It’s Christmas Day and the usually festive and joyous occasion is overshadowed for many Americans by a sense of sadness and grief because of the tragedy that claimed the lives of the unsuspecting victims – especially the innocent children.  Where Christmas Day celebrations should be in full swing, there is instead mourning and agonizing questions without answers.  Eventually the grief will fade and yet the questions will remain.  How do we explain the unspeakable evil that would take the lives of innocent children with such disregard for the sanctity of life?  How can we prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again?  How can God allow this kind of senseless violence in a world He loves and cares for?  What will His response be to this needless pain and suffering?

It is Christmas Day 1913, the day following the Italian Hall Massacre in which an unknown assailant yelled, “Fire!” in the midst of over 500 blue collar mining families celebrating at a Christmas Eve party.  It is thought that the murderer was in league with the mining company management against the striking mine workers and the action was in retribution for the lengthy ongoing strike.  The killer was never identified and therefore the accusation never substantiated.  Nevertheless fourteen men and women were killed in the chaos that followed the fake alarm as a stampede developed down the stairs from the second story hall and to an exit that could not handle the crush of people.  Most agonizingly, fifty-nine children were also killed by the crush of the fear-stricken crowd.  This tragic event was memorialized (and dramatized) in a Woody Guthrie ballad, “1913 Massacre.”  The questions still remain ninety-nine years later.

This year, we are faced with the exact same questions in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre.  The tools of violence were handguns and an assault rifle instead of mere words, but the effect was the same.  Innocent blood was shed as we are left to ask the same questions.  How do we explain the unspeakable evil that would take the lives of innocents with such seeming disregard for the sanctity of life?  How can we prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again?  How can God allow this kind of senseless violence in a world He loves and cares for?  What will His response be to this needless pain and suffering?

Over the next few months, just as with the 1913 tragedy, the debate will unfold in the public square as it should.  Gun control advocates will square off against the Second Amendment champions and both sides will make persuasive arguments that opposite actions will prevent another violent occurrence.  Gun control advocates will passionately lobby for restriction on assault weapons and high capacity magazines and Second Amendment supporters will just as passionately argue that armed security guards and appropriately trained and licensed private citizens with concealed weapons will curb the violence.  They are both sadly mistaken.  Whether by gun, knife, fists or even words, violence is inevitable in this broken world in which we live.  It is by human choice that the world is broken and not by God’s choice.  He allows pain and suffering in the world (for now) out of respect for the human right of free will.  When we each individually and consistently choose right over wrong and peace over violence in any form, only then will we have the right to question God.  And yet, it is understandable that we would wonder what His response will be to this needless pain and suffering.

God has already responded to the world’s pain and suffering whether it was King Herod’s violence against innocent children in ancient Judea, the 1913 Italian Hall killer, Adolf Hitler in 1935-1945 or Adam Lanza’s violence against innocent children two weeks ago.  He responded by sending a child into the world to save the world from violence and sin.  It is not the kind of response lobbyists, politicians and power brokers would understand or champion.  Human reasoning cannot comprehend the wisdom of God entering the world in the form of a helpless baby born to a poor blue collar family in a backwater village in the middle-east.  That the same child would later submit to a criminal’s death on a cross rather than yield to the pressure to ascend to the Judean throne in a violent rebellion against the oppressive Roman Empire and through that death conquer the ultimate oppressor is even harder to fathom.  And yet that is precisely how God has chosen to respond to evil – through the gentleness, peace, joy and love of a child born in a stable.

It’s right that we should mourn the tragedy of Newtown.  It’s right that we should debate the wisdom of allowing criminals, trained and licensed citizens and law enforcement officials the same virtually unrestricted access to high-powered weapons.  It’s right that we should question the appropriateness of Santa Claus helpers posing with AR-15s and customers in a Texas gun club.  It’s right that we should stand back and wonder at the irony of perhaps the largest single nation-wide gun sale event in U.S. history one week after the Newtown massacre and one week before Christmas.  It’s right that we should question the effectiveness of gun control legislation with so much evidence that they are ineffective at curbing crime and violence.  It may even be time for some to wonder if the Mayans really did have it right!  However, it’s also right for us to remember that good will always defeat evil not through power, legislation, deadly force or executive order.   Good defeats evil with the one force that evil cannot comprehend or even engage.  Good defeats evil with love – the love of a perfect child savior.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  John 13:34-35

Merry Christmas from the Intersection!

Copyright © 2012 Michael Willoughby. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to author and/or owner with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Have you noticed how polarizing conversations, especially political conversations, have become?  When dealing with controversial issues and conflict, there seems to be an overwhelming tendency toward rhetoric over substantial debate and winning or making a personal statement over actually arriving at a meaningful solution.  In our modern world of sound bites, reality TV and the cult of celebrity personality, it seems to me that the notion of trying to develop a consensus through mutual persuasion and careful compromise has become just a little too quaint for our legislatures, board rooms and perhaps even in our churches and families.  Our Apostolic church leader examples in Acts 15 have a different way to teach us to get along and still accomplish real solutions for difficult conflicts.

In the last Why Can’t We All Just Get Along article, the focus was on Peter who was very careful to use his powerful influence to progress the debate rather than shut it down and force a solution.  Peter waited until “there had been much debate” to stand and express his view knowing that his words carried extra weight.  Peter was wise and he used his influence move the discussion forward, allowing Paul and Barnabas to present their experiences to the group as testimony to God’s working among the non-Jews they had met on their missionary journeys.

Next the spotlight shifted to James.  The Apostle James was Jesus’ half-brother and although he was a skeptic during Jesus’ ministry, after the resurrection he became a passionate believer.  James was also apparently the predominate leader in the Jerusalem church before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 AD.  James was especially focused on ministering to the Jewish Christian converts living in the Jerusalem congregations he helped pastor.  I believe James wrote the New Testament letter of James which is an amazing collection of practical teachings on Christian living.  James’ letter reflects a studious appreciation of both the principles behind the Old Law and the radical teachings of Jesus Christ.  If you are paying attention, James will help you connect the dots from law-observing to faith-living as he teaches that living one is impossible without understanding the other.  As James ministered to the Jewish church, it is apparent that he continued to observe the Old Law, likely out of cultural preference as well as the conviction that law-observing provided a solid foundation for faith-living.

Acts 15 does not contain a full transcript of the debate between the law-observing Christians in the group and those that agreed with Paul’s teaching of Christian liberty that frees a Christian from the legalism of mandatory law-observing.  Perhaps Luke was operating with a “what happens in church council stays in church council” philosophy when he summarized the debate.  There is a good lesson in Luke’s approach as well!  However, even without a transcript, you can be certain that the debate was heated.  The views were passionate on both sides and the stakes were high.  If James was not careful and wise, the “solution” to the conflict would simply create an unjust burden for one group or the other and simply perpetuate the problem and extend the conflict for another generation.

Take a look at our Acts 15:13-21 passage to see this James’ wisdom in action.

After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me.  Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name.  And with this the words of the prophets agree, just as it is written,

“‘After this I will return,
and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen;
I will rebuild its ruins,
and I will restore it,

that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord,
and all the Gentiles who are called by my name,
says the Lord, who makes these things known from of old.’

Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.  For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”

James used the Old Testament as the center point of his solution since the opinion of the authority of the Old Law was at the center of the conflict.  James reminded the group of the prophecies in the Old Testament that predicted Gentiles would eventually be included in the fellowship of authentic faith.  In making this reference, James brought both sides of the debate to common ground using the source of the conflict to unite them.  James was a very wise leader!  From that common ground, James used his influential leadership to propose a solution that would have represented a gigantic personal compromise for almost everyone in the group.  James proposed that a few of the dietary requirements of the Law should be observed universally in all the congregations (at least for a time of transition) and he called out one category of moral law for special emphasis.

By wiping out almost all of the 613 individual mandatory requirements of the Old Law (according to prevailing first century Jewish doctrine), James would have violated the comfort zone of almost every Jewish convert attending the council meeting that day.  The notion of eating bacon for breakfast would have turned the stomach of a good Jew and most of these first century Palestinian Christians were good Jews.  It is clear from many of Paul’s letters that not every Jewish convert embraced this idea and these radical Jewish instigators continue to create immense problems for Christian congregations in the first century.  These “Judaizers” were also a considerable thorn in Paul’s side as he ministered to these new Gentile converts to Christianity.

Before we are tempted to think that only the Jewish converts were asked to compromise, think about the contribution the Gentiles were asked to make in this proposed dietary compromise.  They would have had no problem whatsoever eating meat that had come from a strangled animal and thus contained trapped blood in the meat.  They also would not have naturally understood the problem with eating food products made with blood.  For Paul, agreeing to even these few requirements was a gigantic compromise.  If you don’t believe it, check out Romans 14 and I Corinthians 8.  Paul knew there was nothing inherently sinful about eating a certain kind of food.  So how could Paul and James both agree to the compromise?  How could a good Jewish Christian who would never touch a sausage patty and a passionate crusader for Christian liberty come together to support the proposed solution?

They came together because they both had the best interests of the entire church in mind rather than any one special interests.  All the apostles gathered in the meeting had heard Jesus teach through his words and deeds that love always trumps law.  When one was faced with an ethical dilemma over whether to do the “right thing” or the loving thing, Jesus taught them to choose the loving thing.  Jesus said the two greatest commandments in the Law were to love God and love your fellow man.  All the details of the Law are based on the overriding principle of love of God and man.  Choosing legalism over love was not only a demonstration of messed up priorities, it was a sin.  The parable of the Good Samaritan illustrates this truth.  The Priest and the Levite may have both been technically justified in avoiding the half-dead body of the victim on the road.  Although it seems that the Priest and the Levite wrote off the victim for completely dead, the Law did demand that religious leaders avoid the taint of death which would make them ceremonially unclean.  However, Jesus said that love for the suffering victim should have trumped the technicalities of the Law.  The Samaritan got it right by following the second greatest commandment rather than technical requirement number 375 (I looked it up).

The compromise that James proposed was the loving thing for both sides of the argument to do.  Of all the dietary laws, the requirements about idol-tainted meat and avoiding blood would have been the most sensitive for a Jewish convert.  It would have been very uncomfortable for a Jewish convert to eat a meal where idol-tainted meat or blood products were served.  It would probably have practically prevented meal fellowship between Jewish and non-Jewish Christians.  Although avoiding meat that had come from the temples might have been a slight economic hardship for the non-Jewish Christian, that hardship pales in comparison to the hardship a Jewish Christian would have felt deep in the core of his or her soul by participating in a meal that was equivalent to idol worship for them or violating the high value every Jew placed on life-giving blood.  Skipping these foods was a small deal for one side and a really big deal for the other side.  Skipping those foods was the loving thing to do.

The other side of the compromise to set aside the 610 other individual mandates of the Law was also a big deal for the Jewish converts.  While law-observing was a natural (although practically impossible) part of a Jew’s lifestyle and therefore didn’t feel like a burden for some of them, the complex requirements were an impossible burden for non-Jewish Christians.  The loving thing to do was to free them officially from any expectation to follow the mandatory requirements of the Law. This compromise allowed these new Christians and ultimately all Christians to discover law-observing through faith-living rather than vainly trying to discover faith-living through law-observing.

The requirement to avoid sexual immorality was also the loving thing for James to officially list in his compromise.  Jews grew up with a finely-tuned appreciation for sexual morality.  James reminded the group that these truths were universally taught everywhere an Old Testament scroll was kept.  The connection between sex and committed monogamous unconditional marital love is written in the pages of the Old Testament from Genesis through the Song of Solomon (read it) to Malachi.  Jesus affirmed this principle multiple times in his teachings and therefore avoiding sexual immorality was an expectation for Christians too.  Sexual purity is the loving thing to do in all circumstances!  However, sexual purity was not encoded into the cultural DNA of the Greco-Roman Gentiles.  They had been raised in a very different culture where sexual behavior was very different from God’s moral law.  Sexual sin was the number one source of faith-living problems for Gentile Christians (some things haven’t changed much) and so James called this out for special emphasis.  Emphasizing sexual purity was the loving thing to do for all the congregations then and now.

The results of this Spirit-filled church council meeting are recorded in verses 22-31.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.  Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.  We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth.  For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”  So when they were sent off, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter.  And when they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

James’ wise leadership enabled the church council to come together to support a consensus decision that was in the best interest of the entire church as they put special interests behind them.  The lesson for all leaders, whether corporate, government, religious or family is to travel the hard road of speaking wisdom rather than the easy road of wielding power.  James likely could have dictated a solution (at least in Jerusalem) using his influence, but instead he was patient and allowed the discourse to take place and the competing ideas to be fully presented.  Only after both positions had been fully heard did he gather them to common ground to build a consensus decision based on careful loving compromise.  A really good leader will model his or her approach after James and Peter and he or she will be loved, respected and effective within the organization and a good leadership example outside the organization.

In the nature of full disclosure, I must own up to not getting this right nearly as often as I would aspire to get it right.  Pride and impatience tempt me to take the easy road too often.  There are also situations where compromise isn’t possible.  Sometimes the “wrong side” is really wrong and needs to be persuaded to yield their position in the true best interests of the organization.  Sometimes, as with the case of Barnabas and Paul at the end of this very same chapter of wise compromise and consensus, people really can’t just get along!  However, I think a consensus solution is possible much more frequently that I might allow through my sometimes impatient and prideful leadership.  I think many other leaders fall into this same prideful impatient trap.  I am working on this one and I recommend that all leaders dedicate themselves to continually working on this one.

I apologize for the extra-long final chapter to the Can’t We All Get Along series.  I’ve struggled with this series for months as you can tell by the uncharacteristic infrequency of my posts.  I think God wanted me to slow down and soak this one in personally at this particular point in my life.  Finally, I felt it was time to wrap it up and get on with finding new Intersections.  Thank you for participating in my spiritual and leadership journey over the past several months.

Next time I think I will spend some time on Love and Law in our everyday life.  Coincidentally (not!) my personal studies have led me right to John chapter five at the Intersection of Love and Law.  I can’t wait to see what God has in mind for me to learn next!

Until next time,

Meet me at the intersection!

Copyright © 2012 Michael Willoughby. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to author and/or owner with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Have you ever been involved in a discussion, making progress toward agreement only to have the discussion cut short by an interruption or artificial deadline?  It can be frustrating to feel that more progress was possible than what was made – like an opportunity lost.

In the last Why Can’t We All Just Get Along article, I wrote about the kind of open and honest debate that can lead to resolution of conflict.  Using the example of the Jerusalem council in Acts 15 as a case study, I proposed that a leader must create a venue and a forum for discussion and debate of just one issue at-a-time and then be available to moderate the debate when passions start to boil over.  One of the most challenging things for a leader to do is moderate a discussion without interjecting his opinion too early or too passionately which has the effect of shutting down the discussion.  Leaders naturally possess a higher level of institutional influence and therefore, their opinions tend to count for more than the opinions of the team.  In order to achieve the maximum potential of the debate, a leader must be very careful how she uses her own influence to either progress the debate or shut it down.

Take a look at our Acts 15:6-12 passage to see this concept in action.

The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter.  And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.  And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.  Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?  But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”  And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.

Notice in the underlined portions of the passage how Peter (who was a very influential leader in the church) stood up to speak only after there had been considerable debate.  Also notice the effect his opinion had on the debate – “all the assembly fell silent.”  This effect can be very good for the debate if a leader uses his influence at the right time and for the right purpose.  Peter allowed the debate to continue for some time and no doubt heard both sides passionately argue their perspectives.  Perhaps passions threatened to boil over at times.  At the right time, Peter stood up to influence the debate with his personal testimony of how God had instructed him to take the Gospel to the non-Jews.  Peter did not tell them anything new – everyone at the meeting would already be very familiar with Peter’s story of being sent to speak to Cornelius.  However, notice what happens when Peter brings the meeting back to the facts.  It allows Paul and Barnabas to relate the events of their travels in Asia Minor, Greece and Macedonia and all the signs and wonders God had done through Paul and Barnabas to reinforce the validity of their mission to bring the Gospel to non-Jews.

Peter’s patience and willingness to let the others have their say enabled the conflict to move to resolution.  Perhaps Peter could have stood up right away without allowing debate to occur.  However, that would have resulted in only one perspective being aired and one side feeling “shut-down” before their opinion could be heard.  A decision might have been reached but would consensus have been realized or would some delegates have felt like they had been railroaded into the decision?  A good leader waits to jump into the conversation until debate has had a chance to work and then only to accomplish the purpose of moving the discussion forward.  In this case, Peter jumped into the conversation to allow the debate to move forward by providing Paul and Barnabas an opportunity to have the floor to present their testimony.  Peter did not shut down the conversation – he kept it on track to resolution.  In the process, he probably showed his own leanings in the debate, but he influenced the discussion rather than dictating the direction.  He allowed Paul and Barnabas to state their case and only after both sides had been thoroughly heard would it be time for a decision.  This is one of the toughest lessons for a leader to learn – especially a passionate (perhaps even opinionated) Type-A leader like me.  However, it’s one of the most important lessons to learn if you are going to lead a team through the process of making tough decisions as a team.  When it comes to conflict management, we can all take a page from Peter’s leadership playbook.

In the next article, I will take a look at how another very influential church leader also patiently waited to contribute to the discussion and then used his influence to bring the issue to a successful conclusion.  His example of building a consensus decision that everyone could buy into and support coming out of the meeting is the most important lesson of this series.

Until next time,

Meet me at the intersection!

Copyright © 2012 Michael Willoughby. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to author and/or owner with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.