FaithHighway has insinuated that they will take legal action against my friends, therefore I am taking this account down. Apparently it’s good to know that you’ve signed away all legal rights to a “Christian” company before you realize they’re acting in an unethical manner.

Full disclosure: While none of the business practices by FaithHighway are overtly unethical, as someone with knowledge of web design, I would not recommend their service to any church or church plants. There are easier ways to do things considerably cheaper. Yesterday I posted about ProPhoto Blogs, a WordPress theme which I use for Words Are Not Enough. ProPhoto will pay me a small sum ($7) for every person I get to sign up using my promo code. However, while I believe WordPress itself is perfect for organizations and individuals alike, I do not recommend the ProPhoto theme for a church website. ProPhoto is best for individuals or couples interested in promoting their personal thoughts and photography. There are many WordPress themes which are better suited for content-driven sites, and I encourage you to use them instead.

I’ve spoken to Greg Johnson via Twitter, and he is aware of these grievances. He denied some of the allegations on Twitter, and I invite him to address the allegations in this post personally.

[E. Stanley Jones, Source Currently Unknown]

[Norman Borlaug, "father of the Green Revolution," during his 1970 Nobel Laureate lecture]

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.

[Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke 12:48b]

[Robert S. McNamara, President of the World Bank (1968-1981) in his address to the World Bank, September 1973]

The following is an excerpt from God Has a Dream by Archbishop Desmond Tutu:

I once went to a garden party in England in the early sixties. I don’t know why, but we were expected to pay for our own tea. I offered to do so for an acquaintance I met there. Now he could have said, “No, thank you,” and I would have understood. But you could have knocked me down with a feather when he replied, “No, I won’t be subsidized!” Well, I never. As if we were not all subsidized, not only by all those whose graciousness and gifts have allowed us to become who we are but also by the grace and gifts that God has given us.

Because ours is a culture of success, the worst thing that could ever happen to a person in contemporary society is for him to fail- to need to be subsidized. We believe we must impress people with our success because this ensures that we can be taken seriously. Of course there is an appropriate setting when it is legitimate, indeed absolutely necessary, that we do impress certain categories of people in order to make our way through life. You would be silly not to want to impress your intended if you want her to accept your proposal of marriage. It would be quite disastrous for you as a student not to want to impress your examiners. And you have to succeed in your exams, your career. But it has affected our whole atmosphere so we find that stomach ulcers become a status symbol. (32-33)

Anything less than God cannot satisfy our hunger for the divine. Not even success. That is why everything else, if we give it our ultimate loyalty- money, fame, drugs, sex, whatever- turns into ashes in our mouths. (34)

We have tended to treat the weak, the poor, the unemployed, the failures with disdain because success and power have become the gods at whose altars we have burned incense and bowed the knee. (38)

[Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream]

“I am Second is a movement where significance in life is a shared value among people of all kinds. Actors. Athletes. Musicians. Business leaders. Your next-door neighbors. People just like you. Their authentic stories here on iamsecond.com provide insight into dealing with typical struggles of everyday living. You’ll meet people who overcame destructive lifestyles. Plus you’ll discover those who’ve tried to go it alone and have failed, yet still found a life full of hope, peace, and fulfillment.”

“The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love. So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.”

Okay, so Mark Harmon didn’t make a cameo in my English class at Auburn in January 2000, but you can imagine my surprise when his lookalike did. He was laid back; he was cool. He wasn’t our professor- that would feed a power structure created by The Man. No, this guy was a part of the counterculture. He was our guide.

Twice at Auburn I had professors who thought they were my spiritual guide: both English and Literature professors. Another, an economics professor, was our political conscience. He taught us what it meant to be a libertarian, then he ran for governor of Alabama. I digress…

Mr. Shoop, as I shall call my hippie English teacher (I’ve long forgotten his actual name), stood before our class and professed that all literature was open to interpretation. Everything. If it has been written, it is open for interpretation. I challenged his assertion, “So if I write something about a tree and you interpret it as being about the mechanical workings of a modern factory, then that’s okay?” He said yes. “What if I tell you that it’s about a tree? That it’s not about a factory, but simply a tree?” Mr. Shoop explained that it didn’t matter. Everything was open for interpretation.

That’s an interesting take on truth. The good news is I got an A. I guess he could have interpreted my work as an F, but I would have challenged his interpretation. I always think my work deserves an A, even if it doesn’t.

Some years ago Voddie Baucham joked that if someone approached him with the premise that “there is no truth,” he would take the liberty to punch that person in the nose. I can think of more creative methods of making the same point, all of which would be endlessly entertaining. It comes down to this: there will always be one correct interpretation, one absolute truth. If I write a poem about a tree, and I tell you that it’s about a tree and nothing less, then my poem is not open to interpretation. You may wish that I had a secondary meaning. You may even project that wish upon my poem, proclaiming that I am actually writing about factories. But the truth remains the same regardless of your interpretation. My poem is about a tree.

Here’s the point, which I’m positive any thinking individual realizes. To say that no truth exists is to make a truth statement. It contradicts itself. Even anthropologists accept that truth does exist, regardless of cultural differences. It’s not always clear what that truth is, but it exists. The goal is to find it, no matter hard it is to find. And that’s okay.

Anyway, we all know this whole post is really about those fascist fluffy bunnies.

Most of my seminary-educated friends would mock this attempt, since they read close to a book a week. My friend Adam Feldman is the inspiration for this little project. A while back he attempted to read 50 books in 52 weeks. You can read his final review here. For me, this is a stretch. I’m easily distracted. I live in the Internet age. If I want to know something, I look it up on Wikipedia, I Google it, or if my books aren’t packed in boxes and stuck in a storage room (and most are right now), I might open one of my books to look it up. I learn in ADHD. I learn in article format, not book format. And so far that learning method has worked for me. But I need to be more disciplined in reading.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You see the list of books above and realize I’ve got a 20-something page children’s book filled with pictures up there. True. But sometimes less is more, and I think there’s a lot to be learned from Shel Silverstein. Also, I think The Giving Tree offsets NT Wright’s Justification, which I anticipate will be a pretty difficult book to sort through. It turns out The Word Became Flesh is written in a one year devotion style, so I’ll be reading it every day.

I’ve got a few alternates (that’s why you see 27 books listed above), just in case some turn out to be duds. And who knows- maybe I’ll beat my 2 books a month pace and read more. If you’re interested in any of these books listed above, click here and you can visit my Amazon.com aStore, where you’ll find the entire list with book descriptions. You can buy each book there, too (and I get a little cut from Amazon for each book you buy).

So this is actually a challenge. Twenty-five books in fifty-two weeks. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

Oh, this “noble” culture of ours! It speaks so piously of human dignity and human rights and then disregards this dignity and these rights of countless millions and treads them underfoot, only because they live overseas or because their skins are of different color or because they cannot help themselves. This culture does not know how hollow and miserable and full of glib talk it is, how common it looks to those who follow it across the seas and see what it has done there, and this culture has no right to speak of personal dignity and human rights…

I will not enumerate all the crimes that have been committed under the pretext of justice. People robbed native inhabitants of their land, made slaves of them, let loose the scum of mankind upon them. Think of the atrocities that were perpetrated upon people made subservient to us, how systematically we have ruined them with our alcoholic “gifts”, and everything else we have done…We decimate them, and then, by the stroke of a pen, we take their land so they have nothing left at all…

If all this oppression and all this sin and shame are perpetrated under the eye of the German God, or the American God, or the British God, and if our states do not feel obliged first to lay aside their claim to be “Christian” — then the name of Jesus is blasphemed and made a mockery. And the Christianity of our states is blasphemed and made a mockery before those poor people. The name of Jesus has become a curse, and our Christianity — yours and mine — has become a falsehood and a disgrace, if the crimes are not atoned for in the very place where they were instigated. For every person who committed an atrocity in Jesus’ name, someone must step in to help in Jesus’ name; for every person who robbed, someone must bring a replacement; for everyone who cursed, someone must bless.

And now, when you speak about missions, let this be your message: We must make atonement for all the terrible crimes we read of in the newspapers. We must make atonement for the still worse ones, which we do not read about in the papers, crimes that are shrouded in the silence of the jungle night… [Albert Schweitzer, January 6, 1905]

“I used love like money, but love doesn’t work like money. It is not a commodity. When we barter with it, we all lose. When the church does not love its enemies, it fuels their rage. It makes them hate us more.” [Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz]

When we are passive-aggressive, we tend to make snide, underhanded, and indirect comments toward those whom we harbor ill-feelings. We are not direct with them. We do not approach them, as Jesus mandated in Matthew 18. It is only through direct confrontation with God or people that reconciliation is possible. We use our love a a commodity, withholding it from those with whom we’re angry. Nothing is resolved through passive-aggression, nor is its primary goal to resolve conflict. The priority of passive-aggression is to release anger and frustration while maintaining the façade of spiritual maturity. Passive-aggression could not be further from spiritual maturity; it is the foundation for vanity.

If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. [Matthew, 18:15-16, ESV] 

I know we all have moments of passive-aggressive behavior, and there are plenty of times when it is better to bite our tongue than to act out in aggressive confrontation. No question, it is imperative that we use wisdom when picking our fights. Still, we cannot hide behind the ruse of false humility and conflict avoidance by protesting, “but it’s for the greater good to avoid division!” More than likely, it is not. By avoiding the conflict, we are merely festering division within the ranks. We are suppressing division and conflict, and like a volcano erupts under great pressure, so will that division and conflict erupt at the least opportune moment. This is why entire church staffs turnover in less than a year. It’s how churches split. It’s of Satan, and passive-aggressiveness must be rebuked.

Do not read this as an invitation to stir up trouble or speak out for no reason. The Scriptures are very clear about how we are to approach others with whom we are in conflict. Five years ago I was introduced to the Heart Attitudes by my church planting professor Jack Allen. Having seen the wisdom they speak into my life, I’ve spent much of those five years trying to integrate them into my life. It’s a daily task. The following are two of the Heart Attitudes that speak directly to the issue of passive-aggressiveness and conflict resolution.

Live an Honest, Open Lifestyle
What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself. [Ephesians 4:25]

Humbly Give and Receive Correction
Warn each other every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. [Hebrews 3:13]

Listen to constructive criticism, you will be at home among the wise. If you ignore criticism, you will end in poverty and disgrace. [Proverbs 15:31, 13:18]

Keep Relationships Straight
If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.
[Matthew 5:23-24]