Humility

Review: The After Party

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Cover image of "The After Party" by Curtis Chang and Nancy French

The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics, Curtis Chang and Nancy French. Zondervan Books (ISBN: 9780310368700), 2024.

Summary: How we might shift toward a better Christian politics through humility and hope.

There are many Christians longing for a better way to engage in politics. We’ve lost friends and family, who have “disappeared.” We recognize that we will always have political differences, even among Christians, but believe this shouldn’t result in demonizing those who differ with us. We are concerned that we cannot sustain the fabric of civic life with the level of hostile discourse we see around us. But we wonder if a better way is possible.

Earlier this year, Curtis Chang and David French of The Good Faith Podcast, teamed up with Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, to produce a six part free video curriculum to help churches move toward a better Christian politics, titled The After Party. This book is a companion piece, written by Chang and Nancy French, an award-winning journalist, and the wife of David French, a columnist with the New York Times. The book and the course complement each other but may be used independently.

The focus of the book is a call for us to allow Jesus to shift us from the what of politics (ideology, party, and policy) to the how of politics (spiritual values, relationship, and practices). They point to the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus calls for mercy, peace-making, refraining from angry mocking of opponents, prioritizing reconciling over winning, avoiding sexual scandals, and truth-telling. This is not a critique of politicians but rather how we engage in politics. The authors focus on humility and hope as two key spiritual values that help us move toward a better engagement.

They use these two qualities as X and Y axes identifying four types:

  • The Disciple: high in both humility and hope
  • The Combatant: high in hope, low in humility
  • The Exhausted: high in humility, low in hope
  • The Cynic: low in humility and hope

They include an assessment tool accessible through a QR code. There is a written version in the appendix, allowing readers to identify the type that may most closely fit.

Most of the remainder of the book explores each of the types. As it turns out David French, Russell Moore, and Curtis Chang identified as the Combatant, The Exhausted, and the Cynic. The chapters include narratives of each on how they matured as disciples, growing in hope, humility, or both.

The final chapter invites us to move from us-versus-them politics to the after party of peace at the foot of the cross. While we cannot fully embody that this side of kingdom come, we can be living icons, signs of what is to come as we live in humility and hope across our differences.

This book offers a clear alternative to our politics of division. Is it too simple? I don’t think it is the be all, end all solution. But it offers a starting point, with tangible practices we can try with our “disappeared” friends. Rather than waiting for politicians that practice a better politics, it proposes that Christians, particularly evangelicals, in churches across this country take the first steps.

Will it be enough? I don’t know, but true disciples of Jesus don’t ask those questions. They listen for the call of Jesus and follow. At least they’ve taken the first steps toward a better politics, and nothing good can happen until someone does.

Review: Humility

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Cover image of "Humility" by Michael W. Austin

Humility: Rediscovering the Way of Love and Life in Christ, Michael W. Austin. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (ISBN: 9780802882103), 2024.

Summary: A study of the Christian virtue of humility understood as following Jesus, being formed in his character of humility and love through his people and through spiritually transformative practices.

Humility. We often associate this with weakness. The person who is a doormat. We might do better to think of humility as the person who is so taken with serving others that it’s apparent they are not thinking of themselves. They are people who look a bit like Jesus, probably because they have been walking in the way of Jesus. In his book, Humility, Michael W. Austin writes:

“What is the person like who follows Christ in his humility? The humble person fights to descend the social ladder, rather than climb it. The humble person makes the interests of others their priority, rather than their own. Instead of always grasping for what they want, the humble person serves others, for their good, often in sacrificial ways. The humble person focuses on God and others, rather than themselves. The humble person is steeped in the love of God, and that love flows from God through them to others” (p. 35).

Austin writes to explore the question of how humility may be formed in our lives. Keeping company with Jesus and the close association of humility with overflowing yet practical love runs through his book.

He goes on to explore some of the qualities associated with humility and love in the lives of people on the way of Jesus: faith, relinquishing control, wisdom, compassion, justice. One of his most telling challenges, particularly as a remedy to sloth, is to live locally–for our town, church, and those we love–except in abusive situations. Leaving is often the easy way instead of going deeper in a place. He also considers the practices that form humility in us: community, scripture, prayer, solitude, service, just peace-making, and listening to the marginalized. He challenges us to commit ourselves to rhetorical nonviolence. What’s attractive about the humility Austin advocates is that he joins personal piety with seeking the just and peaceable society of the kingdom of Jesus.

Those who walk in the way of Jesus are also called to be preparers of the way, removing obstacles for others to join us in the way. For Austin, this means quitting the culture war, renouncing polarization, and being consistently pro-life.

Finally, humility means persevering in the way. Austin finds that memento mori, remembering we will die, helps us, because it leads us to embrace the daily joys along the way as well as living more deeply into our hope.

This seems fitting in a time where it seems many of us have been distracted from the way of Jesus to fight culture wars and pursue polarizing conversations. Austin helps us see both the path from which we have strayed and the ways we may walk in that path, as well as how good the way of Jesus is, and how central to any of us who identify ourselves with Christ. It’s not so much that Austin says anything strikingly new. It is rather that he reminds us of the ways we may have forgotten. He retrieves a conversation and language that has gone missing in many of our churches. There are times when we need again to hear “the old, old story, of Jesus and his love.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Humility and Hospitality

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Cover image of "Humility and Hospitality" edited by Naaman Wood and Sean Connable

Humility and Hospitality, Naaman Wood and Sean Connable, editors. Integratio Press (ISBN: 9780999146354), 2022.

Summary: Conference papers responding to a proposal that the virtues necessary for civility are humility and hospitality, particularly considering the qualifications that may be placed on this idea.

There have been many calls for a recovery of civility in our public discourse, and not least, in our universities. In the summer of 2017 Spring Arbor College sponsored the Forum 4:15 Unconference to consider the conditions necessary for civility. This was in the wake of several recent books by Richard Mouwm, Tim Muehlhoff, and Os Guinness putting forth their own proposals for how Christians might pursue civility in the public square.

The book is organized around a keynote presentation by Calvin L. Troup followed by a series of responses “interrogating” his proposal. Troup began by exploring the temptations and conditions that hinder civility and then proposed that the two Augustinian virtues of humility and hospitality are necessary conditions that underlie civility.

The responses that followed explored the nuances to considers and the problems that may occur with this proposal.

Mark A.E. Williams argues that not only are these Augustinian virtues necessary, but an understanding of Augustinian substance. In a world in which no one believes in substance, it is hard to reach agreement on what justice or civility is.

Michelle Shockness, writing from a social work background, observes that hospitality is an interaction that may be tainted by “Empire” in way that make host-guest relationships oppressive if the work of guests is not honored, if guests cannot say “no” and if the relationship cannot function with fluidity.

Susangeline Y. Patrick builds on this idea in missiology, proposing American Christianity needs to embrace a reverse and covenantal theology, where the recipient culture also hosts and all embrace a covenantal hospitality between God, people, and the land.

Naaman Wood also writes on this idea and the damages of colonialism and a recent denunciation of the doctrine of discovery. In North America, hospitality as a prelude to civility must take into consider the founding violence of those who colonized the land.

Jaime Harris considers the inhospitable character of churches toward LGBTQ+ persons, claiming that they, the churches, are the persecuted ones, while rejecting this persecuted minority. Too often, incivility has been useful.

Annalee R. Ward and Mary K. Bryant raise the question of the virtue of integrity and how it may challenge civility, using as a case study, the Barmen Declaration of 1934, which spoke against the Christian nationalism of Germany under Hitler and the complicity of the national church. Integrity reminds us that humility and hospitality cannot assent to everything.

Mark Allan Steiner, noting both the lack of trust of evangelicals in American culture and the Constantinian tendencies in their political engagement, argues that suffering, and not just humility and hospitality, must be embraced, using efforts for racial justice as a model.

John B. Hatch, in the concluding response, strikes a similar note in calling for the humility of prophetic lament, the acceptance of persecution, and the eschewing of attempts to grab at power rather than the uncritical support in recent years of Donald Trump.

This collection of essays certainly explores well the challenges of practicing civility with the diverse constituencies that make up our diverse landscape with one large exception. I do not find any discussion of how one practices civility toward the many conservative people who make up the country, as well as the many disaffected from working class and some ethnic communities attracted by the politics of Trump. While the “Unconference” participants ably dissected Troup’s proposal, it felt like preaching to a progressive choir. There was no similar critique of over-reaching contemporary liberalism, and the ways the lack of humility and hospitality in these quarters may be amended.

In sum, I think the basic proposal of humility and hospitality to help mend our frayed civility one worthy of consideration but the character of the responses appears to have given up on the exercise of these virtues among the population drawn to the politics of our former (and perhaps future) president. I think we must wrestle with the question Jesus raises in Matthew 5:46: “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Humility Illuminated

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Humility Illuminated, Dennis R. Edwards. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2023.

Summary: A study of humility throughout scripture, showing it as the distinctive identifier of those who follow Jesus.

Almost everywhere one looks, one finds evidence of American churches embracing the cause of American greatness, trying to seize control of American institutions, scheming to “win” the culture war. Meanwhile, hardly a week goes by where there isn’t news of pastoral corruption, whether with regard to funds, the abuse of authority, or the abuse of others or covering such abuse. Meanwhile, youth are heading for the doors. For many, it is not lack of belief in Jesus but rather that the church looks nothing like the Jesus who “came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.” In a word, they see nothing of the humility of Jesus.

Dennis R. Edwards, a pastor for many years and a seminary professor and dean, believes it is desperately important to understand the nature of biblical humility because such humility is the identity marker that sets Christians apart from the surrounding culture, whether in the first or twenty-first centuries. Both then and now status, control, power were celebrated and humility looked down upon. Yet this was the way of Jesus who followed a path of descent from God’s right hand all the way to the cross to redeem a lost humanity. In this book Edwards shows from an extensive survey of scripture how this is to be the way of life for those who follow after Jesus.

His study begins in the Old Testament with Moses focusing on how Moses was a man who yielded to God, submitting to him. Such submission is closely tied to the fear of the Lord, that all of life is lived before God. He follows with a study of how Jesus embodies humility, riding a donkey into Jerusalem, centering the poor, women, and children in his ministry. He finishes this with Paul’s portrait of the humble Jesus in Philippians 2.

He then reflects for several chapters on the implications of humility for the church. He discusses communing rather than competing for place as a key to the unity of the church. He uses the household codes in Paul to observe their call for those naturally holding power to humble themselves and sees this as a key for multi-ethnic ministry. He speaks of the crucial role of humility in reconciliation, proposing that all of Romans is written around Romans 14-15 and the conflict between Jewish and Gentile parts of the church in Rome. Reconciliation and the humility that leads to it are also key to understanding Philippians. For pastors, humility is expressed in shepherding, not a domineering control as in some “shepherding” movements but in nurturing instruction by example, who live out a mutuality of care and oversight and vulnerable confession.

Suffering of various sorts is an occasion for humility, yielding ourselves to God in it and enduring in the hope that God will, in due time raise us up. Our worship together is an occasion for humility from the yielding of ourselves to God to the yielding of our seats to each other. Everything from how we read scripture to singing and song choices to how we arrange our meals to welcome each other are occasions for humility. Stewarding, whether of our time, talent, or treasure, or our collective stewarding of creation for the common good of all God’s creatures and not just ourselves call out humility in us.

Edward’s chapter on empowering gets to the heart of the choice we face. I think the church in America is where it is because we don’t believe that God will lift up, exalt, and empower the humble. Hence we seek to lift up, grasp for power, and exalt ourselves, ignoring the warnings of God for those who do this. Humility tests and reveals our faith, or lack thereof, in God. In this book, Edwards, with gentleness and an encouraging spirit, lays out the way of Jesus which is the way of the humble servant, submissive to God and considerate of others. He leaves us with the choice of whether we will yield to this countercultural way of living that identifies us with Jesus, or identify with the world.

This is a timely text, when so many signs seem to point to the success of the arrogant, to those who flout humility and integrity of character. Edwards’ book calls me and helps me through his own pastoral writing to “turn my eyes toward Jesus.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: Learning Humility

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Learning Humility, Richard J. Foster. Downers Grove: IVP/Formatio, 2022.

Summary: A journal of a year-long journey of learning humility including notes from readings, reflections, prayers, organized around the Lakota calendar.

Richard J. Foster was pondering at the turn of a year whether to set any resolutions for the new year. He sensed he was hearing from God the words “learn humility.”

Over the next year, he read a number of spiritual writers to glean their insights into humility and recorded his insights, quotes, and personal experiences in a journal organized according to the Lakota calendar. He thought a calendar rooted in nature and one from a Native American heritage similar to his own might be helpful.

The Lakota influence extended beyond the thirteen colorfully named moons of the Lakota calendar (for example “The Moon When Trees Crack from the Cold”). Each moon after the first opens with one of twelve Lakota virtues. During the course of the year, Foster also reads a number of works on Lakota history and culture. In addition to the connection of these virtues to humility, Foster’s study is a journey in humility in a couple other ways. He learns from Lakota spirituality while recognizing the ways it diverges from Christianity. One example is the vision quest involving solitude, nature, and fasting, practices also found in Christian tradition. He also grieves the broken promises and atrocities committed by the United States against the Lakota, culminating in the massacre at Wounded Knee. Perhaps this calls us into corporate humility, repenting our corporate sins and broken promises toward the First Nations who occupied the land before us.

He also shares insights from writers throughout church history from Augustine to Benedict to C. S. Lewis. He records personal experiences from momentary anger to impatience while on hold for a phone call to an insight into humility from a walk with his son. Often a subheading will consist of one or a few paragraphs with a few subheadings for each week. Rich fare but not heavy going. In many instances, his reflections end in questions or matters on which Foster wants to reflect further–not neatly packaged conclusions.

Early on, Foster reflects on the starting place in our journey being meditation on the life of Jesus, our supreme example of humility. He writes a simple prayer to which he recurs though the year:

Loving Lord Jesus, I humbly ask that you would...
Purify my heart,
Renew my mind,
Sanctify my imagination,
Enlarge my soul.
Amen

At various points he focuses on the various ways we learn humility, often in the everyday life of our homes, and often in the instances that expose our propensities to pride, vanity, self-importance, and selfishness, as we recognize the opportunities to renounce these and to prefer others interests to our own. Foster asserts that progress in humility comes from God. The most we can do is orient our will toward God. God often, then, takes us into situations in which we may choose the way of humility.

Toward the end, he proposes several questions I found challenging that help us discern our own progress in humility:

  • Am I genuinely happy when someone else succeeds?
  • Do I have less need to talk about my own accomplishments?
  • Is the inner urge to control or manage others growing less and less in me?
  • Can I genuinely enjoy a conversation without any need or even any desire to dominate what is being said? (p. 163)

The reflections in this work come out of a year of journaling (and a longer writing process). This is worth a slow reading, reflecting on the quotes and observations and questions Foster raises. Instead of a treatise on humility offering a merely academic understanding, Foster invites us to walk with him and learn humility with him as a fellow traveler. He points us less to answers and more to the one who will teach us and wants us to become more like him. Foster believes God is eager to grow the grace of humility in each one of us. The question is, are we willing to learn? Settling into this book is a good place to begin.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Spiritual Practices of Jesus

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Spiritual Practices of Jesus, Catherine J. Wright. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2020.

Summary: A study of three spiritual practices of Jesus found in Luke’s gospel considering them in the first century context of his readers and the writings of the earliest fathers of the church.

Catherine J. Wright does several things in this book I have not seen before. First, she focuses attention on what the scriptures, and specifically Luke’s gospel have to say about the spiritual practices of Jesus. She does so systematically, looking at all the passages around a particular practice.

Second, she asks the question of how Luke’s earliest readers in the first century would have thought about the particular practice in question. In particular, she keeps in mind the intention of first century biographies not only to inform but also transform the readers. Consideration is given to the regard given the practice in the wider culture and how this might shape their reception of Luke’s account.

Finally, Wright looks at the earliest church fathers and their interpretations and responses to Luke’s gospel. This offers tangible evidence of how the church understood and received these accounts in their setting.

Wright focuses on three practices, each which recur in numerous passages in Luke: simplicity, humility, and prayer. For each, she offers commentary on the text, then discussion of the practice in first century culture, and thirdly, she goes back to the specific texts from the first overview and discusses what the early church fathers had to say about the text. Through all this, she both summarizes the practice of Jesus and draws compelling contemporary applications for the church.

For example, she considers the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and the rich man who approaches Jesus., noting the lack of generosity with both, the unwillingness to be dispossessed of wealth for the care of others, and in the latter’s case, to pursue the kingdom. Wright notes the expectations in both Jewish and Greek literature for the rich to be benefactors. In learning from the fathers, we learn that Chrysostom considered the failure to give alms to the poor to be theft. Basil of Caesarea teaches that “the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in poverty.” Wright then concludes with this trenchant application in her summary:

Perhaps one reason for the emphasis on radical almsgiving is the lens through which early Christians look at wealth. In their opinion, we don’t really own our wealth. It is placed in our care by God so that we may bestow it to those who have less than we do. Therefore, when we spend our wealth on ourselves alone, we are essentially stealing from the poor (and thereby from God). The reverse is also true. When we give to the poor, we show ourselves to be good stewards of the resources God has trusted us with, and we are, in essence, giving to God. This attitude could not be further from the attitude that many Christians in America have today.

Catherine J. Wright, p. 63.

She offers challenges around humility as the mark of the early Christian but forgotten in the contemporary church’s quest for power and influence. She notes the practice of continual, fervent prayer by both Jesus and his early followers and the superficial practices that characterize most of our Western churches.

As we hear of the practices of simplicity, humility, and prayer in connection with our Lord, we say, “but of course.” What Wright’s close reading of Luke’s gospel, and consideration of Luke’s earliest readers does, is challenge us to see what this meant for those who called, and call themselves disciples. As Wright traces this out, it becomes apparent that many of us have not looked very closely at Luke’s narrative, not the Lord of whom it is written, if measured by the lack of correspondence between our lives and His. Wright does not bludgeon us with this truth but beckons us to join Luke’s early readers in the embrace of these practices out of love for the one who called us and models and teaches them for us to live into.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Is Humility a Virtue?

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There is the old saw about the person who won an award for humility and had it withdrawn when the person attempted to accept it. Humility is a strange virtue. Some would not even consider it a virtue but rather a weakness–this was true in Greco-Roman culture. And, the truth is, the people I would consider most ‘humble’ probably wouldn’t consider themselves so, if they even give a thought to themselves.

benedict

 

I am currently reading The Rule of St Benedict and came across this chapter on “Humility”. He elaborates twelve steps toward humility–an interesting list to say the least:

1. Keep the fear of the Lord always before oneself.

2. Love not your own will nor the satisfaction of your own desires.

3. Submit to your superior (in the monastery) with all obedience.

4. Obey in difficult circumstances and embrace hardship or even unjust conditions.

5. Don’t conceal from your abbot the sinful thoughts that come into your heart!

6. Be content with the lowest and most menial condition.

7. Not only admit with your tongue but believe in your heart that you are inferior to all others.

8. Do only what is endorsed by the common rule of the monastery and follow the example of your superiors.

9. Control your tongue and do not speak unless asked a question.

10. Do not be given to ready laughter.

11. When you speak, do so briefly, without laughter, with modesty, brevity and reason.

12. Manifest humility in your bearing as well as your heart.

Some of these certainly reflect the context of the monastery, such as the rule of confessing sins, silence, following the common rules of the monastery. Yet even here I see some sense and am challenged–to whom do I admit my less commendable, yes even sinful, thoughts? How often have “too many words” gotten me into trouble (or at least bored my listeners!)? Haven’t some problems in organizational life simply come because I am too proud to submit to the direction of another–even though I do not mind giving direction?

There are some of these that do make sense–foremost, the fear of the Lord. Knowing that one is living one’s life before the God definitely keeps me honest about myself–I have no room for boasting. Obeying in difficult circumstances and being content with even what seems a menial place are actually freeing–freeing from the grasping and grumbling that come when I want to be somewhere else or don’t want to do what is required of me in a given place.

Perhaps the one on which I am most “stuck” is the considering of myself inferior to all others. I actually wonder if Benedict may have gotten this wrong. I actually wonder whether any comparisons to others are beside the point–even though we frequently do this. We are each unique creations of God and uniquely accountable to Him for our lives. How can I appraise the gifts of God “inferior”? Many times, such comparisons just come off to me as false humility. Yet I am also reminded of how St Paul spoke of himself as the “chief of sinners” and he really did mean it as far as I can tell.

Benedict’s words come from another time–and seem like it! I remember the acronym IALAC from my son’s elementary school years–“I am lovable and capable”. What Benedict says seems to be miles away from the culture of affirmation. Yet what I wonder, and I want to read Benedict more closely for this, is whether in fact knowing that one is deeply loved by God, not for what we have done, but “just because” is the most humbling thing of all and if in fact this releases us to embrace at least some of Benedict’s steps, not as rules, but as the joyful practices of God’s beloved.

What are your thoughts on Benedict’s list and on the virtue of humility?