Deconstruction as a Path to Reconstruction

A helpful introduction might be to run through some alternate titles I had for this entry. Grace: The Red-Headed Stepchild of Christian Theology, How I Learned to Stop Hating Myself and Hate the Christian Music Industry...

In an attempt to tie the last few posts together (considering the title of the most recent this might be pointless) I thought I'd consider losing the war on grace in the context of my feelings about worship, worship music, music, christian music, and the CCM industry.

Today's reference materials are The Sinner's Guide to the Evangelical Right and my ever expanding sense of self importance (which is controlled by God's grace with frequent doses of humbling experience).

Introduction out of the way, I'll get started.

In order to shorten the length of this post, a drawn out biographical section has been edited out (meaning, although I thought about it, it wasn't actually written, because I'm too lazy).

When I led worship, starting out for our youth and finally the main service, I was consumed with how a song was played, with doing it creatively, singing it well, making it cool, having the right mood, etc. Basically, my main concern was with getting everything right.

And what happened when things went wrong? I was disheartened and frustrated at first, which gave way to newfound motivation to do better next time.

(if the bold gets on your nerves, I'm sorry, there's no way of telling how good a critical reader you are)

The "heart of worship" I had was one of performance.
I had to perform well in order to be justified in being a worship leader.

The problem (as I've stated in previous posts The War on Grace and Losing the War on Grace) was that I had forgotten I was saved by grace.

When the grace that was sufficient for the justification of my soul, ceased to be sufficient for the justification of my continued existence, I stopped worshiping God and started worshiping myself.

When you get past all the human layers of desire, autonomy, self-worth, or purpose you will have uncovered the source of all that is wrong with creation.

We don't want to be saved by grace, we want to earn our salvation. Why? That's a big question, but a short answer would be because it grants us value.

I don't want to worship God, I don't want to make less of me to point the way to him, I want to set myself up as a beacon of hope. I want to worship myself and to be worshiped by others.

Is there irony in the fact that I used being a worship leader to worship myself?

Of course, but there is unspeakable beauty in something else...

that God was gracious enough to use that upside down "worship leader" part of my life to humble me further, draw me closer to him, and show me the path to true worship.

It's almost like Romans 5:8 actually happens.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

This is starting to run long, I'll continue this discussion later.

Now For Something Completely Different...

I've been experiencing a spiritual revival of late, and it's provoked me to revisit worship music. I've started writing my own versions of some classics (Father I Adore You, Be Thou My Vision), as well as learning some new ones (God of this City, several Phil Wickham tunes). Here's my version (still in progress) of Father, I adore You. The lyrics aren't finished yet, but most of the music is set. Sorry it's so dark, but the audio was the main thing.

Original Video- More videos at TinyPic

Losing the War on Grace

The war on grace is one that, despite what you might think, everyone is fighting.

Believers and non-believers alike have served on both sides. It seems odd to think of someone like Jerry Falwell fighting alongside a secular humanist like Bill Maher, but they are both in opposition to Grace. It may seem odder still to think that men like John Piper and Tim Keller are aided in their fight on behalf of grace by secular rock bands like Radiohead.

To explain this in a little more detail, I'll have to borrow some material (but since this is bit of Christian writing, plagiarism is, if not outright encouraged, at least overlooked).

Everyone lives their life within the model of salvation from hell. What that salvation is, the means by which it is acquired, and the hell from which it delivers may all vary-but that model is consistent for everyone.

If you're overweight, you want to be saved from fat hell, and you'll go to the gym, diet, and sacrifice sugar in order to be saved (reach your goal weight).

If you're a businessman, you'll want to be saved from unsuccessful hell, so you will put in long hours, serve your boss, and sacrifice time with others (family, friends, etc) so that you may be saved (get rich, powerful, your name on the door).

I could go on and on, but the point is that if you think about yours, or anyone else's life in this context, you can usually identify what hell you are trying to escape, and how you are trying to do it.

Any of these efforts to save ourselves, from whatever hell it may be, is worship of an idol. The idol being whatever form of salvation we seek. This idol worship is how we fight the war on grace.

If we are going to be truly saved, from hell in all it's forms, we are going to have to stop fighting, and start losing.

The War on Grace

"...We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified."

- Galatians 2:16 -

The most singular distinctive of Christianity is Grace.

While every other religion, system of belief, philosophy, 12 step program, self-help book tells you what you must do in order to be saved, be cured, succeed, kick the habit, win, etc. the message of the Gospel is totally opposite, and unique.

It's not unsurprising (considering the current state of the world, particularly in relation to Christianity) that this idea of Grace is lost in the ether, the majority of human culture, literature, art, and philosophy exists in opposition to this concept.

The story surrounding the verse in Galatians is one of the earliest attacks (and Paul's defense) on Grace. There was a group of early Christians who said that in addition to faith, obedience to Jewish law was required for justification (being declared "not guilty" by God).

Peter and James, two of the Apostles, were essentially giving in to the influence of this group (known in Scripture as "the circumcision group"), this was hypocritical, since they had both been living a lifestyle that did not strictly follow Jewish law.

Paul intervened, reminding Peter and James that they were saved by Grace. And that justification could not need anything other than grace by faith, because the gift had been bought, and that gift was Grace.

What is Grace?

After consulting my handy theological dictionary (titled Crazy Talk), I found this...

Grace: The free gift in which God gives all-eternal life, forgiveness, purpose, meaning-to human beings, who respond by trying to earn it.

The most important part of this definition is the last line. Not only is the world filled with religions, philosophies, and ideologies that deny Grace-but Christians themselves deny it daily, by trying to earn it.

The problem is that while Christians cognitively understand what Grace is (ask 10 believers to define Grace and 8 will say "God's unmerited favor"), they don't understand it practically. And while there are a lot of reasons for this, the one that interests me the most was revealed by this example:

"If God wanted me to pay for my salvation, it would be like paying my taxes, I would know how much I owed, and I'd pay it. But because I am saved freely, by Grace, there is no limit to what he can ask of me."

The truth is we don't want to comprehend or acknowledge God's grace. We still want to be free of God's authority, and the fact is, our free salvation by grace is a ball and chain. We are slaves to righteousness, by grace.

Redeeming Reason: An Introduction

In my short tenure as a student of UT, I am quickly perceiving a source of tension between culture and the Church. Science and reason are viewed by most of culture as being antithetical to faith. This divorce between God's love and our mind has created a vacuum. And yet, it isn't as though science elbowed it's way between us and our Father. Rather, we as a community of faith in history, tossed science to the curb like a toy Rubik's cube, too complex to understand and thus best left alone.

I won't pretend there was some time when science and faith existed in harmony. Since the earliest history the reasoning, knowledge based approach to understanding the world has been in direct conflict with those who cherish faith.

I have yet to see in history who struck the first blow in this long waged war, but if I were to make my first of many potentially disagreeable claims I would lay blame at the foot of the church.

I don't see a time in history when men of reason, motivated by their belief in science, set out to unravel faith (at least before they had been first attacked by the faithful, but more on that later). Sadly, Christians have more often than not been in a position to defend their tradition, often with violence.

Where we began as the persecuted purveyors of truth, through a series of sad events the roles were reversed and we became the boot pressed on the neck of all we perceived false. If you look at men of history who made great discoveries in the sciences you will often see a common theme of persecution from the church.

That in our current culture men of reason are seeking to eradicate religion and more specifically Christianity is only a natural reaction of self-defense.We deserve to be in their sights, and unless we repent in humility, deserve to be shot.

I'd like to write a little about how that repentance and ensuing redemption may come about, not by building a bridge from one side to the other, but hopefully, with a lovingly applied swift kick in the pants, to knock both sides into the water and force them to swim together once again.

Week Two

This concludes my second week as an Austinite. Apparently we're too laid back to have any sort of special initiation rites or rules for membership.

After two weeks of riding the bus I have to say I enjoy it, if only for the opportunity to read. I also like the minimal fuel consumption.

Speaking of reading, I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. An amazing book, one of the most somber examinations of a post-apocalyptic civilization I've ever read. That may not tickle your fancy, but the book did win the Pulitzer Prize, and is being made into a movie starring Guy Pearce and Viggo Mortensen. It's the best book I've read this year, although it is a little early yet.

My classes are all either interesting or not too difficult to worry me. I really enjoy my government class, where I'm learning a lot about how our system has always been dysfunctional and ineffective.

I visited one of the churches small groups (called city groups here). It looks like I've found a place for us there, everybody has been pretty welcoming.

Speaking of church, I played in the first church football tournament, representing the "Yodas". As our name implied, we were either unathletic (myself) or too old to be playing football with a bunch of college guys (everybody else). We suffered two fairly decisive defeats, but are confident that when Oscar time rolls around, we'll win the church-wide movie trivia tournament, or IQ test.

I've got more homework to do, some Economics and Math (production possibility frontiers and factoring...yay).

I finished the application process for our apartment, here are some sample pictures:

Back In The Day...

I foresee me telling this story to my grandchildren, "Back in the day we didn't play all our videogames, watch all our movies, and read all of our books on our cellphone, why, back in my day, the only game we had on phones was snake" They would of course be confused, having never played something as simple and simply amazing as snake.

In case anybody doesn't know what I mean, here's snake, like I remember it. Just use your arrow keys to maneuver the slippery little guy. And remember, don't run into your butt!