Observations from an Evangelical Insider turned Oustider, Or, I Was A College Worship Leader

I was considering calling this post, “So You Want To Be Misty Edwards.” I say this because I recently discovered that my favorite worship song this past year – and actually the only worship I listened to all year – “You Won’t Relent,” is written by Misty Edwards, a high-profile worship leader, worship music singer on many different projects (I think a lot of Vineyard’s stuff), and key IHOP-er. (That’s International House of Prayer, not pancakes, a charismatic-ish organization that has provided 24/7 prayer and worship every single day since 1999.) I was sort of shocked to discover that she had written this song, because – yes – I didn’t know that women could or did write worship music, and had long gotten the impression that contemporary worship music had always been something of a boy’s club.

I wondered if it was too late to grow up to be Misty Edwards, and was surprised that I even wanted to be Misty Edwards. I say this, by the way, not from the pew, but from behind the microphone on Sunday mornings and afternoons, during the seven years in high school and college I served as a vocalist on the worship team both for the church services at two major evangelical churches in California college towns (UCC in Davis and First Pres in Berkeley) and various youth and college fellowships throughout the week. (Going only by the latter, I’ve sung in worship teams in large group settings for a total of ten years.) Though, I couldn’t say something from behind a pew lately. I haven’t attended church regularly since May 2010, despite the fact that weirdly I still appear in photos on several church websites, including one I only attended for two months in 2011, though I suppose it’s not that weird, as since the age of probably fourteen, I’ve never been involved in less than three ministries at any given time. That’s another thing I could have called this post, “How I Became A Twenty-Something Statistic of Evangelical Disaffection.” Believe me, I was as surprised as you might be.

Local Church Unity

By Lue-Yee Tsang

Even under Congregationalist church polity (a thing I see as fundamentally flawed), there was not in former times such splintering of the Church, and such hyperindividualist idolatry, as there is today. Now, especially without denominational ties, each congregation in a given area tends to itself without much heed for the others. As congregations tend also to be segregated along lines of cultural similarity – a largely Charismatic-pietistic Korean congregation versus a Presbyterian white congregation – this insulation extends the walls that divide the rest of society.

The Wedding Underdress

BY LAURA FERRIS

A friend once told me the most romantic gift a boy could give her would be the perfect engagement ring. Considering the limited scope of what an engagement ring is, her wish reveals to me the inherent quixoticism of modern marriage: how to uniquely be like everyone else. The highest expression of devotion a man can make to a woman, taking her to wife, is also the most intense expression of conformity to a certain kind of social ideal that makes her as herself deeply irrelevant: the woman you love will take your name and lose her own. Considering the historical reality of what this ideal is, it’s no wonder that so many men are intensely nervous about getting married, and so many women share and reinforce a collective obsession with the idea that legitimizes the compulsive mistreatment of themselves, their lovers, their families, and their friends. This is a disingenuous distraction from the traumatic reality of how men and women have treated each other throughout time, giving up and taking control of choices that can only belong to another person.

Churches in Public Schools and the Robot Apocalypse

BY LAURA FERRIS

Last week, I saw a link on my Facebook newsfeed to a Wall Street Journal article about a recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that would ban churches in New York City from using space on Sundays to hold services, going counter to a Supreme Court decision in 2001 (Good News Club v. Milford Central School) that opened the way for something like 60 schools in New York City, at least, it seems to become houses of Christian worship on Sundays. They did so because they thought churches holding services at public schools was a credible threat to the separation of church and state, and that there was a difference banning an activity from a public space that contained the expression of a certain viewpoint and banning the viewpoint itself, and that the latter, not the former, was something called “viewpoint discrimination.” At first, I thought this ruling was mean.

What Is a Statement of Doctrine?

BY JOHN MONTAGUE

I wrote an article for the Spring 2010 print issue explaining why To An Unknown God does not have a statement of doctrine. Darren Hsiung has challenged some of the arguments I made in that article, helping me clarify a few thoughts. The exchange also makes me believe it would be worthwhile to publish a post explaining my understanding of what a statement of doctrine is and what its proponents hope it will accomplish. (Again, within the context of explaining why To An Unknown God does not have a statement of doctrine.)

Heaven Can Wait: Reading Love Wins

BY LAURA FERRIS

My Love Wins reading experience began in the checkout line at the student store. The girl behind the counter asked me, as she rang up my copy, “What’s this book about?” I registered that she had a cross around her neck.

“Well,” I said, “they say the author is going to argue that no one goes to hell at the end. It’s actually pretty controversial, because Rob Bell is an evangelical pastor, not just a liberal or something.”

“Just looking at the back,” she said, her voice rising somewhat, “I mean, I want to know more.” The back of the book has a picture of Rob Bell in profile, wearing a black suit vest and a white dress shirt, with unbuttoned sleeves scrunched up and the collar undone. His head is shaved, his glasses are those same heavy black frames as usual, he is wearing what – at my church in Berkeley – the pastoral staff calls “the Britney mic,” and he is under a spotlight. The rest of the cover fades into black. Beside the figure of Rob Bell is the following text: “‘God loves us./ God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part./ Unless you do not respond the right way./ Then God will torture you forever./ In hell.’/ Huh?”

“Oh, yeah, well, it’s pretty talked about,” I responded.

“Okay,” she said, “if you have a problem with your purchase, you have thirty days to return it. And —” she hesitated, “if I’m on shift when you come in, could you tell me more about the book?”

“Okay,” I said.

Sinferiority Complex

BY BRITTANY TYLER

Left to my own psychological devices, I often find myself leaning either towards feelings of inferiority or feelings of superiority, in comparison with others. It is a rare but blissful moment when I feel balanced and completely at peace with who I am, who God made me to be, without the need to compare myself to someone else. Well, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to feel both inferior and superior at the same moment.

Heaven Can’t Wait: To Hell With Bell?

BY LAURA FERRIS

I read an article, or most of an article that a commenter on my first post suggested about Rob Bell’s new book and Christian universalism, and it is twenty pages long. It suggests that Love Wins is rightly understood as an apology for Christian universalism. Whatever that is. This writer’s criticism is based on the assumption, it seems to me, that eventually a person’s beliefs must wear the appropriate label. Christian universalism actually has a history as a religious sect, and one with, you know, traditions, and I’m not sure how a pastor who does not personally participate in that tradition can be labeled as an exemplar of that tradition. Unless religious orientation really is that abstract and open to such disembodied asignations. In which case, Rob Bell is as “orthodox” as this writer is, by this writer’s own standards. I also have no idea what this book is like from this twenty-page “review” as the reviewer is more concerned with pointing out how wrong Rob Bell’s theology is.

Guidance on Stewardship of Donations

BY JOHN MONTAGUE

Over the past year, I have written several articles and blog posts encouraging Christians to think more carefully about stewardship when they make donations. (See here and here.) Unfortunately, my writing on this subject has occasionally been misunderstood. A few readers have also confessed to me that they do not understand the urgency of stewardship, that they do not see why it is so important.

For these reasons, I am going to make yet another attempt to explain why I think stewarding our donations carefully is important and why I think it is imperative that all Christians, even those who are only able to give a little, make an effort to investigate whether the organizations to which they give actually use their donations wisely.

An Example to Explain How Keeping Organizations Accountable for Donations Works

BY JOHN MONTAGUE

What follows is a simple example that I hope will illustrate the good that can come from applying basic principles of stewardship to our decisions about what Christian organizations to support. I explain those basic principles of stewardship here. Although the example seems very simplified, the real world works in much the same way, albeit in a slower and more complicated manner.