Shake, rattle and repent: Spin gets religion

Shake, rattle and repent: Spin gets religion

Shake, rattle and repent: Spin gets religion

By Steve Beard

Good News

November/December 1997

British clergyman Gerald Coates was fond of saying: “God is doing more behind our backs than he is doing in front of our eyes.” In other words, God pops up in the most unexpected places.

The USA Today sports section recently ran a lengthy lead story on the Christian conversion of Cincinnati Reds/Dallas Cowboys star Deion Sanders. Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly reported that the three brothers in teen rock sensation Hanson are very serious about their faith.

The October issue of Vibe, the ultra-hip urban music magazine, has an amazingly complimentary cover-story article on Kirk Franklin. His latest collaboration with God’s Property sold more than a million copies and will most likely become the biggest gospel album ever.

With all this media attention, Christianity is making news outside of church for things other than fund-raising scams, adulterous affairs, or political plots.

The cover of the September issue of Spin, the Gen X alternative music magazine, proclaimed “103,000 Saved: A Second Coming in Pensacola.” It devoted 13 pages of photos and text to historic revival at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. This is, after all,  a magazine edited and published by the son of Penthouse’s Bob Guiccione.

The article, titled “An Awesome God,” is a fascinating analysis from someone who is an observant novice to a Pentecostal-flavored revival. “You have never in your life experienced religion so  fulfilling, total, and joyful. White church, in particular, is never this ecstatic,” reports Mark Schone. He concludes: “Now I know why souls are drawn here from all around the world.”

Schone faithfully retells evangelist Steve Hill’s story of being set free from drugs and turning his life over to Jesus. Remarkably, the sinner’s prayer: ‘Dear Jesus, I thank you for not leaving me alone. I pray right now for your forgiveness …” is found right in the center of the article.

I was recently back in Pensacola with my friends at the Pine Forest United Methodist Church. As we visited Brownsville one night, I was reminded of Schone’s observations: “The pilgrims know they’ve glimpsed the infinite, and it only makes them hungrier.” Spot on.

“The crowd loves the fear and trembling, and to my shock it affects me too,” Schohne refreshingly admits.  ‘‘Certainly the joy of the flock is appealing, as is the music … but so is the core message. Behind the prudish Southern obsession stands the suffering Christ, and a reminder of the sins of pride and selfishness and hate. Every time I feel superior to the Brownsville masses. with their medieval fear of demons and witches, I feel ashamed. They got part of it right –  if any of Christianity right – and it nags me.

“I have the reflexes of a religious  man and wish I didn’t. Though my  cortex would bet not a soft, needy word is true. I can’t help but feel the emotional tug of Christ, patron of the poor and oppressed.” Schone continues. “In recent years, my spiritual life’s been no more than tears in the popcorn during Dead Man Walking. But as I drive away from the revival just before midnight, past numberless Circle K’s and Subways, Hill’s repetitive message clangs in my head. Its certainty takes me back to my childhood, when the supernatural seemed possible. In my hotel bed, I drift into a half-dream, glad I’ve got only two more nights of revival to survive. From the ether, a voice awakens me. “With me,” purrs someone, “it gets better than this.”

As they say, the Lord moves in mysterious ways. I’m grateful Schone heard that it gets better than this. Blessed hope is the Christian trump card.

When asked, at the revival, if he desired prayer, Schone writes: “You can’t have the real experience unless you want the experience. I’m not ready to make that commitment. That’s not what I’m here for.”

About 3/4 of the way through the article, the colorful analysis and soul searching ends. Ultimately, Schone  parts ways with the revival because of Brownsville’s view on homosexuality. “After a week of trying to reconcile the Shepherd’s sweetness with the sheep’s poison.” Schone writes. “I stop trying.’’

Schone may have stopped trying to look for God in Pensacola, but I’ve learned God’s not a quitter. Despite the sour conclusion to Schone’s honest and powerful essay, it’s refreshing to see that thoughts like sin, repentance, and the awesomeness of God were so widely published in a magazine like Spin, being read by a group of people the church either can’t or won’t pursue.

It also reminds me to pray for people like Mark Schone, a seeker after the truth. I love the phrase that Jesus used to describe one man, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” I hope that description fits Schone, because when the soul searches in earnest, God’s grace is so very near.

Art: Spin Magazine.

Farewell to a princess and a saint

Farewell to a princess and a saint

Farewell to a princess and a saint

By Steve Beard

Good News

November/December 1997

 

Even weeks after the fact, people are still talking about it. After all, within five days the world lost its two most beloved women. Mother Teresa died at age 87 of a heart ailment. Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris. She was 36.

The comparisons were inevitable. Of course, they could not have appeared more different in appearance or lifestyle. Princess Diana lived in a London palace and was a jet-setter among the richest of the rich. Mother Teresa’s vow of poverty took her to the poorest of the poor in a Calcutta slum. Nevertheless, the two shared a common care for the less fortunate, although they used drastically different approaches.

As perhaps the most photographed woman in the history of the world, Princess Diana successfully used her dynamic charm and beauty to campaign for righteous causes such as extending compassion to AIDS patients, banning land mines, and comforting the poor.

“The Princess was a good friend of the mission” said the Rev. David Cruise, Methodist superintendent minister of the West London Mission, whose outreach includes work with the homeless, alcoholics and other people in need. “She took a personal interest in its work…. We thank God for all that she gave of herself to others and especially to those generally shunned by society.” The princess visited the mission on four separate occasions.

Mother Teresa was equally diminutive as she was forceful when she provoked the world to think about the plight of the orphan, the leper, the blind, the disabled, and the sick on the street. Accepting the Nobel Prize in 1979 in the name of the “unwanted, unloved and uncared for,” she wore the same $1 white sari that she had adopted to identify herself with the poor when she founded her order.

In her speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, Mother Teresa turned and looked at President Clinton and Vice President Gore and said, “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child.”

The president responded later by praising her “moving words,” but added: “We will always have our differences. We will never know the whole truth.” Of course, Mother Teresa would have disagreed. She believed that truth had been revealed, and that the truth often hurt – especially if we took it.

She was never reluctant to speak truthfully to the powerful.

“She served every human life by promoting it ever with dignity and respect,” said Pope John Paul of Mother Teresa, imploring for her, “the reward that awaits every faithful servant” of God and expressing the hope that her “luminous example of charity” would inspire humanity.

Interestingly enough, Princess Diana and Mother Teresa were very fond of one another. Diana is known to have turned to Mother Teresa for spiritual advice. She also described meeting the nun as her “dearest wish” and the princess was a patron on Teresa’s charity, the Leprosy Mission. Mother Teresa referred to Diana as “like a daughter to me.” Mother Teresa said she and Diana had talked about loving God and how God wants people to love the poor. “She helped me help the poor and that’s the most beautiful thing,” Mother Teresa said of the princess. Not a bad eulogy.

It is at times like these that the people around the globe are jarred into thinking about their individual mortality, and perhaps the prospects of heaven. While Mother Teresa died at a wonderfully fulfilling age of 87, Princess Diana’s sudden death simply caught the world off-guard. After all, she died in something as common and yet as unexpected as an automobile accident.

Death at her young age destroyed the myth that we can postpone our inquiry into the reality of eternal life until a later date. The hereafter, we were reminded, knocks every moment as we walk on the earth.

“Death is only inches away from each one of us,” said Anglican Archbishop George Carey. “Perhaps [Diana’s death] will help us all to focus on really important things in life: human life and relationships, and faith in God.”

In Princess Diana’s tragic life we also saw that beauty, wealth, and world-wide fame did not bring happiness. The young princess seemingly had it all, yet joy in life was elusive. She was riddled with insecurity, had a failed marriage, attempted suicide numerous times, and had several bouts with eating disorders. Atop of all that, every mistake, misstatement, and moral failure was broadcast across the globe.

Despite her very difficult life, Diana did what she could for those less fortunate. For that we should be grateful.

You will not find us on the bandwagon of those who bemoaned that Princess Diana did not do enough to warrant all of the tears and attention. These sentiments are usually expressed by those who rarely if ever lift a finger to help the weak, the poor, or the vulnerable. Neither will you find us needlessly attempting to compare the works of Mother Teresa to those of Princess Diana, as if there was a competition to be won when it comes to compassion.

The fact that Mother Teresa was a moral giant who was tireless in her good works does not lessen what Princess Diana attempted to do for those less fortunate. Who of us would be able to stack our deeds of mercy next to those of a Mother Teresa?

Billy Graham called Diana an example of concern for the poor, the oppressed, the hurting, and the sick. “She easily could have chosen to withdraw from public life, but she made this world a better place by her smile of encouragement and her support for dozens of worthy causes,” Graham said. “No person was too lowly or too handicapped for her attention.”

Mother Teresa’s life-long witness shamed even the most sensitive into doing more for the poorest of the poor. While the vast majority of us will not move to Calcutta to wash the sores of the dying, perhaps we will be more sensitized to the needs all around us, some certainly as pressing in their own way.

Mother Teresa made no bones about the fact that she did what she did because she saw Jesus in the eyes of the poor, and the leper, and the abandoned. Her motivation was not merely out of a humanistic altruism. It was strictly motivated from the fact that she could not overlook the words of Jesus to do to the “least of these” as you would do unto him.

“In a world of doubts and ambiguities and cynicism, she was blessed with certainties, and the certainties that guided her life and her self-sacrifice are ancient, they are noble,” said Rep. Henry Hyde of Mother Teresa. “She believed we are not lost in the stars…. On the edge of a new century and a new millennium, the world does not lack for icons of evil—Auschwitz, the gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, Bosnia, the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. What the world desperately needs are icons of goodness.”

Within five days, the world lost two women who loved goodness and kindness. That is no small loss.

The Scripture clearly teaches that our salvation comes by grace through faith and “not by works, so that no one can boast” (Eph. 2:9). At the same time, the Scripture is equally clear that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:20). As we are ever mindful of the nearness of eternity, may this tragic loss reminds those of us who love the Bible to extend a ministry of mercy and grace to the very people that the God of the Bible loves.

Within their unique and different spheres of influence, both women provided God-given compassion and mercy for those with AIDS and leprosy and provided love and shelter for the homeless and the orphan. We are grateful for the powerful mercy ministries currently modeled by women such as Jackie Pullinger-To in Hong Kong and Maggie Goban in Cairo, Egypt—both of whom are committed to the poorest of the poor in their respective communities. We also thank God for the nameless and faceless thousands of men and women involved in homeless shelters, rescue missions, and various other ministries of mercy around the globe. May their lives prompt us to extend that same care and concern for those in our neighborhoods and communities who are less fortunate than ourselves.

This article originally appeared in the November/December 1997 issue of Good News magazine.

 

Farewell to a princess and a saint

Tacos and late-night prayer with Bishop Aquiña

Tacos and late-night prayer with Bishop Aquiña

By Steve Beard

May/June 1997

 

It is not often that I have been invited to eat dinner with a bishop. It is even rarer to have a bishop prepare dinner for me. But that is what happened while I was recently in Mexico, sitting in a church courtyard after a wonderful service talking with Bishop Antonio Aquiña as he prepared the most incredible tacos.

As sensational as all of that was, nothing compares to being with an episcopal leader who actually has a spiritual hunger to see God move in a powerful revival throughout the churches under his authority. Bishop Aquiña is a man with a vision, who believes in a God who longs to do more than we could ever imagine

My friend Mark Nysewander of Threshold Ministries was invited by the bishop to hold a conference for his pastors and district superintendents on the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit. Six of us ended up heading down on the ministry team and were able to soak these beleaguered pastures in prayer and share with them about the heavenly Father’s love, the river of God, the need for a world-wide revival, intimacy with the Lord, and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Lord moved among these men and women, touching them beautifully. It was awesome.

These pastors were from the northwest section of Mexico in Sonora and Baja California. Many of them are despised and tormented in their towns because of their belief that God can deliver people from the demonic strongholds in their lives. Several of them told me about being cursed on the streets of their towns by those who were held captive by evil spirits. The occult and spiritism is very strong in parts of Mexico. Furthermore, the demonic is far more publicly prominent. Unlike many pastors in the United States, these clergypersons had no doubts about the destructive power of the devil or the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. They did not blush when they refer to the torment of demons or the ministry of angels.

Over meals, many of them asked me about the preoccupation with homosexuality within the United Methodist Church in the United States. One by one they recounted the public disgrace they faced when a flamboyant United Methodist clergyperson from Southern California appeared on the “Cristina” television show to perform several same sex marriages a year and a half ago. Cristina is the Oprah of the entire Spanish-speaking world.

The UM clergyman was decked out in a clerical collar and a colorful stole draping his robe as he smiled with Glee as the male couple and the female couple kissed on television. The Methodist pastors in Mexico received the brunt of the ramifications of this display because their parishioners were disillusioned and angry. Many left the Methodist Church for other denominations where such behavior is still viewed as unscriptural. These pastors bore an undeserved stigma for simply being Methodists.

Although the bishops of Mexico sent letters of protest and concern, there came no satisfactory response. I was ashamed. But I was able to thank the Methodist Church of Mexico for always being a faithful and biblical voice on the issue of homosexuality at General Conference.

The Methodists in northern Mexico are largely evangelical. There was a great charismatic revival in their midst in 1973 that changed the denomination. While the South was riddled with liberation theology (one pastor told me that he learned to make Molotov cocktails in class at seminary), the north was finding new life through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Six months ago Bishop Aquiña and his wife received a prophetic word from some Christian brothers who only knew that he was a Methodist pastor. The word went something like this, “You only give, give, give. It is now time for you to receive. Seek me. …”

They believed that this was a legitimate word of encouragement from the Lord. It strengthened him and has given him new fire to pursue the Lord with all that is in him. The bishop is a man who wants nothing less than all that God has for him and the Methodists in Mexico.

As the pastors left the conference, many of them shared how God had radically touched their hearts. Many actually felt sensations of the Lord’s manifest presence. God released a fresh anointing, healed painful memories from the past, and reconciled brothers who had been at odds. We even saw one family walk by the church during the pastors conference and give their hearts to Jesus.

After our very late meal late meal with the bishop, he asked us to pray for him before he boarded a bus for an 8 hour ride home. As we prayed, the bishop received a fresh realization of the love of God for him and was overcome with the power of a holy and mighty God. Needless to say, the Bishop caught a much later bus.

The Holy Spirit puts a very high priority on overwhelming the human heart with the love of the father. We all need it, even bishops.