Talking About Jesus on the Pacific Coast Trail

Last June, my wife Lynn and I went on a final backpacking trip in the Sierras before moving east. We went up to Silver Pass from Edison Lake. Much of the time we were hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. We were out for five days, the PCT’ers we encountered on the trail had already hiked weeks. Most of them zoomed past us with little more than a wave or quick greeting—understandably focused on covering as many miles as possible. Yet, even a year later, I have distinct memories of the rich conversations we had with the half dozen or so who did stop and talk—including our conversation with “Legend” and “Bee.” (Most PCT’ers use a trail name.)

            About an hour after we left our campsite at Silver Pass Lake, we met them as we crossed Silver Pass Creek. They told us they had met on the PCT two years earlier and gotten married. Legend has done the trail a number of times. It was the second time for Bee. Conversation flowed as easily as the stream beside us. Legend, with jolly blue eyes, philosophized about life and the trail. He exhorted us to live in a way that our kids and grandkids would call us legends. Knowing of our upcoming move he said, “don’t worry about stuff, give it away.”

            We asked him if he knew “Paint”—a man who also had done the PCT several times. We told Legend how Paint, who works at the lodge/campground at Edison Lake, lent us his tent when the zipper broke on ours. Legend’s eyes got even brighter. Yes, he knew Paint. He told us how hiking the trail had brought significant healing for Paint in a dark period. Then, referring to his lending the tent, Legend told us other stories of Paint’s helping others and how his unselfishness has grown. Then, becoming more reflective he said, “I’m convinced the way to live is to give unconditionally, not expecting something in return. If I offer another hiker a plate of spaghetti and expect them to do the dishes that is conditional.”

            When he said “conditional” and “unconditional” I immediately thought of God. Since he had so freely exhorted and philosophized, I decided to jump in and do some theologizing. I said his comments led me to think of God and that many people view God’s love as conditional. I then told some examples of how I had noticed that in Honduras and how I responded. I wanted to help people know and experience God’s unconditional love. I led Bible studies to encourage people to let Jesus shape the way they thought about God. I said to Legend and Bee, and by now another PCT’er who had stopped as well, “Although not academically oriented I decided to get a Ph. D. in theology so I could help release people from the toxic theology of a God of conditional love. I just retired after 25 years of teaching at a seminary in Fresno.”

            Lynn, figuring I would not say it myself and that it would pique their interest said, “And he has written 13 books.” Bee immediately said, “What’s your last name. I want to look up your books. Which one do you recommend?” Probably because of what I had just talked about, I recommended Recovering the Scandal of the Cross, explaining how it offers alternatives to understanding the cross as God punishing Jesus so God could offer forgiveness. But then I thought, “why not recommend another book too.” So I said, a newer one is Centered-Set Church. I repeated it slowly hoping she’d actually remember it until she had an internet connection. She asked quizzically, “what is a centered-set”?

            I picked up a stick, and in the middle of the dirt of the Pacific Crest Trail I drew a circle with O’s inside and X’s outside and gave a three-minute version of bounded, centered and fuzzy. When I got to the part about fuzzy, and people reacting to judgmentalism and wanting to get rid of the line, I just took the toe of my boot and wiped out the line in the dirt. That worked great, better than when I have done it on a napkin or piece of paper. After mentioning some weaknesses of fuzzy, I told them that what we see in Jesus is something different and I drew and explained a centered approach. My drawing of the directional arrows in the dirt was not as clear as the napkin version—but clear enough to grab their attention. Bee responded, “I want to get that book!” Legend said, “that’s what we will talk about today—about the center and the line.” Lynn said, “it’s all about what direction people are headed.”

            I was bold that day; I took initiative. In that sense the conversation at Silver Pass Creek was like evangelism I did at the mall in my youth. But it differed in significant ways. First, rather than walking up to a random stranger and beginning a conversation—by asking if they had heard of the four spiritual laws—my initiative with Legend and Bee took place in a conversation already happening. Second, the evangelism at the mall was saturated with obligation. In a general sense, as a Christian I felt I ought to be doing it, and in the specific sense the youth group leaders saddled me with the obligation by taking us to the mall to do evangelism. In contrast, standing beside the stream, the initiative sprung from within. It flowed from a well of desire for people to experience the God revealed by Jesus and be liberated from toxic theology and bounded and fuzzy churches. I felt much different walking down the trail after the conversation that day than I did leaving the mall decades ago.

            The day before, Lynn and I ate lunch beside a jewel of a lake just a few hundred feet below the pass. After lunch I walked over to a tree, picked up a pine cone and threw it in the lake.

When I saw the ripples start to spread out, and eventually make it all he way across the lake, I thought of the picture above my desk of ripples on a lake. Every morning I pray that the ripples of the centered approach will spread. I stood, looking at the lake, and prayed. In a small way the conversation the next day was answer to that prayer. I pray now that this story may contribute to more ripples spreading. May it increase your imagination for the evangelistic potential of the centered-set paradigm. May it increase your confidence that conversation about it will be comfortable and many people will respond positively. May it spur you to look for ways to bring it up in conversations—with people you know and ones you happen to cross paths with. Let us pray for opportunities. Let us pray the ripples will spread.

Bonus Material: Things I Wish Were in the Book

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to my daughter Christie preach on the theme of community.  She included a brief explanation of bounded, fuzzy, and centered and shared the soccer example from Centered-Set Church (47). She stated that the players had to confront the offending player and tell her to stop picking up the ball. If not, they would not be playing soccer. Then Christie asked, “What are things that do not belong here if we are to experience rich Christian community? What are things we could not allow just as the soccer players could not allow someone to use their hands?” I thought, “What a great question. I wish I had included that in the book.” A society saturated in tolerance as supreme virtue gets nervous about any sort of confrontation telling someone they are out of line. Christie’s question not only led the listeners from the generality of the illustration to their real-life situation, it also facilitated a shift from the societal default to a stance of recognizing there are times we do need to say, “that does not belong here.”  

That was not the first time I heard or read something and thought, “That’s great. I wish that was in the book.” In fact, I have kept a list of them. In this blog I share the list with you. Most of them are short, a line or two, some a bit longer. May you find them useful as I have, and please send me items you think I could add to the list.

 Brad Isaak, a youth pastor, shared with me a line he has used when confronting youth about problematic behavior at youth group. He says to them, “if you do that here then here will be no different than anywhere else.” Similar to Christie’s question, Brad’s statement communicates that standards have value. Note the difference from bounded. Brad is not communicating, “If you want to be in, if you want to avoid shame, keep the rules.” Rather his statement has an invitational quality. It invites them to be part of making something of value that they will get to experience.

 Some great sentences:

“This is the very nature of God, that we work from the place of God’s blessing and love, not for it.” Dustin Maddox, 10/23/22, North Fresno Church

 “Jesus was not killed because of who he excluded. Jesus was killed because of who he included.” John Richardson, sermon, Prodigal Church 8/3/24

 To add to list of questions on pages 164-65 in book: “What is your next step?”  When I asked Dan Serdahl what are ways his church avoids fuzziness he told me they regularly use this question.

 “Few things could be more transformational than a community that devotes less energy to policing its borders and more to elevating and celebrating its glorious center of gravity.” Meghan Good, Divine Gravity, 115.

 Karl Barth in a letter to someone who had sent him a book they wrote critiquing others’ theology.  “You say many correct things. But what is correct is not always true. Only what is said kindly is true. You do not speak kindly in a single line.” Karl Barth Letters 1961-1968, p. 328

 “bounded progressive” – a phrase Megan Good used in a Jesus Collective webinar on centered-set church (2/23/23). I find it helpful in communicating it is not just conservatives, or legalists that are bounded.

 Illustrations of distinguishing the center from things not part of the center:

In the discussion time after my presentation at a regional event of the Reformed Church of America in Omaha (7/22/23), Jon Garbison, commented on how a church’s shared center is like overlapping sections in a Venn diagram. The parts that are not shared, need to be recognized and agreed on as non-essential.

 Meghan Good uses a dart board analogy. Bull’s eye represents what is most central and where there is total accord. Each ring out less so. That is not to say those things are not important, but that there can be differences. “There are also legitimate reasons for groups to separate when it becomes apparent they are operating with different bullseyes or even different outer rings. There is no ‘rule’ for exactly how much must be shared in order to cooperate. The decision will often be affected by a group’s specific mission. Mission goes awry when the people working together are aiming at different targets, flinging their darts crossways with each other. Some forms of mission may require only the bullseye be in common. Other forms of mission directly implicate the outer rings. The important thing to keep in mind is that it is possible to recognize that missions have diverged without lighting anyone else’s dartboard on fire” (111).

 David French, on the Russell Moore Show podcast, Sept. 4, 2024, said that in a pluralistic society you have a hard core but soft edges so you do not hurt others when you bump into differences. As he said that I thought, bounded churches have hard edges. A centered church has a hard core, but can have soft edges.

 Centered approach takes time

This idea is in the book, but Greg Applequist went deeper with the idea. This is an email he sent me after I spoke at the Evangelical Covenant Church Midwest Region’s pastor and spouse retreat last October.

 “As we spoke on Tuesday, the idea of time came to my mind.  To live in a centered church requires us to recognize that things take time.  I have found that when challenge comes, most people don't want to take the necessary time to sit in the middle of the challenge.  About 18 months ago we had a youth volunteer tell us he was transgender and was going to present as female.  As you can imagine, this was difficult.  There were immediate decisions we had to make (could she continue to work with students), but there were larger discernment we had to face as well.  As I think about that specific situation, to be a centered church would be to take time to know her story, explore the Scriptures, share our concerns/fears/hopes, understand what our students were facing in terms of sexual identity and so much more.  Many in our church simply wanted an answer, is it right or wrong, or as we can see now, is she in or out?  I wonder if people today are so concerned about being right or wrong that they don't have the patience or stamina to live in the grey (not the fuzzy) as we discern together how to move forward.  To be centered is to take the necessary time together.  I wonder if the greatest challenge to being centered is the immediacy that we all live with.  The tyranny of the urgent makes it much more difficult to live in the wisdom of the center.”

 Trajectory Principle: Directional vs. positional

Meghan Good, includes just a bit of explicit bounded, fuzzy, centered language in her book Divine Gravity, but the concepts are discernable throughout. I recommend the book to you. I find her language of “trajectory” and directional vs. positional especially helpful.

 Great questions: “What would change if you valued trajectory over position? Who or what might you see differently? (115).

 She uses Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and tax collector to illustrate the trajectory principle (Luke 18:9-14). After reading her interpretation last year, I began using this parable in all my presentations of the centered-set church concept. I wish it was in the book. I commend it to you. In just a few minutes you can illustrate that Jesus was centered--not bounded or fuzzy.

 Luke makes clear that Jesus directs this parable at bounded-church types. “To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable . . .” The Pharisee in the parable displays exactly that attitude.

 If Jesus used the bounded approach, and looked at the men’s position in relation to the line, the Pharisee would be in—part of the group. The tax collector would be out—on the wrong side of the line. But referring to the tax collector Jesus says, “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God” (14). How can Jesus say it is the tax collector who is justified, included, in? Meghan Good observes that Jesus evaluated trajectory rather than position. The tax collector’s repentant attitude (“God, have mercy on me, a sinner”) displays a turning, an orientation toward God. In relation to the line, the Pharisee is compliant and in a good position, but his attitude displays that his orientation is not in line with the way of Jesus. He is headed the wrong direction. Jesus is not bounded; he is also not fuzzy. He does not say “let’s be tolerant; they are both fine.”

 Borrow, share, send me more

Please borrow and use these ideas. Please share this blog with those you know who have read the book Centered-Set Church. Are there people you know who have not read the book that would benefit from doing so?

How Can We As Individuals Live in a More Centered Way?

I regularly state that you can’t do a centered approach alone. A small group leader can’t by themselves make the group centered. If others in the group are bounded, the group will have a bounded character. Yet, what we do at the individual level still matters. What happens if rather than looking at the whole diagram above we look at just one individual? What can we do to treat ourselves in more centered ways? How can our individual discipleship have a more centered character? I address these questions in this 13-minute video.

Image taken from Centered-Set Church: Community and Discipleship Without Judgmentalism, by Mark D. Baker. Copyright © 2021 by Mark D. Baker. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.

Learning From the Trees

On a recent backpacking trip, I spent a couple hours observing Sierra Juniper trees. It was a time of wonder and reflection. Part way through the time I asked, “what might I learn from these trees?” Rather than writing about the insights, I made a seven-minute video that includes numerous pictures of these amazing trees and lessons I learned from them. Watch the video here.

Centered-Church Story: My Expectations Were Too Low

The communion service moved me to tears. Being back in Honduras and worshiping with the people of Amor Fe y Vida church would be moving enough, not to mention that Arely Cantor, the pastor serving communion, had participated as a teenager in the studies of Galatians I led in that church in 1992 and 1993. It was, however, “Carmen” coming forward to receive the elements that especially moved me. It struck me that if the church had not worked to shift from a bounded to centered approach after our studying Galatians together, Carmen would have remained seated all these years while others from the church went forward. She would have remained on the shameful side of the bounded-church’s line.

As I recount on pages 44-45 in Centered-Set Church Carmen faithfully attended church but was not allowed to participate in the Lord’s Supper or serve in any leadership role because she was not married to her common-law husband. The study of Galatians propelled the church to shift away from bounded line-drawing. Church leaders visited Carmen and discerned that she was clearly oriented toward Jesus the center. She wanted to get married but her partner refused. She had been faithful to him during their, at that time, 17 years together. They invited Carmen to participate fully in the church. Today she serves on the church council. I have often reflected on and celebrated this positive fruit of Amor Fe y Vida’s centered approach. But I had not before imagined the alternative. What if Amor Fe y Vida was still bounded? Carmen would have lived draped in shame all these years. Tears came to my eyes as I saw her standing before me freed from that shame and receiving communion.

I felt even greater emotion when I saw who stood behind Carmen, next to receive communion —her husband “Rafael.” 

Although Carmen had been faithful to Rafael, he had several affairs over the years. Carmen had requested numerous times that they get married. He said “no” every time. She decided to stop asking, but prayed all the more that he would change his ways and marry her. Four years ago, at his initiative, he suggested they get married. Although he did not yet consider himself a Christian, he declared that Amor Fe Vida would be his church and wanted a church wedding. In terms of the centered-set church diagram would could say he was far from the center, but his arrow had begun to turn—slowly. He occasionally visited the church, but a year and a half ago he started coming regularly, made a confession of belief in Jesus, and 6 weeks ago he was baptized. After communion, during a time of sharing, Rafael stood and expressed his gratitude for being part of this church. The pastor told me he does this regularly. Rafael has said that since walking with Jesus he no longer feels the pull of pursuing other women. Although older and suffering from diabetes, Rafael is eager for opportunities to serve in the church.

I was deeply moved, but also challenged by seeing the married, baptized Rafael. The reality is that although I have told Carmen’s story numerous times, I have never thought about nor prayed for Rafael. I celebrated that Amor Fe y Vida’s centered approach had freed Carmen from shamed status and freed her to more fully serve. But when telling the story I had never said, “and let us pray that the gravitational attraction of Jesus, and the centered approach of Amor Fe y Vida will pull Rafael into a relationship with Jesus that will change his relationship with Carmen. Rafael’s standing before me receiving communion challenges me to have even greater expectations of the potential of a centered approach and, especially, of the transformative power of the God of the center.

Mario, the former pastor of Amor Fe y Vida that had led their transition from bounded to centered told me of other stories of the fruit of a centered approach. “Elena’s” marriage had broken and ended. When she remarried, her bounded church shamed her and ended her leadership and teaching roles in the church. Later, however, other leaders discerned her Jesus-centeredness and invited her to once again teach Sunday school. She later became the leader of the entire Sunday school, and eventually planted a church.

Mario is currently involved in a church plant himself in Talanga, his hometown near Tegucigalpa. It meets in a home. As Mario described it more I realized it was a church of refugees from bounded churches. Most all of them had not been attending church. Half the group were involved in a marriage that in one way or another did not meet the common Honduran bounded church standard. They tired of their shamed status and left their churches. A few of them had visited Amor Fe y Vida and asked Mario to start a church like that in Talanga. Do you know any bounded church refugees that you might invite to experience the life-giving experience of a centered church like these people in Talanga?

A number of years ago Iglesia Amor Fe y Vida changed their name as part the process of becoming legally recognized—another church had already filed under that name. Today their name is Viviendo en Amor y Fe, but I continue to use their original name to aid readers in making the connection with the church mentioned in my books.

Liberated from Bounded-Church Shame by the Cross

“Is there a way I can sing these lines?” It’s a question I often ask myself when singing songs that refer to the cross. So much of the language and imagery flows from the penal substitutionary theory of atonement and the idea that Jesus’s death appeased God, that God had to punish Jesus to be able to forgive humans. Notice that I looked for a way I could sing. I did not just ask, "can I?" Having written two books that critique penal substitution theory of atonement, you might expect there are lots of lines I don't sing. But generally, I can fill the words with other meanings. I too affirm that Jesus died in our place, died for our sins. I can even interpret a phrase like, "he paid for our sins" in a way that allows me to sing it. Although there are some lines I don't sing, I asked the question Sunday with an expectation that I could sing them—and I did. As the song continued, however, I began to have second thoughts. READ MORE

The songwriter’s words of release through his sin being nailed to the cross had a sense of finality. It made it hard not to picture a western-courtroom God releasing a condemned sinner because the fine has been paid. By now I had moved past the original question and was asking myself other questions. "So, Mark, how about shame? Could you sing a line with that sense of finality, about shame?" I immediately thought of Luke 15. The father in the parable bore the prodigal son's shame in his place. Jesus removed shame from the despised and excluded through eating with them. Then he stood in solidarity with them through telling three parables—and, eventually, through dying on the cross. Yes, I said to myself, “We can think of Jesus taking on our shame with the same sense of completeness.” Then my next question, “Have you experienced this freedom from shame in its fullness, Mark?”

I immediately thought of the shame of being on the wrong side of a bounded group's line. On one hand, my answer was, "Yes, definitely." I have numerous times experienced release from a burden of shame through prayer and remembering Jesus and the cross. Yet, the internal question asker said, "But, the lines drawn by bounded churches still stir up anxiety and shame in your being. You do not have to live with that. You do not have to let them affect you." At that moment, I pictured Jesus bearing all of the shame I have experienced for feeling looked down upon by people on other sides of lines they had drawn—all the shame I have experienced, am experiencing, will experience. I heard the Gospel proclamation: “Mark, you are free; you have the possibility of living in freedom from the shaming effect of those lines.” To borrow imagery of our current reality, I did not feel that I had just taken a pill that would relieve the symptoms of a particular moment of shame, but a vaccine—the possibility of immunity.

Honestly, I feel a bit hesitant to write the above lines, perhaps even a bit of shame. A not-so-kind internal voice says, "You co-authored books on the atonement, co-authored a book on honor-shame, and wrote a book on bounded, fuzzy, and centered churches, and you still had not fully realized this? Had not fully experienced it?” Probably more accurate to say I had, but I needed a reminder. Regardless, let us accentuate the wonderful reality that God’s work through Jesus’ death and resurrection is of such depth and breadth that we can expect to continue to experience its liberating and healing significance in new and profound ways. May those of you who need it experience another layer of freedom from the debilitating shame of bounded group religiosity through Jesus and the cross, as I did this past Sunday.

Centered-Set Church: The Story Behind the Book

If you ask me, “how long were you working on the centered-set church book?” I might respond, “Since January 2018.” That was when I began doing interviews and focus groups with practitioners of the centered approach and then started writing. The book is filled with stories and examples gleaned from that field research. Yet, students’ questions birthed the idea for the book years ago. After I explained the centered approach, students often asked how to apply it in specific situations. There was no resource to offer them. A desire to fill that void and write a book addressing their questions grew within me. For that and other reasons, I dedicated the book to my students. As I state in the dedication, "without you this book would not exist." But as I worked on the book, it dawned on me that I was actually still working on a question that unsettled and captivated me in 1983.

In the fall of 1983, a lecture at the one-semester Oregon Extension study program grabbed my attention, disturbing me deeply yet leaving me wanting more. After four years of ministry and teaching high school in Honduras, I had become a student again. On that memorable day, Doug Frank wove together insights from sociologists Peter Berger and Jacques Ellul in a lecture contrasting religion and Christian revelation. He described religion as something humans construct as a security system that gives us the means to draw lines defining who is in and who is out. Religion also provides us security by giving us the means to please and appease God or the gods. 

None of this would have rattled me if Doug Frank had contrasted other religions with Christianity, but he gave many examples of Christian religiosity—including ones that mirrored my life. If I had heard Frank’s lecture a few years earlier, I imagine I would have reacted defensively or perhaps just dismissed it all. But after four years of ministry in Honduras I was worn down from working to stay on the right side of the lines I and others had drawn and burdened by all the to-do’s I had piled on myself. Doug Frank’s words unsettled me but rang true.

Frank was not, however, anti-Christian. He did not dismiss the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rather, following Ellul, he said that Christians had a propensity to turn Christian revelation into a religion. Frank’s lecture, like Christian revelation itself, not only exposed and confronted religion, but also pointed to the possibility of liberation from religion. In one sense he called into question everything that I had dedicated my life to, and at the same time he excited me with unimagined possibilities for my life. I left the lecture shaken but convinced, and asking, “How about the church? How can we have a non-religious church?” This question consumed me. I had never been so engaged by a topic for an academic paper. I read Ellul and Berger and had numerous conversations with Doug Frank, and wrote the paper. One paper was not enough. In different ways, the question was one of the strands of my MA thesis, my PhD dissertation, and my first book, Religious No More. I did not know it in 1999, the year that book was published, but I was still not done.

In 2001, after a church service, my friend Larry Dunn approached me and said, “Mark, I read your book Religious No More. Have you read Paul Hiebert’s work on bounded and centered sets?” When I replied that I had not, Larry countered, “You should.” He knew he did not need to say more. Larry knew that, once I read Hiebert’s article, I would see connections to my own work. Indeed, Hiebert’s diagrams and definitions captured me immediately, clearly communicating something for which I had been seeking language. 

I have been using Hiebert’s diagrams and concepts ever since—principally in my ethics course, but in many other settings too. As I wrote on the dedication page, students’ “challenging questions pressed me to refine and clarify my explanations of bounded, fuzzy, and centered sets.”  If I have been working on the question behind the book since 1983, I would say I have been working on the explanations of Hiebert’s categories, the first three chapters of the book, for twenty years. So, how long did I work on the centered-set church book?” Since 2018? Since 2001? Since 1983? In different ways, all are accurate. I do not know what the future will bring, but I think I am done—ready to turn in to Doug Frank the truly final version of my response to the question I asked leaving his lecture in 1983. The work on the book is done. The work of introducing people to the centered approach through the book and videos has just begun. Please join me, and let others know about these resources. Please share this link https://www.centeredsetchurch.com/

The middle paragraphs of this blog are adapted from Centered-Set Church, InterVarsity Press, 2021.

Same Text, Different Lens: From Burdensome to Energizing

Tell the truth; don't steal; get rid of bitterness, rage, slander; be kind, etc. For much of my Christian life, I would have read Ephesians 4:25-5:2 as a list of infractions to avoid and positive things to do. In bounded churches we seize upon commands like these to draw lines to differentiate “good” Christian individuals from those who fall short. And the keyword is individuals. I most naturally read this text as a set of standards for individuals—a guide to individual morality. But what happens if I take off my individualistic bounded lenses and put on centered lenses? Recently, during a Bible study, someone in the group pointed out that the purpose of the commands is to ensure the thriving of the church community, not a means for individuals to achieve success on a moral checklist. I invite you to read over the passage and note how every command is explicitly or implicitly linked to the community's health or the thriving of others in the body of Christ. For example: "speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body;" "[they] must work . . . [so] that they may have something to share with those in need;” “be kind and compassionate to one another.” And even when the purpose is not stated, the single-word commands carry the same communal orientation. You cannot slander or brawl alone; others are involved and get hurt.

 So first, stepping away from a bounded reading and looking through a centered lens brings to light the communal nature of the text. It also deepens the interpretation of some of the commands. For instance, through a centered lens, the exhortation to speak truthfully calls for more than just avoiding lies. It includes lovingly confronting rather than keeping concerns about another Christian's actions to ourselves. Mostly, however, reading through a centered lens changes the character of the passage and points to the radically different character of a centered church. Rather than the verses weighing me down with additional boundary line demands, when read through a centered lens, they energize me! I hear the text saying, “Live like this for your thriving and the thriving of others.” The passage leaves me with a sense of the promise and possibility of a centered church community. It is a community that mirrors the very character of God. As the text says, as those loved and forgiven by God, let us share that love and forgiveness with others. How wonderful it is to be part of a group that treats each other in the ways described here.

The Radicalness of a List of Names

Rahab. Tamar. Ruth. Bathsheba. Mary. Their names shout out from the long list of male names in an otherwise standard-form-ancient-patriarchal genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew. Ancestry in that context was traced through the fathers. Matthew did not have to include women, would not be expected to. This is an intentional act. Just the inclusion of some women in the list makes a radical statement that prefigures the inclusive practice of the one at the end of the genealogy—Jesus. But Matthew did not include all the mothers, only these five. The intentionality goes beyond the inclusion of women, there is intentionality in which women are included. Why these women? There is something out-of-line or impure about all of them. In bounded-set terms we could say they are all on the wrong side of Israel’s purity code—either because of being a non-Jew or questionable sexual behavior, or both. (Although in the case of Bathsheba it is not so much her, she was a victim, rather her inclusion in the list as Uriah’s wife highlights the other-side-of-the-lineness of one of the most revered names in the list—David.)

None of the above was new to me. I have observed and talked about these things before. But as I read the list this week the radicalness of it, the power of it, moved me as it had not before. Perhaps because bounded and centered are so much on my mind these days (as I work on my book). Perhaps because there is so much judgmentalism, racism, and disdainful dismissal of others these days—by both the right and the left. Probably a combination. The very first words in the story of Jesus that God inspired Matthew to write are an intentional frontal assault on bounded group purity culture. And note, it is not just that marginalized people are quietly allowed in—given some seats off to the side. Their presence in the lineage of Jesus, God incarnate, is heralded. And remember, who is the one writing this—Matthew, one who has experienced the shameful exclusion of being on the wrong side of the line. He personally experienced radical inclusion through Jesus’ line-erasing actions.

Are there ways that you have recently felt “othered,” looked down upon? Take a moment imagine what Matthew might say to you? What would Jesus say to you?

What are ways you get pulled into the judgmentalism of the day? How might you reorient toward the way of Jesus?

Who are people in your circles who are feeling the weight of being on the wrong side of someone’s lines? How might you take Jesus-like actions toward them?

Let us as followers of Jesus be as radical as this text and confront the judgmental purity codes of our day.

The Cross: Atonement Analysis is One Thing. What does it Mean for Me?

I had already finished this month’s blog, sent it off to the webmaster. Then the cross broke into my life. Part 2 of last month’s blog will have to wait!

Good Friday. In addition to participating in a Zoom church service I decided to reflect on the significance of the day by reading two chapters from Proclaiming the Scandal of the Cross—Chris Friesen’s and Debbie Blue’s. Amazing chapters—a conversation in a coffee shop and a sermon. As I re-read these chapters the authors, once again, impressed me with their insight and the power of their images. I wish I was as smart as them and able to communicate as well as they do. In the middle of my appreciation of their atonement theology, however, an inner voice said “Mark, read this for you. What does this mean for you?” I have thought so much about the atonement, written so much about the atonement, taught so many times about the atonement, when I encounter talk about the saving significance of the cross my default is to go to analysis. I stepped aside from my appreciative awe of their excellent work and let their words and images engage my life. I am newly impressed that even with as much time as I have spent reflecting on the cross and resurrection, I have not exhausted the meaning of the atonement—neither at the level of analysis nor at its significance for my life.

I will not attempt to condense and communicate the images themselves. I encourage you to read, or re-read, these chapters yourself. I will summarize an aspect of the content of their images and focus on how they impacted me.

One of Friesen’s images is the cross as God turning the other cheek. God does not strike back to balance the relational equation. Turning the other cheek causes the math of reciprocity and retribution to unravel, leading to a relational situation with remarkable possibilities for reconciliation and growth. A beautiful, powerful message. Rather than responding in kind to our disrespect, disloyalty, disobedience (ours today and literally at the cross) God forgives. Through God’s act we are freed from the revenge and retaliation cycle and freed to forgive as well. A great message for the men in my jail Bible study, but for me? Today? I put the book down, prayed, asked God, “What does this mean for me?” Almost immediately I thought of a few students that frustrated me this week—for not following directions or for missing class, from my perspective, unnecessarily. I certainly would not call them enemies, and I am not plotting revenge. Yet I let the frustration simmer in my being; I complained about them to a couple friends. The cross of Jesus calls me to something else. I prayed and released what I was holding against them. I invite you to do the same. Take a moment, pray, listen—who or what comes to mind? And, may this, for you and me, be more than just a Good Friday activity.

Debbie Blue’s sermon on the last part of the Gospel of Mark’s passion narrative (15:21-39) begins with powerful stories of people coming together by uniting against a common enemy. She calls it the scapegoating machine. The power of the stories is not in their grandness, not Hitler uniting Germans against the Jews, rather in their everydayness. Her point is we do this all the time. Then she turns to the cross. She observes, Jesus could have done this; he could have easily unified the crowds against the religious leaders or against the Romans. But the cross is the opposite, all the competing factions in Jerusalem unifying against Jesus.

Blue says, at this point God could have responded with the ultimate scapegoating move—displaying how bad all these people are. But, she writes:

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ isn’t a New Great Big Way to make the machine run, the Most Powerful Fuel Ever for that old mechanism, so that now God’s people can clearly unify, the believers in Jesus against the unbelievers. It collapses the machine. . . This story is not the ultimate reinforcement of over/against, this story reveals to us the destructiveness, futility, utter deathliness of all our againstness, shows us how our deeply ingrained mechanism for creating unity leads to death, even the death of God.

But surprisingly, stunningly, beautifully, unexpectedly and amazingly, the revelation does not end with utter condemnation for the violence at the heart of the social order. . .  It’s a story about Jesus absorbing, taking in, all our againstness, accepting all the death we have to hand out, all the fears that make it so impossible for us to be truly vulnerable, all the weakness that makes us mean. He takes it all totally and thoroughly in. And comes back. Comes back unbelievably undefeated by it. Comes back, not vengeful and resentful, all hyped to form some oppositional unity, some group communion against us (or anyone), all ready to get his army up against the bad stupid scapegoating people. He comes back and he comes back again and again and always, irrepressibly for them, us, all. He comes back loving and forgiving and desiring, as always, communion with the world.

It’s a little hard to get. It may not even seem entirely appealing to us, but this story isn’t told to harden our hearts against anyone. It’s given to us to break our hearts open.  To make love and communion. To make relationship with the Other (who’s the complete other) possible. To reveal to us how we are all together now, not in opposition, not in condemnation, but in forgiveness, gathered together in the love of God (68-69).

Then as I read her next lines I thought, bounded and centered. I invite you to look for that connection too.

It doesn’t seem like this story should fuel our sense of divine righteousness against bad people, wrong ways, strange, weird others, it seems like it might break our hearts open, for relationship based not on exclusion but on the ridiculously inclusive forgiving and redeeming love of God. It shows us that we can’t relieve our separateness by making a scapegoat, we can’t create love and unity fueled by againstness. The old mechanism, the old story is not creative of communion, or if it is, that love and communion is some thin false scared union compared to the new, practically unimaginable, vitally alive, thorough and wild communion made possible by the love and grace of God (69-70). 

As you know, I think relating church to bounded sets, fuzzy sets, and centered sets is a great tool. Reading this paragraph, however, reminded me that the tool is just an aid for understanding. What makes a centered church possible is the God of the center. It is through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection that the wild, vitally alive, ridiculously inclusive communion of a centered church is possible. Beautiful thought, but then again the question: “What does this mean for you Mark?” I began to ponder, to listen. Where do I practice “againstness” rather than allow the reality of God’s work through the cross and resurrection to flow in my life? Ironically, the very first thing that came to mind was people who have attacked me because of my books on the atonement. It is not a stretch to say I have been scapegoated. Although I have not reciprocated by openly attacking as I have been attacked, I have feed the scapegoating machine with us vs. them thoughts in private and in conversation with friends (who are “on my side”). Other us vs. them dynamics easily came to mind. There is so much of it in the air in our society today.

I took a walk and pondered. What does it mean for me to let loose the resurrection reality in these us-them dynamics? What does it mean for me to practice a centered approach with these people? A key move is to distinguish agreement from communion. I feel no call from the Spirit to change my positions. Thinking of Jesus was helpful here. Jesus practiced amazingly inclusive table fellowship. He did not, however, approve of the behavior or beliefs of all those he ate with. For instance, eating with Levi, Zaacheaus, and other tax collectors was not an endorsement of their actions. What then am I called to do? Three ideas. 

First, when I feel us-them, over-and-against, type thinking in my being (or scapegoating sort of talk with others), remind myself: I do not need this for security or identity. My security and identity are found in the center—Jesus. We do not need an other, a scapegoat, to unite us. Our communion flows from God’s loving and gracious action of inclusion. We are united by the center—Jesus. 

Second, compassion. It is so easy to see a person only as their theological position or their political position. As I wrote in a blog two years ago: How might it change our days if we wrapped every thought about another person in a blanket of blessing and compassion? (See also this blog on Father Greg Boyle.) I will seek to shift my gaze.

Third, look for common ground, focus on common values and commitments.

What came to mind as you read Debbie’s words? Who came to mind? What ideas might you add to my list?