A few years ago Margie and I spent some time with Rob and Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsema and were surprised to find they are Dutch. They are also kindred spirits, people committed to a Kingdom vision of life, a couple convinced that the gospel transforms everything it touches. One of the many things they do is produce a little quarterly publication called Road Journal, something that we read from cover to cover and then leave on our coffee table for guests to discover. When I found this brief essay in the Spring 2009 issue of Road Journal, I emailed Kirstin for permission to publish it here. I hope doing so will prompt you to find out more about the Road Journal (here), about their ministry *culture is not optional (here), and to sign up to receive their email magazine, catapult (here).

One of the things I like about this essay is that it takes an aspect of Christian faithfulness—opening our homes and lives in warm safe hospitality—and reminds us it’s significance is that it isn’t significant. What I mean is that it isn’t extraordinary. It’s ordinary, a normal part of life, and that’s what’s extraordinary because God delights in infusing his grace into the ordinary for his glory. I’m tired of spectacular events (except for rock concerts). But for life and friendship and faith, I prefer a living room filled with simple food, nice music, and a safe conversation that no one controls (except the Spirit of God).

Ten ways to make your house more hospitable

by the 1110 community in South Holland, Illinois

1. Lower your standards of clutter control. We used to fear inviting people over out of concern that we didn’t have time to clean the house. After some reflection we realized two important things. First, if we wait until we have time to clean the house, we will never invite anyone over. Second, it wasn’t that our house was unclean-just kind of cluttered. Sweep all the junk mail off the table into a box, hide it in the basement and you are good to go.

2. When guests are coming over, plan meals that are exciting and boring at the same time. Spicy chicken chili and homemade bread; jambalaya and corn bread; Indonesian nasi goreng and homemade applesauce—this allows both those with broad-minded taste buds and less adventurous taste buds to eat their fill.

3. Invite people over at least four times. Some people say no the first couple of times out of politeness, or because they think you are not serious.

4. Invite your friends to bring their friends who aren’t your friends (yet). We have met so many cool people this way.

5. Live along a major highway. Our house is ten minutes off I-80/294. People we know have to pass by our house a lot. It is a good excuse to stop.

6. Let people know that it is okay to stop by without a lot of advanced notice. We let people know that if we aren’t home, we won’t answer the phone, and if we are too busy, we tell them that, too. At the same time, don’t wait until you aren’t too busy—because that ain’t gonna happen.

7. It is easier to include one or two more if you are usually feeding a big number in the first place. There are four adults and five children living in our house. We have a minimum of nine people eating dinner any given night. One or two more doesn’t affect the amount of food we are preparing much.

8. Don’t work too much. Two of us work full time, two of us work part time. We all have at least part of the year when we have some flexibility about when we work. This allows us to cook.

9. Have guests join in food preparation and table clearing. This might sound inhospitable, but it actually helps guest to feel like part of the family—at least, that’s how we rationalize it.

10. If guests are coming over and you are too tired to cook, order out. Having someone over is mostly about the discussion and the joy of spending time sitting down together. Chicken chili is better than the local pizzeria, but local pizza is better than not getting together.

Copyright © 2009 *culture is not optional

My friend, Steve Froehlich, pastor of New Life Presbyterian Church (Ithaca, NY) recently sent this little essay to the members of his congregation. It’s an appreciation of John Calvin (1509 – 1564). I had been thinking of writing a similar piece for a couple of reasons. One was that last year I reread Calvin’s Institutes. It stimulated my mind, warmed my heart, nourished my soul, and confirmed my faith. I have written on this blog how my spiritual pilgrimage saw me move from the fundamentalism of my childhood in a group called the Plymouth Brethren. What I moved to—intentionally and by conviction—is to choose to live in a theological and church tradition that stretches back to the work of this Reformer. The tradition is usually known as Calvinism, though Calvin rooted his thinking in the teaching of St Augustine, who rooted his in the apostolic tradition of the first century. In any case, in the spirit of refusing to reinvent the wheel, I asked Steve’s permission to post his appreciation of John Calvin here. He says what I think, only better:

Today, June 10, 2009, marks the 500^th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. Calvin stands as one of the handful of towering saints over the past 2,000 years whose life and teaching have been used by God to shape the thinking and character of the Church and her mission in the world. Like Augustine and Aquinas before him and Jonathan Edwards and John Owen after him (imperfect men, all), he has taught us to handle God’s Word wisely that we may know God more deeply that we may live more richly to his glory. His influence has spanned nations, continents, and cultures over the last half a millennium shaping legal, economic, as well as ecclesiastical polity; and for those many ways in which he was faithful to God and helpful to God’s people, we remember and give thanks to him and to our God who graciously worked through him.

If you care to read on, allow me to encourage you to become better acquainted with Pastor John.

Calvin’s magnum opus is his Institutes of the Christian Religion, the first edition of which was published in 1536 when he was 27 years old. Of the Institutes (by this title Calvin meant “instruction in the basics”), William Cunningham, the formidable 19^th century Scottish theologian said, “The Instutatio of Calvin is the most important work in the history of theological science and has exerted the greatest and most beneficial influence upon the opinions of intelligent men on theological subjects.” D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the magisterial Welsh preacher of the mid-20^th century said, “The Institutes are in and of themselves a theological classic. No work had had a greater or more formative influence on Protestant theology. It is not always realized however that in addition to its massive and sublime thought it is written in a style that is most moving, and at times thrilling. Unlike most modern theology which claims to derive from it, it is deeply devotional. The most urgent reason why all should read the Institutes, however, is to be found in the times in which we live. In a world which is shaking in its very foundations and which lacks any ultimate authority, nothing is so calculated to strengthen and stabilize one’s soul as this magnificent exposition.” J. I. Packer of our own era regards the Institutes as the greatest resource used by God to effect the formation of his spiritual DNA. By reading and studying the Institutes, Packer recognized how God uses good theologizing to “sanctify the mind and heart and deepen one’s doctrine, devotion, and doxology all together.”

Packer identifies 5 ways that Calvin, principally through the Institutes, proved formative in the priority and personality of his own life’s work as a minister and theologian.

“Calvin showed me how to think to the glory of God. My goal became and remains to think, speak, and write if I can to the same effect as did Calvin, ever making God look greater and more wonderful and man smaller and less significant than either had seemed before the theological thought process began.

“Calvin confirmed me in my view of Holy Scripture. Despite my preconversion certainty that no educated person could treat the Bible as God’s true and trustworthy Word, after reading the Institutes I found myself unable to doubt that it was precisely that.

“Calvin changed me from a sectarian to a churchman. It was Calvin more than anyone else who made me realize that my sectarianism, like so much else about me in those days, was the juvenile immaturity of a half-baked student, and that as part of my growing up process I must exchange it for the responsible adult churchmanship that he himself modeled.

“Calvin formed me as a Bible-led rather than a system-driven systematist. Calvin regularly went to the limit of what Scripture says, arguing that nothing in the Bible is superfluous, but he would not go to one step beyond that limit, insisting that the right course now was not to try to fill gaps in our understanding by guesswork, but rather to move into adoration and praise for all that God has told us.

“Calvin led me in claiming, and reclaiming, all life for God in Jesus Christ, and valuing all goodness and beauty as his gift.”

In 1991, Packer paid tribute to his ancient mentor in a whimsical piece written for Christianity Today under the title “Fan Mail to Calvin.”

“Dear John,

“This is a fan letter, naked and unashamed, one that I have long wanted to write, even though for obvious reasons I cannot mail it to you. But public acknowledgement of one’s debts is good for the soul, and when one is a teacher of theology it is good for the church, too. I don’t know why, but Christians I meet seem to think that theologians who teach spring fully formed from the womb and work in isolation form one another—hence the ‘I am of Calvin’ / ‘I am of Finney’ / ‘I am of Pannenberg,’ which Paul would surely have nailed as pure Corinthianism.

“I wish people grasped that theologians, like other Christians, learn with the saints in the multigenerational fellowship that is the church, where mentors, pastors, and peers help us to see things see hadn’t seen before. Augustine had Ambrose; and you had Augustine, Luther, and Bucer; and I had Owen, Warfield, and you. We get to where we are by standing on others’ shoulders and benefiting from their brainwork. You were clear on that—much clearer than some of the hero-worshipers who have written books about you! No true theologian works as a one-man band.

“One thing you helped me see is where theologians really fit in. The church lives through the potency of preaching—the mystery of God’s Spirit applying God’s Word to God’s people through God’s spokesman. So the primary function of theologians is to ensure, so far as human beings can, that the Bible is explained right and applied properly. I think I only give the film version of your thought when I tell people that theologians are the church’s plumbers, water engineers, and sewage-disposal experts—back-room boys whose crucial though unspectacular job is to secure for the pulpits a flow of pure and unpolluted Bible truth. You, of course, had a larger role; you were a preaching pastor, and you educated other preaching pastors in the academy. How you managed to get through it all, especially in those grisly last years when you were dying by inches, I shall never know. But it is for your clear grasp of the theologian’s task that I admire you know.

“Another thing I learned from you was the true nature and ideal shape of what we nowadays call systematic theology. Your Institutes is a marvelous tapestry of evangelical wisdom that modeled for me the apostolic way of tying together the many strands of revealed truth about God’s grace to a sinful world. You put the sovereignty of God, the mediation of Christ, and the ministration of the Spirit right at the center; you set up the life of faith and praise as the goal; and you did not write a speculative sentence from start to finish of your 700,000 words! I would like you to know that I have had the Institutes by me for 40 years [now, nearly 60], that I keep finding fresh wisdom in its pages to a degree that is positively uncanny, and that I am very grateful.

“The way you dealt with predestination, in particular, strikes me as an all-time brilliancy. Like Paul, in Romans, you separated it from the doctrine of providence and postponed it till you had spelled out the gospel, with its bona fide, whosoever-will promises; then you brought in the truth of election and reprobation, just as in Romans 8 and 9, not to frighten anyone, but to give believers reassurance, hope, and strength. It’s a beautifully biblical and powerfully pastoral treatment.

“The irony is, as I expect you know, that in the 19^th century the idea spread that all serious theologians arrange everything round a single focal thought, and yours was predestination, so they lost sight of your biblical breadth and balance and pictured you as a speculative monomaniac who pulled Scripture out of shape to make it fit a scheme of your own devising. That’s still your public image, and Biblicists like you are still called Calvinists in a way that implies they have lost their biblical footing. Such is life! I expect you’re glad to be out of it.

“With deepest respect and gratitude,

“J. I. Packer”

With the great British preacher at the turn of the 20^th century I say, “I am never ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist.” That is, with Spurgeon, I agree with Calvin’s understanding of the Scriptures, even as I agree that we follow the man Calvin no more than any other pastor or teacher who follows in the footprints of Christ and faithfully handles the Word of God. I add my voice to the words of gratitude and praise spoken by those on whose shoulders I attempt to stand.

Soli deo Gloria!

Asking thoughtful questions of people is essential to healthy human relationships. How else will we communicate our care for them as fellow creatures? How else will we gain some sense into how we can walk beside them in friendship, sharing to the extent they are willing, their pain and delight? And for Christians, if our Lord asked questions of the strangers he met, surely we need to do the same—only more so.

In Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity Calvin College professor of German David Smith helps us understand the process:

Asking respectful questions communicates concretely that I am willing to learn, and that I do not sit already secure in possession of all the relevant knowledge and expertise. Asking questions also signals, at least in principle, a willingness to listen to what the other has to say. For this reason, asking questions (again, as long as they are respectful questions) can be far more disarming than making statements, for it makes the questioner vulnerable and yields authority to the one questioned. Good questions communicate the willingness to not know and to learn from the other. I remind my language students from time to time that they are not learning a new language just so that they can bless more of the world with their opinions.

At the same time, paradoxically, good questions are rooted in prior learning. Questions that show complete naïveté and ignorance about the other’s culture may simply be received as hilarious behavior on the part of a helpless outsider—but they can also come across as offensive, especially if put to relative strangers. Barbara Carvill gives examples of an American college student asking a forty-year-old gentleman in Spain in 1992 if he fought in the Spanish Civil War (thus implying that he was much older than he was), of American high school students asking German exchange students if Germans have refrigerators (they do), and of American travelers in Hungary asking the locals if they “knew Jesus” (leaving them in the angry belief that they had been accused of not knowing about Christianity). Investing in some prior learning can enable one to ask questions that are appropriate and insightful, questions that show that one has already begun to think one’s way into the other’s culture and has respect for his or her context and experiences. Good questions are undergirded by an awareness of the historical context and an acceptance that the reasons why things might be as they are will be complex. Good questions can give the one questioned the gift of a new audience for topics and experiences that may have become old news to his or her usual conversation partners. Such conversations can lead to fresh insight on both sides of the exchange.

Source: Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity by David I. Smith (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; 2009) pp. 119-120.

I've been thinking about the various questions people ask without thinking. Questions like, "How are you?" or "What do you do?" On the one hand such questions are rather mindless, and when someone answers them seriously it can take the questioner by surprise. On the other hand, such questions serve a social function. They serve as ice-breakers, getting a conversation started that (hopefully) can be more thoughtful.

(…continued from part II)

Believing that art, culture and human creativity is part of a physical realm that is less valuable in God’s eyes than spiritual pursuits is not a minor issue. How we see life and reality will have an impact, for blessing or for curse, on all we do, think, and feel. It’s basic to everything else.

The Bible teaches us that there is indeed a great divide, but it isn’t between the physical and the spiritual, but between good and evil. Sin—falling short as human beings of what we were created to be as made in God’s image—tears apart the fabric of all of life. My worship and my art, my relationships and my witness, my work and rest, my desires and convictions are all distorted by my sin. And worldliness is not engaging or making human culture—it’s impossible to live apart from culture—but participating in the systems of pride, power and rebellion that fallen human beings establish in the world to try to escape the word and will of their Creator. The tragedy is not that I choose the physical over the spiritual, but that all my choices are shot through with brokenness. The biblical view sees the great divide to be a moral one, between good and evil, between sinfulness and righteousness. The ancient Greeks not the Scriptures divided reality into spiritual and physical. It’s a common perspective among Christians but one we must recognize for what it is, as shocking as this must seem: it’s a pagan perspective rooted in a pagan view of life and reality.

Some of my fundamentalist friends will probably dispute this characterization of their teaching, insisting they see art as an issue of Christian freedom. In other words, each individual believer is free to do art or to enjoy art as their conscience allows, as long as their freedom does not become a stumbling block to others. I’ve not seen much evidence of this myself, but I’ll take them at their word. I’m very glad they have this freedom. The real problem, though, remains. The Bible teaches that every legitimate vocation and calling—including both missions and art—is not only spiritual but is equally spiritual. This is what we must believe and teach and seek to live out faithfully before a watching world.

Art is not simply a neutral thing that I am free to enjoy before it all gets burned up in God’s judgment. Rather, art is a gift of God’s common grace to be received with gratitude and pursued with faithfulness under Christ’s Lordship. The fruit of human creativity—art and human culture—will be celebrated in the new earth to God’s glory.

But this is not the place to work all these ideas out in detail. If you would like to reflect on the truthfulness of what I have been saying here I would suggest four resources that might prove to be of some help. (At least they were a big help to my wife and I as we tried to make sense of these issues.) On art and creativity, Art & the Bible by Francis Schaeffer and Imagine: A vision for Christians in the arts by Steve Turner (both published by IVPress). On the spiritual/physical dichotomy, Being Human: The nature of spiritual experience by Ranald Macaulay & Jerram Barrs (IVPress). And for a study of culture in light of what the Scriptures teach about the end of time, Millenium Fever & The Future of this Earth by Wim Rietkirk (an iBook available free on Ransom’s web site).

…to be continued

(…continued from part I)

Attending the Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA) conference (June 2009) helped to remind me of how our—OK, about how my—priorities so easily slide off kilter. CIVA forced me back to square one to reset them, which is always a good exercise. Busyness slips up on me even when I don’t want it. So I have to be intentional about scheduling unhurried time in art galleries and museums. Unhurried time to look, reflect, to look some more, and then process it all with a few safe friends who care about the things that shape the deepest issues of life. I guess it’s the visual equivalent of the slow-food movement. It won’t appeal to anyone who hasn’t discovered that creativity matters in the cosmic scheme of things.

The array of artwork on display over the days of the CIVA conference nurtured my imagination and soul. Beauty reveals something of God that cannot be adequately reduced to words. Or as I heard Francis Schaeffer say more than once, there is much more to human knowing than human knowing can ever know.

The walk-in gallery at the conference and the CIVA Late Late Show reminded me how sad it is that in a time of economic recession it is often the arts that get axed first. Music programs are cut in schools, art shows are postponed or curtailed, public murals in urban renewal programs go unfunded, and small galleries are forced to close their doors. I understand the economic realities involved, but that only convinces me that somehow the entire system needs a major overhaul. Though educated people should know better, American Christians tend to see the arts as either expendable niceties or commodities best left to the supply and demand of the market. In reality, of course, the arts are essential to human flourishing, an expression of our identity as creatures made in God’s image.

The art, conversations, and biblical study I was enjoyed at the CIVA conference also sparked unbidden reflections on my fundamentalist background. So much of what the CIVA conference celebrated had been condemned as worldly in the fundamentalist circles of my youth. As unnecessary as rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, a proof that one’s allegiance was far too centered on temporal things that soon would be swept away in the fire of God’s wrath when Christ returns.

Rod Wilson, Bev’s husband put it this way in the Summer 2009 issue of The Regent World: “My early Christian life was characterized by the kind of anti-sensual sensibility that is all to common in Christian circles. Truth was content, word and abstraction; and the realization that God created us as human was muted at best and, at worst, negated. Theology was in. Art was out.”

Firmly entrenched in the various circles of North American fundamentalism, and found in many evangelical circles as well is a common but insidiously unbiblical teaching. Life is seen as divided explicitly or implicitly into physical and spiritual, a secular and a sacred realm. And only the spiritual and the sacred are seen as having eternal value. In this view, being a missionary is intrinsically better than being a sculptor. The missionary is a “full time Christian worker,” while the artist is not. Art is thus not of much value, unless it is somehow made more spiritual, perhaps by being designed for use in missions. Doing your job well is considered important, but not because it is spiritual service to God, but in order to be a “good testimony.” It’s true that doing carpentry or sculpture is necessarily “sinful.” But it’s not as equally spiritual, equally pleasing to God as something like witnessing.

It is here that both Bev and I growing up in Canada (her) and the US (me) felt the tension of our fundamentalist upbringing. We were drawn to beauty, stunned by human creativity, and yet taught that such things were indications of a worldliness infesting—and endangering—our souls. The issue wasn’t really all that complicated for those who are spiritually minded. (“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Colossians 3:1-2.) Even ignoring the nudes, art may seem very beautiful but that can be a trap. Lot’s of things are attractive here on earth, but one must have an eternal perspective. (“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.”)

…to be continued

“When you finally leave it’s like hearing a massive steel door slam shut behind you. People who have not gone through it simply don’t understand.”

Bev Wilson said that to me as we shared lunch in a college cafeteria. For the life of me I’m not sure how college cafeterias manage to achieve such precise levels of mediocrity. Bev and I had met for the first time that weekend, but as she talked I increasingly felt we had known each other forever. Have you ever had that experience? A Canadian, she lives in Vancouver, is an artist and warm conversationalist, alive to the flickers of grace that shine out through unexpected cracks in this sadly broken world. She exhibits both the wisdom that comes when ancient truth is seriously embraced, and the easy wit that comes by not taking herself too seriously. Bev had attended my breakout session and approached me afterwards to tell me her story. As she talked I kept hearing echoes from my own past, phrases that seemed to hint at a common heritage, events shaped by similar experiences. My hunch turned out to be accurate. We had both been raised in and then left the same fundamentalist movement, known to outsiders—they don’t accept the name—as the Plymouth Brethren (PB).

“It seems so final,” Bev said, “when you leave.” I knew what she meant. Growing up we had heard so many warnings about the worldliness and compromise that was outside that leaving was almost impossible. Then you step through the door, it shuts behind you, and all you’ve known socially, religiously, psychologically, and relationally is gone.

It wasn’t a topic I had expected to be talking about when I arrived. Bev and I were in the student cafeteria at Bethel University in St Paul, MN for the biennial CIVA (Christians in the Visual Arts) conference (June 18-21, 2009). The days at the conference were filled with stimulating conversations, thoughtful sessions, an amazing book table by Hearts & Minds, and a chance to see the work of photographers, video makers, fabric artists, sculptors, painters, art scholars and a few whose chosen medium and style of work don’t fit into any neat category that I can name. It was like being suddenly immersed in a brilliant explosion of human creativity, and I loved it.

Each day at the conference ended with what is a long time CIVA tradition, the Late Late Show. Artists attending the conference are encouraged to submit digital images of their work. The images are projected and each artist is given exactly 4 minutes—a limit that is good naturedly but firmly enforced—to talk about what we were seeing. The work we saw ranged from poor, to immature but promising, to mature, finely crafted, and thoughtfully allusive.

I arrived at the CIVA conference expecting to talk about art, beauty, and the gospel. I see now, however, that reflecting on the fundamentalist heritage of my childhood was unavoidable. The experience of beauty has played a key role in my pilgrimage. And though I am in my sixties, the old fearful, guilt-laden warnings of “worldly” and “unspiritual” that had always been attached to art and culture still echo in my memory.

…to be continued.