Glad to be home!

I arrived back in Durham from my trip to Egypt on Monday evening. What an incredible experience! As I have been trying to overcome jet lag these past two days, my head has been swimming with thoughts of all that we saw and did. Four days ago, I was sitting on top of Mt. Sinai, and now I'm sitting at the computer in my living room. It's hard to process it all.

I plan on writing a few blog posts on the experience of traveling to Egypt as a pilgrimage. In the mean time, feel free to check out my most recent column in the United Methodist Reporter. It is concerned with claiming our distinctive witness as Methodist people, something that must begin with a process of learning about our story and heritage.

FYI, the Alex Jackson mentioned in the column is a close friend of mine, going back to divinity school days. We were students together at Vanderbilt and have remained close since then. Back in 1999, he helped me to respond to my call into ministry. And in 2005, he officiated at my wife's and my wedding. He's a great pastor and a great friend.

Going on pilgrimage

In one of my seminars this semester - "Theology of the Alexandrian School" - I have been privileged to read some of the outstanding early thinkers of the Eastern Church: Clement, Origen, Athanasius, and Cyril. And tomorrow, that seminar culminates in a trip to Egypt, where my classmates and I will spend several days visiting ancient monasteries and churches in both the Coptic and Orthodox traditions.

Yep, I'll be spending Thanksgiving in Cairo. And while you are eating turkey, I'll be eating ... well, I don't know exactly what I'll be eating. But I bet it will be awesome.

My professor in this course is Dr. J. Warren Smith, and he has been encouraging us to think of the trip as a pilgramage rather than just a study tour. He is asking us to ground the experience in worship and prayer, and we'll be joining together each morning to sing, read Scripture, and hear the wisdom of the Desert Fathers. It is a pilgramage in the sense that it is a journey to visit sites that have been important parts of the Christian story since the very early period of the church's history. The physical aspect of the journey is mirrored by a spiritual aspect of journeying back to our common Christian roots.

So I want to take the pilgrammage aspect of this trip really seriously. This doctoral study I am engaged in now is tied up with my sense of calling and vocation. I believe God has called me back into academic study, so that I can help the church reclaim the richness of its tradition for our common practice of faith. This type of experience is just what I have been hoping to include as a part of my spiritual formation while I am in the Th.D. program. So I'm not just going on a fun trip. I'm going on a pilgramage.

I would appreciate your prayers for me and the others in the seminar - and the families we are leaving behind - while we are away. I will keep a journal while I am gone, and I hope to reflect on what I experience both in this blog and in my UM Reporter column. I am excited to see what is in store for us...

Remember Who You Are

Of the many obsessions that are rampant in our culture, one of the most widespread is the "hunger for the new." We live in a consumer culture, where the messages that we are bombarded with everyday all try to convince us that newer is better. After all, Ford and GM aren't going to sell a lot of 2007 models if they can't convince us that they are better than the 2006 versions. And Burger King's profit margin is dependent on their ability to convince us that their new, high-fat, calorie-laden 'value meal' is better than the equivalent at McDonald's and Wendy's.

So what kind of 'value' does this kind of message really get us? A number of things in my life lately have convinced me that I have been completely manipulated by our culture's hunger for the new. And I want to make a change in my life, so that I am listening to God more and to the culture less. We all chase after false idols at times, but I think I have finally figured out that the most dangerous ones are the ones you don't realize are idols. God has given me a number of 'aha' moments lately that have helped me start to locate some of those hidden idols in my own life. And I think the consumerist fetish with newness, novelty, and innovation is behind most of them.

I write about this in my column in the Reporter this week. I know that this is only the beginning of my wrestling with this issue. But the first step I am taking is to look behind in order to look ahead. This world will keep us distracted for our entire lives if we let it. To keep that from happening, we need to dive into the wisdom that the church is offering us - a wisdom built up over the course of 20 centuries. I think it's a heck of a better 'value' than anything the world has to offer.

Stereotyping Evangelicals

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about evangelical Christianity. In fact, the very word "evangelical" is a polarizing one in our culture. I have known people in my life who practically recoil when they hear "evangelical," and I have known others who wouldn't think of themselves in any other way than as evangelicals.

I was raised in a traditional United Methodist church - not the most evangelical of contexts. I admit that when I was first exposed to evangelical expressions of faith, I was turned off by them. But that was mostly because the evangelicalism I was first exposed to was the evangelicalism of 1980s televangelists (not the best examples of the label). In the past few years of my life, on the other hand, I have been very drawn to evangelical Christianity for a number of reasons. The high authority of Scripture is one. The vibrancy of faith in every aspect of an evangelical's life is another. And frankly, I see in evangelicals a greater willingness to "take risks for Jesus" than I do in other Christian bodies, especially when those risks put the evangelical at odds with friends, family, or the larger culture. In short, I think evangelicals take discipleship more seriously.

Of course, in the wake of the Ted Haggard scandal, many in the media are once again turning to "evangelical bashing," primarily in the form of equating evangelical Christianity with the politically-oriented Religious Right (and the two are most certainly not the same thing). That's unfortunate. But I did run across this article in the Washington Post today, entitled, "Let's Stop Stereotyping Evangelicals." It makes a good case as to why the larger culture should take evangelicals seriously on their own terms.

This article also points out that a relatively recent development in the evangelical Christian community is a growing interest in social justice - that is, working to change the root causes of injustice rather than simply ameliorating the sufferings of individual victims of it. You see that in the work of evangelicals to combat AIDS, genocide, global poverty, etc. This has been the one piece that I think evangelical faith has lacked in the past, and it is also the one piece that has kept me from self-describing as an evangelical in my own faith. But I see a change in that now, and I can think of no better term to describe a Jesus-loving, church-committed, Scripture-reading, neighbor-caring, salvation-centered, injustice-fighting Christian person.

Am I an evangelical? You bet I am.

Say it ain't so, Shane, say it ain't so

Fans of Wesley Blog know about Shane Raynor's hiatus from blogging this past summer. But we were all thrilled when he came back at the beginning of the fall with the intention of blogging once or twice a week. So the news over at Locusts and Honey today came as quite a shock. Read it and weep.

I was first introduced to Wesley Blog sometime in early 2005, but I really got familiar with it when Shane skewered me for writing a negative review of an Adam Hamilton book in the United Methodist Reporter, back in July of that year. (And I stand by my review, by the way. Adam Hamilton is an important leader in the UMC, and his Church of the Resurrection does some tremendous ministry. But Selling Swimsuits in the Arctic buys wholesale into the "business model" of church growth, which is highly problematic in a theological sense.)

Shane and I e-mailed back and forth after I defended myself on his blog, and from that interaction, I came up with the idea of doing a "Gen X Rising" column on the Methoblogosphere, along with a companion interview of Shane himself. That project was a real watershed event in the life of my column. Up until that time, most of the contacts I had made through "Gen X Rising" were not, ironically enough, with Gen X'ers. They were with the rank-and-file readers of the Reporter, who tend to be older than Generation X. But Shane linked to the column and interview on Wesley Blog, and that caused a lot of folks to drop me a line saying they had 'discovered' the column. Like the book review, that column and interview are still on the Reporter's archive.

Why am I telling you this? Because Shane Raynor's influence on the community of Methodist blogs known as the Methoblogosphere has been huge. My own blog's existence is at least partly due to Shane and the Wesley Blog. The "Methodist Blogroll" which Shane created (and which is listed at the right-hand side of this webpage) has probably done more single-handedly to link up Methodist bloggers in cyberspace than all the individual efforts of bloggers combined.

Shane's approach to blogging gave us all a model to follow, and I'll always be grateful for that. He never shied away from tough issues, and he always let you know where he stood. But he also treated people who held a different perspective from his with a lot of grace. That includes the post about my book review, by the way. And it was nice to see such an attitude of honesty combined with courtesy in the blogosphere - a place that is lacking in both, oftentimes.

So now Shane reports that his work in youth ministry has led him in new directions. Good for him. I know he must approach local church ministry with the same attitude that he approached blogging. And while I am sorry to hear that some cybersquatter grabbed the Wesley Blog domain name, I look forward to the time when he gets the blogging bug again and jumps back onto the scene with a new site. Shane, blessings on you in your work for the kingdom.

FYI, you can still see what Wesley Blog looked like by going to this auxiliary site.

Ted Haggard Controversy

Update - 3:30 p.m., Sunday, November 5th - The New York Times reported this morning that Rev. Haggard had been dismissed from his position as senior pastor of New Life Church. Here's the link to that story.

Also, CNN reports that a letter from Haggard was read to the congregation at New Life Church this morning, in which he asked forgiveness both for himself and his accuser, Mike Jones. He admitted to struggles with a "lifelong sexual problem" in that letter and called himself "a deceiver and a liar." When a letter from Haggard's wife Gayle was read, in which she indicated that she would remain with Haggard despite a broken heart, the congregation reportedly responded with a standing ovation. Read more in the CNN article here.

This whole saga raises so many questions about the nature of pastoral leadership, that I will not begin to try to dig into them here. If you would like to read a more extended discussion on some of these questions, they have been discussed on Dr. Ben Witherington's blog over the past few days. I am going to commit myself to praying for Ted Haggard, his family, New Life Church, and all parties involved over the next few days.

- Andrew.

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It seems like just a few months ago that the Rev. Ted Haggard's picture was on the front cover of Christianity Today. As the leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, and the pastor of the 14,000 member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Haggard is one of the most prominent evangelical voices in the country.

So I nearly fell out of my chair when the news media dropped this bombshell today. A male escort has come forward and accused Haggard of engaging in a three-year sexual relationship with him, which included hard drug use. Haggard has taken a leave of absence from his pastorate and resigned as chairman of the NAE, but he is also denying all charges. The news reports say that an independent investigation will be carried out in his church.

The way I see it, one of two things is going on here. This could be a politically-motivated attack on Haggard, in light of his support of next week's proposed constitutional amendment in Colorado outlawing same-sex marriage. Or, the allegations could be true. The male escort admitted his anger at Haggard for supporting the proposed amendment, so he's either telling the truth or he's out to discredit and embarrass Haggard in the run-up to the election.

Either way, the story is shocking and is sure to reverberate across the evangelical Christian community for the next few weeks.