The uncomfortable Blue Parakeet can make you think

Recently, a good friend complained to me that a particular Bible discussion didn't help to clarify the particular issue in his mind. He said, "I walked a way less sure and more confused." My response was "good."

Over the recent years I have become more comfortable with the idea that God is too big for us to know with clarity. Without a doubt, we are to strive each day to know him better than the last day. We are to study his word (the Bible), listen to expert comentaries, and discuss it in faithful groups of Christians. These are important steps for the follower of Christ and will facilitate spiritual growth.

We cannot expect that Christian growth means that we are less confused, that we know God more perfectly, or that our study will raise much of anything but more questions. Karl Barth (pronounced bart), a Swiss, Neo-orthodox theologian who valiantly battle liberal theology in the early to mid-1900s, called this dialectical theology because he believed that too much of God was paradoxical and unknowable to the human. Barth's point was that the best answer to a theological question was the next best question.

This brings me to my book review on Scot McKnight's The Blue Parakeet (Zondervan, 2008, 240 pages). (I provided this link for your convenience should you like to read the book. I read the Kindle version.) McKnight is a thoughtful, seasoned Bible scholar who teaches at North Park University in Chicago. In The Blue Parakeet, McKight examines how we should read the Bible, particularly the difficult passages. I'll let you read the book to discover why it is named so.

McKnight, by his own reasoning, is an evangelical scholar. There are many with a more narrow interpretation of evangelical who wouldn't agree, because many evangelicals will only identify with others who subscribe to specific set of doctrine. This doctrine is often narrow in interpretation and broad in scope.

One point that many evangelicals will struggle with the Blue Parakeet and McKnight, is that he is in many way post-modern. He makes a strong argument that the Bible must be read as a story (not a fiction story) and applied according to the context of the reader. He argues that too many want to read the Bible as a list of laws, morsels of blessings, an psychological inkblot, a puzzle, or examples of Maestros. I will let McKnight explain those.

McKnight, on the other hand, believe the Bible is God's story from begining to end, with each book being the author's telling of the story at a particular time to a particular people. The challenge then is to read the Bible with an understanding of that time and people, and learn what that means to today and to the people you live among. This is not easy. It is more work than the other ways we can read the Bible. It also means that two people in two different places may draw different interpretations, particularly with respect to a passage's application.


At this point, I'm sure that many of my Christian friends are getting uncomfortable. That is alright. I was too, and I think that it is that discomfort that drove me to read the rest of the Blue Parakeet with an open, but discerning mind. In the end, discernment is the crux of McKnight's book. Everything in the Bible must be discerned with the Holy Spirit and nothing is settled.

This post is already too long, but there is more I would like to say about these matter. I hope to do so in other posts. Let me just conclude by saying that as I read the Blue Parakeet, I felt uncomfortable. I still do not agree with every point he makes, but I can tell you that I also began asking a lot more questions about my God, myself and my understanding of what it means to know God. I was driven deeper into my Bible, and, while I developed more questions, I believe that the depth of my questions is growing. I believe this book has helped me to grow as a believer, too.

Is the Christian Religion a Myth. Review of Greg Boyd's book

Greg Boyd isn't the kind of pastor who says the things you'd expect pastors to say. No, he calls them as he sees them and The Myth of a Christian Religion: Loosing Your Religion maintains his MO. Of course, if you pick this book up knowing the title and didn't figure that this would be a different look at our faith, you didn't read the title.

Boyd's thesis is that Jesus didn't come to start a religion, but he came to start a revolutions. (Again, plain in the title.) A religion is too institutional, too people centered for what Jesus came to do. He didn't come to create more ritual. He came to be counter-cultural.

The revolution is against so many bad habits that people fall into. Interestingly, they are the same bad habits that many/most American Christians have: Idolatry of stuff; Judgmentalism; Individualism; Gaining power through military action. He adds issues like sex and secularism. By secularism, in contrast to so many Christians, he isn't attacking the secular world for being secular. Rather he is frustrated with Christians who live dualistic lives of sacred and secular.

Boyd's voice is important for the American Church to hear. We need more people pointing the misconceived values that have become standard in our churches and personal practices. He makes some bold statements. Bold statements will make some people uncomfortable, and he's certainly not perfect in his analysis, but this discomfort may be the Spirit prompting the reader to reconsider things that we often take as true without recent contemplation.

Review of The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity by Leadership Journal editor Skye Jethani (Zondervan: 2009) is a green vegetable book, not a dessert book. It doesn't taste good, but it is good for you. You won't be happy that you read it, but you'll be better off. Skye Jethani will challenge your comfortable way of doing church. He will push you to consider your faith more than your religious out workings. He destroyed any chance I had of enjoying Christmas like in the feel-good way it has always been.  Jethani does all this using a wonderful comparison of the church and van Gogh paintings. It's a creative, well-written book, and as such a easy book to read. It's not an easy book to consume.

Community, Gospel and the Word: a Review of Total Church

I found Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis (Crossway Books, 2008) to be a wonderful and challenging book. There are some aspects of theology that I would disagree with Chester and Timmis. But that might be the reason I've been so challenged to contemplate how this book should impact my life.

Chester and Timmis are the co-founders of the Crowded House in Sheffield, UK. The are proponents of smaller, more intimate church communities developed predominately through church planting.

I really respect the belief that the church is at its core Gospel Centered and Community Centered. (Although I do wish they would have found a better way to word that because you really can't have two centers.) What I took out of this book is that with everything that we do in the church or in our lives (which are really the same thing if you are to follow Jesus) should be considered with respect to missionality, truth in the Word and how it relates to the community of God. I appreciate the movement away from the individualistic mindset of modern evangelistic church toward a theology of community.

I'm not sure I would connect this theology as tightly with Calvinism as they do. They do this implicitly, not in any direct statement. More by quoting Calvin as the authority in key arguments. In the end, it seems to me to be closer to a heritage of the anabaptist. I'd suggest contemplating this alongside Stanley Grenz Theology and the Community of God.

As a result of reading this book, I'm doing more research on the theology of community as developed by Grenz, William Klein and the Crowded House. Also, I will be challenging my church staff to re-consider the theology of all of our church programs and visional work. My goal would be to assure that we are developing as a Gospel community ourselves.

I would also love to see our next step moving toward planting. How exciting would that be.

Review: Outliers by Malcom Gladwell/iPhone Kindle App.

I just finished reading my first Kindle book.  I don't have a Kindle, but I used the iPhone App.

In brief, I liked reading on my iPhone.  It moved really well, I always had the book with me, and I didn't have any trouble with seeing the book at all.  The down side was that I couldn't tap on the notes links at all.  I got to one or two after tap-tap-tap-tap, but a few notes I just gave up on reading after tapping a good number of times.   I'll tell you I read this book much, much faster than I would have read the typical 320 page book.  That length book usually takes me 3 to 4 times longer with starts and stops.  I was challenged to read this without any long delays.  Speaks well for both the Kindle App and for Outliers.

As for the book.  Malcom Gladwell outlines a compelling thesis in Outliers.  I gather that his main point is that success doesn't just happen, and that there aren't some people who are born to succeed. Rather, success is a matter of many key factors lining up just right.  Birthdate, opportunities to practice a trade, timing of swinging economic trends and regional/people-group culture a play a part in defining those who have succeeded in great measure.

Gladwell caught my attention in the first chapter as he spoke about birth timing.  I've noticed this before.  As students work through schools and through sports, those who are the oldest in their class year succeed at a higher rate than the younger.  Success is in some measure determined by timing of your birth.

Gladwell goes on to show other ways that highly successful people have benefited from things outside their control.  Of course, the true outliers always took advantage of the opportunities that they are given.

As Gladwell pulls the information together, he proposes that in order to make more people successful, they need opportunities.  I think that is simple enough.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure that studying outliers is at all a way that we can help more people succeed.  Outliers are just that, outliers.  That means they are the rare few who succeed far beyond anyone else.  The Beatles are outliers, but can't realistically develop a system that will make every disadvantaged, hopeful musician into the next Super band.  If we develop that system, everyone will be that good, presumably, thus they won't be that special.  The true outliers will rise up in some other way.

My next complaint with Outliers is that I am concerned by the measure of success in the end.  I've heard this measure being used time and time again.  That is, I think that Gladwell seemed to indicate that if we found the things that each culture did well and helped all other cultures to assimilate those aspects, then every culture will be more successful.

It work in Korean Air as the learned to fly like Americans.  It seems to be working in some inner-city schools, the KIPP schools, as they assimilate educational principles of the rice cultures (Japan, China, South Korea, Singapore, etc.).

First, while I'm sure that we don't want Korean pilots to fly more airplanes into hillsides, and we don't want a math illiterate American culture, I'm not sure that we can define success by saying that every culture should have super success in math or what ever else some cultures may have.  Why does this concern me? While I respect the achievements of many Asian people that I know, I'm not sure that academic success is really a measure of success at all.  I thought Gladwell made that point early on in the book.  My concern is that of many Asians who have stressed academics, I've found that many are miserable in their pursuit of that success.  Japan's exceedingly high suicide rate evidences this fact as 36 out of 1000 men commit suicide every year and 14 of 1000 women do.  There are other nations as high or higher, but they all seem to be nations of economic stress, particularly those who are struggling to find their way out of their communistic background.

Another problem I have with this rice culture as measure of success, is that I'm not sure it is creating many more true outliers.  For example, you have to go to #16 on the list of Forbes' Riches People list to find someone from the rice culture.  Further, I only find 3 rice-culture members on in the top 50.  Again, I don't think we should measure cultural success by the riches people list, or by any outliers, but it seems to me that Gladwell sets the stage for that assumption to be made.

I think we would be good to look at this book in a positive light.  We learned from it that success requires a hand from interested people along the way.  Let's extend that hand whenever we can.  We've learned that our background, our culture provides areas of strengths and weaknesses.  Let's celebrate our strengths and diversity.  I don't think we need to have a world economy where every culture bleeds into one.  Let's aim for one that realized the beauty of diversity.

On Tony Dungy's book Quiet Strength

I just finished reading Quiet Strength with a group of men I meet with regularly. Here is my review as I posted it on my virtual bookshelf.

Nice story. Love his faith. I think he place a little too much of his on field success on the fact that he has faith and God wanted him to succeed. Not everyone with strong faith is going to see "success" at the same level. I'd hope no one would doubt their faith because they never get to that level.

Full review of Intuitive Leadership

I just finished reading Intuitive Leadership by Tim Keel. I've hit on some point about this book before. In final analysis, I'd say that this may not have been the best book for me to have read. It's not a bad book, but it left me wanting some things that it didn't deliver and with a few things that I didn't really need.

I liked the fact that Keel poses a different kind of leadership book from those analytical, linear books that are so often published. The problem is it left me wanting something that I'm not so sure I can have: freedom within an established organization to create in the way Keel prescribes. There are some good principles that can be applied to established churches, and I'll address those later, but it will really be difficult to get away with pushing those principles beyond a basic level.

While those principles are there and as exciting as they may be, I also found myself frustrated that the creative church movement has to tie itself so closely to certain things that to me are negatives. How many times does Keel refer to the great value of the monastics and escaping to monastic communities? Monastics, to me, are a sign of failure in Church. Some monastics were running from a very broken church; others were running from a very broken world. One could argue that we have in North America both a broken church and a broken world. Still, I don't think escaping to an experiential community is at all the answer that the Bible gives us. I would instead love to hear creative people discovering God in creative ways among the broken piece of both church and world.

I like Keel's points of creativity that should be kindled in the church: in leadership, in worship, in theology. I love the thought of creative people taking leadership of the church. We are still stuck in a world were safe leadership is considered godly. Wouldn't God rather leaders push the envelope? Isn't he in control in the end?

I love the thought of the church living in paradox and theology being more a matter of "I don't know (yet)" than a fix system to never deviate from. I think our practices and services should highlight this paradox.

I also love Keel's desire to get rid of the old idols of the church. I know that I am tempted by the idol of ministry that he talks about. Many people use the church and symbols of God as idols just as the Keel point out that the Ark was used before the Israelites.

Unfortunately, I'm not so sure that Keel doesn't create some new idols along the way. To me monasticism is often an idol of experience and community. Similarly, I think if creativity for the sake of creativity is not kept in check, the thrill of doing something new can also become an idol.

In the end, I wonder if this is a book that should not have been written. Keel pronounces great frustration over other church movements that are successful and then copied because of there success. He says that he doesn't want people to copy him instead consider their own context. That's good, but I think human nature and the nature of leaders is to copy that which is written up as a success. Heck, didn't Hybels say in his book Rediscovering Church that people should try to copy the Willow Creek model? Still, copying Willow Creek seemed to me to be Keel's biggest struggle with the Evangelical Church, or at least its leaders.

I'm not sure how to get this message out, but when a leader writes a book describing how he found success, people are going to try to copy. Then again, maybe leadership is about causing success, and, after all, are there really that many intuitive leaders out there? I guess time will tell.

A lesson from Johnny Bunko (Part 2)

A World that I'm Partly Made of: A lesson from Johnny Bunko (Part 1)

This is my second installment about Dan Pink's manga comic book about career planning. The Adventures of Johnny Bunko is a comic book written to with 6 lessons to help the young (or old) career minded person to understand their search for the right path in a different way. In part 1, I reviewed the first two lessons of JB and how they relate to Biblical principles. In part two, I'll continue with the middle to lesson.

I must remind readers that there is no evidence that Pink has a particular world view. Still, I think that Pink understands the needs of humans, particularly to be creative, and in his understanding human, I see some principles based in scripture that should be highlighted. These principles are important for every teen, college student, parent or employee to understand.

To review, the 6 lessons of Johnny Bunko are:

· There is no plan

· Think strengths, not weaknesses

· It's not about you

· Persistence trumps talent

· Make excellent mistakes

· Leave an imprint
I'll focus on the middle two lessons (in bold) in this post.

It's not about you. This should be the most obviously Christian principle. Jesus makes it clear that life is not about us; it’s ultimately about God. And if life is about serving God, we are to serve other's needs ahead of our own needs.

The Great Commandments, to love God and to love your neighbor (Mark 12:30-31), are Jesus clear directive that life isn't about yourself, but about serving God through others. It's hard to find a point in scripture bring the point that we are not to live for our own needs yet, too often we are caught in that trap that we set for ourselves.

God give people freedom, and that freedom can be used for serving selfish desires, but Paul makes it clear that serving selfish needs is sinful behavior. Serving others in love is God hope for our freedom (Galatians 5:13). It makes sense to me that if we are serving others and, therefore, in God's will, he will bless us.

In some post in the Johnny Bunko blog, I get the feeling that we are to use serving others as service to ourselves. I think this point can be twisted. If it is not about me, then it can be that I'm serving others in hopes that they will lift me up. Unfortunately, I've read this sort of stuff in many Christian leadership books. We don't serve others hoping that they will serve us well. We serve others (or principles) because it is right. The reward is doing what is right!

Persistence trumps talent. A few years ago, my daughters were invited to work as ball girls for the high school's girl’s soccer team. As a reward for their service, the coach gave them each one of the team's t-shirts. On the front, the shirts said, "SOUTH." On the back, the coach had printed his philosophy, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." He team went on to win the state championship that year. That was a good example for my daughters to have before them. They still wear those shirts on occasion.

Hard work is a form of persistence. Longevity is another. Sticking through a difficult situation is persistence. The book of James challenges us to consider trails as pure joy. Why? Because they develop persistence and that persistence ultimately leads to our perfection (James 1). This perfection will be fully developed when God makes all things new, but I think he develops it in this temporal world too (2 Corinthians 10:13).


I hope this information is help. I'll complete the final two lessons in the next few days.

Review of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

What was the difference between Michael Jordan and John McEnroe? Why do some people see only failure in themselves and others while other people can see only potential? Why are even positive labels in schools an ultimate hindrance for the individuals who receive them? Dr. Carol S. Dweck of Stanford University says that both positive and negative labels come from the same mindset as held by those who see failure in all and people like John McEnroe, who become caught up in the reasons that others are holding them back. Dwecks research is outlined in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (Random House, New York: 2006).

Dr. Dweck has discovered two mindsets that affect the success of individuals, one for the better and one for the worse. The open mindset reward effort over achievement. It recognized each individual, whether it be on the sports field, in the family or in academic study based on their own personal goals and how hard they work at conquering those goals. The open mindset goals would be effort based, not based on meeting standards or receive accolades.

The closed mindset, on the other hand, creates standards for all people to meet, such as test scores or trophy counts. Those who quickly achieve those standards are labeled smart or athletic or well behaved. Those who struggle to meet standards are label academically challenged, or nonathletic or a behavioral problem.

Who do the labels hurt? According to Dr. Dweck, labels hurt everyone. Those who are labeled unable are hurt as well as those who are told that they are specially gifted to meet the standard. Why? The "unables" are hurt because they are in a sense told, they will never match up to the "ables". The "ables" are hurt because they will identify themselves according to the things that they are supposed to do well. Once they fail at those things one of two reactions will result. The first reaction is self-defeating. They will have to redefine themselves. When they were once good at the activity, they will now have to admit they are not good. The second reaction is more defensive. Rather than admitting their own failure, they will blame others for their poor showing.

Dweck identifies the bigger problem with the second group. Once a child is placed in a special group they tend to develop an attitude that everything should come naturally. They stop working as had a development which set them up for eventual failure. The failure is very difficult to take because it is tied to their identity.

As a result, Dweck argues against the creation of such programs as gifted and talented classes or special sports leagues because they are used to rate natural ability rather than extraordinary effort. Likewise, she advocates against harsh punishments for failure of meeting standards, including some behavioral standards.

From a Christian point of view I can see many benefits in teaching an open mindset. Still I see some portions of this work that Christians would tend to object to. First, Dweck's anti-corporal punishment bent has long been a beef of many Christians after all doesn't the Bible say "spare the rod and spoil the child?" There is a point that Dweck can push this issue too far, still as a children's pastor I have see that too often punishment, in general, and more particularly corporal punishment are dealt too quickly to specific groups of people. To often parents want to see their children all living to a standard of behavior thus punishing any behavior that doesn't meet that standard. To offend I see parents labeling their own children as behavior problems and miss the growth moment and value that these children bring to the world, the family and the church. While I don't advocate never applying corporal punishment, some parents result to it too quickly and for the wrong issues.

Many Christians may also balk at the idea of eliminating the gifted types of programs. I don't know of any Biblical reason for this, but many conservative Christians demand that we stratify children, assume that stratification is based on hard work, and fear that unifying the children in academic and athletic programs is a slide to socialism. I don't thing this is the case. Unfortunately, most academic, artistic and athletic programs base their grouping, not on individual effort, but on early signs of "ability". We create these programs way too early in the lives of the children and measure things that are not consistent with how much work an individual will be willing to put into developing. I've seen children as early as 6 years old be placed on special athletic teams because they are a head taller than others. This isn't the exception unfortunately. This is the truth behind how these decisions are made.

I don't think that Dweck takes personal bent out of development decisions all together, and we do need to consider how each child is specially designed. Eventually, children who are good in math need a math program that can help them develop, but not at the expense of those who are more or less average. Eventually, children will need different athletic fields to address their sports development, but not based on early detection of "natural abilities" (often read physical development). Rather, children who want to play baseball day-in and day-out should have a field so they aren't bored or frustrated with those that show up once a week just for fun.

Moreover, I think Christians can find some usual guidance in this book, particularly with regard to spiritual development. The closed mindset is going to look at a specific quality that a child has to determine their value. Too often, in the church, we do this by rating how well a child is behaved while the adults teach or pray, how many verses they can memorize, or how many friends they bring to our church programs. This ignores that some may sit quietly through the prayer time while their minds drift off, while others wiggle and squirm as the try to process the value of prayer. We rejoice when Johnny finished all his verse memorization long before the rest, but need to investigate what value Johnny received from those verses. Or we get frustrated when Sally fails to recite any verses word perfect, but miss the attempt that she makes.

In general, we need to look at the whole person in spiritual development, not the surface. We need to move beyond labeling children as good or bad and work to make all of them better.

Another thing to keep in mind is that spiritual development is often affected by the athletic, artistic and academic labels we give children. These labels will often make children feel that they are good without considering their spiritual growth. More organically, often receiving the honors to be in these special programs or on special teams restricts them for the time they need to work on spiritual matters. Moreover, it creates a pressure for all families to work harder to make sure that their children receive these honors, at the expense of spirituality.

One last interesting side point that I gained from Dweck's book has little to do with the text. The point comes in the title of two sections. One is titled, "Parents (and Teachers): Messages About Success and Failure;" the next is titled, "Teachers (and Parents): What Makes a Great Teacher (or Parent)?" These tell of Dweck's wise view of parents. That is, their role is to teach their children well. The Bible makes it clear that the parent is the primary teach of a child. If parents rely on the the teachers to do the job the child will not be properly prepared. When parents take seriously their role as teacher and learn about how to to the tasks involved, children will have the best resources they need for achieving all the God as in store for them.

Review of Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

Happiness is an elusive thing. Not that it is difficult to find happiness, but it is difficult to define and pin point what brings happiness. Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on Happiness (Vintage Books, 2005) make as case that, as the title indicates, it is very difficult to predict what will bring happiness into the life of an individual. Even when something has brought happiness to a person in the past, a later attempt at finding the joy may not come with the same results.

Happiness is dependent on many factors. Every person will find differing amounts of pleasure in different stimuli. Ever stimulus will have a different affect on a given individual depending on other factors. One might remember an event as more or less pleasurable long after the event has passed than when they were experiencing the event.

In the end, Gilbert proposes that there is only one marginal way to predict what will bring happiness. He proposes that when options arise, an individual can look to others who are currently more advanced in experiencing event and see to what level they feel they are happy. This he admits is a marginal predictor of personal happiness, but best option available.

I chose to read this book because of an interesting interview I had heard with Gilbert. I'm not sure that the book lived up to my expectation; It didn't bring to me the happiness that I predicted. Actually, my disappointment is less about happiness and more about utility. I'm not sure what to do with all the data that he provides in Stumbling. I'm not sure that his conclusion bring any great value to me or to those that I would love to teach on this subject. Really, his main point is that you don't know what will make you happy, until you are happy, is difficult to do anything with.

Further, as I set out to do this project, I was less concerned with what would make people happy for a moment, but with what kind of life long choices cause people to reflect back and say, "I've lived a joy-filled life." If you trust Gilbert, nobody can really do that without misrepresenting there own experiences.

However, maybe that is the point that I can take away from this book. If we seek temporary happiness, we may ore may not be happy in the longterm. We need to look beyond the products and activities that promise to make us happy, and choose to look forward to the greater things in life as God is our guide to true joyfulness.