Whisperers and Storytellers - Part 1

“The church has sought to guide the spiritual lives of its members in very practical, reasonable ways. That sounds like a compliment. It’s not. Contrary to Western thought, spirituality is anything but reasonable and practical.”

— Jeff Woods

Some years ago we came across the story of Monty Roberts, called the Man Who Listens to Horses (after his bestselling book). Though loosely the basis of the book and film, The Horse Whisperer (starring Robert Redford), Monty’s story doesn’t quite resemble the film’s melodrama and romance. His is the simple story of a man’s affinity with animals, in particular the wild mustangs of Montana’s mountains. Monty grew up on a ranch with his family of horse traders. For generations the Robertses had ridden out into the rugged mountains to round up the wild horses that they would then break and sell to other Montana ranchers. The magnificent untamed beasts that roamed the mountains were all sinew and muscle, all wild instinct and sheer physical power. Breaking them was no mean feat. 

Once Monty’s grandfather, father, uncles, or brothers had captured a mustang and confined it to a corral, they then had to break its magnificent spirit. This could mean weeks of work, as these most spirited of animals were often very difficult to tame. Monty says that some horses were so wild that one of their fetlocks had to be tied with rope around their necks. The wildest, most powerful animals could finally be broken only after much blood, sweat, and suffering. Even as a young boy, Monty Roberts suspected that there had to be a better way to befriend these mustangs than to break their spirits so cruelly. Then, during his adolescence, while riding up in the Montana high country, he noticed that whenever a beast was separated from the herd and left to wander alone in the mountains it often became sick, even to the point of near-death. This got him thinking.

If these were such herd animals with such a powerful, innate instinct for connection with other creatures, then maybe that instinct could be used for taming them. He began experimenting on a different way of “breaking” wild mustangs, until in his early adulthood he developed a whole new method. Now, he travels the world demonstrating this approach. During a 60 Minutes program, Monty Roberts taught the world his method of horse whispering. It involves his getting into the corral with the untamed mustang and staying as far from the animal as possible, without leaving the enclosure. He also refuses to allow any eye contact between him and the horse. By moving slowly, but surely, away from the horse and by keeping his head averted from the animal’s gaze, Monty slowly draws the horse to himself. Even though the beast is pounding the earth with his hoof and snorting and circling the corral with great speed, Monty keeps steadily moving away from the horse. He won’t look at it. He won’t approach it. 

As astounding as it sounds, within an hour, Monty can have a wild mustang saddled and carrying a rider quite happily. When asked his secret, he says, “These animals need contact with others so much, they would rather befriend their enemy than be left alone.” When he discovered this method of “whispering” into the horse’s deepest longing, he told his weather-beaten father and uncles and brothers that there was no longer any need to crush the mustang’s spirit. He demonstrated his new method, but to this day, in spite of the evidence that it works, Montana ranchmen still use the traditional approach. 

Monty’s story reminds us of the church. Even though he has discovered an effective way of listening to horses (his own term), the old Montana horsemen won’t budge. They’ve been breaking horses their way for generations. Why should they change now? 

The church might say, we’ve been “breaking” sinners like them for generations. Leave them to us. But the old method of crushing the spirits of seekers who don’t fit the conventional, stereotypical church testimony won’t be effective any longer. Many people are avoiding the church like the plague. It’s time for us to develop a spirituality of engagement with not-yet-Christians. That will involve true listening and genuine presence. 

The traditional method of reaching not-yet-Christians has been to bludgeon them into a recognition of how broken they are. To crush their spirit. To tear them down and bring them to their knees (we’re sure we’ve heard evangelists actually speak like this!). 

There’s very little genuine friendship happening. When churches do befriend unbelievers it’s often so that they might become Christians. And it’s assumed that the way to become Christian is for them to see how truly bad they are. Surely, not-yet-Christians see how disingenuous this is.

True friendship is God’s calling, in and of itself. If people find friendship with Jesus through our friendship with them, that is the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead of having such a combative, manipulative spirituality of engagement with others, we believe the church needs to recover a spirituality of engagement that whispers into the souls of not-yet-Christians. As Monty Roberts appeals to his wild mustangs’ deepest longings, we need to develop an ear for listening to such longings in our friends and engaging them with respect, grace, and compassion. How can we whisper into the deepest longings of not-yet-Christians? - Excerpt from The Shaping of Things to Come by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch

(Part 2 to follow)

What Would Jesus Really Do?

“THEN JESUS SAID TO HIS DISCIPLES, “IF ANYONE WISHES TO COME AFTER ME, HE MUST DENY HIMSELF, AND TAKE UP HIS CROSS AND FOLLOW ME.”

What does it mean to be taken captive by the flesh-and-blood Jesus? By making Christ seem otherworldly, even ethereal, the church has inadvertently put him out of reach to us as an example or a guide. Even though Jesus routinely called people to follow him, the church has often represented this following in purely metaphysical or mystical terms. We can follow Jesus "in our heart" but not necessarily with our actions. Even after the phenomenally successful What Would Jesus Do campaign, in which Christians were encouraged to ask themselves this question before every action, it seemed that Christians were more interested in asking the question than in doing what Jesus would do. We have sanitized and tamed Jesus by encasing him in abstract theology, and in doing so we have removed our motivation for discipleship.

When Jesus is just true light of true light, and not flesh and blood, we are only ever called to adore him, not follow him. In Charles Sheldon’s popular novel In His Steps , one of the characters, Rev. Henry Maxwell, encounters a homeless man who challenges him to take seriously the imitation of Christ. The homeless man has difficulty understanding why, in his view, so many Christians ignore the poor: I heard some people singing at a church prayer meeting the other night,

All for Jesus, all for Jesus,
All my being’s ransomed powers,
All my thoughts, and all my doings,
All my days, and all my hours.

… And I kept wondering as I sat on the steps outside just what they meant by it. It seems to me there’s an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn’t exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don’t understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following his steps? It seems to me sometimes as if the people in the big churches had good clothes and nice houses to live in, and money to spend for luxuries, and could go away on summer vacations and all that, while the people outside the churches, thousands of them, I mean, die in tenements, and walk the streets for jobs, and never have a piano or a picture in the house, and grow up in misery and drunkenness and sin. This leads to many of the novel’s characters asking, "What would Jesus do?" when faced with decisions of some importance. This has the effect of making the characters embrace more seriously the fact that Jesus lies at Christianity’s core consciousness.

The difficulty for the church today is not in encouraging people to ask what Jesus would do, but in getting them to break out of their domesticated and sanitized ideas about Jesus in order to answer that question. Jesus was a wild man. He was a threat to the security of the religious establishment. He was baptized by a wild man. He inaugurated his ministry by spending time with the wild beasts of the wilderness. He was unfazed by a wild storm that lashed his boat on an excursion across a lake and with the wildness of the demoniacs of the Gaderenes. And while he ultimately brought peace to both those situations, in neither instance did Jesus appear overwhelmed or frightened by the circumstances. There was an untamed power within him. Even his storytelling, so often characterized by the church today as warm morality tales, was dangerous and subversive and mysterious. If your answer to the question "What would Jesus do?" is that he would be conventional, safe, respectable and refined, then we suspect you didn’t find that answer in the Gospels. 

Excerpt from "Re-Jesus" by Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost

 

Our Dangerous Story by Michael Frost

“Nostalgia will move us nowhere but we go back to break bread and drink wine and tell this most dangerous story. That God, Yahweh inhabited flesh, became one of us in order to redeem us. The most radical and dangerous story is the story of the gospel!”

Redeeming Sex: Raw and Beautiful and Good for Everyone

Deb Hirsch's book Redeeming Sex: Naked Conversations about Sexuality and Spirituality has only been on the shelves a couple of months, and already, it is impacting the Christian conversation around sexuality and making waves. For many, they've been waves of relief--a collective exhale. For those of us who hate the way sex is generally discussed in church circles, she has given a new language and license for a more compassionate and honest conversation. 

Amazon reviewers have raved over the book, and Relevant Magazine named Redeeming Sex as one of 11 essential summer reads, explaining, "Hirsch draws upon her own experience in and around the LGBT community to write this gracious exploration on sex and the Church. Hirsch calls for churches to extend hospitality and embrace the LGBT community, but stops short of arguing that churches should affirm same-sex marriages. This book demonstrates an unwavering Christ-like love for all humanity and carves out a space for open conversation about sexuality. It flies in the face of the escalating culture wars of our day and invites us to imagine a Church of the future that is shaped by the Gospel virtues of love and unity."

While much of the book does directly engage the conversation around LGTB sexuality (so very important, whether are processing questions around sexual orientation or questions around the church's best respond to the LGTB community), there is also a good deal of conversation around heterosexual sexuality and the way the church has moved away from a healthy view of our sexuality. I found Redeeming Sex to be both freeing and encouraging. Since so much has been written around the book's approach to homosexuality, I thought I'd center mine around the broader conversation around healthy sexuality: 

De-stigmatizing Sexuality in the Church

This week I had a conversation with a couple who, though they've been married for years, still feel unsure around expressing sexuality within their marriage relationship. They grew up in very conservative Christian homes, where sexuality was considered dirty and shameful. And of course, after marriage vows are exchanged, sexuality is necessary for babies! Just like that, the switch is supposed to flip, but for them, they're not sure exactly HOW to flip the switch. And even though the strong message from the church is "Babies are good--get going," they're not sure who to turn to for an honest conversation and freedom to ask questions. Sex may be great after marriage, but it still feels taboo to discuss it.  

I have had this conversation with dozens of people over the years, and it makes me feel grateful (at least in this area) that I didn't grow up in the church! 

To quote Deb, "We have to simply admit that Christian spiritual traditions of the West have not formed us well in this area. It is as if we have been left stranded on the shores of the twenty-first century as underdeveloped, oversexed adolescents attempting to navigate adult bodies in a deeply sexualized context." 

In her introduction, she explains, "We need to move beyond the largely moralistic, disgraced, traditional dualistic suppression of the body (and the soul, for that matter) that has marked Christianity in the Western tradition. We need to (re) apply to our sexualities the radical grace and salvation that we all must find in Jesus." And then she carefully and intentionally does just that. She builds a case that our sexuality does in fact come from, and even express the image of, God. As I read her words around healthy sexuality, I repeatedly found myself saying, "Yes! This!" and "Of course--why haven't I seen that before?" 

A New Paradigm for Friendship across the Gender Line

Deb's book also gave me language around the difficulty that I sometimes experience as I live and lead and connect as a woman in the church. Because our sexuality is seen as primarily dangerous, I occasionally find it something of a tightrope walk to pursue spiritual friendships and express authentic identity in the context of church community. Because of the "it's complicated" status of male-female relationships within church community, women are often relegated to both leading and being known within specific women's ministries. Even outside of a separate-but-equal type of solution, though, I often find myself bumping into invisible, de facto barriers to collaboration and connection. 

Deb addresses this area with care. "Our sexuality is indeed a powerful force. It can lead us to something of an experience of either heaven or hell, depending on our ability to orient it toward God or not. This is why it not only needs to be understood and integrated into our spirituality, but also handled with great care--and why it's imperative for Christians to talk more openly about it."

It's tempting to "handle with care" by avoiding the danger, but she warns us away from the rules that are often imposed on men and women in churches: "In most cases, these types of rules are coming from a sincere place, and in certain settings may be appropriate. But let's not be naive as to what messages they are communicating. First and fundamentally, they effectively reduce the totality of human sexuality to brute sex. Second, they suggest that all men and women are always attracted to one another. Third, they assume that people can't help themselves, they simply have to indulge temptation at every possible opportunity." 

The obvious byproducts of this kind of thinking is underdeveloped self control and missed opportunities for collaboration within the kingdom, not to mention the damage inflicted on women who sometimes feel objectified and unseen by the most well-meaning of men. Deb further explains that these rules don't "help [people] to learn to navigate relationships meaningfully--an activity we actually have to do every day of our lives," and that "adults need to be able to make meaningful decisions for themselves, not jsut acquiesce to rules imposed from the outside." 

But what is the alternative? We need a third paradigm! Let me explain: 

Deb leans into the teaching of Brennan Manning as she processes why the church fails so miserably in promoting healthy social and professional relationship between men and women: "Brennan suggests that the two dominant narratives told in Christian communities have held captive our understanding of friendship. The first is the 'marital/romantic story,' and the second is the 'danger story.' ... Where are the redemptive stories in evangelical culture--stories of healthy nonromantic cross-sex friendships? Brennan proposes the brother-sister metaphor found in Scripture (Mark 3:35) as a third way for men and women to connect in nonsexual intimacy. This vision is a powerful alternative to the prevailing fearful approach to cross-sex relationships." 

She goes on to explain that by anchoring our policies around male-female connection in fear, we are thinking primarily about what we hope to avoid, and not about what we hope to encourage and develop. "A proper sexual ethic," she claims, "doesn't deny the fact that we are sexual beings; it develops a framework for the good expression of our good sexuality." Amen! 

These passages are just the tip of the iceberg. 

If you haven't yet picked up a copy of Deb's book, please know that these are just slivers of the ideas presented. There is so much more to enjoy! Much of the book gives language and license around a compassionate, clear conversation around LGTB sexuality, a conversation we all need to navigate better. But even if that is not a topic you're looking to dig into, there's fantastic content around healthy sexuality, healthy friendship, sexuality within celibacy, and more. If you are a sexual being (hint: you are), there is something in this book for you. 

Here are some links to get you started: 

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