Nathan R. Hale

A personal blog

hello

  • Just look at him

    A real problem with so much hand wringing over the future of the Church is that there’s so little re-centering of hope on the person and work of Jesus.

    The hope for the continued vitality of the church too often seems to be in getting our doctrinal ducks in row in either a conservative or liberal direction…

    The problem with that is getting our doctrinal ducks in a row IS NEVER enough.

    I’m not saying doctrine isn’t important, it’s just…

    It’s not even the right starting point!

    …

    Start again with Jesus.

    Point people to Jesus.

    Meditate on your experience of Jesus.

    Listen to catholic witness regarding Jesus.

    Lift up Jesus.

    Deconstruct what is not Christlike.

    Reform…

    …but not according to “progress,” or to the “early Church,” or a romanticized Protestant ideal, to Christ and Christ alone.

    There is unending hope for the future in this process, because while theological systems come and go, and even Communions fall apart…

    It is Christ himself that draws all people to himself.

    …

    Is this messy? Yes.

    Does it require faith that Christ will indeed truly build his church, even using our weakness?

    It absolutely does.

    …

    You may wonder which Jesus? Mormon Jesus, Muslim Jesus, Protestant Jesus, Roman Catholic Jesus? Jesus the meek and mild of the Anabaptists or the Gun ‘n’ God Jesus of the Christian Nationalists?

    I say, the one that defeated death with forgivess,

    the one that (amazingly!) we have good reason to believe is actually alive and reigning at the right hand of God,

    the one then that can and will DO SOMETHING in the present,

    the one that is most consistently attested to throughout the ages in the 4 canonical Gospels, and the worshipping life of the church in all places and and times,

    the one the holy martyrs placed their faith in,

    the one that restored divine glory to humanity and demonstrated fully the humanity of the divine,

    the one that convicts but never condemns,

    the one who loved, is loving, and will always love without reservation,

    And if you wonder what this Jesus thinks love is,

    Just look at him on the Cross.

    There is my only enduring hope for any church, for any person, and for myself.

  • The liberating Way of Christ

    We pray fervently for God to come through for the oppressed in the present, through those of us that have been given his Name, through the taking up of our own cross…because the Way of Christ is only and always the Way of the Cross.

    The cross of speaking prophetically and truthfully, and being maligned for it.

    The cross of teaching plainly the implications of the Gospel for our time and place, and being torn apart for it.

    The cross of on-the-ground pastoral care, and its few-and-far-between moments of visible results.

    The cross of peacemaking, when many are for war.

    The cross of being actually arrested, beaten, and assassinated for declaring the dignity of those the world would use, abuse, and forget.

    The cross of knowing our place in this world as “little Christs” is in fact, on a cross.

    The confidence we have in doing this–instead of driving spikes through the hands, feet, heads, and sides of our enemies–can only come from the release of the fear of death in present, itself a sure result of looking with faith upon crucifixion and Resurrection of our Lord.

    Some Good News is that the promise of this Way isn’t only life after death, but life in the present after our death in the present.

    In other words, this way of living and dying for the sake of others–instead of responding with violence–plants seeds of life.

    We see it in the hope of the Thief that throws himself at Jesus’ mercy.

    We see it in the incredulity of the Roman Soldier that couldn’t help but find God revealed in God bleeding out.

    We see it in the Faithful Women that never looked away from the glory of the Cross and so caught the first outpouring the joy of the New Creation, to which they bear eternal witness in the Kingdom.

    We see it in self-centered, broken Peter as he is restored, even as he acknowledges his own lack of internal resources to live up to the love of Christ.

    As we allow ourselves to be mystically joined to Christ and his Cross, the Love poured out there pours into us and upon those that are killing us and others in a thousand cruel ways.

    Our faith is that this Love upholds prophets and practicioners of mercy and justice, satisfies thieves, chastens muderers, comforts mourners, brings traitors home, and even raises the dead to life, because that Love is the Spirit renewing the redeemed cosmos.

    And where the Spirit is, there is liberation.

    Photo: unsplash.com/photos/F5…

  • We can have courage to confess our sins, because God in Christ in Christ gives us assurance of forgiveness.

  • I WAS BORN IN 1 9 8 4

    a musical sketch

    Having so much fun with virtual synths/midi these days

    best w/headphones

  • Today we commemorate St.. James, who demontrates that leadership and authority in the church have much more to do with the Spirit of self-giving than getting things done.

  • 📚 Some gems found today at Costco, of all places: a great Sherlock Holmes box set, a really helpful collection of key American writings and political speeches, and a fascinating compilation of Eastern philosophy, all in fantastic looking bindings and covers.Great stuff to have on hand for the whole fam!

  • Christianity is comforting, not comfortable

    Church is a community where all the distraught can be comforted with the sure hope of the Gospel.

    Nevertheless the comforting and confident path we walk is inevitably uncomfortable as we experience real suffering for the sake of Christ.

    Live the life of the church, in other words, to be comforted, but don’t expect to be made comfortable.

  • Nationalism, Christianity, encouragement — and regret

    It’s encouraging to see there are gestures in America toward a renewed humility in the so-called “prophetic” movement.

    This idolotrous, nationalist strain of the charismatic world is essentially the same thing as what we see corrupting evangelicalism.

    Both claim divine revelation in their effort to legitimize a “power-and-profit by whatever means necessary” mentality.

    For charismatics, it’s a supposedly direct “word” asserted with unjustified confidence and unfounded authority; for evangelicals it’s a conveniently malleable set of “biblical principles.”

    Both are false teachings with soul-poisoning consequences, because both are divorced from Jesus as the Supreme Revelation of God in the Gospels.

    Both demand a very different kind of life than our Lord taught us to live, namely a life enslaved to fear instead of liberated, quiet confidence.

    One of my profound regrets as a pastor and just as a Christian brother is not clearly and boldly doing constant ground work to address these destructive trends much earlier in the communities I am a part of.

    I knew they were problems “out there”; I simply (and naively) didn’t imagine they would take root (or had already become embedded) among people I know and love.

    I pray for grace and wisdom, true prophetic insight and evangelical zeal to follow the Spirit of the Lord and witness faithfully to the fullness of God in Christ, given for the world.

  • Behold the heart of God in Christ

    If Jesus gives us the Spirit of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount, then the Spirit of the Law is revealed as non-violent.

    If the Spirit of the Law is non-violent, the heart of God is non-violent.

    If the heart of God is non-violent, this changes everything for me:

    • my involvement in national politics,
    • my perspective on church governance,
    • how I join parishioners in praying for our loved ones who are in enlisted,
    • what I think about “last things,”
    • how I share the Gospel in and out of the pulpit

    My experience is that once you see the non-violent heart of God in Christ, you can’t unsee it.

    Christ alone reveals to us the fullness of the heart of God. The more I look on him–incarnating, teaching, healing, dying, rising, ruling, and loving non-violently in it all–the more compelling the vision becomes.

    And the vision just gets more compelling.

  • He directed Superman, and I loved everything about that movie

    Yesterday, I found out that Richard Donner, the director of Superman (1978) and The Goonies has died. I don’t know much about him, except his connection to some the biggest blockbusters of my adolescent years.

    Superman was no doubt the first real superhero movie I ever saw, and I Ioved everything about it as a kid. The incredible John Williams score, the now-iconic Christopher Reeve performance, the–for the time–incredible special effects…there’s just so much to love.

    I’m sure that film is the reason I love comic books and comic book movies to this day, and I have no doubt it contributed to my love of music (I used to go around humming the Superman tune all the time) and movies in general.

    I’m not a massive Goonies fan but I have fond memories of watching it with best friends and imagining that we too might have it in us to invent gadgets, follow clues, and live lives of adventure.

    I’m really thankful for Donner’s lasting contribution to some of my favorite and most enduring memories…they still have an impact.