Why Worship Jesus? (part 2)

by Bonar Crump

Previously: part 1

As I ponder and discuss the tiny seed which seems to be taking root in my mind, that “Jesus worship” is a thing of our own creation, I am realizing vast possibilities which I’d never considered before. It seems that the wooden box I’ve carefully constructed over the past 3 decades which serves as a place to hold my faith is being shaken, stretched, and pulled apart at the joints. I wouldn’t say I love this box of mine, but I have invested a great deal of my life in the “perfecting” of my understanding of this belief system we call Christianity. If my box proves to be useless from this point forward then I know that I am better off. I know that a greater, more dynamic, incredibly more diverse understanding of God, faith, and love is to be cherished. However, this is my box…it’s been with me for a long time…I’m comfortable with this box…I never thought I’d outgrow it.

Think I’m sounding overly dramatic? Try this on for size: What if the “second coming of Christ” weren’t a time set apart in the future, but had already happened? What if Pentecost was the “second coming”? Sound crazy enough to weaken the corners of your faith box yet? Hear me out…

At Pentecost the disciples were “filled” with the Holy Spirit. Undeniably, Pentecost was a very specific moment in time that the closest followers of Jesus were inhabited by this “spirit of God” and became very different from that day forward. These men were reportedly transformed in an instant and collectively into a powerful group of Jesus freaks destined to launch the era of Christianity. Dare I say that this group of men “filled with the Spirit” represented the “second coming” of Christ? I just can’t understand why Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened (Matt 24:34).”

Jesus was the Son of God…we are all children of God…Holy Spirit of God fills His children…

It’s very non-linear. It’s very dynamic. It’s very “unboxable” at this level so don’t venture any further in the discussion unless you are confident enough in your own fundamental understanding of who you are as it relates to God. I don’t want to lead anyone astray or warp the truth or proclaim a new paradigm. I’m just trying to observe some of the hardwired belief systems I’ve been taught from a completely new perspective.

For instance, if you look at “second coming” from the perspective that I’ve touched on in the paragraph above, Revelations takes on an entirely different meaning. Is the prophecy of Revelations speaking of a time to come…or…have we been living in the time of Revelations for the past 2,000 years? I know it seems stupid at the moment, but think on it for a bit. What if one of the seals that were broken represented the Holocaust of WWII? All I’m saying is that I’m not scared to spin the kaleidoscope a bit and check out the different patterns being generated by the very same light source.

What I think I’d like to delve into in Part 3 of this topic is the dynamic ways we envision Satan and evil and how they contrast with the views most of us have of Jesus and righteousness. What I’ll argue is that at a deeply collective level we view Jesus as quite passive, weak, and solitary while we view Satan as very dynamic, prolific, virulent, and deeply influential. I think we’ve been duped by our conventional modes of language, icons, and culturally acceptable presentations of Christ within organized religion.

“Hi, my name is Bonar and I’m a heretic.”

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Why Worship Jesus?

by Bonar Crump

I’ve really been ruminating on something for a couple weeks now that is close to becoming an obsession. Plainly stated it is this: Where in scripture does Jesus direct us to worship Him?

I’ve often thought about why, in John 7, Jesus didn’t perform a miracle. He’s at the temple, rumors are swirling among the crowd about this man that’s been stirring up trouble amongst the religious folk, and, finaly, as Jesus gets up to teach, he addresses the folks about who he is and tries to put the rumors to rest. If he’s the Son of God then why doesn’t he call angels down to hoist him above the crowd to do his teachings? If Jesus is who he says he is then why not, with a ready crowd at hand, amaze them with a spectacular feat of supernatural activity to prove to these people and to generations to come that he is indeed the Messiah they’ve been looking for? I just don’t get it…I’ve always thought he missed his opportunity with that one. As Jesus’s publicist and PR director, I would have staged an elaborate affair in that moment complete with angels, trumpets, brilliant lighting, and possibly an earthquake thrown in for good measure. He blew it!

All my life as a protestant evangelical I’ve been guided to worship Jesus. I’ve sung songs about “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus…There’s just something about that name…” I’ve knelt at the foot of decorative crosses, both big and small, meant to represent the death of Christ for our sins. I’ve read books upon books about the best ways to honor Jesus and the sacrifices he made on our behalf. I’ve gone to foreign countries with the primary intent to introduce, clarify, and present Jesus to financially less fortunate people than myself. I’ve listened to pastors, teachers, laypeople, scholars, professors, and friends profess undying gratefulness to Jesus through prayer, fasting, and lives lived with a keen eye toward avoidance of sin and wrongful lifestyles. It all seems very reverent. It all seems very well-intentioned. It all seems quite holy.

Let me repeat my question I’m becoming obsessed with: Where in scripture does Jesus direct us to worship Him?

I can’t find it anywhere. I can find lots and lots of red letters directing us to live lives of love even towards our enemies, but I can’t find any red letters telling me I should worship Jesus. I can infer this meaning by connecting the dots but Jesus seems to have had a tendency to be quite direct about the simple ways in which we should function and facilitate our love for God and others…why not be direct, candid, and forthcoming about worshipping himself if that had been a primary concern for us?

What if the teachings of Jesus are more important than the person of Jesus? What if the images of Jesus, icons representing Jesus, and songs sung in praise of Jesus weren’t all that important? What if, instead, it’s the instructions of Jesus that are to be held aloft as the banner of our cause? What if our professed love, praise, and worship of Jesus were nothing more than the body paint of an Australian Aborigine…distinctive and undeniably denoting a “christian-like” person, but quite silly and useless if you don’t live in the Outback?

My theory is this: As we busy ourselves with all the ways that we can make ourselves holy, righteous, and blameless via the worship, reverence, and praise of the person of Jesus that in a very very very devious way we are ultimately blinded to the fact that we’re not living in the Outback. That we are made impotent by our overwhelming well-intentioned desire to honor the person we call Jesus…to know him better…to walk with him longer…to have a deeper more sophisticated relationship with him via workshops, prayer, and study.

I would love to hear some people’s take on this subject…

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How to Partner with God in His Work

by Donald Miller

I’ve heard plenty of Christians talking about partnering with God in His work. I think this is a great concept, but usually when that work is explained it’s incredibly limited. When people partner with God in his work, they’re often talking about building the church, and even then the church is so narrowly defined you’d think God’s work was exclusively about building small, academic institutions in which people study theories about God. I think God is truly working to build those small academic communities we commonly think of as church, but the whole church is much larger and less easily defined. God can see the church but we can only feel around in the dark and recognize it when we see a common Jesus in a neighbors heart.

That said, I think God is working on much, much more than building the church. If we look at the work God has done, we see God has made beauty, so I think creating beauty is Gods work. We see that God has created structure and order, so cultivating a place is God’s work, too. God created love, and seeks to protect love, so creating and protecting love is Gods work and we can partner with him in that work. God created brains that can solve problems, so science is God’s work as well as theater and literature.

When we narrowly define God’s work, we end up channeling people into working for the church, often motivated by guilt, rather than partnering with God in whatever skill or passion he has given to them as a gift, as a way of bonding with him.

So, do you really believe planting a garden is a way to partner with God in his work? Do you believe writing and performing a play is partnering with God in his work? What about studying micro-organisms? What about baking a cake? It’s all God’s world, and in everything we do we can partner with him in his love for it. How do you partner with God?

[Full Article]

Throwing Hammers at Glass Churches

by Jeremy Myers
via Till He Comes

Bonar Crump is an aggressive blogger, and his book, Throwing Hammers – The Separation of Church and Self follows the same approach. It is edgy, squirm-in-your-seat, good writing.

He certainly has something to say, even if you don’t like how he says it. Frankly, however, I think he writes what a lot of people think and feel, but do not have the courage to say. Well, Crump says it. And with gusto.

Like what? Well, cover the eyes and ears of your children, here are some examples:

The deceptions of the Christian community never cease to amaze me. Incantations, rituals, robes, hymns, sacred readings, holy relics, holy writings, holy gestures, holy shit…” (p. 17).

We’ve created a system of healing which is completely off-limits to anyone that might be bleeding, infectious, or near death. We’ve segregated ourselves from those we can help the most. We’ve erected so many barriers between our hospitals and the outside world that we have become irrelevant! WTF indeed… (p. 35).

Why do we tolerate pricks within our churches? I’m not talking about among the folks being ministered to—I’m talking about within the ministerial branches of our churches (i.e. pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, nursery workers, etc.). …If you area prick and you are making life difficult for the rest of us then you have to pack your shit and go! We’ve got enough problems around here meeting people’s needs and teaching them how to love their neighbors without you setting such a piss poor example! (p. 59).

I imagine that reading such statements, many Church-Going Christians would say “This is not proper language for a Christian,” to which I imagine Bonar Crump would respond, “Damn right! That’s the entire point!”

And I’ll be honest. He does have a point, especially when he provides solutions for how we can stop being pricks. Check these quotes out:

The path starts with being lovable. (I’m not talking about being cute and cuddly, always smiling, and ready to hug anyone that walks in the door.) …It means to be gracious, compassionate, respectful, tolerant, humble, attentive, patient, kind, gentle, joyous, peaceful, and reverent—it means to be a servant. If you don’t start at this point then everything else is worthless! It’s really not that difficult to gauge—if people around you don’t enjoy your company, are forced to tolerate your speech and/or behavior, and really don’t want to invite you to the party then you being very lovable (p. 58).

Jesus, of course, is the perfect example:

He’s outside sitting on the curb consoling one of the bus drivers who just found out that his wife of 35 years has cancer. He’s across the street on the corner giving a homeless guy a dollar. He’s up the street trying to break up a fight between two guys arguing over a parking space.

He’s engaging in people’s lives—holding the hand of a woman who lost her baby during delivery—buying a beer for the guy at the end of the bar who just got laid off—counseling the couple who are standing on the brink of divorce—consoling the “life partner” of a man who just died of AIDS—trying to talk a kid out of taking his own life (p. 69).

In the end, I believe Crump presents a great vision for “the church” which appears to be much closer to the image of Jesus in Scripture than most of what I see elsewhere today.

Here is how he describes the ideal church:

There wouldn’t be any robes or hymnals or pews. The focus would be on providing the local community with a “rally point” for health and human services. …Our church would be run by social workers, nurses, teachers, program coordinators, and public health professionals. …Every day of the week our building would be used for some sort of event which would assist our community (p. 79).

He goes on to describe this is more detail, but to get it, you will have to read the book for yourself.

Racial Segregation in the South / Spiritual Segregation in Christianity

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

What many of us do not realize is that the current state of Christian Religion in the United States is quite spectacularly parallel to the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-1900's. The question that must be answered is whether or not spiritual segregation can continue or if one must prevail over the other.