Good News For Anxious Christians -- Phillip Cary

Philip Carey is professor of philosophy and director of the philosophy program at Eastern University just outside Philadelphia scholar in residence at the Templeton Honors College and the author of several books including this one good news for anxious Christians 10 practical things you don't have to do well that is an enticing title Philip especially the subtitle who are these anxious Christians Oh most of us most of it but especially my students this book arose out of my conversations with students who were anxious about not being able to apply these practical things to their life because they tried and then it didn't seem to work as well as they thought so for example one thing you get is the idea that you're supposed to be no transformed all the time but in fact part of the Christian life is developing lasting attachments that don't get transformed all the time like say marriage or child raising certain kind of constancy a certain kind of trajectory of growth that is constant and firm so it's kind of putting one foot in front of the other right I think of Eugene Peterson's along obedience and they say exactly exactly and they've got the idea that they're supposed to be having exciting life-changing experiences all the time and that makes them anxious I haven't had my life changed in the past week or two what's wrong with my Christian life and so the good news is you don't have to have your life changed every week the changing of your life takes place over the course of a lifetime is slow and the status slow in the study there may be dramatic moments the moment that you came to Christ for the first time the moment of your baptism not the moment you get married but then that begins of course a whole lifetime and that that notion that it's not about what happens in my heart any one moment but rather how I serve God over a whole lifetime is very freeing for people so especially if you're adolescent I mean the poor kids they're at a time in their life when they don't know who they are they're trying to figure out who they are and that makes them nervous it makes them anxious and so they've got all these notions about this is how you're supposed to do it this is how you're supposed to do it this is how you're supposed to do it and as a result they worry about whether they're doing it right you know what comes to mind really as you're flushing this out it's just at the cultural shift the change of pace of our culture I went to see I'm gonna see drawn on the IMAX screen this weekend I mean I I'm not even gonna go there special effects maybe but you know everything is happening yes last colorful exploding it's got to be a WoW conversely I saw an old movie an older movie that old on the weekend and it was rich and textured and meaningful and maybe in the eyes of some today slow maybe too slow but like reading a book fancy that yeah a lot takes so much time but it isn't this impacting our young people oh the constant Wow right right and of course it a lot of pastors are pressured to give the Wow to deliver the the sound and light show the spectacular stuff whereas I think one of the good news for anxious pastors is what really forms people is things like sermons every Sunday which shape people's hearts by the repeated word a liturgy for instance a repeated word the same words every Sunday glory to God in the highest on earth peace to people of goodwill every Sunday you hear this and it shapes your heart so for instance if someone doesn't remember your sermon the next day that's not what matters if your sermon directed their heart to the Word of God so that it so the Word of God h's itself a little deeper in their heart that day and it is transformative yeah oh absolutely absolutely I'm a parallel happened with with my literature professor in college an English professor named Richard Stang I still remember him sort of in the act of loving a poem right in front of us there he was in the act of loving a poem I don't remember which poem it was I don't remember what he said but he elicited in me a love of poetry that's been there ever since and it's been covered over by all these other poems that I've loved in the past 30 40 years so I don't remember what he said that's not what matters it's the poetry that he taught me to love well a pastor can do that with the Bible with the Word of God so it doesn't matter if I remember the three points in the sermon what matters is that he's led me to the Word of God he's gotten me into that story like that slow thing of getting into a good book which takes time and you can do it over and over again and if you've reinforced my belief my passion that it is a sin to make this book boring absolutely you should approach it with enthusiasm oh it's a beautiful book it's gorgeous it's some of the poetry's is better than Shakespeare read the book of Job and it's enough to break your heart and precisely because it's beautiful and powerful it shapes our hearts boring stuff can't shape your heart very well yeah you were just 10 years old when you prayed very mature in prayer show me your way O Lord yes 10 years old well what was behind that request maybe I was beginning to be adolescent already I didn't know my way and I wanted to find God's way of course and so yeah I was just just a Bible it was my first reading of the Bible and I didn't know what I was getting into this huge landscape right the Bible is this huge book it opens up a world and I was finding myself in the world the real world really for the first time and I wanted God to show me the way and well so he has it's I've been living a Christian life ever since I love the things that have shaped you I don't know whether to go first to Martin Luther or friends of Schaefer LaBrie some of those students Francis Schaeffer was very helpful because he took seriously both the Word of God and culture you know the Christians are supposed to have a a role making culture and shaping culture Martin Luther was important for me because he taught me that it's not about my experience but it's about the Word of God and if you base your life and your faith on the Word of God the experiences come afterwards and they're there we have all sorts of experiences of God's presence in our lives not by looking around for God's presence in our lives but by locating ourselves in that biblical story finding ourselves as those for whom Christ died saying what the story of Jesus Christ includes me because he died for me among all the others and when I find myself in that story he is once again it's beautiful it's beautiful that's why we have those those you know there's wonderful experience of singing Christmas carols right don't you love singing Christmas carols our Merry Christmas goes too quickly you wait for them every year and when they come around just like you know come all ye faithful come ye come ye to Bethlehem come and behold him the King of Kings so so the the Christmas carols bring us to Christ again repeatedly every year the same old same old same old Christmas carols change our lives I liked your phraseology too he said in reading the Bible you discovered God's plan includes me you're not all about me that's right that's right it includes me that's right it's all about Jesus Christ it's a story that when we're paying attention to Christ we see who we really are because of course he died for us including me so instead of looking around in my life to see God at work which comes second I go first to find my life in Christ who after all died for me so when I know who Christ is I know who I am I'm a sinner for whom Christ died and then I can invite everyone else into the same story including you know all those other sinners out there including those who aren't Christians right because how can we how can we invite non-christians into the story unless we recognize we too are members of the club we're sinners for whom Christ died you too you non-christian you're a center for whom Christ died too why don't you join the club you talk about consumerist spirituality mm-hmm this is contributing to the anxiety that you're seeing certainly and your students yep what what is that consumer spirituality is what happens when pastors have to make numbers right they have to grow the church now growing a church is great but first and foremost you form disciples and let the growth take care of itself so pastors are pressured to do things that have that sparkle and dazzle that that you know create memorable experiences and then you have to create another life-changing experience or memorable experience the next week and a a life-changing experience every week when you do that of course the life-changing experiences don't really change much right the more life-changing experiences have the less each of those experiences have changed but pastors are pressured churches are pressured youth groups are pressured and kids are pressured to have those life-changing experiences bells and whistles of some thousand whistles right so consumerism doesn't just sell material goods consumerism sells spirituality it sells new bodies and you go to the grocery store and you've got especially in the spring you've got the magazines that say you need your your swimsuit body right so women get anxious you need to lose some weight so that's on right now here already all righty so you need a new body you need a new spirituality you need a new consciousness you need new experiences so those things get sold and pastors are pressured to sell them whereas a pastor who resists that is going to be able to say what matters is that I give them Jesus Christ every Sunday in the preaching of the word I give them Christ what what a great privilege because hope isn't within us it's outside ourselves it's outside ourselves it's in a person it's in a person who is other than us whom we of course can take to heart so the Christ dwells in our heart by faith yes you have a story about your sons uh-huh three boys three boys and they're all all grown up now I'm a grandfather with two grandchildren but the youngest son is still in college he was the one who who taught me something about life-changing experiences oh there we are know which one who the story is about the stories about the guy on the left okay I'm standing next to his mother the guy in the middle is Christopher they're going to left is Jacob the guy with the the son that's my granddaughter is that I think that's Riley yep and that's Jonathan and there I am now so it's Jacob when he was a year and a half old he's born on April 1st so this was his second Christmas but the first one where he was actually you know able to pay attention he was opening up little Christmas packages and you know we went around and did took turns opening the packages and he opened one package and he got I think a little truck that he started playing with now kids are beautiful when they play with trucks or any little toy he's sort of it's like this sense of noonest a sense of discovery right it's totally engaged totally engaged everything's new everything is lovely and he's getting to know this toy and then within five minutes the circle goes round it's his turn to open a present again so he take the truck out of his hands and we get another present into his hands and I'm thinking wait a minute there's something wrong here he was starting to love this little truck so one of the things I learned about consumerism is it's not really about loving material things too much it's actually about desiring new things but not loving old things you know if you're a good consumer you don't love material things because then you'd hang on to them and not get new things so imagine Laura Ingalls Wilder and her doll little have some Little House on the Prairie she had one toy one doll she loved that dog and she wasn't looking for something else she was a lousy consumer when consumers always want new things they don't love old things so you always got to move on with your life get outside your comfort zone all these cliches that say don't hang on to old stuff that would make you a bad consumer don't love what you have that would make you a bad consumer right why would you love say the same woman for your whole life as if you were married to her that you got to move on with your life you got to get something new so consumerism is practice for not loving even material things even toys Wow and there's no attachment exactly or a limited attachment very transitory attachment so you go on to the next round of presents go on to the next round of goodies and then you you don't actually love even the material things you hold in your hand so this is a whole cultural phenomena but but it has infected the church it's certainly pressure on pastors yes that's right so part of the the good news here in good news for anxious Christians is good news fractious pastors it's okay to preach the gospel it's okay to tell people about the same old story the same old same old story we get in the Christmas carols yes I love those things I mean what happens to me now more and more every year the first time we sing o come all ye faithful I have I have tears streaming down my face that is deathly isn't it that's how the Christmas service starts another story I had was in a church where the poor past was trying to be rel to our lives and I have a chapter about why relevant sermons are boring because they attempt to be relevant makes it all about me now I don't go to church to hear about me I go to here to church about Christ so so he was trying to be relevant and it got boring so we went to a different Church because they had a Eucharist on Easter and we wanted to take communion on Easter and it was a liturgical church which meant the same old thing every Sunday the same old liturgy and started out with the Gloria glory to God in the highest on earth peace to people of goodwill Lord God heavenly King Almighty God and Father Lord Jesus Christ and I broke down weeping again because for the first time in a year I was partaking in a congregational prayer it wasn't about me in a church that you know that the liturgy of course goes back for thousands of years with just about Christ and not about me but Philip that is not where cultures that you that not this generation coming up it's got to be practical they want to know what is what is this gonna do for me in my life right what is what's this gonna do for me so you think about the difference between saying relevance as a goal and beauty right Jesus Christ is not relevant he's beautiful because what he's doing what happens is he you don't make Jesus relevant to my life as if I already know what my life is and then I need a little Christ in my life to make my life different you know I don't know what my life is until I find my life in Christ because he has the plan he has the plan and it's gorgeous it's beautiful it's like a story where where there's great darkness in the middle like my man and a cross and it's awful and it's Friday but as my colleague Tony Campolo likes this like it's Friday but Sunday's come and we don't know what's gonna happen on Sunday I mean we know the first fruits right Jesus Christ is raised from the dead but there's an Easter Sunday for the whole universe and it's gonna be so glorious that all we know that is that it's gonna really be good but sometimes we have Good Friday still we have Auschwitz we have Hades earthquake we have awful stuff happening all the time but the story is really really good and we can find ourselves in that story and as we do that that's what changes things and again for good news for anxious pastors you can tell that story over and over and over again we're not gonna get tired of it just like we're not gonna get tired of hearing about the baby in the manger every and that's the message for that anxious maybe new believer yeah or a person who's caught on that experience seeking dr. treadmill get back to the Word of God this is the mirror isn't it it's disease where we find ourselves we find ourselves we find ourselves by looking at Christ because we're looking in the face of the man who loves us and died for us and in whom we have eternal life so we there's this wonderful paradox we find out what our life really is by looking away from our life at Christ where as so back to the theme of beauty the Christ is beautiful his story is beautiful even crucifixions get painted all the time as if there's something beautiful about this terrible scene because it's right right it's Friday but Sunday's coming and this beauty changes us so we don't have to try to make it relevant when you hear a beautiful piece of music or a beautiful poem or read a beautiful book you don't ask oh how is it going to change me how what practical thing am I supposed to do the book changes you because of its beauty and because of the wisdom in the beauty and knows nothing more than that nothing more like that than the Bible of course Martin Luther the faith connection was faith alone in the work of Christ and can you tell just from the pieces of paper that I had quite an engagement with your thoughts Philip and this book is available well it's it's with Brazos press it's available on amazon.com you can go there you go yeah everywhere everywhere that's right thank you so much for coming and spending this time

Channel: 100huntley

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Keywords: interview, huntleystreet, jan-17-11, HS8763, 100huntley, christian, philosophy, anxiety, anxious, transformation, change, life, pacing, culture, pressure, shape, peoples, heart, bible, gods, presence, disciples, dazzle, changing, experiences, consumerism, sells, spirituality, hope

Id: iPyGqNDqQnE

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 17 2011