Tolkien on Sermons

Posted on February 15, 2020 by awtraughber

From the late-April 1994 from JRR Tolkien to his son Christopher concerning sermons:

But as for sermons!  They are bad, aren’t they!  Most of them from any point of view.  The answer to the mystery is prob. not simple; but part of it is that ‘rhetoric’ (of which preaching is a dept.) is an art, which requires (a) some native talent and (b) learning and practice.  The instrument used is v. much more complex than a piano, yet most performers are in the position of a man who sits down to a piano and expects to move his audience without any knowledge of the notes at all.  The art can be learned (granted some modicum of aptitude) and can then be effective, in a way, when wholly unconnected with sincerity, sanctity etc.  But preaching is complicated by the fact that we expect in it not only a performance, but truth and sincerity, and also at least no word, tone, or note that suggests the possession of vices (such as hypocrisy, vanity) or defects (such as folly, ignorance) in the preacher.

Good sermons require some art, some virtue, some knowledge.  Real sermons require some special grace which does not transcend art but arrives at it by instinct or ‘inspiration’; indeed the Holy Spirit seems sometimes to speak through a human mouth providing art, virtue and insight he does not himself possess: but the occasions are rare.  In other times I don’t think an educated person is required to suppress the critical faculty, but it should be kept in order by a constant endeavour to apply the truth (if any), even in the cliche form, to oneself exclusively!  A difficult exercise …

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The War of Winners Begins

Posted on February 14, 2020 by awtraughber

Wednesday night brought the two-hour premiere of Survivor‘s fortieth “season.”  This time around they’ve brought together twenty winners to battle it out for twice the normal prize.  And those first two hours didn’t disappoint.  A few interesting things:

  1.  It’s always interesting to see early players learn first-hand how the game has changed. From alliances to voting blocks to every day-something different, the tempo of this has changed.  I’m not a big fan of the tempo change, but that’s kind of how it’s worked out.  It’s also sobering to be reminded that there was a time where hidden immunity idols weren’t in play.  The addition of “fire coins” will definitely make this season a little more interesting.  Anything, I think, is better than Exile Island.
  2.  It’s amazing to think that life outside of the game has at least a strong initial influence on voting.  That some of the players have played together multiple times, that some have played poker together on television . . . that’s the kind of “meta” thing that I wasn’t quite expecting.  And it will be interesting to see how that plays out over the next few weeks.
  3. We saw two contestants voted out in the first evening.  One completely makes sense.  The other, not so much.  It’s amazing to watch older players still play such a great social game.  Any time Sandra talks you just assume that she’s turning the game her way.  Same with Boston Rob.

Here’s a quick interview done with contestants about who each thought should get voted out first.  Interesting to see how some things happened and some things didn’t line up at all.

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Losing by Winning

Posted on February 13, 2020 by awtraughber

While I don’t leap or land in all the same places with Andrew Root, there are a number of things he writes about in The Relational Pastor that confirms some of my own experience and emboldens me with some hope for what is possible with the Church.  I’ve been thinking about the disconnect between relationships and instrumentalization for some time, at least as far back as this post from last August.  There’s also this post from over a year ago.    So it’s no surprise that I felt some affirmation when I read this:

While we in the church frequently discuss the importance of relationships for our ministry, we have often failed to recognize that relationships, or something called relational ministry, is dependent on persons.  It is dependent on personhood, on seeing those in our churches and communities as persons, not as consumers of programs, not as “giving units” or volunteers, nor as rational calculators that decided they and their families can get the most out of their involvement at this church over another.  And we have done this too often.  We have deeply wanted our ministry to be relational, but  not for the sake of persons, for the sake of ministry… In other words, we’ve wanted people to feel relationally connected so that they might come to what we are offering or believe what we are preaching or teaching.

So when we speak of “relational,” we usually mean it as another strategy, another buzzword to get people to do what we want them to do… The point of our ministry isn’t the relationship between persons, but how the relationship wins us influence.

Ouch.  On some level, of course, this is a very cynical view.  And yet in a culture of instrumentalization (a culture we have all contributed to), it’s an ever-present danger and too-often reality.  And while not everybody feels burned by it (because we will often take a sense of belonging at a low price).  It’s also good to keep in mind that many people walk through the doors of the church as part of a family unit, with spouse and kids flanking them, protecting them, promising a sense of safety that others of us don’t quite have.  That safety can go a long way in feeling like you belong because you bring a strong sense of it with you.

What, then, would Root suggest is a good way forward?  And how do we step in the direction while tripping over all of the wires we’ve put in place to maintain “programs, units, and rational calculators”?

You can purchase The Relational Pastor here.

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A Way Back In (When You’re Not Outside)

Posted on February 12, 2020 by awtraughber

In yesterday’s post, I pivoted from Yuval Levin’s discussion of institutional renewal to a question about renewal in the church.  Levin spends a good bit of time talking about outsiders and insiders and how we need to see ourselves as insiders regardless of how we feel about our institutions.  To do otherwise is to see institutions as platforms and not as molds.

Over the last few months, the writings of Andrew Root (associate professor of youth and family ministry at Lutheran Seminary) has been a good way for me to think/rethink some thoughts about the church.  Because even though I’m something of an insider at church, I’m also a kind of outsider.  I imagine people saying that I am outsider by choice, but a big part of that is because they have no interest in hearing my story or see me primarily as a cog in the programmatic wheel, a person to fill a slot.  That probably sounds harsh, but it also rings true from experience.

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The Relational PastorAndrew Root begins The Relational Pastor in an interesting way: he admits to being an introvert, which colors the way he understands relationships.  From the preface:

I’ve come to recognize that the very fact that I possess this personal disposition gives me a perspective on the depth and mystery of relationships themselves.  Because relationships are not a reflex for me, I’ve been forced to think deeply about them.  And when reflecting on my own experience I’ve been overcome by a spiritual significance relationship has played in my life (even in the life of a TV-loving introvert).  When I’m broken, afraid, and needing to celebrate, like an impulse I (again, the severe introvert) seek out others; I need others to share with me, to share in me.  There is something about relationship that is deeper than the introvert-extrovert personal traits; there is something about the human spirit that yearns (needs at the deepest level) for others to share in our lives.

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For some time now I’ve thought about how there’s a difference between being relational and having relationships.  Being relational means that you are cordial, are friendly to others.  It’s a kind of “Southern hospitality.”  Having relationships, on the other hand, involves a commitment a step beyond kindness.  Maybe the distinction isn’t that important to others, but it’s helped me think through some things.  Rich Mullins said it this way in “Elijah”:

There’s people been friendly, but they’d never be your friend

and sometimes this has bent me to the ground.

I like that Root lays this kind of foundation for his book from the outset.  Just because you’re an introvert doesn’t mean that relationships aren’t as important to you as they are to an extrovert.  They may be more important (for good or bad) because they are hard fought/hard won.  The difference is in obviousness.  Those of us who walk the line between introversion and extroversion exist in an odd kind of no-man’s land, especially if you live far from the givens of family and long-term friendships.  And those of us who are professionally in front of people all of the time can find ourselves in an uneasy spot between relationships with others.

Relationship is, of course, the way back in (even when you’re not really on the outside).  And while the world of relationships can be a real minefield, it’s the ground that is necessary for us to traverse in order to find ourselves in a better place.

You can purchase Andrew Root’s The Relational Pastor here.

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Devotion, Discontent, and Dissent

Posted on February 11, 2020 by awtraughber

New Yuval LevinOne of the reasons I enjoy reading books like Yuval Levin’s work on institutions is because I believe in them.  I was formed by them.  And I’ve been wounded by them (as have we all).  While I live far from my family, I have done my best to invest in at least one family around me.  I have spent many years “investing” in the institution of education.  And I have spent many, many years caring about the institution of the church.  I want these things to work.  I hope these things survive.  And I know that when they thrive, I can thrive.  But I also know that when they are weakened that I am diminished.

At the end of A Time to Build, Levin writes about the core of “the rootedness and responsibility of the member and the partner and the worker and the owner and the citizen.”  “There is a word for this,” he asserts.  “The word is devotion.”  This, Levin asserts, points to the idea of callings reflected in love and sacrifice.  Levin continues:

Younger Americans especially seem hungry for these kings of callings.  But they often don’t see that what they seek is already within reach.  They are confronted mostly with models of dissent and rejection.  Even our traditionalists are dissenters– wondering out loud if their inheritance is just a burden, and if maybe our way of life has failed.  We lack a grammar and vocabulary for articulating what we are for.  It’s easy to be fashionable rebels.  It’s harder to remind ourselves why our core commitments are worthwhile.  That is the kind of case that institutionalism now involves, and why it is so crucial.

“Younger Americans” is the main concern, of course.  They seem to have known nothing but the failure of institutions.  But what about those of us who have been shaped well by institutions but now find ourselves strangers in them, lost somewhere between expectation and reality?  What about those of us who are “insiders” who actually feel like “outsiders”?  Perhaps those on the “inside” think that such a position is impossible?  Levin continues:

There is reason to think that renewal is possible, because the hunger for it is evident in the very symptoms of decline around us now.  The fact our dissatisfaction should send us searching for signs of that hunger.  But these signs might not be quite what we expect . . .

To be able to spot this hunger and yearning, we do need some idea of what we are looking for.  Or rather, we must consider what some angry and dejected fellow citizens might want but will not ask for by name.

It’s that last line that gets me: the idea of the dejected wanting what it will not ask for by name. Some of us, of course, have been taught “to grin and bear it” when it comes to our place in institutions that we love but cannot seem to change.  I think a number of us find that to be true in the church.

One of the best examples of this odd balance between devotion and dissent popped up over at Rod Dreher’s blog during the Christmas season.  In a post titled “Church Without Community,” Dreher reprinted a long email from a young man who had been formed by what sounds like is a long-term good experience with the Evangelical church: years in church, attended Christian primary-middle-high school, went to an Evangelical college, spent a year in the mission field, and now attending a conservative Evangelical seminary and an SBC church.  For all intents and purposes, he should be so well-formed that he fits right in.  And yet the post articulates a discontent that many would write off as pitiful complaint.  More telling that the post itself, though, are the many comments left by readers of the blog (and Dreher really does have a great collection of readers).  The whole things is worth a good, nonjudgmental read.

What is the balance, then, between devotion, discontent, and dissent?  The young man in the blog post obviously wants to be devoted to the institution of the church.  And he’s obviously discontent in a way that is easy to articulate on paper (or online) but might be hard to navigate in day-to-day living.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt, this is not a guy who just wants to spend his time kicking the can further down the road.

If Levin is correct, and I think he is, how do those of us devoted but silent in our discontent find a way to communicate that doesn’t sound like easily-dismissed complaint or whining?  Who is there to ask the questions?  Who has been formed or shaped to do that kind of work?  And what do you do if the people and the mechanism just aren’t there?

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Over the next few days, I’m hoping to do some reflecting on Andrew Root’s The Relational Pastor.  I think he has some suggestions that can be beneficial, even if it’s just a matter of the “grammar and vocabulary” that Levin mentions.

I highly recommend Levin’s A Time to Build.  It starts, builds, and ends well.  He paints good, sobering pictures, and provides answers that can open doors to good conversations.  You can order the book here.  You can read Levin’s thoughts on the intersection of institutions as mold or as platforms here in a recent piece for The Atlantic, too.

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Context, Contingency, and Commitment

Posted on February 10, 2020 by awtraughber

A few days ago, a co-worker forwarded me a copy of a document that I wrote about ten years that served as a kind of “manifesto” for what I thought could and should be accomplished at work on the level of culture.  While I’ve thought of the document often over the last few years, I hadn’t really thought about any intentional revisit of it.  I was a different person then, for sure.  But as I looked through it, I found some stuff worth retooling and breathing back into life some.

I am entering a stage in my career where I’m having to define and defend things more and more.  It’s a sobering experience.  Some of the things I am (re)defining and defending are things that have been around for years, that almost touch on the systemic, that people are calling into question (and perhaps rightly so).  Some of the things I am defending I do so by default because I stepped in because f need, which creates a different sense of responsibility.

So I’m preparing for a season of defense and defining that I don’t expect to enjoy all that much.  As I reflect and (probably wrongly) attempt to predict what happens next, three things are worth keeping in mind (that can easily be forgotten, particularly if someone enters into the conversation for the first time).

  1.  Context.  We are often not trained to “think big.”  By “think big,” I do not mean to think about the blowing up of a balloon to as large as it can be blown.  I mean “think big” in the sense that what we assume are discrete things are actually parts of a larger system, a larger flow.  And that system of flow can sometimes be hard to recognize.  I spent the first few years of my job learning about some of the “on the ground” history of things, which isn’t quite the same as official institutional history.  Both are vital, one even more so for how you interact with others.  At what point, through, does context take a major paradigm shift?  When you’ve been around for a good while, it’s possible for the paradigm to shift right under your feet without realizing it.  Context is as important as it is tricky.
  2. Contingency.  Context is closely tied to contingency.  If context is holding the big picture, the interconnectedness of systems, in place, then contingency is how we move through the given context.  “Because of x, I can do y but probably shouldn’t do z.”  As I look back at the decisions I have made over time, they are all of them in some way contingent on what had gone before, who had done those things, and what was missing or needed augmentation.  I never assumed that one thing could do everything or that one person could do everything (in that way lies madness).  Contingency means you strive to do good and right with what you have, knowing that in a different context you might have done something completely differently.
  3. Commitment. If context is big picture, and contingency is movement in the picture, commitment is the through-line that directs the movement.  If the commitment is health, the contingency involves what foods or exercise or emotional support options are available in a given context and how best to choose through your options.  Whatever you choose, though, health is the underlying commitment.  For the Christian, the underlying commitment is the kingdom of God revealed through Jesus.  If that commitment is in play, it will preclude some directions and encourage others.  And what it looks like will be determined by the context.  Even if what is done is an entirely new thing, it is a thing instantly embedded in contingency and context.

How does one invest long-term in places and people and institutions and maneuver things like changes in broader culture and close-to-home leadership?  On some level, you have no control over anything but the decisions right in front of you.  I think often of Joseph and how God used him to save his family during the famine in the latter part of Genesis.  It is an amazing story full of twists and turns that reveal God’s faithfulness.  And then you turn the page to Exodus to find that there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. (The KJV says it so well.)  The land is still the same.  God is still the same.  But so much else has changed.  The same thing will be true when Moses passes and Joshua leads the Israelites into the Promised Land.  And when Daniel finds himself in Babylon.  And when Jesus confronts the religious leaders of his time.  And when Paul preaches the Gospel to the Gentiles.  And when John sees the context and contingencies of everything in his great Revelation.

May God grant us a good picture of the greater context of things.  May we be able to discern the contingency between things.  And may we hold fast to the right commitments.

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Saturday Morning Thoughts

Posted on February 8, 2020 by awtraughber

Yesterday I posted a long lecture by Andrew Root about the shift that has changed in youth (ministry) culture over the last decade.  I’ve read a decent chunk of Root’s most recent output the last few months (3 1/2 full books and 2 short pieces).  And while I don’t agree with all of Root’s premises or conclusions, I do think he has a number of wise things to say.  I shared the video with some co-workers a couple of weeks ago and have gotten a little response from them.  For those who have worked with young people over time, a lot of what Root speaks of or hints at rings true.

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This week was an odd one for me.  The weather has been wonderful: the evenings and mornings have dipped into the lowers 60s, which is not often but nice.  Even wore a jacket at work yesterday.  Classes have been good.  Grade check was yesterday, which is always a load off.  I’m still learning to navigate perspectives and personalities.  I was totally caught off guard with one conversation this week.  At the least, I am learning valuable things.  At the most, I’m preparing for a difficult conversation the outcome of which may not be in my favor, if that makes any sense.

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Caught a second showing of 1917 yesterday with a movie-making friend.  I’m glad he finally saw it.  It’s the most I’ve heard him praise a new movie in some time.  The movie flows much better the second time, mostly because the first time you see it you’re marveling at the film’s key narrative mechanism and wondering what they could do in the next scene . . . even though that term is almost meaningless when discussing the movie.  There is, of course, some chiastic structure to the store: beginning and ending leaning on a tree, racing through trenches, making a run over dangerously empty fields.  The small role played by noticeable actors is also less jarring, which is nice.  I have no problem if it wins best picture tomorrow night at the Oscars.  It’s a whole-package movie, even though its key cast could be counted on your big toes.

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Last night after the movie, my friend and I ran into some former students.  Most of them are done with college and have moved on to the world of work.  It was a chance meeting, which made it just a bit sweeter, too.  I am constantly amazed at how much it feels like time has passed even when it’s just been a few years.  Ever since I started teaching seniors, I’ve had to process the sensation that each year is uniquely itself: its own language, its own highs and lows, its own tenor that can be revisited but never replicated.

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The Thing and the Story

Posted on February 7, 2020 by awtraughber

Mr. Root is onto something, I believe.

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New Year’s Hobbit

Posted on February 5, 2020 by awtraughber

tolkien calendarIt took me a little longer than usual to get ahold of this year’s Tolkien calendar.  When I finally remembered my need to order it around Christmas time, it was nigh impossible to find.  Not at Amazon.  Not at Barnes and Noble.  It seemed to be out of stock everywhere.  Luckily, I found a copy at ebay from a Canadian bookseller.  Took a little longer than usual to get here, of course, but that’s okay.  The Alan Lee art is beautiful as always.  And I quite like the quote for January from the first chapter of The Hobbit:

By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes (neatly brushed)– Gandalf came by.  Gandalf!

What a great way to introduce the characters- saying so much while saying so little.

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In a letter dated 15 October 1937, Tolkien wrote:

. . . I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits.  Mr. Baggins seems to have exhibited so fully both the Took and the Baggins side of their nature.  But I have only too much to say, and much already written, about the world into which the hobbit intruded . . . My daughter would like something on the Took family.  One reader wants fuller details about Gandalf and the Necromancer.  But that is too dark– much too much for Richard Hughes’ snag.  I am afraid that snag appears in everything; though actually the presence (even if only on the borders) of the terrible is, I believe, what gives this imagined world its verisimilitude.  A safe fairy-land is untrue to all worlds.

It wouldn’t take long, of course, for Tolkien to start weaving together the “long-expected party” that begins the next chapter of Tolkien’s grand story.  I like the idea of “the snag that appears everywhere.”  The snag is a reference to concern that the going deeper into the edges of Tolkien’s forest of a story wouldn’t make for good “bed-time reading” with children.  But the snag is there . . . and the the snag is everywhere, not just in fairy-lands but in all worlds.

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Gospel and Church, Mold and Platform

Posted on February 4, 2020 by awtraughber

Candy MoldIn his survey of failing institutions in American life, Yuval Levin writes about the church in the “close to home” section (which also includes the family and community organizations.  While he writes about the loss of authority of the Catholic church, Levin approaches the plight of the Protestant Evangelical church through the lens of “unmediated individual authority.”  In chapter seven of A Time to Build, Levin writes:

In this arena, as in so many others, we find that the rise of platform institutions  and celebrity culture are together undermining structures of responsibility.  The rise of megachurch pastors has raised the prospect of a genuine celebrity culture within American Christianity.

From there, Levin connects with the thought of Andy Crouch (of The Tech-Wise Family) and leans into what he sees as a positive response to the rise of 21st century celebrity Christianity culture: the rise of various “rules” of life.  Levin continues:

The lure of celebrity lifts leaders out of their protective institutional constraints and puts them on display.  Its immediacy– the directness and authenticity of its message– is among the great strengths that Protestantism offers as a path to the divine.  But it also renders Protestant churches distinctly vulnerable to the lure of celebrity that is so powerful throughout our larger culture.

A growing number of thoughtful Evangelicals are aware of this danger and are working to address it.  They are focused particularly on curtailing the temptations of celebrity through the imposition of rules of practice . . . Rules of this sort are, of course, the foundation of institutional frameworks, and are intended to establish clear forms for behavior.  For clergy and parishioners, these guidelines not only constrain and shape their actions but inculcate habits to guard against the lure of celebrity and assorted escapes from responsibility.  In a sense, they create layers of of structured mediation and restraint between a leader and his or her followers.  They cut against the conflation of immediacy and authenticity because they recognize how vulnerable such immediacy can render a community of people.

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The church is an interesting intersection of what Levin suggests about molds and platforms and our confusion of the two.  At the heart of the Christian church is an experience.  Through Word and witness, the Christian believes that God makes Himself known to people by the Spirit in a way that points to Jesus and convicts us of sin.  Whether it is a “quiet moving across the line” or a real “Damascus road” experience, this experience precedes, theoretically becomes the root of whatever mold or platform comes next.  Because of our quest for authenticity, we tend to put new converts front-and-center with a platform to share their experience.  (This, of course, has some kind of New Testament precedence.)  But it can be dangerous.  Which is why church history records moments in time where new converts went through periods of training and growth before baptism into the church.  (It’s also why new converts are often “enrolled” in classes to help with practices like Bible-reading, prayer, Scripture memorization, and evangelism, even though “the experience” often makes those things flow as a natural consequence).   This emphasis on authentic experience-turned-platform can work against the deeper, longer, quieter molding work of the church, making things like tradition and liturgy seem stuffy and stiff (and therefore not really inspired by the Spirit).

I think this is a good place for today’s church to have a serious conversation about the long life of faith, in how it starts but also in how it continues and what it points towards.  There’s no way around the tangled nature of the church as mold and platform for believers, probably.  But it’s something to consider as we press on in a contemporary culture that looks at us with suspicion or as silly hold-overs of days long-gone.

(you can purchase Levin’s Time to Rebuild here and wherever good books are sold)

(candy mold image from cakeconnection.com)

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