Nutritional Guidelines and the Bible

One of the characteristics of modernity is the idea of rationalization (that reason alone can help us discover truth). In order to be "rational" it is important to have all the facts, or evidence. Being obsessed with evidence is another imprint of modernity on our culture. The pursuit of evidence in order to make a "rational" decision is also the underlying assumption of traditional economic thought. That is to say that there is an economic theory that states that people are rational and given enough information then people will make the best possible choices. 

This sort of thought is underlying the way we talk about eating. Specifically, we have been told that we need to look at nutritional labels before we buy our foodstuff. Putting calories on the menu at Starbucks or Applebee's, the theory goes, will help people make healthier choices because we can see more evidence and information.

This just is not the case.

Studies have come out and articles have expressed that begin to show that nutritional labels do not result in behavior change. Some say we need more information such as information for take out food or salt levels. Some say the information displayed is due for a makeover. Others say that we need different information, such as fullness factor.

All this information seems like a great idea, but it could also lead to paralysis by analysis (the paradox of choice).

The idea that information acquisition leads to behavioral change has always been a way to learn new things, but it is not the only way. Modernity has pushed out other ways to learn and this is where religion steps into the frame. 

Religion understands that information acquisition can only affect someone so much. Religion, at its best, knows what social psychologists have just discovered and named attitude polarization and confirmation bias. Religion, at its best, encourages a number of different ""practices" in order to form people and shape behavior. Here are the spiritual practices of Christianity as laid out in the Christian classic by Richard Foster. I have italicized the ones that focus on information acquisition:

• meditation
• prayer
• fasting
• study
• simplicity
• solitude
• submission
• service
• confession
• worship
• guidance
• celebration

One. The majority of disciplines force behavior change.

And yet, the majority of us Christians think that the primary way we are "transformed" or changed is through the following practices. I have italicized the ones that focus on information acquisition:

• listening to sermons
• bible studies
• reading a daily devotion
• highlighting our bibles
• worship
• service
• reading pastors blog *wink*

Christian spiritual formation, at it's best, focuses on the practices and less about the acquisition of information. However, we as a Church have been teaching the way to changed behavior (repentance) is through gathering more information. 

That is like reading nutritional guidelines and expecting a behavioral change. This is the promise of modernity, not the promise of Christian spiritual formation. 

The Pastor's #1 Fear

It has been said that the number one fear among people is the fear of speaking in public. This fear is even greater than the fear of death. It has been quipped by many a comics that we may be more comfortable in the casket than giving the eulogy. 

But pastors get in front of people time and time again and, frankly, public speaking is just not that big of a fear for clergy. So what is the most terrifying thing for clergy? Perhaps we can look at church communities as a whole and see the fear of the minister manifested. 

Most of the churches that I encounter, including the church I co-serve, are places that lack specific direction. That is churches do a number of good things, but few churches are organized in such a way that channels all the resources and energies of the community into one or two clear and specific areas of ministry. This is not necessarily a bad thing because the "Church" is people and people are different. With every person in the Church comes another set of values and views on what ministries are most important. So church service to the world looks like having lots of little teams (ranging from 3-12 people) all doing their thing at a certain time of the year and all advocating for their ministry project. 

Not a bad thing at all. But this model is one that has a small impact in a small area and the problems being addressed are never solved just ministered to. 

This is where the pastor's number one fear can be hidden.

You see, the greatest fear of the senior pastor is stating with clarity and boldness that the church community will be addressing a specif course of ministry. To say, all these resources, all these people all these energies in the church are going to be channeled into "these" or "this" thing. 

When your number one fear is public speaking you find ways to avoid doing it. And when your number one fear is casting a vision for a group of people in such a way that may result in some people's good ministry is laid down, you find ways to avoid doing that as well. 

This, in part, is why many churches do not have a clear understanding of what it is the church does. Ask senior pastors what it is the church they lead does, and you will hear pastors talk about numerous little projects that happen throughout the year. Few pastors can "tweet out" what it is their church does, because the ministry it too broad and multi-faceted. Pastors are trained to say yes to all sorts of ministry and never to turn down a volunteer or money. All this accepting and embracing is good, but creating a place where saying yes to everything makes it very hard to say no to anything. 

But just as their are people who do not fear public speaking, so too there are pastors who do not fear expressing a clear and bold vision to the church. 

Seminaries teach preaching. Toastmasters teaches public speaking. If you fear public speaking there are ways to help you overcome your fear. 

Now, if there were only a Toastmasters variation to help clergy overcome the fear of saying no to somethings in order to say yes to others.

Sign me up. 

God ceases to be anything at all

We all have an image or images of God in our minds that shape our spirituality. If we have an image of God that is like a difficult to please male figure, then we may have a lot of guilt in our lives or a lot of fear that we are disobeying. If we have an image that God is love, then we may lack a sense of justice or even personal piety. If we have a God image that God is more of a Spirit then we may be inclined to be drawn to the mystical stories of the world. 

But in the end, most God images tend to share the idea that God is something, to channel Karl Barth, "Wholly Other". That is that God is something else. 

In my devotional time I came into a selection of readings which reminded me, once again, that God really is not something else. Well, here you can read this:

“God is no longer the Friend I meet, the Father with whom I hold converse, the Lover in whom I delight, the King before whom I bow in reverence, the Divine Being I worship and adore. In my experience of prayer God ceases to be any of these things because he ceases to be anything at all. He is absent when I pray. I am there alone. There is no other.
If this experience persists – and is not the effect of ‘flu coming on or tiredness – it means that something of the greatest importance is happening. It means that God is inviting me to discover him no longer as another alongside me but as my own deepest and truest self. He is calling me from the experience of meeting him to the experience of finding my identity in him. I cannot see him because he is my eyes. I cannot hear him because he is in my ears. I cannot walk to him because he is my feet. And if apparently I am alone and he is not there that is because he will not separate his presence from my own. If he is not anything at all, if he is nothing, that is because he is no longer another. I must find him in what I am or not at all.”

— Tensions by H.A. Williams

We cry out into the world things like, "Where is God in that" or "I cannot hear God" or "Why can't I see God". But Williams is right, God is not "Wholly Other". God is not "out there" or separate from the world. 

When we talk about the incarnation at Christmas time, one of the Truths that the story of God becoming man is the Truth that God is no longer alongside us. God is within us, connected to us. And we too are bound to and interwoven with God.

God became human. God united the "Wholly Other" with the "wholly common". 

This is the great news of the incarnation. God ceased to be anything at all and became flesh.