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?

Thoughts for Today from Reading My Old Letters

Historians often speak of spending hours in archives reading old letters filed away in boxes. As a contextual theologian, my research has focused on interviewing and observing people in the present moment, reading theology, and reading works on the context by social scientists. Yet in contrast to research for all my other books, during my sabbatical in the spring of 2023 I found myself reading through old letters filed away in boxes. The two boxes came from my parents’ garage. They were my letters. Thankfully, my father, like an archivist, had kept all the letters I had written to them during my college years and the years I lived in Honduras. I read the letters because I am working on a memoir. I will leave describing the memoir for another day (actually, it will likely be a few years). The letters provided material on themes I am exploring in the memoir, but reading them did much more than that. At times I cringed as I read statements I made in my 20’s. Other times I read with pride. Often, I felt compassion for that younger Mark Baker and, just as often, I would find myself smiling at similarities with the present--Mark Baker being Mark Baker. At times the twentysomething Mark would speak through those letters challenging my current self. From the many reflections I had reading the letters, in this blog I will share two.

Revise rather than total rejection

Living in Honduras stirred up and transformed my life in many ways. I read the letters with wonder and gratitude as I saw the many ways God used experiences to shape and mold me. In general I affirm the changes I made. Yet as I read the letters I often wondered if I abandoned more than I needed to when I left position for another. In retrospect, I can see that often revision would have been better than total rejection. I will give just one example. During my first four years in Honduras I became increasingly critical of a gospel focused only on individual spiritual future salvation. Later, some reading and experiences led me to think critically not only of the content but also methods of evangelism. Like many in my circles, I stopped doing evangelism. Thankfully, in this case, the rejection did not last long. I began working with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Syracuse University. The job description included doing evangelism. That forced me to not just critique the way some other groups did evangelism on campus, but to work at developing evangelistic methods I did feel comfortable with. Working with IVCF led me to revise how I did evangelism rather abandon it. Unfortunately, in some other areas in my life I did not have an outside influence that pushed me to evaluate whether, even if correct in my critiques, I had rejected more than I needed to. I encourage you, and myself, to revise rather than totally reject. (As I wrote that sentence, I immediately felt the need to add a caveat. A voice within me said, “But Mark there have been some things you stepped away from totally, and appropriately so.” True, so, let’s not say to always revise rather than reject, but perhaps revision would be a better default starting point. And only after further discernment, perhaps rejection.)

I have changed, others might change too

Reading the letters reminded me of many ways I changed in those years. To list a few:

- I started college with a desire to get rich. Four years later I sought to live on as little as possible and give what remained of my salary to the poor.

- I arrived in Honduras a dispensationalist and changed significantly in just a few years. The changes from my dispensationalism included: a shift from a personal-spiritual-future gospel to a more holistic gospel, a shift from the Kingdom of God being a minor theme in my theology and Christian living to it being a major theme, and a shift from a negative view of Pentecostals to being open to the gifts of the Spirit and going to a Pentecostal church.

- In college I wrote a paper affirming the just war approach (not with much conviction, but also without any doubts). A few years later, after actually being in a war zone in El Salvador, hearing stories of massacres from survivors, and reading Jacques Ellul I embraced Christian pacifism.

I could list other changes, but these few are enough to make the point that I changed in significant ways. This served as a needed reminder and challenge; if I changed others can as well. Even though I have recognized this before, I still have a tendency to categorize some people based on a piece of information. For instance, at times I make assumptions about people’s theology based on what seminary or university they attended, what denomination they are in, or, at times, even based on what Bible translation they use. That is problematic itself, most of us are more complex than one of those factors might imply. But what is more problematic is my tendency to assume what they were is what they are, and what they will be. What if I applied this to myself? I would be correct to assume that because Mark Baker went to a dispensationalist church he was dispensationalist when he was 20 years old. But wrong to think that means he is still dispensationalist. Yet, I at times do that with others. I changed, perhaps others have changed too—or perhaps they will.

I had an internal argument with myself as I wrote the previous paragraph—and not just because it is embarrassing to acknowledged this. A voice in my head was saying, “But Mark, that can’t be true. Clearly you do expect people to change. You write books, teach classes, and write blogs with the expectation that they will influence people and that people will change.” True, and I think the openness and hope I have that people will change is more prominent in my life. Yet, the reality is that vestiges of my bounded-church past still have a pull on me. In what I described above, they lead me to focus on positional thinking rather than directional thinking. This displays the laziness inherent in a bounded approach. It seizes on a particular item and draws conclusions, rather than digging deeper to discover trajectory and ask what direction the person is heading. May we avoid easy/lazy categorization and let us not give up on people.

An important caveat: change is not automatic or guaranteed. A call to not make assumptions about people because of something in their past, and to not assume people will remain in the same position they are now is not a call to passivity. I changed because of experiences I had, because of questions people asked me, because of books people put in my hands, because of observing others, etc. With an awareness that people can change, let us be open to ways the Spirit may lead us to contribute to others taking transformative steps in a journey toward our center—Jesus Christ.

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.

Freedom from the Pull of “Everyone is Doing It”

“But Mom, everyone is doing it.” “But Dad, everyone has one, I am the only one who doesn’t.” Take a moment and think back to times you said those lines (or similar ones: wearing that, listening to that, going there, etc.). If you are a parent, take a moment and recall times your children said those lines. It takes tremendous resolve for a parent to stand firm, especially if the statement is basically true. Let’s imagine, however, that only half of the child’s peers had one, or were doing the activity in question. What changes? It is a lot easier for the parent to turn aside the plea by simply pointing out that reality. But even more significantly, the child would feel much less pressure and might not even make the plea in the first place. This dynamic is at the heart of what social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the collective action problem. . It is difficult to stand alone against a collective, but we can if we join with others. For instance, recognizing the significant mental health issues exacerbated by social media, especially for girls, a parent might want to keep their child off social media. But when the child says, “But Mom, everyone else is on social media” (and they are) it is a huge challenge. Haidt says, “but what if we join together and agree to not give our children smart phones until they are in high school and no social media until they are 16? Think how the dynamic would change if half the families in a town practiced that?” I heard Haidt say that on this podcast where he was talking about his new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness . There is much more on the podcast, well worth listening to, but I want to think about just this one idea of responding to the collective action problem. What might happen if we practiced it more explicitly in churches, and not just in relation to smart phones?

Christian communities already support each other in standing against the current of society through collective action, even if the label is not used. Even just the reality of gathering on a Sunday or in small groups during the week is collective action. It is not what most of society does, but being part of a collective that does it makes it feel less abnormal. Giving hard earned money to the church is another example. Knowing others do it helps normalize an action that many in society would view as foolish. We could, however, be more explicit. Imagine what might happens if we explicitly named the contrast between the way of Mammon and the way of Jesus, and collectively took on the challenge to spend less and give more for a certain period of time—with regular times of reflecting and sharing about the experience.

Perhaps, however, rather than choosing some action I might suggest, the best thing for your community to do is to reflect on where you have the hardest time resisting forces of alienation. Reflect and share where the current has caught you up and swept you along in societal practices that hurt you and others—that keep you from living as God created you to live. Then, together decide on collective actions in line with the way of Jesus. Together you can more easily resist the current.

This reminds me of a quote I have shared in the last class of my ethics course for many years. Lois Barrett writes, “The church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society even at just a few key points. An important task of the church is to discern what are those key points at which to be different from the evil of the world” (Missional Church, ed. Guder, 127).

Collective action in a church, however, can easily slide into bounded group judgmentalism. In my high school years, the collective of church youth did make it easier for me to stand against the current of cheating at school, stealing at work, or abusing alcohol. That was positive. But, as I recount in the first chapter of Centered-Set Church, my bounded-church mentality fostered judgmentalism towards those who behaved differently. That was negative. Therefore, let us wrap these collective actions in God’s love. First, we begin with a concept of ethics as gift. God calls us to live in counter cultural ways out of love for us and others. We work from a place of God’s love, not to earn God’s love. Second, assured of God’s mercy, we treat others and ourselves with grace when we fall short.

Reconciliation: Broadening its Meaning (a video)

When many Christians encounter the word “reconciliation” in Paul’s writing they think of it only in a vertical sense—with God. An article by Miroslav Volf sparked an idea of how we might help people see that Paul had both vertical and horizontal implications in mind. I explained my idea in class through quickly-drawn images on the whiteboard. Yuya Ono, a current MA New Testament student at Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary, took my rough images and greatly improved them for this 12-minute video I made to explain my idea.

Volf’s article: “The Social Meaning of Reconciliation” Interpretation, April 2000, 158-172.

A shorter version of Volf’s essay is available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1726&context=ree

Heal the Divide: Turn Away from an Honor System that Wounds

Of the many things that create division in the United States today, Chris Arnade argues that the divide between front row and back row America we should pay more attention to is. He borrows the image from the classroom. Front row students are eager to learn and make sure the teacher knows they are learning. They want to achieve and get ahead. They leave home to accumulate educational credentials. They expect to continue moving from city to city to seek financial success—a shared goal and measuring stick whether one is from the right or left. In contrast whether because it was not their thing or because of barriers thrown up by realities beyond their control, the back row students do not flourish in school. They dream of graduating from high school, getting a stable job and raising a family in the community they grew up in. Today, however, many of their hometowns have hit hard times and good jobs are disappearing. 

After getting a Ph.D. and working on Wall Street for 20 years, Arnade stepped out of front row America. He quit his job and hung out with back row people. He first focused on a neglected corner of New York City and the drug addicts who lived there, then he traveled across the U. S., visiting towns and cities in decline. Taking a seat in the back row he found people, all across the country, who felt rejected and stigmatized.

I read his book, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America while also reading David deSilva’s book on honor and shame in the New Testament world. DeSilva’s book led me to write my previous blog on the importance of honoring other Christians’ efforts to stand against the current of societal ways. Arnade’s book led me to think about the church’s call to lessen the dignity deficit of those in back row America. Rather, however, than simply writing a blog that calls us to look for ways to shower them with respect, I want to first follow Arnade and David Brooks in asking how front row people, like myself, may inadvertently contribute to the dignity deficit.

In a recent column David Brooks asked, “What if We’re the Bad Guys Here?” Brooks, a conservative and never-Trumper, states that people in his circles view Trump supporters as the problem. He does not fully reject that, but proposes that he and his peers are a greater part of the problem than they acknowledge. I recommend the full essay, but will quote just a few lines that relates to what Arnade describes in his book:

“The ideal that we’re all in this together was replaced with the reality that the educated class lives in a world up here and everybody else is forced into a world down there. Members of our class are always publicly speaking out for the marginalized, but somehow we always end up building systems that serve ourselves. The most important of those systems is the modern meritocracy. We built an entire social order that sorts and excludes people on the basis of the quality that we possess most: academic achievement.”

Similarly, Arnade writes, “The educational meritocracy is a well-intentioned system designed to correct massive injustices that enslaved, demeaned, constricted, and ranked people based on the color of their skin, sexuality, and gender. Yet in attempting to correct a nasty and explicit exclusion, we have replaced it with an exclusion that narrowly defines success as all about how much you learn and then earn” (234). He observes that the back row is left with little to take pride in that doesn’t need credentials—credentials they do not have (212).

I have lived the reality that Arnade describes. Some years ago on a visit to my hometown, front row Mark, with all my degrees and my professor job, walked down the block to visit my high school bus-stop friend Carlos. He fit Arnade’s back row description—still living on the same street and working at the same grocery store he had in high school. Yet, I was not sensitive to Carlos’s dignity deficit; it was not on my radar. However, in the even harsher status divisions in Honduras I did recognize people’s dignity deficit. I sought to pour honor into those with lower status. For instance, I knew that mechanics, doing manual labor and covered with grease, had low status compared to office workers. I intentionally regularly commended Edgardo, my mechanic, on his knowledge about cars that far surpassed mine. Aguinaldo was a partner in ministry and expert in regenerative agriculture methods—both in practicing them and teaching them to others. Yet, society saw him as just a peasant farmer with little formal education. Whenever he visited us or we visited him I would ask for tips on my compost pile and garden. I sought to counter shaming societal voices and called him my teacher, my agronomist. 

I did well to affirm Edgardo and Aguinaldo as I did. Let us, with intentionality, do what I did and look for ways to affirm and show respect to back row people. Yet, through the lens of Brooks’s and Arnade’s words I now see my efforts in a different light. Note what I did in each case. I sought to give them front row credentials. It was like I was giving them an honorary degree. I do not regret those actions. I urge you to look for ways to do the same. But let’s do more than that.

As Arnade spent more time with and listened to back row Americans his perspectives shifted. At first, he saw those languishing economically in dying towns as lacking in imagination and initiative. (“Why don’t they leave and go somewhere they could get a better job!?”) But with time he came to recognize that many had intentionally decided to stay. Other values, such as caring for family members or connections in the community, drove their decision to stay. Living successfully according to those particular values does not, however, provide credentials or a sense of pride in the front row meritocracy that Brooks and Arnade describe.

My giving “honorary degrees” to Edgardo and Aguinaldo was a good thing. Rather, however, than just working to give them morsels of dignity according to the norms of the front row meritocracy, let us work to dismantle the meritocracy machine that is wounding them.

I do not mean by that to trash all the components of the system. I am an educator. I am grateful for all I have learned as a student and the opportunities I have had to teach. I think we do well to enable people to have educational opportunities and gain credentials. What I feel called to dismantle is the monopoly that the meritocracy machine has on so many people’s conceptions of success and thriving. Breaking up that monopoly does not mean abandoning the all the values, but relativizing them.

My sense is that for those of us in the front row, the values of the meritocracy machine are so much the water we swim in that we often do not recognize how they shape theway we evaluate others. Therefore, it will require intentionality to affirm values not honored by the meritocracy machine. As followers of Jesus, we have an advantage. We have a ready supply of alternative values we can honor in others and they are values as likely to be found in the back row as in the front. 

How do we end the deep sense of division and the rejection and stigmatization felt by those in the back row? We can’t get credentials for them all, not even honorary degrees. We can, however, look at them through the lens of the beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount and affirm them for ways their lives line up with the values of the Kingdom of God. We can invite them into a church community where in Jesus there is neither front row people nor back row people (Gal. 3:28).

Arnade began his journey through back row America as an atheist. After years of talking with back row people, who often took him to their churches, he shifted—not yet a believer, but pondering. He had seen the value of faith and especially of churches—often small storefront churches. He observed that churches were the only places on the streets that regularly treated back row people like humans and where they did not need credentials to be accepted. So, if an atheist author sees the church as an antidote to the shame and rejection of the meritocracy machine, how about us? Yet, a key observation: the churches he visited were generally filled with and led by back row people. A church with many front row people has the same potential, perhaps even greater potential, to heal the shaming wounds of the meritocracy machine, but also greater challenges to becoming the sort of environment Arnade describes.

Let us intentionally shift from the values of front row society as we look for things to affirm in others. And, let us bar the values of the meritocracy machine from entering our churches and instead recognize the great potential churches have to heal division through being spaces where people are honored for living out the values of Jesus rather than possessing meritocracy credentials.

Addendum: An example of a front row person changing and viewing someone through the lenses of Jesus values rather than meritocracy values.

In the midst of her career as an economics professor Mary Hirschfeld converted and became a Jesus follower. She then completed an additional Ph. D. in theology. I shared a parable from her book, Aquinas and the Market in an earlier blog. In that book she describes coming to know Hector, a prominent member of her Catholic parish. She writes, “As it turns out, he was also a gardener at the college where I worked. Until then, I had thoughtlessly paid no mind to the gardeners and janitors who worked hard to maintain a beautiful campus. I simply failed to value work that had little status in society. . . But as I came to know Hector, I came to realize that economic and social status is a very poor measure of a person's worth. Hector was a wise leader of our parish community. Surely the Christian call to deal with poverty extends to the demand that we recognize the value of what people do apart from the incomes they happen to earn by doing it. Yes, we can pay gardeners more. But a big part of what matters is the respect we accord them and the cultivation of our ability to see the wealth—which is the true sort of wealth—that the poor have to offer us” (187).

Let's Honor Each Other More

Think back to your junior high or high school days. What group were you in? What group did you want to be in? Can you recall a time when you felt not just “in” but had a strong sense of others approving of what you had done, what you were wearing, or what you said? You probably did not use the word “honor,” but that is what your peers did—they honored you. We could say that what the group affirmed is what it considered honorable. How about the opposite, can you recall a time when you did not wear the right clothes, did the wrong thing, or said the wrong thing? Can you recall a time when you, or your whole group, were excluded or looked down upon by another group? In those moments you likely felt shame. If you made a list of behaviors that a group encouraged or discouraged, that would be the group’s honor code. All societies have some expressions of an honor-shame dynamic, others are saturated with honor-shame dynamics. That was the case in the cultures we find in the Bible.

In a sense we could say, that in contrast to my high school experience of peer pressure in parts of my life, all of life in the New Testament world was lived within the dynamics of honor and shame. From birth people were shaped to be concerned about what others thought of them and to live out what others see as honorable. To compare honor-shame cultures to my high school experience is not imply they are less developed. All societies have means of influencing people to embrace and live out the values of that society. More individualistic cultures use means of influence that are different, but not more advanced or better than collectivist honor-shame cultures.

Let’s return to high school peer pressure but imagine it in a bit different way. What if rather than various groups having different values and standards, most everyone’s definition of desirable behavior and appearance was the same except for one small group that did the opposite and refused to dress like everyone else. When there are various groups, people have more space to live differently without shame. But imagine the ridicule and shame this handful of teenagers would experience if everyone else in the high school shared values and behaviors that this group did not live out. That captures the experience of Christians in the first-century Roman world. Although it was a diverse society, in broad swaths of life most people shared a common conception of what was honorable, who had high status and who did not. Like high school groups, society shamed and excluded people who did not comply. Their motivation to shame and pressure others was especially great in areas people sensed that dishonorable behavior threatened the peace and security of the town or city—like not participating in religious and cultic practices.

David deSilva, author of Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture, invites us to imagine the immense shaming pressure a group of 30 Christians would have felt as they adopted definitions of honorable behavior in tension with those held by the other 150,000 people in Ephesus. Biblical writers recognized this reality; deSilva states that New Testament authors spend significant amounts of their letters shoring up Christians suffering from shame, exclusion, and pressure from the dominant society. The apostles do not simply hand down a list of rules for living the way of Jesus. They work to develop an alternative court of reputation that affirms and honors Christians for following the way of Jesus and offsets the shame they feel in the societal court of reputation. 

Let us learn from the example of the New Testament authors. It is not enough to simply make pronouncements about the way of Jesus. Let us take more seriously the ways societal “peer pressure” pulls people away from the path of Jesus. 

First, like New Testament authors, we must recognize ways the honor code of society differs from the honor code of Jesus. Think for instance of how advertisements seek to honor some actions and shame others, and how they are in tension with Kingdom values; or, how social media peer pressure shapes behavior. Of course, like different groups in high school, different social media tribes will have different values or honor codes. Think of who is honored with high status in your societal context and what behaviors and attitudes that reinforces. Many of you live in settings where greater respect is given to those who affirm an individualistic do-your-own-thing spirituality and morality than to those who identify as Jesus followers and attend a church.

It is not enough, however, to just recognize the competing honor codes. Let us also follow the New Testament authors in actively building an alternative court of reputation. To not do so would be like a high school group that stated how their values differed from other groups but did nothing to affirm those who complied or shame those who did not. If no status is gained, if one does not feel more sense of being “in,” why embrace the values?—especially if another group would shame you for those behaviors. 

What are ways we can, in a centered way, more regularly honor and affirm people for following Jesus and going against the current? What are regular practices your Christian fellowship might adopt to counter the shaming pressures people feel to go with the current? I urge you to join me and pray for the Spirit to guide you to see opportunities this week to affirm others for their against-the current actions and attitudes.

 1 Apollos Watered Podcast, #195, David deSilva  July 25, 2023, minute 30. https://apolloswatered.org/episode/195-are-we-living-for-biblical-honor-or-worldly-success-pt-1-david-desilva/  I recommend deSilva’s book, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity, and the podcast.

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.

Our Celebrity Problem

What is the difference between fame and celebrity? According to Katelyn Beaty, someone is famous for doing something, for a life well lived. A celebrity is known for their well-knownness, for a brand well cultivated (8, 13). In her book, Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits are Hurting the Church, she observes that celebrity is a uniquely modern phenomenon fostered first through newspapers, later film and television, and now the internet and social media. Mass media gives the illusion of intimacy with celebrities, but it is an illusion (12). Celebrities have social power without proximity (17). She argues that the tools of mass media are not neutral, or as I say, are not passive. “The primary functions of mass media are to entertain us and to get us to buy things. Thus, modern celebrities—including those in the church—feed the cycles of entertainment and material consumption” (12). The tools used influence the message transmitted by them, bringing that message into the realm of entertainment and consumption.

 The book gives significant attention to how Christian celebrities gain their status, how their celebrity hurts them and others, and how it makes it easier for them to abuse power. Similar to the excellent podcast series about Mark Driscoll, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, Beaty does not just focus on the celebrities themselves as the problem, but also on how other Christians enable and foster celebrities. As she states, the problem is not just with them, but with us (60). “The American church has overall mimicked celebrity culture rather than challenge it. We have too many institutions built around personalities” (19).

 She likens the allure of celebrity to the allure of the ring in Lord of the Rings. It is not a spiritually neutral tool. She observes that Jesus refused to do good things in the wrong way. Beaty advocates for a return to the small, the quiet, the uncool, the ordinary. “We must practice proximity—Valuing flesh-and-blood relationships over mediated ones, choosing intimacy over fandom, and letting others into the real contours of our behind-the-scenes lives, where our vulnerabilities and weaknesses are on display” (168-69). I appreciate that Beaty acknowledges her complicity in celebrity culture—both in contributing to the celebrity status of others and her own limited celebrity. Although not a major celebrity, she probably has more celebrity status than anyone reading this blog. Yet, let’s not let ourselves off the hook too quickly. As she states, “If people follow you on social media, you’re at least swimming in celebrity waters” (172). I will share some reflections the book provoked in me, and urge you to consider as well, what action steps it calls for.

 Beaty observed that people near a celebrity get refracted light and feel a bit of celebrity themselves. This can contribute to them putting inordinate and inappropriate effort into keeping the celebrity on their pedestal and continuing to support the celebrity even when there is strong evidence the person has major failings. I have not been in a celebrity's inner circle, so I do not think I have done the above. But, I recognize I am attracted to the refracted light of the famous and celebrities. As an enneagram 3, it is a way I can fill my longing for success. I have become more honest with myself about this in recent years. When I feel the pull, and recognize I am seeking to get close to someone primarily because they are a someone, I now stop. I remind myself that I am loved and embraced by God. From that place of acceptance, I find it easier to not chase the refracted light.

 Beaty is now the lead acquisitions editor for Brazos Press. To her credit, she includes a chapter in the book about how the Christian publishing industry has contributed to the problematic rise of celebrities. It “has added jet fuel to the problem of Christian celebrity” (96). Increasingly, publishers base decisions on what to publish on the platform of the author (number of followers, number in their congregation, etc.) rather than the quality of the book manuscript. She said this is especially true of Christian publishers that have been bought by multinational corporations. The platform pressure is present with other publishers as well. For instance, IVP Academic accepted my centered-set book for publication even though I do not have much of a platform. (About 400 people have subscribed to this blog.) IVP is not as beholden to platform pressure as some for-profit publishers. Yet much of the marketing guidance they give to all InterVarsity Press authors revolves around building a platform. It is seen as a key way of selling books today.

 As I sat staring at IVP’s suggestions of ways for an author to build a following, my recurring thought was: this is not about me. I do not want to promote Mark Baker; I want to promote the centered approach. Of course, the two overlap. I am the one doing the podcast interview on the book tomorrow. But I made an intentional decision to make a new website focused just on centered-set church rather than a new page on a Mark Baker website. I made an intentional decision to not work at building my platform and following but to keep the focus on the centered approach. So, for instance, rather than inviting people to sign up for updates on Mark Baker, I invited people to sign up only for notification of when the centered-set videos and my book on Galatians and the centered approach would be released.

 I feel a bit uncomfortable with the previous paragraph. It sounds too much like I hold myself up as the stellar example of turning away from celebrity, and, implicitly, point my finger in judgment at those who do work at building their platform. So, a couple of caveats. First, there is a Mark Baker website. It is about as flashy as you would expect from someone who just stopped using an overhead projector a few years ago, but it is there. Second, if I was 40 and had several other books in mind, rather than 65, I probably would be giving more thought than I am to gathering readers for future books not just the present ones. I can easily imagine I would follow the platform-building advice. I share my experience not as a categorical statement against seeking followers to promote one’s work, but as an example of the possibility of at times resisting the current of the day. At times it is better to not adopt the default approach, and it is possible to do so.

 I had made that decision before reading Beaty’s book. She led me to press deeper. She called for a greater focus on relationships, not just as a way of protecting from the negatives of celebrity lack of proximity, but also because it is the way of Jesus. She reflected on how relationships with ordinary, non-celebrity, Christians have kept her in the faith. In the world of celebrity, and in my Eneagram-3 mind, writing a book is of more significance than a discipling relationship with a few individuals. Jesus opted for the latter. I felt chastened and challenged. It is not that I repent of having dedicated so much time and energy to writing books, nor that I am putting aside the book project I am currently working on. Books have value. Although some Enneagram-3- grasping-for-status certainly fueled my desire to write my first book, principally I wanted to write a book because God had used books in such transformative ways in my life. I desired to make that sort of contribution to others. But I do feel challenged in two ways. First, to reorient and give relations with others and discipleship the prized position they merit. Second, her book spurred me to think about how to treat the books I am currently promoting, Centered-Set Church and Freedom from Religiosity and Judgmentalism, in more relational ways. For instance, in the evaluation of the book's success, let comments from individuals carry more weight than sales numbers. (Perhaps, for instance, to not immediately go to numbers when I answer the question: "How is your book doing?" And perhaps more importantly, internally do not immediately go to sales numbers. Pray for me--easier for me easier said than done.) I also want to prioritize relational approaches in my use and promotion of the books.

 What might Beaty's insights and observations mean for you?