Living Grace to the World

This is a portion of the transcript of an interview by Todd Friel with Doug Pagitt on Way of the Master Radio. You can look at the rest of it here.

Todd: And what about the afterlife?

Doug: Yea, uhh, I like to refer to it as the forevermore life. Uhm, But yea, I mean, that’s uhm, that’s uh a really important piece of the whole understanding of God is that uh, uh, like at the end of our uh worship gatherings together at our church we say uhm, we recite this uh, this last long sentence out of the book of Jude. And it’s one of those pieces that ends with uhm, with uhm, uhm, calling for the work that God’s gonna do to be now as God has done in the past, does now, and will do evermore. And so it’s this really wonderful notion that the Christian church has always held to – that there’s a sense of the continuation of the continuous work of God.

Todd: Alright.

Doug: And how, you know, how individual people interact in that. I think we best understand that through the – through the resurrection of Jesus. But yeah, that’s what we’re interested in – is inviting people in to participate with God here, as they have in the past. And stay [?] a uhm, uh, a part of the work of God in the world forevermore.

Todd: Alright. I’m going – I’m going to Jude verse 23: “..Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment.”

Doug: Yeah, yeah. It’s helpful, isn’t it?

Todd: Yea, do you think, do you think there’s an eternal damnation for people who are not Christians?

Doug: Yeah, well, I think that there’s.. I think there’s all kinds of … I mean that, that, damnation would sort of be that.. that there’s parts of the uh, life in Creation that seem to be counter to what God is doing and those are the things that are eliminated and removed and done away with. And so I think that’s what damnation is, and so there’s people who want to live out that kind of uhm, wanna have that good judgment – the judgment of God in their life. I mean you know Judge… Judgment in a biblical fashion meaning that God remakes… that God remakes the world.

Todd: OK, Doug, hold on Doug… Doug hold on a second. I have no idea what you just said. Here’s what I think Hell is: eternal damnation, God sends lawbreakers to a place where there’s weeping, there’s gnashing of teeth, a lake of sulpher, the worm never dies, eternal conscious torment. Agree or disagree?

Doug: Disagree.

Todd: What do you think Hell is?

Doug: I think Hell is disconnection and disintegration from God.

Todd: I agree with that also.

Doug: I have NO idea what you mean uh, with those.. uh. Those sound like .. Those sound much more like metaphors than they do like actuality. But I don’t know…

Todd: Well those are the words that Jesus used to describe Hell.

Doug: I know. Oh yeah I know.

Todd: Alright, OK.

Doug: Yes, I know but Jesus [chuckle]but

Todd: So, Doug I….

Doug: But Jesus didn’t use them in a string like that. So you just pulled a bunch of words from Jesus and strung them together in your own way and then made a….

Todd: It’s called systematic theology. Doug, I’m a good Buddhist. Do I get to go to Heaven or Hell?

Doug: No, it’s not called systematic theology. It’s called you restating it.

Todd: Doug, I am a good Buddhist. Where do I go when I die?

[silent pause]

Doug: You, you know this is not an interesting conversation for me. Is this what we’re gonna do? You’re gonna… Your gonna put together false little dichotomies and then ask me to answer one sentence and then interrupt my answers?

I find this totally frustrating that a man who is a celebrity author and pastor, whose new book is entitled A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive-and-well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in us All hasn’t the courage to speak his heretical views clearly even when asked direct questions by the interviewer. And then he turns it on the interviewer as if he were the problem.

Sherry and I leave for Kansas City on Friday to see Elizabeth Anne (almost 11 months). Oh, yeah. We’ll see Donn and Susan too and celebrate Susan’s birthday. Donn and I will our annual football game, and see the Broncos and the Chiefs play Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday, I’ll go down to Avery, where I lived as a boy, to do the graveside memorial service for my uncle in law, Richard Poulicek. He passed recently, really dying of sadness since Verbalea passed two and half years ago. They’ll be laid side by side at Spring Branch Church of the Brethren. He was the exciting uncle from my childhood, always driving fast sports cars or motorcycles. He was a master machinist, full of stories and laughter. Later in life he settled down on a plot of woods next to the farm my grandfather owned all his life. Richard finally came to Jesus as an outcome of my father’s memorial service. We talked often about Jesus in his last years as his health failed. I miss him.

I preached on the parable of the minas at Grace today. More on that in a moment. It was fun to begin with pictures of grandgirls and our new great grandson, Griffin Braun Haddon. You can see more pictures here. Sherry and I took Nicole and Joy with us to Roseburg last weekend. I preached at Redeemer’s, so we all went down on Friday, spent Saturday at Wildlife Safari enjoying all the animals as well as evenings in the Windmill Inn swimming pool. I remembered doing this a few years ago with friends and with my Mother before that.

As I prepared to preach, I realized that I wanted to give a quick summary of Jesus’ message of the kingdom. It’s not easy to do, I found. So I looked on the web to see what was there. There are nut cases:

The 1,000 year kingdom that starts on 2008Nisan16, March 23rd, 2008. Wherein Satan and the demons are locked up for the duration. God and Jesus and the 144,000 first new covenant saints rule from heaven in one to one correspondence with Melchizedek and Gordon and the 144,000 second new covenant saints who rule from earth. There are heavenly lords/administrators and earthly lords/administrators, and earthly priests and of course earthly citizens. 29% of mankind survives Armageddon through a rapture. All humans in the kingdom have bodies which do not age, like Adam had in the Garden of Eden. This Kingdom is the antitypical garden of Eden, the second Eden.

This is from "The Lord’s Witnesses," a spin off from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, I suppose. I really wonder who "Gordon" is!

Then there’s a more serious proposal from Michael Beckwith, of Agape International Spiritual Center. He’s a key teacher on the widely sold DVD, The Secret, and a frequent guest on Oprah. He represents New Thought teaching, the law of attraction: What you think about, you bring about. When asked if this treats the universe as sort of a personal ATM, he replied, "well, that’s not the entire teaching." You can see the CBS News interview here. His idea of the Kingdom of God goes like this:

The kingdom of God is actually in us, and what comes out of your mouth, what you think about. It is not some far off divine event, but within the mind.

You don’t need God, Jesus or anything outside yourself other than a guru like him who will help you find the kingdom inside yourself. If you think good thoughts, that’s heaven. If you don’t, I guess that’s hell.

I went to Bible, of course. Psalm 96:10, 13. Psalm 72 speaks of Messiah who will come, bringing righteousness, justice, prosperity, defending the afflicted, crushing the oppressor. Isaiah 2:1-4 speaks of a time when people will study war no more. Zechariah 2:10 is a particular favorite promise: "Shout and be glad, O Daughter of Zion. For I am coming, and I will live among you," declares the LORD." A heart level thing is the personal presence of the King, the LORD Himself. So my definition is

The dynamic activity of the sovereign, triune God to manifest His authority in His sin-alienated creation, by redeeming it from the domain of evil, judging all enemies, and bringing righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, on and through His people to the praise of His glory.

It’s kind of an intermediate divine rescue mission under the presence and power of the Spirit, leading to the kingdom in its fullness when Jesus comes personally to reign.

This has been a week of triumph as well as rough stuff. I’ve worked in a couple of situations I can only call miracle change and growth. But I’ve also watched two relationships fail with huge pain. A large lawsuit was filed against a church as a result of a situation I’ve worked closely with over the last few months. When I heard of the suit, it kinda put me over the edge. I asked the prayer group I meet with at Western how they process overwhelm. I said the best is talk deeply with a friend, one who knows my soul so well that I don’t have to edit, where the emotions can dump without concern for misunderstanding. That can’t happen just now. So I touch the words and remember as I listen prayerfully to Fernando Ortega. And I pray for the LORD of reconciliation to do His powerful work and beg, "Thy Kingdom come."

He comes in the stillness

Yesterday I got my new my new Fernando Ortega album, the Shadow of Your Wings. It’s an album of songs from Scripture, most of which he wrote though a few are arrangements of old hymns. I marvel how deeply his music touches into me. And that makes me wonder why, of course. Part of it is the gentle ballader style I’ve always liked. But it’s more than that. I think it’s that his family lived in Chimayo, NM for eight generations, a heritage that has influenced his music strongly. My birth and growing up in Albuquerque gave me a similar heritage. In fact as a boy I slept under an “Indian” blanket we bought at the Ortega Blanket shop in Chimayo, the shop owned by his grandfather whom he often sings about. As I listened to his songs driving home from elders’ meeting, I wanted to call a friend who knows my soul to share the wonder of the little boy. Certainly it’s the connection his style makes between my spirit the LORD of grace he paints musically. Ortega’s way of singing “Give me Jesus” on another album is outstanding. It is a pattern for songs for children to sing heart things to each other:

In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus
And when I am alone, give me Jesus
And when I am afraid, give me Jesus
You can have all this world, but give me Jesus

When You can hear some of his songs on his official site here.

I also discovered that Death by Love is hitting the streets in the month prior to its publication. I talked with Mike Anderson, the fellow in charge of publications at Mars Hill Church. He told me it’s pre-pub sales through Crossway are more than the pre-pub sales of any of their other fall releases. That is astounding, I must say. But it speaks to the impact that a new kind of book is having when it’s associated with the name of a celebrity pastor who is also a very solid Bible guy speaking directly to contemporary culture. It is about real people and real sin and the transformation atonement brings to them. Deep theology meets gritty pastoral experiences expressed as a compilation of heartfelt letters written from a pastor to his people is for all those who have sinned and have been sinned against. I think it is the best of our four books. You can see the Facebook news with a video introduction here or download a chapter and the art here. 

Friendship is one of those themes that keeps resonating in my soul. There is such wonder about the transparency it allows. Processing deeply things of the spirit is such a precious connection. That level can be done only where one can process and pray without editing. The resonance builds such peace and strength, allowing wrestling with deepest things. Every comment is appreciated as a precious gift. They never make things harder even if they express desires that are not possible for a long long time, if ever. Friendship comes at various levels. One of my goals is always deepening friendships. But I find my intensity makes it hard for people to go past a certain level. Or maybe it’s my fear that keeps a certain distance except with one. So much to wonder about as Fernando Ortega sings with me.

Tonight Sherry and I will go see Phantom of the Opera. I’m so glad for my pretty wife who loves me so well in all my busyness and ponderings in solitude.