Church Hurts And

Clean, Sober and Wonderful with Kaitlyn Anne

165,148. That’s how many deaths from COVID-19 to date in the United States. Everything in life has changed as we live in fear and shock from this once in a lifetime pandemic.  67,367 that’s how many people died from drug overdoses in 2018. 70,237 was the number the year earlier. Wait. I’m talking annual numbers here. Not a one-time pandemic. It doesn’t take many years of these numbers to far exceed the deaths from COVID-19. It is simply breathtaking.

“THE OPIOID EPIDEMIC is devastating America. Overdoses have passed car crashes and gun violence to become the leading cause of death for Americans under 55. The epidemic has killed more people than H.I.V. at the peak of that disease, and its death toll exceeds those of the wars in Vietnam and Iraq combined. Funerals for young people have become common. Every 11 minutes, another life is lost.

So why do so many people start using these drugs? Why don’t they stop?”

That was the beginning of an article in the New York Times in December 2018 entitled “A Visual Journey Through Addiction”. It quoted one young woman describing her drug use with the words “It like being hugged by Jesus.”

The reality is that until one's life is personally touched by drug abuse, it really is just another sad statistic. It’s like hearing about a war on the other side of the world compared to feeling a bomb go off in your back yard. Why pay attention? Why care?

So today we are going to bring it closer to home than I would prefer. We are going to talk to a young Orange County woman who has worked in almost every aspect of the recovery industry in the past ten years, and yes, it is an industry. 

Her credentials? Really? Her credentials are mainly found in the story behind the resume. Growing up she excelled on the soccer field, her blonde ponytail bouncing behind her as she sped by the opposing team juggling the ball as if she was born with it. Her laughter and joy-filled the field. She was a preacher's kid too, going to church every Sunday for four hours and a few times during the week. I bet you feel it coming, don’t you? Kaitlyn Anne, Welcome to Church Hurts And.

Politics, Politics and Church with Dr. Art Lindsley

Never in my lifetime has politics felt so contentious. I know as a preacher I am given to hyperbole, but not this time. This is an ugly, visceral, palpable, and vomit-producing level. It can even make family gatherings stressful, divide generations, and kill any notion of a wonderful community. If I know anything about history, it can certainly kill a country, and not a few are suspecting that is at stake.

If that isn’t a difficult enough beginning let us add church into it. I wonder how many people would put politics on the list of things that attributed to them moving away from the church, not going to church, or being stressed by the church. This certainly was true for my father.

One of my mentors, Steve Brown, used to often say before a sermon: “I have a lot of political views and they are a lot better than yours are, but you aren’t going to hear them from the pulpit because this is a place for God’s word and we have come here to see Jesus and Him only.” I loved that for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the humor inserted into something that could otherwise be quite divisive. I followed his lead and was always careful not to get political from the pulpit. I wonder how successful I’d be now if I preached every week. Everything seems to have been thrown into the political basket.

On the other side, I had a preacher friend of mine come out publicly about his political views right down to for whom he was going to vote. Now he’s retired and I’m glad, but I was embarrassed for him. He waxed eloquently about the why’s, but I knew he was alienating people right and left, mostly only to get stroked by those who agreed with him. I prayed for his serenity.

Who can help us here? Our guest today is uniquely qualified to speak on this subject. He’s one of those Reverend Doctors, which means he has a doctoral degree and is ordained and I will let his job title suffice to let us know he is bringing more than personal opinion to this discussion. The Vice President of Theological Initiatives for the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, Dr. Art Lindsley. 

Sex, Church and Ministers with Ned Beadel

I was only 15 when I first thought about going into the ministry. In light of the fact that I hadn’t grown up in church, and my mind was filled with sex (isn’t that what 15 means?), it was a unique spiritual dynamic. Still, it was at that age I received what is considered a “call” in the church world. That was a long time ago, but isn’t it interesting I talk about a call to the ministry and sex in the same breath?

As I look back upon it I never really really veered from that direction for the next thirty years. Wait, am I talking about my call to the ministry or a mind filled with sex? Sometimes I wonder if they aren’t the same thing. Uh oh. We are headed for trouble here.

Since I’m in the distant past I might as well go down those ancient streets. I remember wondering what it would be like if I really did become a minister as I pursued an education in that direction. I became acutely aware of how clergy were perceived in the world around me. Remember the televangelists' scandals? Jim Bakker. Jimmy Swaggart. Famous T.V. preachers who not-so-euphemistically got caught with their pants down.

I’m not sure what the numbers were, what the cause and effect formula was or who exactly is to blame, but I do know that church attendance has declined significantly in my lifetime and the dignity and respect of clergy has gone with it and lots of people roll their eyes when the subject comes up. 

You see, it didn’t stop with headlines. Almost anyone close to the church knows of some story where sexual scandal and church got into their world. This minister did this. That priest did that. The volunteer who disappeared with rumors following did what? 

Just this week I talked to a man who is a generous donor on my support team at Standing Stone Ministry. He’s a deacon in his church and takes meals to Seniors during this pandemic called Corona. He was telling me about the background checks he had to go through to volunteer to take meals to seniors.

So today we brought in an expert uniquely qualified to speak to this subject. Sex, Church, and Ministers. Oh my.

Welcome to Church Hurts And Rev. Ned Beadel.

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Part 2 London Town, Slaves and Grace with Ben Virgo

Before we go, I’d just like to take a moment to say a word about perspective. Ben Virgo on the Christian Heritage Tour gave me a perspective of London I simply never would have had if I hadn’t gone on that tour. It wasn’t all new information to me, I knew some of it, but it sure was different seeing it, matching places to events and people. I hope you’ve gotten a bit of that tour in the past few minutes and maybe had your perspective adjusted a bit too.

Many years ago I had a similar perspective-changing Tour given by Ray Bakke in Chicago. I was living in the city at the time, but just a few hours with Ray changed what I saw every day. Really? The street means that much and that happened there? Wow.

When you get next to experts your perspective is likely to get threatened. If they really know their stuff, like Ben knows his stuff, you will see things differently, maybe hear things differently, and perhaps even feel things differently. When the plaque on the old building you walk by says, “Within a few feet of this place John Rogers, John Bradford, John Philpot and other servants of God suffered death by fire for the faith of Christ 1555, 1556, 1557” it gives one reason to pause. “Just tell me you don’t believe something and I won’t burn you to death.” What do you believe in strongly enough not to give in to that?

Yet almost invariably with perspective growth, comes nuance. Nuance is very underrated. Life is so much easier with black and white perspectives. Good-Bad. Righteous. Sinner.

Surely I may be wrong, but I suspect some of our propensity to wanting things that way is because it is easier. This king is good. That queen was bad. Royalty is all bad. Presbyterians are good. Catholics are bad. Churches are filled with hypocrites. You get the point. Or do you?

 Life, people, and churches aren’t easy to put in a box with “All” connected very successfully. It’s a mixed bag. We are a mixed bag. Churches are a mixed bag. Add time to the equation and it gets even messier. Someone who was really bad can end up being really good and someone really good can end up being a scoundrel.

You know how I can prove that. Look in the mirror. See that person. All good? Nope. All bad? Nope. We need a lot more nuance.

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Nuance. You bet. And that’s what we mean by AND. Leonard Ravenhill from Leeds in Yorkshire England once said:"Jesus did not come into the world to make bad men good. He came into the world to make dead men live!” Now that’s nuance and that is Worth a Thought.

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Clergy, Congregations and Me with Dr. Sam Hamstra

Losing My Religion. That was the title of a book written in 2009 with this subtitle: “How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America and Found Unexpected Peace”. It was a great read. It ended up being the atheist book of the year and certainly one of my favorites. It was well written, a fast read, thoughtful, and seemingly quite authentic.

 

I’d love to have the Author William Lobdell on this show sometime, but let me ruin the plot of the book so you can buy something more encouraging. After positive and apparently life-changing experiences with authentic evangelical men, Lobdell gave his life to Christ. Then after being one the key people to really explode the news stories about sex abuse replete in the Roman Catholic priesthood, he was overwhelmed by the pain of the victims and concluded, no good God would allow that. This world is out of control, quite incompatible with any notion of a Benign Deity.

 

I bring this up today, not to jump into the field of apologetics and refute the arguments of Lobdell which are really just another rendition of the problem of evil, but rather to remember at Church Hurts And that for many people the Hurt of Church is quite often located specifically at the intersection of clergy and congregation.

 

Two years ago Forbes listed Clergy and the 8th most trusted profession right beneath Judges, which I remind you are usually attorneys and right above auto mechanics. Imagine. The World Economic Forum in 2018 found that clergy weren’t even in the top ten.

 

Pastors, Ministers, Priests, Preachers, call them whatever you want, are key to our perceptions good and bad of church today and in our personal experiences. I think this is worth another look and to get that we have a specialist in the subject, which in and of itself makes him a scary dude. Sam helps match congregations with the right clergy to try to avoid some of what I am talking about. Sam Hamstra, welcome to Church Hurts And.

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Two Things I Hate - Dr. Voddie Baucham

Sir Michael Caine, the famed two-time Academy Award-winning English actor once said:  “There are only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.” Now that was a great comedic line and the Dutch are a fun and easy target, but I’m not kidding around today. I don’t use the word “Hate” lightly either and to make matters worse, those two things I hate are directly about religion and politics, the two untouchables for a proper party to be had. So let’s get it over with.

The first thing I hate is going to make you want to turn off the radio, roll your eyes in irritation, and wonder what in the world is wrong with me. What is it? Gnosticism.  I hate Gnosticism! It is even spelled with a silent “G” which is annoying and if you don’t know what it means, stay around, because I hope you will learn to hate it too. It is evil, from the pit of hell, won’t go away, shows up in every culture and every generation, and wreaks havoc whenever it raises its nasty head.

The second thing I hate came from the pen of a spoiled adult German boy running around in London after being kicked out France writing home to his more affluent relatives asking them to send money to support his indulgent rebellious lifestyle and writing. Untold millions of deaths can be traced back to this thing we know as Marxism. I hate Marxism!

Wait. Isn’t this a show about Church? Where’s the love?

Our guest today knows more about the two things I hate than most people in the world. He’s current. He’s relevant. He’s educated beyond impressive. He’s controversial. He’s honest. He’s real. He’s also a bit of a hero to me, so I may stuttering a bit during this interview realizing I can preach a sermon in one of his pauses and we don’t have that long.

 

Dr. Voddie Baucham, Welcome to Church Hurts And.

White, English & Privileged-Julia Nand

I’ll never forget the first time I heard someone mention WASP and realized they weren’t talking about those bee-like creatures who sting and are really scary. I was quite young and when the acrostic was explained to me I realized I was still lost. I only understood what one of the four words meant. WHITE ANGLO SAXON PROTESTANT. Ok. I thought I got the WHITE. The other three, forget it. 

I’m guessing everyone has their own story of how they came to discover the identity of their family, skin color, racial background, national identity, religion, etc., but it isn’t something that comes very intuitively. These are all categories that require some degree of learning and context.

As the years went by I learned a bit more. Anglo Saxon in my mind just meant English or British and I didn’t get the difference between those two at all, but at least I had a bucket into which I could put Anglo and Saxon. 

Protestant? That was a bit harder. We went to a different church building (as if we ever went) than the Catholics did and we could eat meat on Friday and if we had a cross hanging in our home it wouldn’t still have Jesus hanging on it. And our ministers wouldn’t wear those long dresses or black clothes during the week with a white thing called a collar.

But so what? What really mattered was discovering what this meant to others. Some seemed very proud of being WASPs, like attainment of sorts, and somehow superior to other categories. And there didn’t seem to be variations of it. Never heard of WASC or WHITE ANGLO SAXON CATHOLICS. OR BASPs. BLACK ANGLO SAXON PROTESTANTS.

I could go on, but you get the point. What’s the big deal? For my Grandmother is was a huge deal because she was DAR (more initials) or Daughter of the American Revolution and even an elite one because she was also a DAM, Daughter of the Mayflower. That’s about as close to royal pedigree as one could have as it was explained to me in Elementary School. My blood must be red white and blue.

Now I know that WASP was referring to a certain combination of Race, Heritage, and Religion which somehow meant I had hit the jackpot. I was privileged. Over time I came to discover that lots of people didn’t like WASPs and the subtleties and nuances surrounding the issues weren’t going to go away-certainly not anytime soon if you read the same newspapers I do.

So today I decided to bring in a special guest. She is more white than me. She is way more English than I am and she’s worked in the City in London and on Wall Street in Manhattan with names that look exactly like the ones on your checking account. Privileged indeed. Born English. Raised in Cambridge. Mother of 3. Miss Julia Kate Nand. Welcome to Church Hurts And.

 

Messy, Confusing & Personal - Rich Hurst

Are you a good host or hostess? If you aren’t sure of that answer, let me tell you how you can figure it out. Do people like coming to your house? When you are hosting, is it a fun time had by all?

 

Now let me tell you a secret. I have come to believe that there is a direct inverse proportion between how much time you take fussing to make everything perfect before people come over and the degree of fun people have. How many of you felt at ease when grandma pulled off the plastic covers from her treasured meticulously upholstered furniture so you could “make yourself comfortable”?

How about those decorative candles and embroidered hand towels in the guest bath? Aren’t they charming? Years ago I read an article telling people to go around and light all the candles in the house and blow them out before people came. Who feels comfortable seeing someone light a fresh new candle that’s been sitting as a decoration for unknown months?

 

I have already made a category leap in this opening monologue. Did you catch it? I started by asking if you were a good host/hostess? Then what did I do? I switched to talking about your home and details which can easily get our attention-furniture, towels, candles. Let’s go backward.

 

What about you? Are you a person people want to hang with? Is your hair done right? Do you wear nice clothes? What about you draws people in and what about you give people a deep desire to be lonely?

 

Today we have as a guest someone who is laughing because he understands everything I have said so far as bizarre as my thinking has been. I’m really not sure what he is an expert in. He doesn’t have a ton of impressive degrees, the sales of his books have fallen through the floor since his mother died, but for some unknown reason, people like to be around him and even listen to his wise advice.

Rich Hurst, Welcome to Church Hurts And.

Pick Your God II: India & Irvine- Dr. Francis Burgula

Part 2 with Francis. I don’t know many Indians. As an American, I want to say, “You know like Indian Indians, not like American Indians.” I can not imagine how ignorant that must sound to the people who make up 1.3 billion of the world’s population. If you need something to put that in perspective as I do, that’s over three times the population of the United States.

But wait. What race is Francis? I bet you don’t know. In fact, I bet you are not sure how many races there are in the world. Your mind is saying 5 right? or is it 4? or 7? I’m not going to tell you and if you do know that answer, right now you are feeling insulted and want to tell me. But do I mean race as a biological category or a sociological one? Which is it? Do I really mean ethnicity? 

Wait again. Name those races. What are they? Once again I bet you can’t name the major races, let alone the corresponding ethnicities and countries they mainly populate.

But you feel strongly about the race dialogue going on in America, so much so that there is a good chance your friendships are being effected. You are insulted by those who are taking a different view from you. You may think they are ignorant and backward and bigoted or they may be ill-informed and pushy or snobby. I have some friends who are considering cutting off friends and even posted on Facebook if you have XYZ view, you can unfriend me. I don’t want to even be around you. Really? 

Some of you aren’t hearing a word because you are stuck on Black, White, Indian, Asian and you are counting on your fingers as you do it. What are you missing?

We could do the same exercise in Major World Religions if we wanted to. What are the major World Religions? I divert.

Back to Francis. I don’t know many Indians. I don’t have many Indian friends. Francis is a new friend for me and I suspect he will be one for life and it is going to be good and deep and filled with humor and teasing and a mutual passion for the God we love, the one Triune God who reveals Himself in Holy Scripture.

Francis is going to teach me more about Indians, the amazing diversity among these people, their land, their history, their food, and cultures. I’ll probably even pick up novels about India that I never would have considered before I met Francis.

His skin has different pigmentation than mine. Of course, I notice it. I’m not blind. Do I care? Not really. Bet you don’t either.  Why? Because it is Francis. You know his name, His mission, his values, his love of God and country.

Why do I know Francis? Because as a middle-age man he came to my country and he learned about my people and from my people. When he met me, he smiled and shook my hand. I know Francis because he came here.

I don’t want to push an analogy too far, but that’s also the story of the Gospel the Church has taught for 2,000 years. God made the trip. He came here, to this earth, in human flesh. His name is Jesus. He cared. He loved. He taught. He died. The message: “In my Father’s House there are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you.” Want one of those mansions? 

Check out a church today who can tell you more about that. The real estate up there in Heaven sure isn’t cheap, but the price has already been paid. And that is what we mean by “AND” and that is WORTH A THOUGHT.

For Church Hurts AND this is John Bash. Love somebody today and Enjoy God, won’t you?

Pick Your God - Dr. Francis Burgula

What god do you believe in? Imagine that as the icebreaker question at a party or business roundtable. Quickly we would realize why the old adage came to be, “We can talk about anything but politics or religion.” Violate that rule and trouble is sure to brew. But isn’t it a legitimate question? What god do you believe in?

I work a lot in the recovery field and talk of a “Higher Power” is very important there. People will refer to “their” Higher Power. It seemed strange to me at first. Do people think that God is like ordering a Hamburger? I’ll take my God with an extra pickle, hold the judgment, drop the adultery for sure, and give me an extra dose of love sweet love.

Reflection upon this took me back to my first Philosophy of Religion course, day one. There you learn to distinguish between religions which are “Theistic” (believing in one God) and those which are “Polytheistic” (believing in many gods). Sounds simple, right?

Guess what? I’ve watched in my lifetime the world around me (I mean in the USA) transition from overwhelming predominant Theists (even Christian Theists going to church) to unapologetic unrefined Polytheists. Think about that for a second. 

Who is your higher power? What god do you worship? Sounds like a smorgasbord to me. How could this have happened? 

Wait. I have an idea. It is my Western thinking. We can learn from the East. They have different logic and certainly a different view of God. 

If you are not confused yet, you are not listening. Today we have as a guest one of the best people in the world to help us understand what is baffling to most. He grew up in India. Ended up becoming a Christian in college to join the 2 percent of that country which is so, even went on to become a minister and came to Southern California to study further and get his doctorate at Talbot Theological Seminary. Now he spends most of his year in India ministering to ministers. Welcome, Dr. Francis Burgula to Church Hurts And.