this relationship between divine love and benevolent service—we don’t mean that everyone is working in the same direction. Some of these people are moved to work at cross-purposes with each other as they express benevolence. We don’t have our heads up in the clouds. We’re not blind to this issue of conflicting ideas.

DAVID: And your research isn’t over, as I understand it. Keep in touch with ReadTheSpirit and we’ll be sure to tell readers about your next steps.

MATTHEW: We will. We are looking forward to a major conference on these ideas probably to be held somewhere in Ohio. The book is going out to readers now. We’re hoping many people will read it, discuss it and engage with us further.

Have you read Part 1 of our coverage of The Heart of Religion?

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

New in Paperback: McLaren, Wright and more

November 4, 2012 by

Just in time for holiday gift giving—or planning ahead for small groups in January—five books ReadTheSpirit recommends are now available in less-expensive paperback editions.

BRIAN McLAREN: NAKED SPIRITUALITY

CLICK ON THE COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.Brian McLaren is a regular guest at ReadTheSpirit. He writes about so many distinct topics that you will want to explore this particular book’s content. You can do that by reading our coverage of its hardback release in 2011. In that interview, McLaren talks about the many challenges we face in prayer: There is no fool-proof method for prayer. … The Christians I encounter tend to fall into three camps or practices regarding prayer. One: You have people who are prayer book people. If they don’t have something to read, they don’t have anything to pray. For them, reading through prayers can have great meaning—but it also can become somewhat automatic. … At the other end of these groups is the camp where people don’t believe we should read prayers. Praying should be spontaneous, this camp says. But what actually happens is that we don’t come up with entirely new forms of prayer and, instead, we tend to link together a lot of cliché phrases into these long trains of what we consider spontaneous prayer. … Then, there’s a third camp that concerns me: It’s the camp of people who become aware of how rarely they pray, then they feel guilty about it, but they don’t quite know how to develop a meaningful prayer life. Mainly, it’s a camp where bringing up prayer makes people feel guilty. I’m trying to help all three camps. I’m offering people ways to center their prayers in a series of simple words. This has stood the test of my own life. It’s simple. It works for many people. Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in 12 Simple Words is available now through Amazon.

N.T. WRIGHT: THE KINGDOM NEW TESTAMENT

CLICK THE COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.Bishop N.T. Wright ranks among the most popular authors ever featured in ReadTheSpirit. He is especially popular in evangelical congregations, but his appeal cuts across all Christian denominations. You can read our entire interview with Wright about The Kingdom New Testament. In that interview, he explains how he prepared this fresh translation of the New Testament: This translation took me 10 years. The first bits of it were done in the summer of 2000, when I was doing smaller Bible-study books called Mark for Everyone and Luke for Everyone. I prepared these translations, initially, to go along with the Everyone commentaries that I wrote over the years. In each of the Everyone Bible-study books, I included my own translation. Now, the complete New Testament is finished and we’ve put all of the translated books together in the form of this new book. I should also say that I did prepare this with editors and scholars who assisted. I had a brilliant Greek scholar, for example, who went through all of it with a fine-tooth comb. He raised a bunch of questions all across the texts. Then, sometimes I agreed to make a change, based on his questions, and sometimes I stuck with my original wording. But this process helped me sharpen it all.
The Kingdom New Testament: A Contemporary Translation is available now through Amazon..

EUGENE PETERSON: THE PASTOR

CLICK THE COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.Millions know Eugene Peterson for his dramatic paraphrase of The Bible, called The Message. But few people realize that Peterson created that new Bible as a pastor concerned for his own congregation. In this memoir, Peterson shares what he has learned about working effectively as a pastor. Some of his conclusions will surprise you. You can read our entire interview with Euguene Peterson, in which you will find thought-provoking responses like this: Pastors need to train people in a more mature Christianity. But people live in our consumer culture and they expect the pastor to do what they want. The popular view, even in churches, of pastoral work and the Christian faith is that it’s something about me—its purpose is to help me be a better person, richer, happier, more peaceful and more successful. But that isn’t really what the Bible is talking about. That’s not what Jesus is doing. The Bible is calling us to live a life of sacrifice, obedience and compassion—but always in relationship. There is no impersonal Gospel—and yet we’ve got a lot of lonely people in America who need relationship. A congregation is a place where we learn how to become friends. One of the most important things Jesus says to his disciples is: I call you to be friends. The basic thing we are called to work out is this relational model with Jesus and with the people around us.
The Pastor: A Memoir is available now through Amazon.

PHILIP JENKINS: Laying Down the Sword

CLICK ON THE COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.You’ll have no shortage of spirited discussion if you ask a small group to read Philip Jenkins. In fact, Laying Down the Sword is a perfect book to choose after election day, when the dust of heated campaign claims about our world settles and people want to dig more deeply into the origins of global violence. Learn morea about that in our 2011 interview with Jenkins. In the Q and A, Jenkins described what prompted him to tackle this project: Let me explain how I got into this research. Since 9/11, there have been a lot of discussions in this country about Islam being a singularly violent religion and the Quran being a uniquely violent book. I am certainly willing to talk about violence in Islam. But I know enough about the Bible to know that these claims about the Quran being uniquely violent are overblown. I used to teach a university course on terrorism and I know a lot about this problem. I’ve studied these issues for a very long time. And, it’s not accurate for people to claim that the Quran is somehow more extreme and violent than the Bible. One of the difficulties is that most people are not even aware of these portions of the Bible. When I started working on this subject and began writing about it, the general reaction I got was that people wanted to deny that these biblical texts even existed.
Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses is available now through Amazon.

JAMES MARTIN, SJ: BETWEEN HEAVEN AND MIRTH

CLICK THE BOOK COVER TO VISIT AMAZON.You’ll enjoy our entire 2011 interview with Jesuit Father James Martin, the popular author or editor of more a dozen books. In that Q and A, Martin tells about the inspiration for this unusual book on holy humor: I traveled a lot around the country, talking to groups about my earlier book, My Life with the Saints. I discovered that what people most wanted to hear were stories about the ways saints led joyful lives. They also were very interested in saints’ senses of humor and jokes they made—how the saints praised laugher. I realized that we are all facing two big problems. First, most Christian groups are rather in the dark about this aspect of the lives of saints. But, second and much more of problem: The idea of being joyful in church is a foreign idea to most Christians! It was almost as though I needed to give them permission to enjoy a good joke with the saints, to show their sense of humor and to laugh out loud in church. If you doubt that this is a problem, just take a look at the artwork in most churches. There are far too many sad and tortured-looking saints. Some of these saints had such a sweet nature and enjoyed a good laugh at the humor of life, yet we have captured them forever in images that glower at us.
Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life is available now through Amazon.

IF YOU ENJOY THESE RECOMMENDATIONS, CHECK OUT OUR ReadTheSpirit BOOKSTORE.

David Frenette on The Path of Centering Prayer

September 27, 2012 by

In Part 1 of our series this week, we introduce two authors who are breaking Christian boundaries and are inviting men and women to find the deep riches in the Christian tradition. In Part 2, we interview Chris Haw, who talks about his odyssey from the Willow Creek evangelical megachurch to a Catholic parish in a poor neighborhood. Today, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with David Frenette in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH DAVID FRENETTE ON
THE PATH OF CENTERING PRAYER

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.DAVID CRUMM: Let’s start by describing the history of “centering prayer.” Readers probably know that it’s an ancient form of contemplative prayer—something associated with monasteries. But, there’s a very important part of this history we should mention: In the 1970s, three Trappist monks decided to teach these traditions to modern people in practical ways. They were Father Thomas Keating—your mentor who writes an introduction to your new book—plus Father William Meninger and Father M. Basil Pennington. So, tell us how you connected with these teachings. I know that you were raised in a family with no real religious practices. Then, you studied Eastern religions for quite a while. You’re trained in psychology. Tell us more.

DAVID FRENETTE: I first met Father Thomas Keating in 1982. At that point, I had become a Christian, and from earlier studies I already knew a lot about Buddhist and Hindu and Sufi practices of meditation. So, when I met Father Keating—here I was listening to a talk from a Christian master in this kind of meditation. I felt an immediate connection with him as a teacher and as a spiritual mentor.

Then, I exchanged a letter or two with Father Keating. I was wondering about becoming a monk but I wasn’t feeling called to a permanent monastic cloister. I got this card back from him that said, “Dear David: I understand what you’re talking about.” That line struck my heart. I felt even more of a connection. Here was someone who understood the journey I was on. I went to another workshop of his and then on a retreat that he gave and that retreat was really the beginning of my own more formal public ministry in centering prayer.

I’m trained as a therapist particularly in the transpersonal field of psychology. It’s been around for some time now as a school within psychology. I’ve worked as a psychotherapist in the past, but these days I’m primarily working as a spiritual director and a teacher.

CRUMM: If readers turn to the opening pages of your book (see Part 1 of our series), they will find a short excerpt of Father Keating’s own words that help you to complete this mini-history. Clearly, Keating seems to be anointing you as someone he hopes will keep the centering prayer movement going. He even describes your own work as the next wave of “contemplative research and development.” So, how do you describe to newcomers the range of this practice? In your book, you suggest it could run all the way from the Quakers’ meditative silence to more Eastern practices of meditating with a focus on one’s breathing, or on a single word that is repeated.

FRENETTE: The instructions and the contemplative attitudes I describe in this book are taken from small-group teaching and retreats on what we call “centering prayer.” In our practices, we do encourage people to choose sacred symbols or sacred words to use in this form of prayer. So people may find connections with practices in a number of traditions, but what I am describing in this book come from the centering prayer communities where I have worked. I lived for 10 years in a centering-prayer retreat center.

DAVID FRENETTE: Experiences that go beyond words

David Frenette (left) with Father Thomas KeatingCRUMM: Given your years of living, as a lay person, in a centering-prayer community, you know that this practice normally is taught in person. It’s taught in a retreat or it’s developed one-on-one with a spiritual director. Are people really going to pick up that much from reading about it in a book?

FRENETTE: This is a good question. This book really comes out of the deepening needs of our communities. How do we help more people to learn about these practices? You’re right that the heart of the Christian contemplative life is one that always has been awakened and transmitted in settings with other people. This goes all the way back to the ancient Desert Fathers, where we find the first recorded teachings on how to live the contemplative life. Those teachings arose in small communities and often between an elder—a father or a mother—and a student. Trying to share more widely these kinds of personal encounters, Thomas Merton and Thomas Keating both used books to convey these ideas. Merton’s books are a good example of written words that help to form and shape something that goes beyond the words for readers. (chuckles) But, you’re right! Any book on contemplation is really in the service of something that cannot be articulated in words.

DAVID FRENETTE: Turn 180 degrees. Start with ‘Amen.’

CRUMM: In your instructions for prayer, you deliberately reshape our use of words—drawing from ancient, worldwide traditions of using words as doorways to deep medtiation. I encourage people to read the whole book to understand the full scope of this. But let’s give just one example. You flip around the almost-ignored last word in most prayers, “Amen,” and turn it 180 degrees to begin a new form of prayer.

FRENETTE: “Amen” is the word that ends most Christian prayers. It’s the end of the Our Father. But, “Amen” also is a disposition that goes to the heart of contemplative prayer. The word means “so be it” or “let it be.” In contemplative prayer that’s an important truth. We don’t have to go out and search. God is there already. We are opening ourselves up to God and receiving God. So, at one point in the book, I write about that contemplative attitude of “Amen” as a way to show that even the word that ends traditional Christian prayers is actually an opening to deeper meditation. I’m trying to show people that we’re really talking about an orientation of prayer that stems from what we already experience in traditional prayer.

CRUMM: This is important. Centering prayer isn’t taking people away from orthodox Christianity. I know that some strict evangelicals are suspicious of this form of prayer. But, the truth is: This form of prayer arises right out of the New Testament teachings of Jesus.

FRENETTE: That’s right. Contemplative prayer and the whole tradition of Christian meditation goes back to the teachings of Jesus in Matthew Chapter 6 where Jesus is asked how to pray. He says to start by going into your inner room, closing the door and praying in secret. Then, Jesus tells us, our Father who sees in secret will reward you. Jesus goes further to instruct the prayer we call the Our Father, which is a prayer about daily life—forgiveness and relationships, temptation and difficulties with other people.

DAVID FRENETTE: From an inner room—into the world

CRUMM: One of the myths about contemplative prayer is that it carries people away from daily life. It’s a way of fleeing from the needs of our families, our communities, our world. While there are some famous locked-away communities of contemplatives, the movement you’re describing in your book always takes us back out into the world, right?

FRENETTE: The words of the Our Father focus on very practical things—like our daily bread. Yes, you can see this in the sequence Jesus presents to his followers in Matthew. He doesn’t instruct the Our Father first. He says, first: Go to your inner room and pray in secret. That passage is one of the great sources in the gospels for contemplative prayers.

For most people the trajectory of Christian contemplation is to develop a daily practice, supplemented by going on retreat once in a while, then the contemplative practice is expressed through the commitments we make in daily life. Jesus teaches this in that same chapter, Matthew 6. Jesus says that giving in compassionate ways to people in need should be done in secret—so your left hand doesn’t know what your right hand is doing. He’s saying that we shouldn’t do this driven by a hidden agenda. Jesus is teaching us to cultivate a contemplative form of prayer, then have it expressed in life through service in practical ways as a natural expression of daily living.

DAVID FRENETTE: Discovering that we are home, already

CRUMM: As I was reading your book, I kept thinking of the writings of Frederick Buechner, one of my own life-long inspirations. Among my favorite Buechner books is The Longing for Home: Reflections at Midlife. What you describe in this whole practice of contemplative prayer feels like what Buechner tries to describe as a longing for home. Is that a fair connection to make?

FRENETTE: Coming home or realizing that we are home—that’s a wonderful image that lies at the heart of the contemplative life. Unfortunately, we seem to be alienated from our true home in God—our true home in the deepest sense of who we are as men and women created in the image of God. We are distracted in so many ways in our daily lives. These days, there is so much technology stimulating us, drawing our attention. Yet, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves—that’s also one of the great teachings of the contemplative life.

We don’t have to search for God—rather, we allow ourselves to be loved by God. When we quietly sit and pray at the start of the day, even for 20 minutes, we are brought into an awareness of the divine presence. As we cultivate this, we remain aware of this presence throughout our day. We discover that we don’t have to be in a monastery or a church to be at home with God. We can be at home with God while driving a car, working at a desk or doing dishes in the evening. What we are talking about is the awareness that: Wherever we are, home is possible.

CRUMM: So, last question: Is this movement of prayer growing? Or fading?

FRENETTE: I see Christian forms of contemplative prayer and meditation moving in waves. The explosion of interest we saw in the 1970s settled in the 1980s and ‘90s. Now, I think it’s deepening further. Meditation practices from Asian traditions are going deeper now. Today, people talk about the development of a uniquely Western or even a specifically American form of Buddhism. Reaching that point shows real spiritual depth in these movements.

For American Christians, the first wave of contemplative prayer came in the 1950s and ‘60s with writers like Thomas Merton. Then in the ‘70s and ‘80s there were those Trappist monks led by Thomas Keating offering practices like centering prayer to people outside monastic cloisters. Then, in the current generation I think the wave is more widespread, moving in more subtle ways that may be more difficult to see as easily. But, people are developing more teachings. New small groups are forming in many places. Now, we’ve reached a point where contemplative prayer practices are available in many different Christian denominations—and even to people who start this practice saying that they’re from no specific religious tradition. More and more people are recognizing that God is working in their lives and they want to actively cooperate with that through centering prayer and practice. I hope that this book helps to spread that good news.

Care to jump back and read Part 1? It’s a story that introduces Chris Haw and David Frenette as two important barrier breakers in Christianity. In Part 2, we talk with Chris Haw.

Want the book? You can order The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God—from Amazon.

Care to learn more about Centering Prayer? In 2009, ReadTheSpirit interviewed Father Thomas Keating about his decades of teaching contemplative, centering prayer.

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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Chris Haw tells his story From Willow Creek to …

September 26, 2012 by

Chris Haw talks with a crowd while barnstorming the country with Shane Claiborne in the Jesus for President tour.In Part 1 this week, we introduced two emerging authors who are breaking down Christian boundaries—not to discard Christian traditions but to clear the way for men and women to find the true riches that often are hidden in that worldwide community. Later this week, we will publish an interview with David Frenette on centering prayer. Today, ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm talks with Chris Haw in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH CHRIS HAW ON HIS BOOK
FROM WILLOW CREEK TO SACRED HEART

DAVID: In 200 pages, you take us with you on your odyssey from Willow Creek—a famous evangelical megachurch—to the poor neighborhood where you now live and worship as a Catholic. It’s an inspiring and challenging personal story. You admit at the end of your book, “Writing this book has changed me.” So, the opening question is: How did you wind up at Willow Creek in the first place?

CHRIS: I was born in Dayton, Ohio. Mother was Catholic and Dad was of the Protestant variety of people who kind of vanished from the church. He didn’t really attend at all. So, by default, I was baptized Catholic and ended up going to Mass. When I hit my teens, my mother said the youth group at our Catholic church was virtually nothing. She said, “I want my child to have some youthful interaction with the faith.” She started looking around.

DAVID: So, you’re not a born-and-raised Protestant becoming a Catholic. You were raised by an actively Catholic mother and now you’re returning to that faith, right?

CHRIS: Yes, my mother was active in the church. She taught CCD classes for the young kids at our Catholic church, but ultimate she saw the Catholic programs for youth as flat. By the time I was a teenager, we had moved to the Chicago area and she saw that Willow Creek was the exact opposite of what she had seen. In contrast to the chronic problems with young people not showing up for things at a Catholic church, Willow Creek was almost over hyped, over excited and the problem was too many people showing up for things. So my parents initially took me to Willow Creek.

DAVID: Was it an immediate success from your point of view?

CHRIS: No, it took a while for the experience to grow on me. I was more interested in playing in a punk rock band as a teenager. It took me a while to warm up to Willow Creek. My interest in playing guitar in a punk band turned to playing music in worship services. I got very active in Willow Creek’s music; I was active in leading small groups. I got involved in stuff like taking sandwiches and blankets to people who needed them. I got very involved in serving the church and serving the community.

CHRIS HAW: That Kind of Emotion Wasn’t Traditional

Click the book cover to visit its Amazon page.DAVID: I would say that you almost bend over backwards in this book to praise Willow Creek for the good ways it shaped your life. But you’ve also got a very strong critique of that church, which is one of the best-known of the big seeker churches in this country. One of those strong criticisms is that Willow Creek puts too much emphasis on getting people emotionally excited.

CHRIS: One of the deeper things I began to question about the general form of worship at Willow Creek is that it puts a big emphasis on personal sincerity. You’re supposed to have Jesus as your personal savior in an emotional way. They want you to have this breakthrough Christian moment of emotion and sincere connection with Jesus. All of that hand raising and closing of eyes that I did as a worship leader at Willow Creek—I realize that isn’t valued at all in traditional Christian liturgy.

DAVID: Today, you’ve come to realize that the ocean of Christianity is a whole lot bigger than you once thought. What’s more, you describe in the book how you’ve come to realize that Willow Creek isn’t as neutral as it may seem.

CHRIS: I’m now encouraging people to learn more about Christian history and traditions. When we do, we question that Willow Creek could be “nondenominational.” I have come to realize there is no such thing as nondenominationalism, no matter what Willow Creek and others may claim. Willow Creek reaches out to people who are sick of the traditions and hierarchies that they have seen around them. But it’s a mistake to think that we can escape into some sort of neutral Christian philosophy. Willow Creek claims that’s what they’re giving people: a nondenominational Christianity. But it’s really evangelical Protestant Christianity posing as neutrality.

DAVID: A fascinating middle portion of your book revolves around the big differences in these religious traditions. For example, as you write about the Catholic Church, you push readers toward new kinds of urban reflections on the Mass. You see it as a sacrament of hope in tragically violent corners of the world—and some of your meditations on the Mass, in this book, are pretty edgy and inspiring. So, there’s a lot to spark individual thinking in this book—and spirited discussion in small groups, too.

But let’s continue talking about this question of emotion in worship—one distinctive part of your story.

CHRIS HAW: Relaxing and letting liturgy shape us

CHRIS: Comparing worship at Willow Creek with the Mass, it’s almost like the emotion flows in entirely opposite directions in the two experiences. In the Mass, it doesn’t come from inside us and flow outward. It comes from outward and flows inward. It was a breath of fresh air to feel that I didn’t need to express this outward emotional experience in worship every week. As a Catholic, worship now becomes more about relaxing and letting the liturgy shape me.

DAVID: That’s an insight most Americans never get, because most of us remain in our religious camps. We don’t tend to cross the Protestant-Catholic barrier in huge numbers. So, talk more about that.

CHRIS: Take the practice of rebaptizing people—as if it didn’t work the first time you were baptized somewhere else, so you’d better get baptized again. This gets to be ridiculous. People think they are taking charge of their own faith, so they start to think that they should get baptized about every five minutes. The idea behind that is that we’re trying to follow Jesus and trying to take charge of our faith. But, this winds up putting people in an antagonistic relationship with older folks and older traditions and the older church. It’s like we’re thinking of those things as crusty old traditions. What I want to do now is find the best in the traditions and become part of the ongoing refurbishing and renewing of those traditions.

CHRIS HAW: Finding hope even in a dysfunctional church

DAVID: I won’t ask you about individual issues in the Catholic church that give you pause, right now. You write about some in your book. But we should be clear that you’re certainly not saying the Catholic Church is the best church on the planet, right?

CHRIS: When I say that I’m a Catholic now, I don’t know how that could ever mean that I’m choosing the “best” church. The Catholic church is really a terribly dysfunctional church and there are crappy things about it, but it is a broad and numerous community around the world. Catholics have a lot of opportunities to express themselves personally while also being Catholic. For example, if I wanted to be more Pentecostal in my worship, the Catholic Church is not opposed to that. If I want to have prayer nights or Bible studies or other forms of worship, I can find them in the Catholic Church. But also, on Sundays, I join to the larger body through the Eucharist. We are joined through the sacraments as Catholics, but that doesn’t cut off a lot of different emphases and expressions of the faith we can explore, as well.

CHRIS HAW: Coming to the Catholic Church is like Yellowstone

DAVID: That’s an insight I’ve heard from Catholics around the world over many years. I remember visiting Singapore a few years ago and, even though Singapore is infamous as a strict police state, the religious life was vibrant. The liveliest place I found was a huge Catholic community of young people. I’m a veteran religion writer and I was surprised to see that!

CHRIS: I often think of a national park when I think of Catholicism. It’s enormous and wide. This church isn’t just one river or one mountain or one sacred place. It takes you a long time to even imagine the lay of the land in the church around the world. Coming into the Catholic Church is like coming into Yellowstone. It’s that huge and diverse. It’s not one thing; it’s many things around the world tied together by a certain mode of connection in the sacraments.

CHRIS HAW: Turning away form the Protestant-Catholic feud

DAVID: Beyond finding connections among Catholics, you really want to tear down the barriers between Protestants and Catholics. Am I understanding that correctly?

CHRIS: When we identify ourselves as Protestants, we’re identifying with this movement that historically said: We are protesting what the Catholics are doing until they change X, Y or Z. Of course, I never thought much about that history—until I began to spend time with Catholics. Then, I realized that I actually carried a lot of this anti-ness within me. Finally, I came to realize: I don’t believe in this Protestant-Catholic feud anymore.

DAVID: I always ask prophetic writers to close with a glimpse of the future. If what you’re writing makes sense, then what does your personal odyssey say about the horizon for Christianity?

CHRIS: I think we are going to see more people wanting a much deeper path of engagement. I don’t know whether everybody is going to follow suit with me—but in this book I’m telling the story of the path I followed. It’s what I needed. I’ve told the story honestly. Others may follow.

Care to jump back and read Part 1? It’s a story that introduces Chris Haw and David Frenette as barrier breakers in Christianity. Or go on to Part 3, our interview with David Frenette.

Want the book? You can order a copy of From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart: Rekindling My Love for Catholicism from Amazon.

Care to learn more about the Jesus for President tour and the related book-video set that’s great for groups? Here’s our earlier interview with Shane Claiborne.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
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Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Barrier Breakers: Chris Haw and David Frenette

September 23, 2012 by

Click the cover to visit this book’s Amazon page.This week, ReadTheSpirit welcomes two Christian activists who are breaking down the high barriers that separate people into Christian camps—or that shove people away from Christianity entirely. Their ability to open new portals into Christianity’s spiritual riches comes, in part, because both writers have worked as collaborators of other prophetic figures.

Chris Haw is most famous as Shane Claiborne’s sidekick in their barnstorming Jesus for President tours that crisscrossed America. David Frenette is best known as a younger colleague of Father Thomas Keating, who at age 89 is widely celebrated as a father of modern centering prayer. Neither Haw nor Frenette are household names—yet. But they confidently stand shoulder to shoulder with their more famous mentors.

As these two authors emerge in their own right, both are saying: It’s time to topple the barriers that separate people. The Christian tradition is so deep and vibrant that we need to encourage people to reach freely for the best of the tradition’s spiritual wisdom.

Chris Haw once was associated with America’s most famous seeker-oriented megachurch: Willow Creek, often described as “nondenominational.” In From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart: Rekindling My Love for Catholicism, Chris tells how he decided to leave Willow Creek and become a Roman Catholic.

David Frenette was raised without any religious background and found his way, as a young man, in Hinduism and Buddhism. Now an active layperson in the Episcopal Church, Frenette is devoting his life to bringing the centering prayer practices long associated with Catholic monks like Keating to a far wider audience. In The Path of Centering Prayer: Deepening Your Experience of God, he’s not trying to convert anyone to Catholicism, nor does he teach that the deepest forms of prayer are only available to monks or to the ordained. These gifts of prayer are available to everyone, he says. And, in his books, he shows you how to get started—or to deepen your practice, if you are a veteran.

CHRIS HAW: ‘I carried a lot of anti-ness within me.’

Chris Haw begins by admitting in our ReadTheSpirit interview (and in his new book) that he has been guilty of manning the old barricades. In our interview, Chris says in part:

“When we identify ourselves as Protestants, we’re identifying with this movement that historically said: We are protesting what the Catholics are doing until they change X, Y or Z. Of course, I never thought much about that history until I began to spend time with Catholics. Then, I realized that I actually carried a lot of this anti-ness within me. Finally, I came to realize: I don’t believe in this Protestant-Catholic feud anymore.”

Chris is remarkably gracious in describing the many benefits of his years at Willow Creek, but now he clearly is rejecting Willow Creek’s approach to Christianity. In his new book, Chris argues that people who come to Willow Creek are mistaken in claiming that it is a nondenominational church. Here is how he puts it at one point in our interview:

“I have come to realize there is no such thing as nondenominationalism, no matter what Willow Creek and others may claim. Willow Creek reaches out to people who are sick of the traditions and hierarchies that they have seen around them. But it’s a mistake to think that we can escape into some sort of neutral Christian philosophy. Willow Creek claims that’s what they’re giving people: a nondenominational Christianity. But it’s really evangelical Protestant Christianity posing as neutrality.”

CHRIS HAW: Relaxing into worship

Many newly converted Catholics—especially evangelicals who migrate all the way to Roman Catholicism—talk like Chris Haw about the wonderment they enjoy in “coming home” to a church with traditions that reach back 2,000 years. Chris talks about that, too, but there is one striking difference in what Chris describes.

Chris says he loves the experience of relaxing into the liturgies of the Catholic church. That may sound like a strange word to use in praising the Mass and other Catholic liturgies. In fact, many Catholics—especially inactive Catholics—complain about the relative passivity of Catholic worship, when compared with evangelical and Pentecostal worship.

But, in his odyssey away from Willow Creek to Catholicism, Chris Haw says the Catholic Church helped him to realize that he didn’t have to turn every worship service into an emotional performance. In our interview, Chris says: “It was a breath of fresh air to feel that I didn’t need to express this outward emotional experience in worship every week. As a Catholic, worship now becomes more about relaxing and letting the liturgy shape me.”

Chris also has rejected the seeker-church willingness to rebaptize Christians—a practice also rejected by most mainline Christian traditions. One baptism is enough, most Christian leaders in longstanding denominations agree. Seeker churches and some other evangelical and Pentecostal churches baptize again—in some cases again and again.

“This gets to be ridiculous. People think they are taking charge of their own faith, so they start to think that they should get baptized about every five minutes,” Chris says in our interview. One baptism should be enough, he now argues. That reflects the real and timeless power within some of the long-standing traditions in mainline Christianity, he says.

DAVID FRENETTE: ‘Contemplative Research and Development’

Click the book cover to visit the Amazon page.David Frenette’s message echoes Chris Haw in several ways. On the surface, their new books are quite different. Chris Haw’s new book is about his personal journey from one denomination to another. David Frenette’s book barely mentions specific denominations. Instead, he has written a detailed guidebook to leaping into the deep end of centering prayer.

But, David’s book echoes Chris’s realization that Christian wisdom is more about “relaxing” than strenuously trying to promote the faith in outwardly emotional ways. In fact, David describes the life-changing practice of centering prayer as becoming still enough and aware enough to recognize that one does not need to circle the globe to find God. And, lest you wonder whether David Frenette is charting his own new course away from Keating’s core message, the book contains a Foreword from Keating that fully endorses what Frenette is writing. Keating’s Foreword says, in part:

“This book is an example of how God continues to enlighten practitioners of centering prayer, opening up new depths of meaning and new aspects of the practice that encourage long-time practitioners to penetrate the mystery of God’s infinite love and ultimately to be transformed into it. Although he is an accomplished teacher, advisor and spiritual director, this book shows that David’s primary spiritual gift is in bringing forth new dimensions and nuances of contemplative practice that are solidly rooted in the revelation of Christ that all Christian practices point to and flow from. This is an extremely important endeavor, for a spiritual tradition stagnates unless it continues to breathe new life into itself with practices and resources appropriate for longtime practitioners, new generations of seekers, and changing social conditions. David’s long experience … trained him for this work, which might be called ‘contemplative research and development.”

DAVID FRENETTE: Rediscovering ‘our true home in God’

While Chris Haw and David Frenette both are important barrier breakers—ultimately, they describe a yearning for home. In David’s interview with ReadTheSpirit, he talks about how centering prayer really is a process of settling fully into an expanded awareness that we already are at home with God. In other words: God is not a distant, hidden treasure—past barricades we must breach in an arduous quest. Nor can anyone control or own or rope off God from others. We always are at home with God—if we only have our senses and spirit attuned to realize this truth. In the interview, David puts it this way:

“Coming home or realizing that we are home—that’s a wonderful image that lies at the heart of the contemplative life. Unfortunately, we seem to be alienated from our true home in God—our true home in the deepest sense of who we are as men and women created in the image of God. We are distracted in so many ways in our daily lives. These days, there is so much technology stimulating us, drawing our attention. Yet, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves—that’s also one of the great teachings of the contemplative life.

We don’t have to search for God—rather, we allow ourselves to be loved by God. When we quietly sit and pray at the start of the day, even for 20 minutes, we are brought into an awareness of the divine presence. As we cultivate this, we remain aware of this presence throughout our day. We discover that we don’t have to be in a monastery or a church to be at home with God. We can be at home with God while driving a car, working at a desk or doing dishes in the evening. What we are talking about is the awareness that: Wherever we are, home is possible.”

Read our interviews:
First, with Chris Haw about his journey From Willow Creek to Sacred Heart.
Second, with David Frenette about The Path of Centering Prayer.

Here is our interview with Chris Haw.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Coach Joe Gibbs talks about ‘GamePlan for Life Bible’

August 24, 2012 by

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.In Part 1 of our coverage of Coach Joe Gibbs’ GamePlan for Life Bible, this week, we shared one of Joe Gibbs’ many inspirational stories included in his new devotional Bible. In that story, Joe writes about how he turned his life around at a low moment with help from the New Testament book of James.
TODAY, Joe Gibbs visits ReadTheSpirit to talk about his goals in this new inspirational Bible published this autumn by Zondervan. He talks with ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm in …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVEW
WITH COACH JOE GIBBS ON
HIS GAMEPLAN FOR LIFE BIBLE

DAVID: We all can’t win. At the Olympics, we heard from proud medalists who had prayed before competing, but I’m sure lots of the losers prayed, too. Our readers know you as the famous Coach Gibbs who won three national championships in two sports. Yet, you don’t win every time, either. So, how do you pray before a competition?

JOE: I pray to God to help me be my absolute best. When we pray before our races, I don’t ask God for a victory that day. I just ask God to help us be at our absolute best that day. Now, to be honest, that doesn’t mean if I was facing a big race or football game, at times I might have violated that rule. (laughing) But seriously, I pray for God to help me be at my best that day.

DAVID: You explain this point in your new Bible. You’re not promising that if people start praying and reading the Bible like you do it, they’ll suddenly win like you. In fact, you don’t always win. You’re brutally honest about some times you’ve gone backward. You argue that winning, in itself, can become an idol.

JOE: I’m speaking to myself when I write about that problem. It’s easy to make winning an idol. I came out of school wanting to play pro sports, and I wasn’t good enough. Then, I began coaching and throughout my whole life I’ve gotten excited by beating other folks in the events where we compete. I’ve been involved in two professional sports at the highest levels. I want to win.

When I talk with young people, they ask me: How can I become successful? They want to know: How can I win? How can I gain position? How can I make money? What I tell them is that they need to have the right priorities in life. This is where I’ve fallen down in my own life sometimes.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s most important to keep God first in my life and, second, to focus on the influence I’m having on others—my relationships with the people around me. Then, I put my occupation third in life and, if I do that, odds are that I will be successful in life. Sometimes, I have twisted those priorities around. The danger is that you can charge through life for 10 or 20 years, chasing success in the wrong ways and realize that you really haven’t achieved happiness. You might have missed out on your kids and grandkids. When I set down with my own boys to talk, I admit: I’ve made mistakes.

DAVID: The importance of family—that’s clearly a theme that comes through in your writing.

JOE: (laughing) Like they say, when I’m on my death bed, my last wish certainly won’t be that I wish I spent more time at work! As I look back, I do wish I had done some things differently in my life. I wish I had spent more time with family. That’s the kind of thing I’m writing about in these devotionals I am giving to people in the pages of this new Bible.

DAVID: Let’s be clear: The “Game Plan for Life” you’re talking about in the title of this new devotional Bible isn’t Joe Gibbs’ game plan. You admit that your own game plan often was flawed. The plan you’re trying to highlight for readers is the Bible itself.

JOE: I want to show people that there is an all-powerful God who left us a game plan here on earth and that’s the Bible. And it’s a relevant game plan for today. I tell people: Life is a game. You and I are players. God is our head coach. Would our all-powerful God leave us here without a game plan? I don’t think so. In preparing all of the material for this new Bible, we relied on a lot of research to find out the most important areas in life where Americans have questions. It’s not surprising that some of the topics that are very important to people are concerns about their health, about their family, about their finances, about where they’re going to spend eternity. We had Bible scholars write sections of this Bible, focused on God’s game plan.

DAVID: For example, there’s a full page in Deuteronomy that is headlined: “Moses—He Followed God’s Game Plan.” Then, there is a helpful index to reading Moses’ story, most of which is in Exodus and Numbers. Then, an “Official Player Stats” section gives a short run-down on Moses’ life like a mini-bio on a professional athlete in a program you might pick up at a stadium. There’s a short inspirational article from the Bible scholars talking about how Moses made some daring decisions in following God. And finally there is a prayer that includes: “Lord, give me the courage to pursue your big plans for me. Please stand by me just like you stood with Moses …”

JOE: We had Bible scholars to do that. Then, my story weaves through the book, too, in pages where I write honestly about how I’ve experienced God’s plan—and how I’ve sometimes veered away from it.

JOE GIBBS, PAYNE STEWART AND BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN

DAVID: You’re well aware of life’s tragedies as well as successes. For example, you knew Payne Stewart, a devout Christian and someone who prayed on a daily basis. Yet, in 1999, Stewart tragically died with others when a Learjet depressurized. So, we’re not talking about minor lapses in successful careers. Sometimes, despite prayer and a solid faith, life throws us tragedy.

JOE: People ask, “How can a loving God be part of some of the things we see on this earth?” But, we need to realize that God didn’t create the world the way it is today. God created a perfect world, then we chose to sin and sin entered the world. As a consequence, a lot of problems entered our world. God created the Garden of Eden, the perfect place to live. But God also loves us enough so that God didn’t force us to follow his principles. God gave us freedom of choice. That’s the basic question for us to this day. What do we choose?

God created us. God wants to have a relationship with us. God left us a way to play the game of life—a game plan that is right there waiting for us in God’s Word. It’s relevant to this day, even though it was written thousands of years ago.

People always ask me: “What changes I coaching?” I tell them: Everything changes in coaching all the time—except human nature. Human nature hasn’t changed in thousands of years.

Even if we follow God’s game plan, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make mistakes—and it doesn’t mean that bad things aren’t going to happen to us. But, in the end, we are far better in life if we’re on God’s team.

COACH JOE GIBBS: LENDING A HAND TO OTHERS IN NEED

DAVID: For all of your fame in football and in racing, I’ll bet most Americans aren’t aware of your major efforts to help those in need. One of our authors, Dr. Benjamin Pratt, lives in the D.C. area and told me that he respects your work especially with children in need. So, let’s talk about these efforts for a moment. Your game plan includes helping others. First, tell us about your work in prison ministry.

JOE: I got involved in going to prisons with Chuck Colson and that has had a big impact on my life. Prison visits continue to mean a lot to me. I have never been in a prison yet where anyone has been disrespectful to me or has laughed at what I was talking about. I find myself standing there, often, in front of hundreds of very focused people, listening to everything I’m saying. When I leave, I hear: “Hey, coach, thanks for coming.” We have the perfect message for anyone who is incarcerated: We share a God of second chances.

I mean that. When I go into a prison, now, in my 70s, I see so many people out there who are young and have 50 years, or more, left to live on this earth. I say to them honestly, “I wish I could change places with you.” They look at me like: What are you talking about!?! But I mean what I’m saying. I’m older and I have a lot less life ahead of me. I look at these people in prison and many of them have a long life where they could take God’s second chance, or in some cases it’s God’s third chance, or God’s fourth chance—and make a big difference.

Chuck Colson is a good example. He led one whole life where he climbed to the highest reaches of power, but he totally messed up that part of his life. He went to prison. He could have been done with life at that point. But he chose to live another kind of life and he made a big difference in the world. We serve a God of second chances.

DAVID: You’re not just visiting the prisoners—something we are told to do in the New Testament. You’re also concerned about the orphan or the at-risk young person, as well—another biblical mandate. You personally established a major center to help at-risk youth. You raised a lot of money and put substantial brick-and-mortar resources behind helping these kids. Tell us a little about that.

JOE: I first got involved with kids who were transitioning through the court system—kids who were reaching age 14 or 15 and had fallen way behind in education. Now, where is a young person in that situation going to find a second chance? That’s a very tough one. That’s the kind of program I’m involved in: It’s an educational program to take teenagers like this and help them get back on track in their education and we also teach them a godly approach to life. Youth for Tomorrow has been a big part of our lives. It’s been 27 years now; it was built strictly with private funds in Washington; and our program is ongoing.

COACH JOE GIBBS: ‘THE AVERAGE JOE’ MEETS JAMES

DAVID: You call yourself “the average Joe.”

JOE: That’s right. I’m the PE major, the average guy, the guy just trying to journey through life. When it comes to the real technical side of Bible study, I leave that to the scholars. They’re intellectuals who have spent their entire lives studying what God has to say in the details of scripture. I’m just the average person trying to follow God’s principles. I’ve learned a lot about those principles—and I’ve learned how I can get smacked around by life when I try to veer away from those principles.

DAVID: In Part 1 of our coverage, we will share your story about encountering the Book of James in an airport at a low point in your life. I think that story will connect with a lot of readers.

JOE: That was a critical time in my life. I was really struggling vocationally. I thought I was going to be a head coach and, instead, I was facing some severe disappointments in life. Anyone struggling with questions of vocation should look into James.

I reached a point where I was totally depressed, questioning God, sitting in an airport. I’m sure a lot of people have experienced something like that in their lives. Then, I realized that there was this Bible sitting near me in the airport. I turned to James, because I already had been looking into that book. A huge part of our life depends on how we make decisions. And James writes about that.

DAVID: You weren’t alone that day.

JOE: That’s right. I realized there was this guy sitting next to me. Either God orchestrated that whole setting or (laughing) maybe the other guy I met that day was an angel.

DAVID: Seriously. You’re not sure, right?

JOE: That’s right. I don’t know who that other man was in the airport, but I can tell you this: I know that God put that person there on that day. And, I know this, too: What happened that day in the airport was a huge milestone in my life. The Bible came alive in that experience.

That’s what I’m trying to tell people in these stories I have written. God always has an encouraging word for us—if we’re really diligent about studying God’s Word. After thousands of years, God still speaks to us all the way through scripture. God still has a plan for us.

Enjoy Part 1 of our coverage, which includes Joe Gibbs’ inspirational story from the new Bible about his experience with the New Testament book of James.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Benjamin Pratt: The Brass Communion Rail

July 15, 2012 by

Ale and evangelism!
For millions of Christians, they go together like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. After all, Lewis and Tolkien were ringleaders of the Inklings, who famously haunted the Eagle and Child (the pub in Oxford shown in today’s two photos) along with Charles Williams, Hugo Dyson and sometimes other writers and scholars. Eventually, the friends were gathering to read aloud and discuss their works most Mondays and Tuesdays in a room of the pub still known as the Rabbit Room.

Not long ago, we passed the 30th anniversary of Theology on Tap—the very popular American Catholic version of pairing pints with preaching. That particular American format has flowed back across the oceans East and West to a dozen other countries’ public houses. Countless Catholics have partaken since the early 1980s in conversations led by priests—as well as some of the church’s leading lights. The late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin enjoyed Theology on Tap. Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington D.C. since 2006, once showed up to try his first evening teaching at a pub and received a huge round of applause.
“That’s the warmest welcome I’ve ever received in a pub,” Wuerl told the patrons. Then he smiled, and added, “That’s the first welcome I’ve ever received in a pub!”

Dr. Benjamin Pratt, author of Guide for Caregivers and the James Bond Bible-study book called Ian Fleming’s Seven Deadlier Sins reports that he is not personally a regular at brass rails. However, he does occasionally enjoy a good pint, and he recognizes the long-standing tensions between secular and sacred communion rails in many communities around the world. For those bridging the gap in the rails, he offers this prose-poem—a prayerful meditation he invites you to reflect upon and share with friends.

He calls it simply:

The Brass Communion Rail

By the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Pratt

Ever present Lord,
I was sitting on a bar stool
At the local Sports Bar,
My feet on the brass rail,
Having a Guinness and a burger.
Keeping an eye on the game,
I opened my laptop,
Taking notes for an upcoming sermon.

Three young men approached—
Teased me about drinking black, bitter mud.
I said, “Guinness is Gaelic for ‘genius’!
I’m hoping to be one
Since I’m trying to write a sermon.”
We laughed.

They teased me some more:
“Your team’s losing Pastor!”

I loved those guys right away.

They kept me laughing and finally said,
“Maybe we’ll see you Sunday, Pastor!
Hope the Guinness works,
But if it doesn’t—
A fiver says your Heart and Faith will!”
They were off, their laughter ringing.

Back at my pint and portable,
Sipping and tapping notes,
I noticed a man a few stools over—arise.
He shuffled my way,
“Excuse me, did I hear those guys call you Pastor?”

“You did!”

“I’m surprised to meet a Pastor drinking in a Sports Bar,
But maybe things have changed!
I haven’t been in a church since …
Well, the truth is: I left! They made me so mad!
I couldn’t or wouldn’t ever live up to their standards of perfection.
Hypocrites! They didn’t live up to them either.
I knew what they did when they weren’t at church.”

“You still have a lot of sadness about that,” I said.

“I thought I was only angry, but—
Maybe I am sad about how it all worked out.”

“You wouldn’t have spoken to me if you were only angry.”

“Where’s your church, Pastor?”

“Lots of places. Sunday mornings on Elm Street.
More often in hospital rooms, funeral parlors, gardens, offices, the jail,
Or at this Brass Communion Rail.
Looks to me like you’ve already joined us.
Welcome!”

He sat again.
This time on the stool next to me.

My silent prayer:
Ever-present Lord,
Bless us to know that our
Brass Communion Rail
Is where we join You in tending bar,
Bringing grace to anyone in need.

Amen

CARE FOR MORE FROM BENJAMIN PRATT?

There are links to Dr. Pratt’s two books, above. If you’re looking for fresh ideas to use in your congregation, we can report: A growing number of congregations nationwide are forming small groups to discuss the spiritual support of America’s 65 million caregivers. Ben’s book is a great guide in that process. Plus, this autumn is the 50th anniversary of James Bond movies—so Ben’s Bond Bible study book is a timely choice for a fall series. This meditation, The Brass Communion Rail, is posted jointly into ReadTheSpirit and the website for Day1, the nationwide radio network. If you are active in your congregation, click on that Day1 link and bookmark Ben’s section of that website. Each month, Ben posts another resource you’ll enjoy—and want to share with friends. He welcomes you to share these words.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.