A Tribute to Paul Gordon

Paul Gordon, chairman of Gordon Food Service and a personal friend of Urban Transformation Ministries, died last Tuesday. You can read all about his legacy here. Over the past twelve years, he was such an encouragement to both Sherilyn and me. He was one of my favorite people at Berean and his humility, generosity, joy, and friendliness was contagious to be around….

I remember one time while running one of our inner-city youth programs, running into him while he was dropping off some books at the church. At the time, I was in the process of dealing with a student who had just threatened the life of another kid in our programs as well as threatening me. Once the youth left the church, Paul asked me a couple questions, put his arm around me, and encouraged me in my ministry.

For many years, he anonymously gave to missions locally and globally, providing the resources to many different mission initiatives. I remember having a conversation several years ago where he took the entire Gordon family (several generations) to Africa and for two weeks they spent their Christmas serving impoverished people with Aids. As I read more and more from people all over the world, that was a normal occurrence. His motto was, "We are here to expand God's Kingdom!" Thank you so much for helping us at Urban Transformation Ministries expand God's Kingdom in the 'hood!

Fundamental/Evangelical fallacies (that prevent churches from truly embracing ministry to the poor) Part 1

My last post, Uneasy Consciousness, was actually a prologue to a series that I’ve been thinking about for some time. At first, I was going to name this series “top ten excuses as to why fundamental and conservative churches do not make the poor a priority. But it sounded too wordy and seemed too shallow. However, since most of these churches are children of the enlightenment, I will attempt to expose some fallacies of modernity that still linger among the fundamentalist and conservative evangelical churches. Regrettably, these fallacies prevent them from fully embracing their God-given responsibility to help the poor and needy. At the same time, I must resist the temptation of painting these churches with a broad-brush stroke. Surprisingly, I am finding more and more of these churches seeking ways to live out the 2000 verses in the Bible that speak of God’s heart for the poor and needy. For instance, I’ve witnessed genuine conversations unfold among fundamental church leaders and pastors on internet forums such as Sharper Iron as they discuss and debate what their church’s responsibility should be to the poor. This has been a source of encouragement to me. Even so, I can honestly say as an insider that the fallacies I name are in fact keeping many of these churches from embracing ministry among the poor as part of their mission.

My first fallacy has been everybody’s whipping boy, dispensationalism, which grieves me because this theological construct does contain some points to consider. In recent days, however, dispensationalism has been linked to just about every fault and blemish that fundamentalists and evangelicals possess, which I believe is unfair. But like most things, dispensationalism is comprised of the good, bad and ugly. For those who are not familiar with the term, dispensationalism refers to an understanding of the Bible that divides the relationship of God to humanity throughout redemptive history in sharply separated epochs. What separates them from the rest of Christendom boils down to two things: their literalness when interpreting the Bible and their sharp distinction between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church. Although the theological construct of dispensationalism has only been around for less than two-hundred years of the church’s two-thousand year history, it really took hold among fundamental and conservative evangelical churches within America during the first half of the twentieth century. Much to the surprise and even the chagrin of many of my non-fundamental-evangelical friends, I still hold to a form of dispensationalism, albeit a very broad and progressive one (one of these days, I’ll post why I still see myself within the dispensationalist camp-although on the edge).

However, dispensationalism in its more traditional, historic form has deceived its followers into believing that certain passages of scripture do not really apply to our current dispensational time period. For instance, according to traditional dispensationalists, the “least of these” within the Sheep and Goats judgment passage of Mathew are Jews who experience persecution during the seven-year future tribulation. Therefore, they disregard this vivid picture of final judgment as relevant to their lives because they interpret the story to be about judgment of nations treating persecuted Jews rather than how the current church must treat the “least of these,” right here and right now. The same goes for kingdom living in the Sermon on the Mount. In their view, due to the Jewish rejection of Christ as their Messiah, Jesus postponed His kingdom rule of the Jews until his future millennial reign. Therefore, the ethical demands of the Sermon on the Mount for these dispensationalists represent how God’s people will live under Christ’s rule during his future, literal 1000 year reign on earth (so if this is true, will God allow face-slapping while reigning “with a rod of iron” since we are told to turn the other cheek?)rather than how God's people should live in the here and now. Hence, these scriptures have no bearing on how we are to live today. The same even goes for the Old Testament prophets that pronounced judgment against those who withheld justice for the poor. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

Proponents of this view defend dispensationalism by declaring that their interpretation springs from a literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic of the entire Bible. Yet could it be that their rigid commitment to this type of hermeneutic created a system of interpretation that depends way too much on modernity’s twin nemesis of rationalism and science? Isn’t it ironic that in their desire to stay faithful to Scripture through a rigid adherence to its hermeneutic may in fact have led them to the edge of theological liberalism? Just as Modernity’s rationalism and darwinistic science influenced many North American mainline churches to embrace liberalism by denying certain doctrines of the faith, has Modernity’s rationalism and Baconian scientific method led certain dispensationalists to render large portions of the Bible meaningless due to their unswervingly rigid embrace of an interpretative method? What is the difference between a person who denies the validity of certain scriptures like Thomas Jefferson who cut and pasted the parts of the Bible that he disagreed with and a dispensationalist that fails to acknowledge the present application of large portions of scripture because he places its primary meaning and application into a future dispensation of time? I’ll let you figure out that question.

What's more, the outworkings of this dispensational hermeneutic has led to an imbalanced view of God’s kingdom, centering most of its attention on a future kingdom with little emphasis on the present. While a person’s entrance into the Kingdom of God receives attention, its ethical responsibilities are minimized. While future events of the escaton dominate its worldview, present kingdom activities are questioned. In addition, with its emphasis on the sharp discontinuity between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament Church, dispensationalism presents a truncated social ethic, especially in regards to its view of the church’s role helping the poor and oppressed. Their interpretation allows them to make excuses for not helping the poor such as, “Why rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic?” “Since this world is going to hell in a hand basket, shouldn’t we primarily focus on what’s really important, which is evangelism?” “Doesn’t focusing on the needs of the poor take away resources for missions and church planting?” “I don’t see any New Testament mandate for alleviating poverty, therefore, why even bother?” Believe me, I've heard them all and debated each and every one of them.

On the other hand, when Christians are not so rigid in their literal, historical, grammatical interpretation of the Bible, but rather take in account the diversity of literary genres that comprise scripture such as narrative, law, poetry, prophesy, parabolic, and apocalyptic, suddenly the kingdom of God (present and future) is brought back into a more balanced “already, but not yet.” When Christians emphasize the unity of the entire cannon, especially with more continuity between Israel and the church rather than making a sharp distinction between the two, the church understands its mission to include more than just evangelism. It incorporates both the good news of the gospel and good works, both the cultural mandate and the redemptive mandate, as they bring the Lordship of Jesus Christ into every arena of life.

This post may be a hard pill to swallow for some of my dispensational friends, but I feel that I must question their theology just as much as I've questioned the sacramental theology of the poor embraced by Shane Claiborne. Have fun unpacking this post!!!

The Uneasy Conscience of a (Post) Modern Fundamentalist

For the past eighteen years, I’ve felt several overriding tensions as I live out the gospel in the ‘hood. In some ways it is an “uneasy conscience” as Dr. Carl F.H. Henry described a half a century ago. For me, this uneasiness surfaces from the tension between the false antithesis of orthodoxy and orthopraxy, specifically as it relates to the faith community’s responsibility to help the poor. The more that I ponder my fundamentalist-Baptist upbringing, the more I realize how this heritage played a part in creating the tension.

Due to my father’s ministry job as a worship pastor, I grew-up attending several different Fundamentalist-Baptist churches of the GARBC for the first twenty-two years of my life. During those two decades, I don’t ever recall hearing a message from any of the pastors or a Bible study from any of the Sunday School teachers that called attention to the plight of the poor and the Christian’s God-given responsibility to help them. Even though I frequented these churches every time the building was open, including every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, and every Wednesday night, I never heard anyone refer to any of the 2000 or so Bible verses throughout both testaments that implore God’s people to help the poor. So when I began serving the poor at a little store-front church in the inner-city as a college student, I suddenly became acutely aware of how God’s concern for the poor permeated the entire narrative of Scripture. With some mentoring from Servants Center's director Don Tack, I also realized the futileness of pious activities such as street evangelism among the homeless population compared to building relationships and doing holistic ministry among them. Unfortunately, when I switched ministries to become a manager of a homeless shelter (under the direction of Don Tack) that emphasized holistic ministry, my home church in Indiana responded by dropping my missionary support. Later, word got back to me that they believed I had embraced the “social-gospel,” which is sort of like the Scarlet letter of Fundamentalism. My name and ministry suddenly became synonymous with words such as neo-evangelical, compromise, liberal, and social-gospel.

There is pain in rejection, especially from such a grave misunderstanding by my ecclesiastical heritage. I was just as committed to the gospel as I’d ever been. In fact, out of the 21 men that benefited from the homeless shelter during my two years as its supervisor, eleven graduated into self-sufficiency with full-time employment and secure housing. Several men trusted Christ for their salvation and to this day, continue to serve Christ in their church. In comparison, when I was doing street evangelism, several made dramatic professions to Christ, but every single one of them fell away because their “conversion” wasn’t the real thing.

What’s more, I was just as committed to sound doctrine as I’d ever been. I embraced historical fundamentals such as an infallible, inerrant Scripture, Christ’s deity, Christ’s substitutionary atonement for our sins, Christ’s bodily resurrection, and Christ’s imminent return. Yet to the leadership from my former home church, my actions proved otherwise. How twisted the logic of their thinking! That somehow because I added social and economic activities such as job assistance, mentoring, and budget counseling to evangelism among the homeless poor meant that I no longer held to a high view of the Bible and Christ. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t those who hold to an inerrant and infallible view of Scripture be passionately and actively living out what the Scripture actually says? Since they believe the Bible to be true, shouldn’t the fundamental and conservative evangelical churches be most concerned about living out the 2000 or so verses about the poor and oppressed that demand a response from God’s people? Regrettably, this has not been the case. If our treasure is where our heart is, many of the yearly budgets from these churches reflect more of a concern for bricks and mortar, professional pastoral staffing, and quirky Christmas and Easter programs than responding to the needs of the poor.

From that moment fifteen years ago, I realized that an essential part of urban ministry must also include educating the church about ministry among the poor. Therefore, for the past fifteen years of our ministry to at-risk youth and their families in the ‘hood, we have served the church by offering workshops and seminars such as: “how to redemptively assist the poor without creating dependency.” This has been my little way of influencing fundamental and conservative evangelical churches, countering the lack of theological reflection that I’ve observed when addressing current social and economic issues that affect the poor. It has also done wonders when confronting the tension that I feel as a "post-modern" who believes and lives out the fundamentals.

Happy Birthday Tiera Michele Shaffer!!!!

This is my oldest daughter, Tiera(T.T) who just turned ten today. Sometimes Sherilyn and I are amazed at how God has wired her. She is one of the most compassionate people that I've ever met. In her 4th grade class, her way of "loving her neighbor" is reaching out to classmates that have the least amount of friends. As we take care of Sherilyn's mom who has Parkinson's and Sherilyn's Grandma who is 93 years old, she helps us out by being Mom jr. She's always looking for opportunities to help with her special needs five-year old sister (Ashlyn) and her youngest sister (Sahara) as well.

Besides her compassionate side (in which I could brag all day), she loves to play soccer, play the piano, sing, read, read, and read (did I mention she loves to read?). She loves God and loves to pray for the needs of others. The other day, she asked how God calls people to do missions. She then told me about her interest in doing inner-city ministry. Whether she follows us in doing ministry in the 'hood or not, we are so thankful to God for such a beautiful and special daughter as our T.T.

Happy Birthday Jalen Truth Shaffer!!!!

This is my son Jalen holding his baby sister, Sahara. Jalen turned eight years old today. Since he is my only son, we share a special bond together, tackling each other while playing football, shooting hoops in basketball, playing PS2, and singing praise and worship songs. His favorite song is Blessed be your name (by Beth and Matt Redman). As a person, he is a loyal friend to his friends and family, quiet at times but spazy in his humor, overly competitive, creative and sensitive to God and others, Jalen, you have been the best son I could have ever asked for. Thank you for your love, respect, and friendship. I pray that I can continue modeling and teaching you what it means to grow up to be a godly man who passionately loves Jesus and who loves others.

For Those of You Who Freaked Out about Obama...

when his former Pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was all over the news and Youtube espousing Black liberation theology, "miss the mark and expose general ignorance about Protestant liberalism and mainline black churches," according to an insightful piece by Anthony Bradley. You can read all about it here.

I concur with Professor Bradley that we ought to be debating his economic policies (and social policies), not his ties to Rev. Wright. Although I am more in agreement with the free market than Obama's plans for government intervention and redistribution when it comes to economic policy, I think Bradley's comment about Obama resurrecting Karl Marx is definitely an exaggeration. What do ya'll think?

Playing Race Cards in the Church

This past weekend I took fifteen high school and young adult students to a Word of Life basketball tournament in the rural town of North Branch, Michigan, on the east side of the state. Besides our students, only one other team out of thirty-eight was comprised of mostly African-American players. By far, both our teams had the most talent, but anger won out causing many of our students to lose the mental aspect of the game. Consequently, neither team made it to the finals.

In the last game, one of my students named Ed loudly blamed his skin color as the reason for the ref calling so many fouls on him. For whatever reason, throughout the tournament our teams had twice as many fouls called against us than against any other team. Immediately, several white people from the audience vocally berated him for his comment. One man even lashed out at him, calling him “boy,” a major cultural taboo for Caucasians interacting with African-Americans. Even when I intervened, they defended their actions, not heeding to my appeal. Finally, in order to silence them, I strongly warned them to back off my player. At the same time, I did not let Ed off the hook. I pulled him out of the game and scolded him for playing the race card no matter how unfair it seemed. After the game, I found out that the white folks weren’t the only ones who would not listen. Several of my students were so emotionally rattled that neither Davien nor I could help them work through this issue until a few days ago.

By the way, I am not going to cry foul play for what happened in North Branch. My students played lousy defense and lost their heads when things didn’t go their way. When they surrendered their mental toughness, it was all over for them. Moreover, this situation could have been a character-building opportunity for them. What a chance for our students to overcome an enormous obstacle, even when it seems as if everything was against them!

Nevertheless, now that I’ve had a chance to mull over this situation, I wonder how my fellow Caucasians would have felt if the roles were reversed. What if every referee, every Word of Life leader, and parent in the entire tournament was black? What if only three teams playing were Caucasian, thirty-five teams were African-American, while the majority of calls made by the referees favored the African-American teams? Might the white players feel the same way? Out of frustration, would one of their players have “played the race card” when everything seemed overwhelmingly stacked against them? I guarantee they would be just as acute to the situation as were my students.

This has also caused me to pondor extensively about how the early church handled ethnically charged conflicts such as this. How the Greek-speaking people complained that their widows were being ignored by the majority culture within the church. How the church responded by appointing seven godly Greek-speaking deacons to oversee their feeding program so that the elders could devote their time to prayer and the preaching and teaching of God’s word. How their redemptive awareness and sacrificial love for one another became the catalyst for addressing the problem, rather than ignoring the issue at hand. How maybe if the WOLifers want a diverse group to preach the gospel to, building relationships with urban ministries, recruiting a few godly people of color to referee games or as the special speaker might be a starting point for including groups such as ours.

In response, I will be shooting off an e-mail to the WOLifer missionary who organized the event. Their leaders showed an extraordinary amount of love and patience with our groups so I am cautiously optimistic that they will be receptive to any ideas we may bring to the table. As we work to resolve certain racial issues, I pray that no one in the future will feel the need to stoop down to the world’s standards and play the race card.