Understanding the Single-Issue Voter, by Anne Chamberlin

Reformation21

by Anne Chamberlin

Moving around often as a child and as an adult, I had the privilege of joining or regularly attending many different American churches in different regions. I've been a member of small (40-80 people), medium (200 members), and large (multi-service) churches. All of these churches have been non-urban, except one (in China). They are demographically just what you'd expect from the suburbs: mostly white communities where lower-middle class to upper-middle class families live. Congregations like these can be very diverse when it comes to livelihood and educational level. Members typically commute into the nearby city; are local service and care workers such as nurses, first responders, and teachers; or run small businesses (everything from storefront business owners to contractors to hairstylists). Some of these suburban areas abut rural areas.

As evidence of the liveliness of their faith, the particular churches I have attended (all in conservative denominations) have embraced multiple local and international outreaches to those in need. After all, a robust commitment to reaching those in need - the poor, the widow, the orphan -- is surely one of the clearest evidences of a true and living Christian faith. A quick survey I conducted of these yields a rich and prolific list of justice-and-mercy ministries. These believers have been busy with the following:

Partnerships with urban ministries and crisis pregnancy centers, support for single mothers, support for homeless ministries, divorce recovery, marriage and family and addiction counseling, ministries to people facing disabilities, prison ministry, deacon's funds, clothing collection or food pantry or service, refugee support, local and international student ministries and meals, ESL classes or Spanish language services, ministries and services for those who are homebound, ill, the elderly, and grief response and caring programs like Stephen Ministry. (And this list does not touch upon a deep-pocketed commitment to multiple overseas missionaries and programs.)

The vibrant outreach of these Christians is a living picture of James' teaching that a personal faith in Jesus Christ necessarily works out through the hands, feet, and wallets of real believers. But for me, all of this is more than a list on a website or a line on a graph. I know these people as friends. My family has worked alongside them and learned from them. I haven't told you the individual stories of people I know who whose personal ministries nurture their communities (in addition to the work they do during their regular work week, of course). If I shared some of their stories, you'd be encouraged and challenged. I can say with the psalmist in Psalm 16, "As for the saints who are in the land, they are the excellent ones, in whom is my delight."

Many of these evangelical saints -- with their sleeves rolled up in ministry and partnerships that cross local, international, and demographic lines -- voted for Donald Trump. Yet there seems to be a growing notion among some evangelical leaders that white Christians who voted for Trump may not love the least of these as well as Christians who voted otherwise. There seems to be a distancing from and disdain for faithful brothers and sisters who also voted for Donald Trump.

This disdain, despite the fact that these suburban churches believe that salvation is found in repentance and faith in Christ alone, hold Scripture as the final authority, and show it by loving the least and the lost, both in their neighborhoods and out of them.

So -- why the dismissal of the good works of white suburban evangelicals? Perhaps some of these religious leaders are leaning too heavily on their own notion of political purity as an indicator of true Christian faith. Perhaps they struggle with true openness towards "the other," politically speaking (more on this, below). Perhaps they simply have lost sight of the biblical example set by God's people since ancient times. Or perhaps something else.

But the biblical example is that, in a fallen world and as citizens of nations and regions ruled over and populated by pagans, the people of God are often obligated to labor and partner with pagan rulers for the saving of lives and the benefit of His people. Across time, God's people have partnered with pagan kings whose beliefs, rhetoric, and practices might make Presidents Trump, Clinton, and Kennedy collectively blush. Abraham partnered with the kings of the plain. Joseph supported the pharaoh of Egypt (in a powerful position). David allied himself with foreign kings and worked for a Philistine. Daniel worked (apparently with aplomb) on behalf of Nebuchadnezzar. Isaiah refers to the future pagan king, Cyrus, as "anointed." In so doing, they saved innocent lives and the people of God were delivered.

This article is in no way whatsoever a defense of Trump's entire set of values and behavior or, in saying that, of Hillary Clinton and her values and behavior. (And as an aside, have I missed the many hand-wringing articles and interviews from these same evangelicals over the blocks of believers who voted for Hillary Clinton or for President Obama in past years?) This is an explanation of and defense of the faith of the Christians I know who labor for the least and lost, and who also voted for Trump

Of all of the appalling policies in our nation, many Christians have strong convictions that the most appalling is abortion. Minorities rank high in the ledgers listing those killed by abortion, and these Trump-voting believers care about their neighbors. Abortion's victims are hidden, not seen ("undocumented). The oppressor is the only one to see their faces. His acts are valorized as "choice" and "services" in our culture, and his grisly work flourishes behind a glossy storefront or in a clinical building.

In The Screwtape Letters preface, C.S Lewis described the modern age and its evils like this:

"But it [evil] is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

Evil does a very good job at looking nice, and, well, clinical. And since it is easy to forget victims when they are hidden, it is easy to marginalize them. To make the systematic killing of millions a secondary policy issue.



And so, by and large, when I speak to my suburban friends, their vote for Trump came down to abortion. And while they disagree with much or most of his rhetoric, they already see his administration enacting pro-life policies which will work for the saving of international lives as well as those of American children of all races. (And, oddly, Trump's pro-life policy moves are relatively unheralded and uncelebrated by the some evangelicals.)

Christians may disagree with a vote for Trump, just as they may for Hillary Clinton or any of the list of 2016 third-party candidates: Bernie Sanders, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin, Darrell Castle, etc. As a matter of fact, conservatives in general can understand that disagreement. Why? Two possibilities.

First of all, it may be a matter of mindset. In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist and "partisan liberal" Jonathan Haidt concluded that conservatives in general (of which white evangelicals are often a subset) are more broadminded than liberals, and appear to be better able to understand various perspectives.

Second of all, it is a matter of experience. Within these churches during the election, there was frank debate and discussion. I sat around coffee tables and at dinner tables in intense conversations with people who were coming at this election from all angles.

These saints are used to disagreeing politically with the very same brothers and sisters they love, admire, and work alongside in ministry. And they have found they can disagree during a difficult election without dismissing the other's faith. Perhaps this nuanced way of understanding each other may be eluding influential evangelical leaders. But people in "flyover churches" confront serious, thoughtful, differing opinions from serious, thoughtful people all the time.

And so I make an appeal for my friends, to my friends. People may assess the political situation differently, but surely canny Christians can understand that many of their brothers and sisters who voted for Trump are also fully Christian, are sacrificially serving the least and the lost, and may even have a legitimate, thoughtful reason for their vote.

Anne Chamberlin is a wife, mother of three living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is a freelance journalist who has written for the Gospel Coalition.

Elisabeth Elliot: A Third Way Woman

The Gospel Coalition
JUNE 16, 2015 | Anne Chamberlin

Elisabeth Elliot has died. I didn’t know her, but this feels personal. Her books were influential to me as a young single woman in the early 1990s, particularly Passion and Purity and Let Me Be a Woman. At a time in my life when I had become weary of worldly pursuits, aside from the example and words of my own mom, Elliot’s words most shaped for me a vision of what biblical womanhood could look like.
Vigorous, Gentle Womanhood
I met her once as a single working girl about 20 years ago at a mission home where she was visiting and giving a talk. She was older even then, sitting in a chair, neatly dressed, hair carefully in place, wrinkly and rather still, with bright, intelligent eyes that betrayed an active sense of humor.

The way she lived her life and spoke about her adventures and marriages displayed a type of womanhood that caught my imagination. She seemed to own a womanhood that was both vigorous—physically and intellectually—and gentle.

The lives of female missionaries are a sort of bas relief against Western wranglings over things like gender quotas and free contraception. Elliot seemed to have a seasoned, sensible knowledge that came from rugged, basic pursuits—a sharp intellect and a sense of context and keen perspective born out of her edgy life experience as a missionary to unreached tribes. (The unentitled at work seeking the unreached.)
A Third Way Woman
Both the anti-feminist and the anti-delicate flower, she taught what I came to think of as a “third way” of womanhood that seemed like Ruth and that Proverbs 31 woman with her strong arms, shrewdness, and nurturing ways.

I recall her description of life in the jungle. Most of the day was consumed with merely trying to live rather than translating Scripture. I recall her description of the focus, effort, and energy required to make sure water was found, hauled, kept, and boiled each day while keeping a toddler from falling into the fire or water. I also recall her frank humility about her failings and missteps. I learned from her books the profound value of the ministry of the mundane, and the efficiency of biblically training indigenous peoples where possible.

In her writing she was direct but not harsh, open but not coarse. In her vigorous femininity, and in her teamwork with and delight in the masculinity of her husbands, she seemed more like some sort of American pioneer woman and nothing like a fish without a bicycle. More like Phoebe or Dorcas and nothing like a Diva.
A Nurtured Faith for the Next Generation
Elliot nurtured her faith with a disciplined mind fixed on selfless service to the world. She approached her marriages with a mind fixed on pursuing engaging, active partnership, and, yes, submission to a husband. And in her books she reached out to countless people with a simple, clear, direct style of writing.

I am thankful for her example, and as a 44-year-old mother of three, I want to commend her writings to the next generation of “third way women.”

Anne Chamberlin lives in Allen, Texas, and blogs at Tales from Shangri-La.

3 Reasons You Should Care About Election Day

The Gospel Coalition
OCTOBER 28, 2014 | Anne Chamberlin

ARTS & CULTURE
It's the last Tuesday in October, just one week away from Election Day. I've noticed in some (not all) American Christian corners a silence about issues in the political realm. This may have to do with a few possibilities: the rejection of old-school Moral Majority hypocrisy and overreach, the rejection of Obama-as-Messiah liberalism, a distaste for corrupt government and flawed candidates, some kind of notion that secular nations like ours aren't our Christian business, or ignorance about self-rule in our country. As believers, we know that the purpose of government is not to save souls, but to “punish those who do evil and praise those who do good” (1 Pet. 2:14).

Whatever the cause of the silence, here are three reasons American Christians should be politically principled, informed, opinionated, and involved.
1. You are a ruler, and God calls kings to rule well.

There is no one king in America. You and I are kings, for we hire and fire our elected representatives. While you may not have asked for this burden, when you are an American citizen you live in country that has given its people self-rule. It follows that, as kings, Christians would seek the advice given to rulers in Scripture.

Some guidance in Scripture for rulers is direct. God has direct guidance for King Lemuel in Proverbs (Prov. 31:1–9). Lemuel is to rule soberly, justly, and fairly, looking out for those who are oppressed and those whose rights are being stolen. The proverbs have many statements about kings: they take pleasure in honesty, they appreciate skilled labor, they mete out justice.

Some guidance in Scripture is by example. The king of Ninevah (a non-Jewish king of a non-Jewish people) was a king who did well. He repents of his moral sins, and he legislates that his people repent as well, thereby saving them from destruction. Again, these were not Israelites (Jonah 3:7–10). For another example, in the New Testament Paul calls on believers to pray for rulers, that they would help us live peaceful and quiet lives, that we might be “godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:1–4). It would follow that Christians would wish to rule in such a way that those prayers are answered.
2. You are a Christian, and God calls you to love well.

Christ calls us to love our neighbor. It is the second half of his summation of all the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:34–40). Christian, do you love your neighbor? If you do, you will care about the types of laws he lives under. You will care about the just, merciful, and sensible implementation of such laws, too, for these things affect your neighbor. You will keenly study and deduce the things your elected officials wish to reward and encourage, and that which they wish to punish or discourage, and you will vote accordingly. These things affect your neighbor.

You will keenly study and deduce which policies work, and which are well-intentioned yet bound to fail. They affect your neighbor, and you love her. You will weigh a flawed candidate with sensible policies that achieve good things for your country and culture—against another flawed candidate with well-intentioned but foolish or destructive policies.

You will need to think philosophically about the human condition, and weigh the two parties and their approach to legislation, and you will decide which party has more sensible and upright policies. You will need to be shrewd about propaganda, false narratives, cover-ups, and the like, and you will need to learn from history. Because you love your neighbor.

You will do this because in your city, county, state, and country the crime rate, education, educational freedom, corruption, defense, and how the international community treats your countrymen—to name a few issues—matter to your neighbors. And you love them.

Christian, you love your neighbor, even—especially—the tiniest ones. I am speaking of our neighbors in utero who deserve the right to live. May I submit that you consider these—your smallest, weakest neighbors—when you weigh candidates and legislation?
3. You have the Word, and you already know 'it's complicated.'

As a child of God, you hold in your hands the book that thoroughly explains the human condition. Again, whether you like it or not, to whom much is given much shall be required. By describing life, humanity, family, community, and kingdoms, the Bible is relevant to people living in every possible “-archy” and “-ism.” Its message is eminently applicable to image-bearers living in monarchies, oligarchies, aristocracies, kleptocracies, and democracies, and under fascism, communism, and socialism. It's relevant because government is about people, and the Bible is the definitive, inerrant story of God and humanity.

And it's yours. It's in your hands.

The Bible teaches us about human nature and experience, how we thrive, and what brings out the best and the worst in us. It describes how true oppression looks and what true human rights and duties we ought to pursue. Of course human candidates, parties, and platforms are not perfect. Far be it from any believer to be surprised by sin, corruption, or imperfection. But somehow we still scorn and turn away from a system made up of flawed people. What did we expect? As Americans, we can turn away from brokenness in our culture, government, and systems. We can reject “those people and their government” and God's call on us as rulers and Christians, because we cannot find the flawless candidate or party or legislation. We can hunker down in our “Christian ghetto.”

As Christians, however, we are called to turn toward our neighbors. We are called to live in this world and engage our communities and love those around us. We can do this by exercising the gift of self-rule wisely, shrewdly. As Christ's regents, we can support sensible candidates and policies to help bring about freedom and quiet living rather than oppression, here in our little 21st-century kingdom called America.

Anne Chamberlin lives in Allen, Texas, and blogs at Tales from Shangri-La.

3 REASONS YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT ELECTION DAY

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/three-reasons-you-should-care-about-election-day

It's the last Tuesday in October, just one week away from Election Day. I've noticed in some (not all) American Christian corners a silence about issues in the political realm. This may have to do with a few possibilities: the rejection of old-school Moral Majority hypocrisy and overreach, the rejection of Obama-as-Messiah liberalism, a distaste for corrupt government and flawed candidates, some kind of notion that secular nations like ours aren't our Christian business, or ignorance about self-rule in our country. As believers, we know that the purpose of government is not to save souls, but to "punish those who do evil and praise those who do good" (1 Pet. 2:14).

Whatever the cause of the silence, here are three reasons American Christians should be politically principled, informed, opinionated, and involved.

1. You are a ruler, and God calls kings to rule well.

There is no one king in America. You and I are kings, for we hire and fire our elected representatives. While you may not have asked for this burden, when you are an American citizen you live in country that has given its people self-rule. It follows that, as kings, Christians would seek the advice given to rulers in Scripture.

Some guidance in Scripture for rulers is direct. God has direct guidance for King Lemuel in Proverbs (Prov. 31:1–9). Lemuel is to rule soberly, justly, and fairly, looking out for those who are oppressed and those whose rights are being stolen. The proverbs have many statements about kings: they take pleasure in honesty, they appreciate skilled labor, they mete out justice.



Some guidance in Scripture is by example. The king of Ninevah (a non-Jewish king of a non-Jewish people) was a king who did well. He repents of his moral sins, and he legislates that his people repent as well, thereby saving them from destruction. Again, these were not Israelites (Jonah 3:7–10). For another example, in the New Testament Paul calls on believers to pray for rulers, that they would help us live peaceful and quiet lives, that we might be "godly and dignified in every way" (1 Tim. 2:1–4). It would follow that Christians would wish to rule in such a way that those prayers are answered.

2. You are a Christian, and God calls you to love well.

Christ calls us to love our neighbor. It is the second half of his summation of all the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:34–40). Christian, do you love your neighbor? If you do, you will care about the types of laws he lives under. You will care about the just, merciful, and sensible implementation of such laws, too, for these things affect your neighbor. You will keenly study and deduce the things your elected officials wish to reward and encourage, and that which they wish to punish or discourage, and you will vote accordingly. These things affect your neighbor.

You will keenly study and deduce which policies work, and which are well-intentioned yet bound to fail. They affect your neighbor, and you love her. You will weigh a flawed candidate with sensible policies that achieve good things for your country and culture—against another flawed candidate with well-intentioned but foolish or destructive policies.

You will need to think philosophically about the human condition, and weigh the two parties and their approach to legislation, and you will decide which party has more sensible and upright policies. You will need to be shrewd about propaganda, false narratives, cover-ups, and the like, and you will need to learn from history. Because you love your neighbor.

You will do this because in your city, county, state, and country the crime rate, education, educational freedom, corruption, defense, and how the international community treats your countrymen—to name a few issues—matter to your neighbors. And you love them.

Christian, you love your neighbor, even—especially—the tiniest ones. I am speaking of our neighbors in utero who deserve the right to live. May I submit that you consider these—your smallest, weakest neighbors—when you weigh candidates and legislation?

3. You have the Word, and you already know 'it's complicated.'

As a child of God, you hold in your hands the book that thoroughly explains the human condition. Again, whether you like it or not, to whom much is given much shall be required. By describing life, humanity, family, community, and kingdoms, the Bible is relevant to people living in every possible "-archy" and "-ism." Its message is eminently applicable to image-bearers living in monarchies, oligarchies, aristocracies, kleptocracies, and democracies, and under fascism, communism, and socialism. It's relevant because government is about people, and the Bible is the definitive, inerrant story of God and humanity.

And it's yours. It's in your hands.

The Bible teaches us about human nature and experience, how we thrive, and what brings out the best and the worst in us. It describes how true oppression looks and what true human rights and duties we ought to pursue. Of course human candidates, parties, and platforms are not perfect. Far be it from any believer to be surprised by sin, corruption, or imperfection. But somehow we still scorn and turn away from a system made up of flawed people. What did we expect? As Americans, we can turn away from brokenness in our culture, government, and systems. We can reject "those people and their government" and God's call on us as rulers and Christians, because we cannot find the flawless candidate or party or legislation. We can hunker down in our "Christian ghetto.”

As Christians, however, we are called to turn toward our neighbors. We are called to live in this world and engage our communities and love those around us. We can do this by exercising the gift of self-rule wisely, shrewdly. As Christ's regents, we can support sensible candidates and policies to help bring about freedom and quiet living rather than oppression, here in our little 21st-century kingdom called America.

Anne Chamberlin lives in Allen, Texas, and blogs at Tales from Shangri-La.

Religion: An early glimpse at U2's soul

One thing was clear, back in the winter of 1982. No one at the famous Record Service store near the University of Illinois campus could figure out the hot new Irish band that was about to hit town.

The guy behind the front desk cranked up the group's new single so that everyone could ponder the lyrics."I try to sing this song," sang the young entertainer called Bono Vox. "I, I try to stand up, but I can't find my feet. I, I try to speak up, but only in you I'm complete. Gloria, in te domine. Gloria, exultate."

That was Latin, but what did it mean? A Newman Center priest told me that the first phrase, perhaps a Mass fragment or drawn from chant, meant, "Glory in you, Lord." The next meant, "Exalt him." Then again, it was hard to hear the second Latin phrase.

The priest apologized and said he wasn't used to parsing rock lyrics.

Yes, the band 30 years ago was U2, and its mysterious second album was called "October." Both were surrounded by clouds of rumors, which I explored in a News-Gazette column on Feb. 19, 1982. What I needed to do was meet the band before its Feb. 23 concert in Champaign-Urbana.

Luckily, the 20-year-old Bono was willing to discuss "Gloria" and "October." Describing that interview, the reference book "U2: A Diary" notes: "Although the band have gone out of their way to avoid talking about their faith up to this point, they speak candidly now."

That column ran on March 5 and it apparently was the first mainstream news piece in which Bono and company discussed their faith. I immediately pitched the story to Rolling Stone, where editors decided that U2 wasn't all that important or that it was bizarre for a guy like Bono to talk about God -- or both.

"Deep down, everyone is aware. You know, when somebody dies, when somebody in their family dies. ... Things that happen around us, they shock people into a realization of what is going down," he told me.

All of that changed -- quickly.

Thirty years down the road, what is striking about that interview is the fact that the issues that drove Bono then still dominate his life today. For example, he stressed that U2 had no interest in being stereotyped as a "Christian band" or in allowing "Christian" to become a sad marketing term for its work.

"The band is anxious not to be categorized," he said. "You know, if, for instance, people are talking about U2 in a spiritual sense ... that becomes a pigeonhole for people to put us in. That worries us."

Also, from the point of view of coming from where we come from, Ireland is a place that's been cut in two by religion. I have no real time for religion and, therefore, avoid those kinds of stereotypes. I would hate for people to think of me as religious, though I want people to realize that I am a Christian."

Decades later, tensions remain between believers who work in the so-called "contemporary Christian music" and believers who work in the mainstream-music industry. The latter often cite U2's work as a prime example of how religious imagery and themes can be woven into successful popular music.

The goal, Bono stressed, is to avoid making preachy music that settles for easy answers while hiding the struggles that real people experience in real life. When writing a song about sin, such as "I Fall Down," he stressed, "I always include myself in the 'we.' You know, 'we' have fallen. I include myself. ... I'm not telling everybody that I have the answers. I'm trying to get across the difficulty I have being what I am."

At the same time, he expressed disappointment that so many people -- artists, in particular -- attempt to avoid the ultimate questions that haunt life. The doubts, fears, joys and grace of religious faith are a part of life that "we like to sweep under the carpet," he concluded.

"Deep down, everyone is aware. You know, when somebody dies, when somebody in their family dies. ... Things that happen around us, they shock people into a realization of what is going down," he told me."

I mean, when you look at the starvation, when you think that a third of the population of this Earth is starving, is crying out in hunger, I don't think that you can sort of smile and say, 'Well, I know. We're the jolly human race, you know. We're all very nice, REALLY.' I mean, we're not, are we?"

(Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Contact him at tmattingly(at)cccu.org or http://www.tmatt.net.)

Authors@Google: Tim Keller Talks on the Meaning of Marriage

On Dylan's 70th birthday, Bono pays him tributeon of f

Bono: "jagged around the edges"

Bono — Illustration by Andy Friedman

When I was 13, Bob Dylan started whispering in my ear… it was a hoarse whisper, jagged around the edges, not-too-plain truths…ideas blowing in the wind about how the world could be a better place if we could just get it out of the hands of the hypocrites.

When I was 16, Bob Dylan whispered in my ear about how the real enemy was not flesh and blood, but of a spiritual nature.

At 21, with the slow train of faith having picked up a little too much speed, I stood at a religious crossroads and heard "Every Grain of Sand" stop time.

When I got married at 22, Bob Dylan was whispering in my ear about love and infidelity.

When I had my first child at 29, Bob Dylan wrote "Ring Them Bells" and "What Good Am I?"

When I ran out of gas in the late '90s, I had Time Out of Mind to hold on to.

When the world crumbled around two shining towers, and New York had its two front teeth knocked out, I had Love and Theft to hang on to.

Now, having faced 50, I'm realizing I knew much more then than I do now. I'm returning to the brutal truth that "The Times They Are A-Changin' " — but you don't have to let them change you.

In short, all my life, Bob Dylan has been there for me.

Lenten Soundtrack Song 2: Vertigo by U2

Tim Keller - Sabbath Sermons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What is the True Word of Jesus?, by Tim Keller

How Timothy Keller Spreads the Gospel in New York City, and Beyond

By Eleanor Barkhorn

TimothyKeller.com

In 1989, Timothy Keller moved from rural Virginia to New York City with his wife and sons to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The church started small but in the past two decades has grown to 5,000 weekly attenders, attracting attention from the New York Times for its ministry to New Yorkers after the September 11th attacks and New York magazine, which called Keller the "most successful Christian Evangelist in the city" in 2006. Keller's influence began to extend beyond New York in 2008 when he published The Reason for God, a rational defense of belief in God that became a New York Times bestseller. Keller spoke with The Atlantic about how his success as a writer has affected his church and the process he went through to write his latest book, The King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, which comes out this week.

---

What made you decide to write a book about the life of Jesus?

In a way, the reason why I wrote the book is I'm a Christian minister. And a basic job, I think, is to get people to be attracted to Jesus. That's the purpose of the book: to take the continual, almost inexorable, interest that people have in Jesus—it seems like no matter whether people have a positive or negative view of the church, regardless of whether the culture is secular or religious, there is an interest in Jesus. I'm trying to connect with that because I find Jesus very attractive, and I want people to be attracted to him.

And why did you choose to focus on the Gospel of Mark rather than any of the other three gospels?

You're an author, so you'll probably laugh at this: I chose Mark because it's the shortest gospel. But because it's short, it's compressed, and it moves from incident to incident in Jesus' life very quickly. In Matthew, Luke, and John, you have these long discourses, long pieces of teaching, and they're wonderful in many cases, like the Sermon on the Mount. And they raise a lot of questions.

But if you're really just trying to get exposed to all the aspects of Jesus, in Mark you get three or four incidents: Jesus with the dying girl, Jesus with the Pharisees, Jesus with a scholar. You get so many pictures of him per chapter that very quickly you get a very full-bodied picture of who he is. Also there's a sense of immediacy: it's all in the present tense. Sometimes it says, "Immediately he did this, immediately he did that." It's pretty compelling. I always go there, to Mark, if I'm trying to introduce somebody to Jesus. It's the fastest way to give the person a picture.

It's interesting to hear you say that writing books is part of your calling as a Christian minister, since in the past you've said you think you're a better preacher than a writer.

Well, I struggle to be a writer. If you ask me to go someplace and speak after all these years, yes, I can pull that together, I can do that. Writing is much more difficult for me. ... I am a better speaker than a writer, but basically I felt like over the years there are certain messages I wanted to get out there, and I felt that the written word is one way to get them out that can't be gotten out any other way.

I was reading some article—I can't remember who it was, it was a book reviewer for the Washington Post, I thought. Basically, it said a book is a textually created world. ... When you give yourself to a book, you essentially let the author take you into a world for a while. Even if it's a non-fiction book, the author is basically saying, "This is how I see what's going on in the world." ... It has an effect on you that simply listening to a 30-minute talk or an address, no matter how compelling, I don't think does.

I found in the last three years that people are affected by the books in ways I don't think oral communication can do. So I made that effort, and it's not easy.

What's your writing process like?

It works best if I have spoken on it because I can hear myself saying it, and then I write it. The other thing that you might find interesting—though I don't know if I can keep it up—is what I'll do is when I've written a chapter or two or three, I'll read them to my wife, out loud. And as I do that, we'll both say, "Well, do you want to put it that way or that way?" I understand what I'm trying to say better if I actually read it aloud to her, and she would actually rather I do that even though it's a bit tedious, you know, to have someone read aloud to you for an hour. She would rather do that than actually look at it on the page.

I think partly it's because when you're reading something I think you do say it in your head. And so I want to hear what it's going to sound like in the people's heads. And the best way to do that is to read it out loud. So, I usually have to speak it, then I write it, then I speak it to my wife and make corrections that way.

You've been a minister for a while, and you've led Redeemer for more than two decades. What made you decide to start writing books for a wide audience now, rather than earlier in your career?

I'm 60. I've been here for 20 years. I've had almost 40 years of ministry. I waited deliberately to write for a few reasons: One is I wanted to get pretty much mature in my thinking. In other words, I've pretty much come mostly to my conclusions. If I were a man in my 30s or even my 40s writing, then I would be afraid that I'd evolve on past what I'd written down.

Also, I've got a lot more material because I've been working this stuff through. I've probably preached the whole book of Mark five times in my life. And so I feel like I've got, you know, more stuff. I waited for that reason: I felt like it would be better stuff if I waited.

The Reason for God spent several weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. How has being a successful author changed your relationship with the people in your church?

That's a fair question, and a good one, actually, and a wise one, even. The upside is, many, many people show up because they've read the book. An example of this is, I met a German PhD student at a local university who was wrestling with whether he believed in God or not, found the book The Reason for God in the airport, read it, was very intrigued with it, said "Gee, I would love to hear more about this," and realized he lived within walking distance of where the church was. He just looked at the book jacket and said, "Wait a minute, I can walk to this place." And he just showed up.

Those are the good stories. I would say that the problem with ministers who write books is that people make the church a destination church. Which is to say they either drive in from a long distance away because they say, "Oh, let's go into town, have a bite to eat, and go hear the minister whose book I read." Or they may even fly. There are certain churches where the minister has a high profile that become destination churches. I don't think it actually directly hurts to have an additional 500 people every Sunday who show up and don't live here and aren't actually part of the church. In some way you could say it's cheap thrills—they fill up the seats, and it's really kind of festive, and it's nice. But it actually can give the rest of the congregation the mistaken idea that the congregation is growing—which it has, but it's not actually growing as much as they think because the folks are not really part of the community.

That doesn't hurt. And yet I could imagine if this went on for 20 years, I think you'd actually have to start to say, "Which part of the church is the community of people who are here, and which part of the church is coming to hear the celebrity?" I would say that because I'm near the end of my career, I don't think it's going to harm the church, at all.

Dutton

One of the most interesting parts of King's Cross is where you discuss the work of the historian Andrew Walls, who says that Christianity's center is always migrating away from seats of power. You write, "[W]hen Christianity is in a place of power for a long period, the radical message of sin and grace and the cross can become muted or even lost. Then Christianity starts to transmute into a nice, safe religion, one that's for respectable people who try to be good. And eventually it becomes virtually dormant in those places and the center moves somewhere else." How does that account for the success of your ministry in a place like New York, one of the most powerful cities in the world?

If you think about it, Christianity was, maybe 150 years ago, very dominant in all the big cities. Peter Drucker—do you know who he is? He was a management guru. He wrote a bunch of books—he wrote The Effective Executive. Anyway, I was at a talk he did where he was talking about how the big cities of America had become more like Europe. He was saying that when he moved from Austria in the 1930s. ... He was already an intellectual, he was a professor, and he got a job at NYU. And he was moving to the New York area—I think Hoboken or something like that—and he was trying to buy a house, and the banker said, "I'd like to speak to your rabbi or your priest or your minister." And being Austrian, he was surprised, and he said, "Why?" And the banker said, "Well, we would never lend money to someone that doesn't go to a synagogue. Why would we trust you if you weren't a member?"

And when Drucker told that story, he was trying to say things have changed, in his own lifetime. Things have really, really changed in a place like New York. There was a time at which, you had to, essentially, profess to be an orthodox Christian, to even really be in power, to work your way up, to get a loan.

It's the other way around now. Frankly, if you are an orthodox Christian in Manhattan right now, it's a social problem. People are nervous about you, they feel like you're bigoted. And so actually right now if you are a graduate of Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, and you've got your MBA, and you're working on Wall Street, or being a downtown artist or something like that, and if you are an orthodox Christian, that's very, very subversive. It's very transgressive. And in that setting, to some degree, it's tough to be a Christian here. But in other ways, it is the kind of soil in which Christianity does well. And that is: Christians are out of power.

I know what you're saying is, "Yeah, but New York is a power center, and if you have an MBA from Harvard and you're working on Wall Street, then you're part of the power." Well, yeah, but if you're a Christian, at this point, that still puts you somewhat on the outs. Certainly not in my lifetime is that going to turn around. Which means, it's not a bad soil for Christianity to grow here.

How does Redeemer respond to the difficulties of being a church in a place that is skeptical of religion?

You know the new book by Robert Putnam? It's called American Grace. Putnam is a Harvard guy—he wrote Bowling Alone. He's written a book, and it's trying to be a snapshot of where America is on religion. It's quite an interesting book. But the one thing he made a pretty interesting case for is, he said that in the end of the '60s, the mainline liberal churches got very politically involved with liberal politics. They identified with liberal politics. And that put them way out of step with the mainstream. And there was actually a real reaction against it, and people left the mainline. It just turned them off.

But he's made the case that in the '80s and '90s the evangelical church did the same thing, except with conservative politics. Because it identified so strongly with conservative politics, that also put them somewhat out of step with the mainstream. The mushy middle is kind of moderate about politics, really.

And as a result there's been a backlash against evangelicals. And I think that's true. Because I've been here during that time. And I would say that as a fairly orthodox believer, that I've seen in a place like New York, because of the identification of orthodox Christianity with conservative politics, there's actually more antipathy here than there was 20 years ago. There's more fear. Part of the reason why Redeemer has done well is because we've always said, "We're about Christianity, not politics. And we know that your Christian faith is going to affect your political views. We know that—we're not saying that won't happen. But we also don't think that your Gospel faith necessarily throws you into one party or the other. " And because we've had that stance, it's one of the reasons I think we haven't had a backlash here.

As you were writing King's Cross, was there anything you learned about the Gospel of Mark that you hadn't noticed before?

No one thing. I'll tell you, the thing I struggle with is doing justice to it. When I'm preaching I don't quite get the same— When you're writing a book, you feel like you're putting something down. It's a little more permanent. And therefore I actually struggled just with a feeling like I'm not doing justice to the material, which is the Gospel of Mark, or more directly, Jesus himself. There's a true story, evidently, of [Arturo] Toscanini. He was director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra years ago, here in New York. And there was some place where he had just conducted—actually it was just a rehearsal. He conducted a Beethoven symphony. And he did such an incredible job with it that when it was all done, the musicians gave him a standing ovation. And he started to cry. He literally started to cry, and he actually had them sit down, and he wouldn't let them applaud, and then he said, "It's not me, it wasn't me, it was Beethoven."

Now, what he's getting across there is a feeling like, "I'm just trying to do justice to the material. And usually I don't. And if occasionally I do ok, you shouldn't be applauding me. It's just, I got out of the way. I just got out of the way and we actually heard how great the music was."

And I feel the same struggle. I'm just trying to get out of the way. And you can't. In other words, when you're actually reading, and you're getting directly a sense of the greatness and the attractiveness of Jesus—and by the way, to say he's attractive doesn't mean he's warm and toasty all the time. I mean, sometimes he's scary, but he's still attractive. I just want to say, I want other people to have the same experience I've had as I've read. And I never quite get there. So I struggled with that, a lot. And it was a huge struggle to write. It's a lot harder to write than it is to speak. There's something about speaking that's impermanent. You think, "Well, I can do it again next time." But with a book, I didn't feel that way.

Bono’s Billy Graham Poem

The hand-written poem is on display at the Billy Graham Library:

“The journey from father to friend
is all paternal loves end.
it was sung in my teenage ears
in the voice of a preacher
loudly soft on my tears
I would never forget this
melody line
or its lyric voice that gave my life
a rhyme,
a meaning, that wasn’t there before.
a child, born in dung and straw
with The Fathers love and desire to explain
how we might get on with each other again….”

for The Rev. Billy Graham (that preacher)
Ruth and all the Graham Family
from Bono (March 11 2002)
with much love and respect….

What I Learned From Sargent Shriver, by Bono

The Irish are still mesmerized by the mythical place that is America, but in the ’60s our fascination got out of hand. I was not old enough to remember the sacrifices of the great generation who saved Europe in the Second World War, or to quite comprehend what was going on in Vietnam. But what I do remember, and cannot forget, is watching a man walk on the moon in 1969 and thinking here is a nation that finds joy in the impossible.

The Irish saw the Kennedys as our own royal family out on loan to America. A million of them turned out on J.F.K.’s homecoming to see these patrician public servants who, despite their station, had no patience for the status quo. (They also loved that the Kennedys looked more WASP than any “Prod,” our familiar term for Protestant.)

I remember Bobby’s rolled-up sleeves, Jack’s jutted jaw and the message — a call to action — that the world didn’t have to be the way it was. Science and faith had found a perfect rhyme.

In the background, but hardly in the shadows, was Robert Sargent Shriver. A diamond intelligence, too bright to keep in the darkness. He was not Robert or Bob, he was Sarge, and for all the love in him, he knew that love was a tough word. Easy to say, tough to see it through. Love, yes, and peace, too, in no small measure; this was the ’60s but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at him. No long hair in the Shriver house, or rock ’n’ roll. He and his beautiful bride, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, would go to Mass every day — as much an act of rebellion against brutal modernity as it was an act of worship. Love, yes, but love as a brave act, a bold act, requiring toughness and sacrifice.

His faith demanded action, from him, from all of us. For the Word to become flesh, we had to become the eyes, the ears, the hands of a just God. Injustice could, in the words of the old spiritual, “Be Overcome.” Robert Sargent sang, “Make me a channel of your peace,” and became the song.

Make me a channel of your peace:

Where there is hatred let me bring your love.

Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord,

And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.

Oh, Master grant that I may never seek,

So much to be consoled as to console.

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace,

Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.

Where there is darkness, only light,

And where there’s sadness, ever joy.

The Peace Corps was Jack Kennedy’s creation but embodied Sargent Shriver’s spirit. Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty but Sarge led the charge. These, and the Special Olympics, were as dramatic an incarnation of the ideas at the heart of America as the space program.

Robert Sargent Shriver changed the world more than a few times and, I am happy to say, changed my world forever. In the late ’90s, when the Jubilee 2000 campaign — which aimed to cancel the debts that the poorest nations owed to the richest — asked me to help in the United States, I called on the Shriver clan for help and advice. What I got were those things in spades, and a call to arms like a thump in the back.

In the years since, Bobby Shriver — Sarge’s oldest son — and I co-founded three fighting units in the war against global poverty: DATA, ONE and (RED). We may not yet know what it will take to finish the fight and silence suffering in our time, but we are flat out trying to live up to Sarge’s drill.

I have beautiful memories of Bobby and me sitting with his father and mother at the Shrivers’ kitchen table — the same team that gazed over J.F.K.’s shoulder — looking over our paltry attempts at speechifying, prodding and pushing us toward comprehensibility and credibility, a challenge when your son starts hanging round with a bleeding-heart Irish rock star.

Toward the end, when I visited Sarge as a frailer man, I was astonished by his good spirits and good humor. He had the room around him laughing out loud. I thought it a fitting final victory in a life that embodied service and transcended, so often, grave duty, that he had a certain weightlessness about him. Even then, his job nearly done, his light shone undiminished, and brightened us all.

Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.

God, Bono and me

God, Bono and me from CPX on Vimeo.

Killing Bono

Killing Bono from CPX on Vimeo.

Doing Justice - Tim Keller

Michael and Anthony Emerson: Church, you don’t know how beautiful you are

U2's “No Line on the Horizon” has been one of their more misunderstood albums. The most misunderstood song of the album is “Get On Your Boots.” Here is a snippet.

The future needs a big kiss
Winds blow with a twist
Never seen a moon like this
Can you see it too?
Night is falling everywhere
Rockets at the fun fair
Satan loves a bomb scare
But he won't scare you

“Get On Your Boots” is is bombastic and urgent, sleek and fast-paced. But more than anything it’s a powerful message of hope to the church. Take, for example, the first line, “the future needs a big kiss.” What entity would be able to impact the future with a kiss (curious choice of words, right)? How about the bride of Christ, the church? The future needs the church because of the next six lines: the winds are blowing, the moon (a motif of confusion and evil) is up, night has fallen, and Satan is trying to frighten us. Why would Bono have the boldness to tell us that Satan shouldn’t scare us? Remember Matthew 16:18: “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” Therefore, get on your boots. In other words, get up and do some work in this dark world because God has empowered you to do so.

You free me from the dark dream
Candy floss ice cream
All our kids are screaming
But the ghosts aren't real
Here's where we gotta be
Love and community
Laughter is eternity
If joy is real

“You free me from the dark dream” suggests the church is saving the lost. Then we see giddy happiness in the second line with paradoxical, light-hearted objects (happiness doesn't make sense). The third and fourth lines convey the same idea as the last two lines of the first stanza. Things become clearer when the necessity of community is brought in. Laughter is a godly and reasonable thing if there really is a happy ending awaiting us. We can fight the evils of this world with light hearts because we are fighting within a vibrant community of Spirit-filled people.

You don't know how beautiful you are

You, the church, don't understand how made-in-the image-of-God awesome you can be. You can have perfect joy and community! So get on your boots and be boldly beautiful!

Women of the future hold the big revelations
I've got a submarine
You got gasoline
I don't want to talk about wars between nations

It is striking how near the message of this song is to Hauerwas' and Willimon's “Resident Aliens.” Since we no longer live in a Christian culture, the church is free to live as a distinct people once again. We are to impact the world through our colony, not as we have been doing since Constantine: through the government. The holy community that we are supposed to be can astound the world by how beautiful we are and how much love we show the world. The problems and conflicts of this world will not be solved by mere mortals. Only through the church can the world be truly redeemed. Get on your boots!

Let me in the sound!

Where did this come from? Acts 2. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven . . .”. The birth of the church. If you want more proof, look at John 3:5-8, where Jesus compares being born of the Spirit to the sound of the wind – we can’t tell where it's going. It's probably not a coincidence that both the sound and birth are themes throughout “No Line on the Horizon.” The sound is representative of the Spirit, the Lord of the church.

There are people in the world who want in! Get on your boots, and let the church get to stepp’in!

Michael O. Emerson is the Cline Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University in Houston, Texas. His son, Anthony Emerson, is a sophomore at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

U2 Lists: Top 10 Types of Sustenance in U2's Lyrics

I'd break bread and wine, but far less often than honey

[Ed. note: This is the 17th in a "U2 Lists" series, where @U2 staffers pick a topic and share their personal rankings on something U2-related.]

Any way you slice it, U2's music feeds the soul in more ways than you'd realize. When you think of U2's lyrics, typically people think of the holy trinity of political, spiritual and emotional to describe what their music is all about. If you dig deeper, you'll find an overlooked theme in their music that Bono alludes to in their unreleased song, Mercy: "If you hunger, baby, let me feed it." Nourishment comes in many forms, and I would like to propose a list of the top 10 types of sustenance inspired in U2’s music.

1) Honey

This sweet regurgitation from honey bees is the leading food item Bono takes inspiration from. It is referenced in at least 10 U2 songs, with Wild Honey being the most obvious tribute to this yummy delight. Bono explains how honey is made in the outtake Levitate: "To be the bee / To be the bee and the flower / Before the sweetness / Before the sweetness turns to sour." He tightened up the lyric when Levitate became Always: "To be a bee and the flower / Before the sweetness turns to sour." Even Better Than the Real Thing brings us "You're honey, child, to a swarm of bees." A Man and a Woman tells us "But you're like honey on my tongue," which is the same reference Bono gives in both Hawkmoon 269 and Summer Rain. The Rattle and Hum b-side A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel gives us "You let them suck your life out like honey." Passengers' Elvis Ate America mentions "honey, potato chips and cheese." Not to mention, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For states "I have kissed honey lips."

2) Alcohol

For a band from Ireland, it's no surprise that alcohol in some form would be mentioned in song. From the band's earliest days, Cartoon World mentions "He didn't give me a lot of beer." To the best of my knowledge, that is the only reference to beer. Holy Joe gives a nod to champagne, but it's wine that seems to inspire Bono more. I suppose wine is a better sounding word in songs, especially since it can rhyme with many things. Wine has also been a bigger influence to Bono since Paul McGuinness first taught him to appreciate the beverage. Lyrics with Bible scripture references are where wine is used mostly: Until the End of the World, Mercy, and Acrobat. The Unforgettable Fire gives us "red wine that punctures the skin." And there's the outtake Xanax and Wine.

Bono's not afraid to write about hard liquors as well. He mentions "Tequila and orange, Jamaica and rum" in Summer Rain. He also alludes to hard liquor in the title Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad. While it's a stretch, cocoa butter can be made from chocolate liquor, which would put the line "She's cocoa butter, baby, she's the glue" in Big Girls Are Best in this category too.

3) Fruit

From wearing Lemon, and bringing oranges from a tank in Cedars of Lebanon, fruit has been used in a few ways by Bono. The earliest reference to fruit can be found in Boy/Girl to describe complexion "her skin is coloured strawberries and cream." He also uses "cherry red" to describe lips in Walk to the Water. Edge also gets into the fruit action when he tells us to "have another grape" in Numb.

4) Non-Alcoholic Beverages

Bono must have a thirst that needs quenching while in the studio because he sings about many types of drinks other than alcoholic ones. Coffee and water are the most popular (Cedars of Lebanon, Electrical Storm, Hawkmoon 269, and Trip Through Your Wires). Bono's soft drink of choice appears to be Coca-Cola, as sung in Promenade and The Playboy Mansion. Even Better Than the Real Thing was a coy nod to Coca-Cola's slogan "The Real Thing" from around the same era. Mofo mentions lemonade, and "If O.J. is more than a drink" is cleverly used in The Playboy Mansion.

5) Fast Food

Bono has given lyrical equal time between McDonald’s and Burger King. The Playboy Mansion gives props to McDonald's with "A Big Mac bigger than we think." In Elvis Ate America, Burger King gets the spotlight with "ate a king burger and kept getting bigger."

6) People

As crazy as it sounds, if you take Bono's lyrics literally, he references cannibalism twice in U2's discography. Bono sings "Every artist is a cannibal" in The Fly. He chose to be a bit more descriptive in Crumbs From Your Table, by singing "With a mouth full of teeth, you ate all your friends."

7) Ice Cream

Sorbet and sherbet just aren't cool enough when it comes to frozen dairy products in U2 songs. Ice cream is where it's at in Elvis Ate America, Holy Joe and Get On Your Boots.

8) The Sweetest Things

"Ain't love the sweetest thing?" Not really when bubble gum and sugar are used in U2 lyrics. Bubble gum can be found in Discotheque. Bono finds "sugar" both as a term of endearment in Original of the Species, and a way to describe someone as "Some sweet delight, a sugar rush" in Love You Like Mad. Get On Your Boots refers to "candy floss," which is blown sugar. Even the outtake Flower Child refers to sugar.

9) Special Ingredients

There are several songs with a single referenced ingredient, all of which are worth noting. Beautiful Day mentions tuna being cleared out by the fleets. "I can taste the salt in the sea" is found in Kite. U2 performs the Allen Ginsberg poem, Drunk Chicken/America. There's even "butter on toast" in Winter.

10) Artificial Ingredients

It would seem that U2 inspires many comedians with food-related parodies. Two worth bringing up in this list include Chris Kattan and Ben Stiller. Chris Kattan parodied Bono during episode 2 of season 25 of Saturday Night Live. This parody pokes fun at NetAid, and the fact that no one showed up for it. Kattan sings "Salami, cheese and pickles help make starving people strong" to the tune of One. Ben Stiller also uses One to parody U2 with a commercial for "Lucky Clovers" cereal.

Finding God on Your iPod - Part 5: Moment of Surrender

Pastor Brian Zahnd presents a message entitled "Finding God on Your iPod: Moment of Surrender".

The Grand Demythologizer: The Gospel and Idolatry