Blacksoil

We just a had a worship design meeting for our upcoming gathering (Nov 11th, 6pm) and we started by reading chapters 2 and 3 of Jonah and talking through them as a group.

In chapter 3 of the story, the Ninevites repent and God does not destroy the city, even after Jonah, at God’s command, had prophesied that he would. Depending on the translation, the text says that God “repented,” “relented,” or “changed his mind.” If God said that Ninevah would be destroyed in 40 days, but then it wasn’t, is Jonah’s prophecy false? And more importantly, the prophecy is explicitly called “the word of God,” did God say something that was not true?

Telford Work, who has written what I consider the best book on the nature and role of Scripture, uses this part of the Jonah story to make an interesting claim about the nature of truth. He says that the statement “40 days and Ninevah will be destroyed” is true. Even though it’s propositionally false, it is true to the extent that it conforms to the character and purposes of God. Thus, Jonah uttered a false prophesy because for him the purpose and context of the statement was his hatred of the Assyrians. But God, for his part, did not lie, because the statement of destruction and punishment is relativized by God’s nature: gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. For God there is an implicit “unless you repent and turn to me, for I am your salvation.”

This makes me wonder about two things: 1) The nature of truth is at the center of a lot of the debates between “emergent” Christians and conservative evangelicals. For the latter, the propostional nature of truth is of utmost importance. I wonder if Scripture shows us here (and elsewhere) that the truth is not so easily confined to modern understandings like “propositional truth.”

2) The fact that Jonah, in a sense, uttered a false prophecy because of his own heart and his own finite understanding of the situation, must caution us Christians to be humble and compassionate when we speak God’s word, lest we end up lying even as we are telling “the truth.”

Last week I was flipping through the channels and Bono was on Oprah. He was promoting a new fundraising campaign called Product (RED). A number of America’s “most iconic brands” are introducing red products, half of the profits of which will go to buy AIDS medications for infected Africans. The products include a red RAZR from Motorola, a red iPod, and a line of clothes at the Gap (which seems to really be the focal point of the whole campaign).

Now first off let me say that I love Bono, as both a musician and an activist, I think he’s an incredible person who demonstrates in many ways what it means to be a missional Christian. But when I decided to go check it out, I was really disappointed.

For starters, the products are very over-priced. It’s clear that the Gap is not “giving” anything to African AIDS relief, if anything they are profitting from the fact that it is the latest bandwagon cause. Second, unlike the inspirational captions flashing behind Bono and Oprah on TV–EMPOWE(RED), INSPI(RED), ASSU(RED), etc.–the T-shirts that I saw read BO(RED), DESI(RED), UNCENCO(RED) and HAMME(RED). And they were being hawked to me by half-naked pictures of Christy Turlington and Penelope Cruz.

While none of this by itself is horrible, it all speaks to the fundamental lie at the heart of the campaign, which is a fundamental disease in our culture. Namely, the idea that we can fix things by consuming. That our own self-gratification can make the world a better place. (Oprah kept stressing over and over again how all you had to do to fight AIDs in Africa was shop). Pragmatically, this is a great idea. I’m sure that Bono will raise millions. But what is the net gain? By tapping into and encouraging American addictions to cheap clothing, novel electronics, celebrity, and, ironically, sex, they will divert some of our money to “fight” AIDS.

Jesus, I know, would have us join the fight to save Africa. But surely the church can do better than this. The way of Jesus was a way of self-sacrifice, not self-gratification. And the gospel call to change the world will cost you more than an over-priced T-shirt.

Saturday I taught from chapter 1 of Jonah and there was a part of the story I didn’t have time to address: When the storm begins, Jonah goes down below deck and falls into a “deep sleep.” Like Jonah, when we run away from God’s call, so often we choose to live in a stupor, we dope ourselves up with TV or work or whatever our favorite form of soma is.

The tragedy is that Jonah knows how to help, how to save the sailors from the storm. But because it will cost him his life (or at least he thinks), he chooses sleep instead.

We live in a world of tremendous need, there is a storm raging around us all the time: the gap between rich and poor continues to grow, violence is rampant in schools, there is an AIDS pandemic in Africa, etc. And like Jonah, we are uniquely equipped to help. Not in the sense that we know everything and can fix it, but in the sense that we have been entrusted with the good news and with the gifts we need to do “good works.”

God’s kingdom—which is a place where the storm is calmed and there is perfect peace, perfect justice, perfect love—began its entrance into the world with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and will continue to come until all things are made new. Our call is the same as Jonah’s: to participate in that with our voices and our hands.

But so often we choose sleep rather than participating in God’s redemptive work in the world, because we think it will cost us our lives. Of course, in one sense it does, but in a much deeper sense, that is exactly where we discover “life in all its fullness.”

Welcome to the beta version of the Blacksoil blog. My hope is that this will be place where people can digest and further discuss ideas and experiences from the non-virtual events in the life of Blacksoil.

I will be posting thoughts on life, music, movies, and culture, primarily as they intersect with God and questions of what it means to faithfully follow the way of Jesus in our time and our place.

I will also post something after my Saturday messages to give the community a chance to further reflect on, digest, and debate things said there, or expand on something that there just wasn’t room for in my teaching time.

If you would like to be a Blacksoil blog “author” (someone who can write their own posts and not just comment on others’ posts), just let me know and I can set you up.