I have received great feedback from people I care about and people I respect. On their advice, I'm pulling down all my content that could be deemed "controversial." And I'd like to explain why.

For starters, I told my wife that I was pulling it down because I'd rather listen to people older and wiser than me and be "wrong" about that than to be wrong about being loud and vocal and... me. She nodded her head and said, "yeah, I thought you should have taken it down." We had an incredulous discussion about why she didn't say that earlier, but that point is, I pay attention to my wife more than anyone when she says something isn't right. I feel this is wisest.

Second, it was pointed out to me that people could, would, and were taking things that I said and using them for things that I wouldn't want. Things that I would say contextually were dissonant with what I was saying. This could be especially true of Montreat students. I smacked my head for not seeing it earlier. I don't know why I surprise myself with my stupidity at this point, but I still find a way! I'm special like that. I don't want anything I write to be used for things in my community that I wouldn't approve of. And the language I used in hypotheticals were set up perfectly for that. Stupid.

Third, because my frustrations (which are obviously now pretty well known) were not with one single person, but an institution, I felt I wasn't harming anyone. But, again, I am dumb. Because when you are sort of vague about who or what you're talking about... YOU CAN THINK ANYTHING YOU WANT. So my words could be turned against person A or B when I wouldn't want them to. This is my fault. And yes... I'm dumb.

Fourth, a fellow pastor presented his concerns and that made total sense. See, I'm 26. I've been doing this for... oh... four minutes. And I suck at it. I don't think well enough in the right ways. And I'm not fool enough to deny it. The bottom-line is that I have to be much wiser in what I use my voice for. Blatant immorality? Fire away! Questionable and frustrating things at a college? Well... maybe you need to calm down, son. These things should be obvious and easy for people, I feel. Unfortunately, I can be among the dimmest of people regarding some things. And I appreciate people pointing them out to me. 

Fifth, I really love Montreat and much more, I love the Church. And I believe unity amongst the Body is very, very, VERY important. By publicly sticking my flag in the ground over something like this, I risk the unity of the body. And I feel very, very, very sorrowful about that. I hate that. I hate having such glaring blind spots. My unguarded opinions could isolate and alienate people I care about. I would prefer not to draw lines in the sand and establish different teams. That, in fact, was something I was trying to avoid. But I muddled my message and just... I did it poorly. I am stupid. (Do you notice a theme?)

My complaint that I listed was very much about HOW things happened, not what. And yet as is often the case, I failed to turn that critical eye on myself. Sure, was what I said rational and sound? But also, was it appropriate and beneficial? Answers: maybe and no. And that's no one's fault but mine.

I'll own my mess. I won't hide from it. I'm 26. I'm foolish. I'm gifted to do certain things. I'm responsible for doing them well. And I recognize when I fail.

Sorry for failing. I don't want to be anyone's public this or that. I'd rather be known for things I publicly stand for every Sunday, the beauty and authority of the Word of God and the majesty of Jesus, who is far better than any other thing on offer from the world. I'll delete everything else and try to just stick my reputation to Him.

Social media is a useful thing; though I have previously written on this very blog that I think it degrades conversation and the English language, a position I stick by. (I never use semi-colons! I'm not even sure how to properly use them because it wasn't taught very well in my English classes, but I thought, "Let's go for it." Grammar aside over.) But sometimes, for people like me, it is very dangerous. Sometimes I start randomly thinking about things or I'm inspired to think about things, I condense it into a single sentence, and I turn to HootSuite to make it readable for many people to read. Sometimes those thoughts are provoked. Sometimes they are unprovoked. But they often come off as... uh.... intense. I'll be kind to myself by using the word "intense." You can, and others have, mix in the word "jerk" if you'd like. But it occasionally does cause me to develop my thought from that condensed sentence to a long-form explanation of the point. I recently said on Facebook and Twitter, "I do not understand the American Christian attitude of belligerence towards a world that desperately needs the sacrificial love of Jesus." I shall expand on that.

Pacifism is an under-taught life approach in American Christian circles. It's mostly because pacifism is not a valued stance in America. You are a invaluable so-and-so in most circles if you use the word. If you presented most Americans with two phrases: "Kicking ass for Jesus" or "I surrender", and forced them to choose one, I bet Christians would be split at least 50/50, and that's as optimistic as I'm willing to be. Personally, I think there are Biblical borderlands for pacifism when looking at the role of government in the execution of justice. But even there, Biblically, I think things are a bit less black-and-white than people would like.

In terms of personal ethics, though, I think it's pretty clear that Gospel people are radically pacifistic. Jesus' words are very challenging on this. The impulse to fight must be in submission to the Spirit of the Jesus who died in the face of the vilest form of injustice the world has ever seen. And I mean that literally. You cannot get more UNjust than the execution of holy God-Incarnate. My point here is not on the merits of non-violence or resistance to or support of any wars or anything like that, so don't jump off the train yet. We're getting somewhere. This is merely a side-stop. I'm just saying that if you go to the Gospels and to the early Church, you see a minority group, often persecuted and slandered, who were not organizing a resistance, but encouraging one another to die with grace.

Culturally, I think American Christianity needs a reintroduction of the ethic of surrender. Our instinct as a people (as Americans), is to fight for ourselves. I don't think this is a negative thing. It's a trait that has led us, as a people, to do some pretty incredible things for ourselves and others who have been assaulted. But we as Christians cannot allow national identity to become our identity. We cannot transpose a disposition towards fighting for our rights into our subculture of Christianity. It just can't work like that. 

Sadly, I find it far more likely that our attitude towards secular America is one of "just war" than it is of "pacifism." We will "fight for what is right." We will labor on every front the world does (angry rhetoric, politics, advertising, etc.) to keep the Christian worldview as the dominant one in the public conversation. I think this is the wrong approach. And I think it is badly wrong.

Culture is made up of millions of people (billions if you're thinking globally... though a global "culture" is impossible). Many of them in America have a familiarity with Christianity as a traditional religion, but a general "meh" attitude towards it. Fewer than those have a familiarity with it and despise it. Others have no familiarity with it and cannot even say they despise it, only pity it. We are talking about large swathes of our country that are not Gospel-centered people. Because of this, their worldview is different. And you know what? We should affirm it. We should not believe that other people's views of the world should match ours without a Jesus in the center. If it is exactly the same, we should be terrified about our own worldview. We have a pagan worldview with Jesus mixed in. That's syncretistic, false religion. 

Because we so value Jesus, we openly say that our views on the world are radically different. Because of that, we are in constant friction with the world we live in. It's uncomfortable. It's unsettling. Many times, it is sad. That is a good thing. When we are feeling those things, we are identifying with a global church and a historical church that is mostly out of place in their home contexts. We should take that feeling as a constant reminder that we are missionaries wherever we are. We have points of contact with the world we live in, discussions to be had over why we view sexual ethics differently (or we should... the Church is chillingly willing to be loudly anti-homosexuality but pass off extra-marital heterosexuality as somehow less abhorrent), financial ethics differently, and community relationships differently. We have opportunities because of worldview collisions to invite people to consider the kingship of Jesus, the kind and holy Dictator who is constructing an alternate reality in the midst of this current one.

Instead, because American Christians are so firmly American and so used to being culturally entrenched as the prevailing worldview, we feel the need to fight everything. We must have bumper stickers reminding people that we're still praying in schools. We must make constitutional amendments saying homosexual marriage is not real marriage, as if we needed the government to give us permission to hold to a Christian belief while forcing non-Christians to behave like they believe it too. We demand that our politicians pray as we want them too. We are blisteringly critical of any perceived incursions on "our" territory by secular voices or other religious voices. Fight, fight, fight, fight. 

Just stop. 

Look to the Cross.

Look to our past.

Look at the people who we have placed on the other side of some imaginary line. Look at your "enemies."

The enemies of Christ, those who hate God, are not our enemies. They may oppose us. They may despise us and revile us. They may even take away government rights. But those people are not our enemies. They are our neighbor. They are people we are called to win. We are not called to beat them and win some political contest. We are called to win them. Win their hearts. When I say we need a personal ethic of pacifism, I mean we need to stop fighting so hard for our "rights," and start being ready to cede territory and die for those who oppose us. Tax exemptions may one day be taken from churches. Instead of fighting this, what if we just lost the money but out gave the loss to our own personal discomfort and the chagrin of a watching world? What if we went about full of the self-sacrificial love of Jesus and offered our other cheek when one is culturally slapped. What if we stopped viewing everything as a fight and, instead, an opportunity to lay down our lives for those who do not yet believe?

I think that has to be the starting point for us in public forums as a community of those who benefit from the humility of Jesus. And I think we have to start being leaders in our community not by exercising power, but by winning influence by our love for others. Our enemies are not those who are caught in sin, but sin itself. And since that struggle will continue until we see Jesus' face with our physical eyes, we can simply rest in the fact that His death taught us how to live, and His resurrection assured us that He was right. He wins. 

Leave the war for others. Die willingly. Die lovingly. 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24

I would imagine that if you were to squeeze me hard enough, word would spill out of my mouth. Not shouts of profanity (though that would come to... please don't squeeze me), but just an involuntary muddle of words. I love words and words, in some sense, are written into me at the genetic level. All your showing me that you love me, all your serving and touching, it will be about half the power of a note personally addressed to me. Words are lifeblood, my occupation, my obsession, my gift, and my enemy. 

Life is conspiring to squeeze me tight, so writing comes naturally. Obviously, time is variably short or readily available, but it is usually when I feel squeezed that I come to this little venue and begin writing again. And I am lately being much compressed.

I am a father of two, now. Ryann Grace was a surprise, Alethia Renee was not. Ryann was tiny, Alethia was noticeably larger. And so much hairier. Ryann had to be provoked out of the womb for her own good, Alethia battered down the opening of the cervix in such a rush that my wife was not sure if she could cope with the pain or the speed. But Erin did and Alethia announced herself quietly, as did her sister. And like her sister, she landed in the world with a watchful eye, quietly observing everything going on through eyes that are not quite what they will be. And once again, I am taken off guard by how much I already love this tiny human. She does nothing for me, provides me nothing, adds nothing but relative sleeplessness and exhaustion. She does, however, produce joy. Her innocent inability to do anything provokes in me the urge to be superhuman and shield her from all pain and discomfort while simultaneously causing me to reflect that my job, in fact, will be to guide her through those things rather than to avoid them. 

I feel squeezed by this baby whom we've named "Truth" and "Reborn." 

In my other arm, I am carrying a new responsibility for people much older than my daughter, far more capable and generous. People who want, already, to give so much to my family and me. We...I... have been asked to take over as pastor of our small church. I still hesitate to say that/write that down. Because I am so word-oriented, I see the term "pastor" and immediately launch into Biblical definitions of the term and descriptions of the gifting. Very few of those things have very much to do with me. I struggle to remember to care for all the sheep, especially the ones that lag or veer or walk slowly. That pastoral shepherding heart is there inside of me somehow, but it must be nurtured and called out by those around me. Naturally, I very often say, in all kinds of situations, "Get on board or get out." 

People like me are NOT the definition of the term "pastor."

But I know that most people simply place that person/term at the top of an organizational chart and don't particularly think of the actual gifting associated with the term. So I have to continually tell myself to get over... me. I don't need to correct other people's lexical habits. I need to see the implied requesting of my gifts, all my gifts, in our situation and very openly asking for every person having all the gifts I lack (and there are many) to stride forward and care for all of us so that our people don't go forward in lack. In the plurality of incomplete leaders, we may begin to get a complete picture. But I feel squeezed by this responsibility and this calling. Mostly in a good, exciting way. But already I've had dreams that I can barely describe, hardly remember that have left in my heart the seed of doubt that I can handle it. That Isight can handle it. 

It is actually a remarkably similar feeling to being a new (again) father. This tiny person that you love so much is completely dependent on you (well... and your wife) to not completely screw everything up, to make sure life keeps happening. So, since it has been years since I held such a tiny person so regularly, I listen for any odd noise telling me that I must leap into the void. The problem is that babies make so many strange noises. And most of them mean nothing. It leaves me feeling confused, powerless, and doubting that this child will survive my rough touch, my unfamiliar stabs at nurturing. I worry for my daughters as I worry for Isight. I'm wholly insufficient.

And I am comforted by this. I am comforted by the fact that God agrees with me. I am comforted by the fact that I find myself a teammate to some remarkable people. People, like my wife, who willingly and intentionally identify themselves with me. We come together ON PURPOSE for a singular purpose. People at Isight jump into the space next to me very quickly and say, "Yes, you are insufficient. Let me help." And I feel so squeezed by my teammates, by my wife, by my daughter.

And, fortunately, I feel comforted by a Comforter who is, within Himself, community. The Christian Trinity is not a doctrinal quirk, but rather the fount of Christian distinctives. One of them being that God Himself is community. And when we recreate that generous Jesus love, we bring heaven to earth, participating in the drama of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I take comfort knowing that my insufficiencies as a father and as a leader are not surprising to God, nor are they very troubling to Him. He made this way to need the people around me. And most of all, He made me this way to need Him. And I am so profoundly in need of Him. So desperate for Him to come through for me. Without Him, doom is certain. And yet He says He'll never leave...

By these circumstances, by these people, and by this God, I feel so squeezed, so crushed by the bigness of it all. I feel weight and responsibility. I feel joy and excitement. I feel stress. I feel exhaustion. I feel energy and drive. 

I feel invitation. I feel invited to accept the crush of it all, and to lean into the Father. I feel invited to listen to His words and whisper mine in return.