Tuesday 4 July 2017

"Defending" Christian Faith in "A Secular Age"

This week I will be wrapping up a series of conversations I have been hosting in KPU Multi-Faith Centre focused on a massive book entitled A Secular Age by Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor. The book is basically telling a story, a story which answers the question: how did we get from the year 1500, in which almost everyone believed in God, to the year 2000, in which it is not only easy to not believe in God but it is almost the assumed default position?

The conversation group has been an interesting mix of Christian staff and students, and a whole range of atheist/unbelieving voices, including two of the humanist chaplains who work alongside me in the Multi-Faith Centre. Having such a mix was definitely a challenge at some points – often one or another of us would make a comment from our own perspective which simply couldn’t connect with some others in the room – but for the most part the dialogue was fruitful and mutually respectful. It’s important for neither believers nor unbelievers to shy away from discussing together the things that matter most. What is the meaning of human life and existence? What is the good life supposed to be? How can we live and work together despite crucially important differences between us?

A Secular Age is an excellent way into these discussions because, though Taylor is a Catholic Christian and does not hide his faith, he is not attempting here to say what someone should or shouldn’t believe. Rather, he is trying to describe the history of the age we live in and also to describe how it feels to live in such an age.

Which isn’t to say that there is nothing to disagree with. One of Taylor’s important points is that contemporary atheism isn’t simply a natural progression, it isn’t an obvious position to arrive it. In fact, it depends on a whole host of factors, many of which arose in a distinctly Christian culture and society. We wouldn’t have our contemporary world, even contemporary atheism, without Christianity. This is a challenge to those who think that unbelief and our contemporary society of law and order are natural conclusions to come to.

Even though I do affirm the importance of dialogue between these different positions, at the end of this book study I am partially discouraged. Even though Charles Taylor and I aren’t trying to convert unbelievers, I still was hoping for some shift or change in my relationship with my atheist friends. But there hasn’t been much in that regard. I often felt as if they weren’t understanding Taylor’s argument and were simply taking him on as if he were a standard defender of Christian faith.

Instead, what Taylor was actually trying to do was muddy the waters. Things are not so obvious and clear for the contemporary unbeliever. Both historically and ethically there are lots of complicating factors to show how unbelief is not obvious. And that is basically the gist of Taylor’s strategy: not to show why Christianity is necessarily true, but to show that atheism isn’t in any better of a position; it's not the obvious default that many of it's defenders take it to be.

And after that has been done, the rest of up to the life of the Holy Spirit in Christian faith and community. Rational arguments, while important, can only get us so far. People have to be moved by what they see in the Christian life. And that is precisely what we are trying to accomplish here, ever so slowly, at KPU, and also in the Church in general. We need to live out the life of love, forgiveness, and grace that we are called to as followers of Jesus. That is certainly the most powerful apologetic “argument.” For the work of Christian witness, both in our communities and in the lives of those who are drawn to them, is not our work, but the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Thursday 25 May 2017

The Weakness of Christian Leadership

This summer three students and I will be reading through a book by Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. Kwantlen Christian Fellowship, the club I help support, has three executive team members, and we decided to do some reading on Christian leadership over the summer months. I suggested this book.

Henri Nouwen was a professor of pastoral theology, psychology, and Christian spirituality for many years at prestigious schools in America: Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard. However, he felt a spiritual calling away from a life of the educated elites and towards a more exclusive focus on simplicity, love, and community. He joined the L’Arche Community in Toronto, a global network of people living together and sharing Christian life. Many of the community members are people with disabilities.

In his new community, Henri found that his relationships to the community members with disabilities was on a completely different level from his relationships in his previous life. They were not impressed with his academic credentials, his many books, and all the ‘useful’ things he was able to do. This set him on a new footing and reminded him that the deepest form of relationship is not built on successes and accomplishments, but on God’s intimate relationship with his people in Jesus.
And that is what is important about Christian leadership, and Christian life more generally, too. Nouwen writes,

“I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. The great message that we have to carry, as ministers of God’s Word and followers of Jesus, is that God loves us not because of what we do or accomplish, but because God has created and redeemed us in love and has chosen us to proclaim that love as the true source of all human life.”

Do we as Christians, do I as a chaplain here at KPU have the courage to be irrelevant? I confess, I fail at this all too often. Not that I ‘succeed’ at being relevant, but I worry about my lack of 'accomplishments.' But I think the deepest Christian fruit is borne when I find my own weakness to be a source of strength and befriend those who are also willing to share their weakness. For Christian life, Christian leadership, and Christian community is not built on the power of mutual exclusion or self-assuredness, but of utter weakness in our own sin and brokenness, depending wholly on God. As a small group of us read in the Psalms this morning:

“God alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken” (Psalm 62:2). 

Wednesday 8 March 2017

The Beauty of the Gospel

What do we mean when we say that the Christian gospel is beautiful? Beauty, while escaping precise definition, is a name for what draws us in, attracts our attention, not in a superficial way of merely catching our eye, but of a deeper, more holistic yearning. Our whole being is drawn towards the beautiful by the beautiful. If the gospel is beautiful, then, it is because the person and story of Jesus captures us in this very way. We find every dimension of ourselves drawn to this person. Jesus did many things: he was born, he learned, he taught, he healed, he comforted, he challenged, he died, and he was raised again. And when we read this story and see it lived out in the lives of fellow Christians we are drawn into it not just because it is true, but also centrally because it is beautiful. In fact, the truth of the gospel is its beauty and its beauty is its truth.

This is not to say that the gospel only appears as alluring. When it addresses humanity in humanity’s sin, the gospel might be experienced as challenging and difficult. And this is nowhere more evident than with the cross. Such a shameful and torturous death does not seem beautiful. But here, most of all, beauty shines forth. Jesus Christ, crucified for love, compassion, and infinite generosity, surrounded by sinners, dying in the midst of sinful world, but for the sake of the world, and rising to resurrected life, victorious over sin and death. Creation is restored, all things are being made new by God’s act. Beautify shines forth in creation through God’s saving action in Christ.

And so this beauty is here at KPU, too. In a small group of students joined in prayer, the beauty of Christ is present. We are drawn to each other here on campus because of this person, this story. In it we see the beauty of creation and so see it, too, in the faces of each other. And in different ways, this Christian community bears witness to the beauty of the gospel. Love for others, commitment to community, prayer and engagement with scripture, contemplating the figure of Christ, being attentive to the beautiful moments of everyday existence – all these things we at Kwantlen Christian Fellowship endeavor to live into. And if the beauty of the gospel is made known, in however small a way, then the truth and goodness of Christ are surely present, too. 

Wednesday 4 January 2017

Christianity: Private or Public at KPU?

A new year at KPU! Today is the first day of classes, but a post-Christmas lull is still hanging over the campus. It feels as though the university isn’t quite ready to wake up and get back to work. I’ve been alone in my office most of the morning, plugging away at different emails, planning for the coming semester, and generally getting settled back into life at KPU. I’m looking forward to connecting with some students this afternoon before heading to a planning meeting for World Interfaith and Harmony Week coming up in February.

One new project that I will be undertaking with some students this semester is the implementation of an Alpha course. Alpha is a world-wide program that introduces the basic principles of Christian faith and life in a hospitable and generous way. Over the coming weeks we’ll be advertising for it around campus before having our first meeting on Jan. 25.

This is an evangelistic project. Though non-coercive, the aim is, truly, to spread the gospel, to grow the Church, to lead non-Christians to faith and hope in Jesus. And, as always on a campus like KPU, I am uncertain of the endeavour. Not that I doubt its importance or worth. But KPU represents an educational institution which displays in many aspects of its life a complete indifference to questions of religious faith and practice. It is highly pluralistic; students, staff, and faculty come from all different faith backgrounds. But in that pluralism there is a real privatizing of religion. Christian faith, or any faith, is then interpreted as just a “personal choice.” And in presenting a program like Alpha I worry that Christian faith is understood in just such a private, personal way.

But I also struggle with wondering whether there is not an advantage to faith being a private thing, or if not “advantage” at least a neutrality. Because KPU is, largely, a safe place. Perhaps, from my theological perspective, it is a rather uninteresting and boring place, but I don’t really know what would be gained from insisting on the public nature of Christian faith, especially when many faiths and worldviews seem to co-exist very peacefully. What would a public Christian faith even mean in a place like KPU?

However, I do trust that Jesus is lord of all creation, not just our private lives. And when the love of God in Jesus is not made public or when religion in general is privatized, there is usually someone else’s interests who are being served. I don't exactly know who that might be at KPU, but I attempt to remain vigilant and aware. So I’m moving forward with this Alpha program with some perplexity and uncertainty, but hopeful that the lordship of Christ over all creation will somehow, by the grace of God, be made known through a simple introduction to Christian belief.