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Why ‘barefoot’ and ‘evangelist’?

/ thebarefootevangelist / Leave a comment

I often get questions about why I chose the title Barefoot Evangelist for my website. The questions are mostly about the ‘evangelist’ part, if we are being honest.

The ‘barefoot’ is pretty straight forward. I prefer preaching in my bare feet, and once overheard a person in a church I preached at referring to me saying “you know, the one who preaches barefoot”. I liked it, and it was honest. There were already about eight “barefoot preachers” on social media at the time – most from Canada, interestingly enough – so I went with something else.

Evangelist…

I have had people not want to visit my website because they thought ‘evangelist’ automatically meant it was narrow minded, rightwing, conservative, and spoke of a doctrine of hate. A friend of mine said she encountered that when she recommended my website, and she quickly corrected their assumption. To the best of my knowledge that person listened, watched, and signed up to follow shortly afterwards.

Evangelist, evangelical, and evangelism are Christian words. It is unfortunate that these days they are associated with only one way of behaving that has nothing to do with the way people expect Jesus’ followers to act. Some who have never experienced people who are genuine Jesus followers assume that all Christians fall into that category, and that is both unfortunate and inaccurate.

There are many communities calling themselves Evangelical, and use the words evangelical and evangelism, who understand the historic meaning and therefore are using the word accurately.

Simply put, it means “Tellers of the story of Jesus” or “Tellers of the Good News”. That’s it.

Traditionally the assumed writers of the four Gospels have been referred to as Evangelists. Those who were travelling missionaries in the earliest days were also known as ‘evangelists’ because the task they took up was to share the story of Jesus and encourage people to follow Jesus’ teachings. The word appears in the Bible associated with certain people. In Acts 21:8 it is associated with a man named Phillip. In Ephesians 4:11, we read that with Ascension the Holy Spirit gave the gift of being an evangelist to some people. And in 2 Timothy 4:5, the writer told people to carry on with the work of being an evangelist even when the world was more interested in other teaching that ‘suited their own desires’.

To tell the story of Jesus makes us evangelists. Some of us do it casually, some of us more formally. But all of us who share the Good News of Jesus are by default, Evangelists.

Jesus and transgender folks

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There have been some very disturbing things coming out of various countries around the world aimed at transgender folks. They have always been a vulnerable community, and by all indications it is getting worse.

As an historian I am disturbed by how much our current century is paralleling the 20th century. In the 1920’s there were large queer communities in both Paris and Berlin, as well as other places in Europe, and they were some of the first targeted by the Nazis after political opponents were rounded up and put in the early versions of German concentration camps. Those communities, their literature, and medical advancements for the queer community were all destroyed in the process.

One hundred years later, those of us watching the rhetoric come out of the United States, and the denial of transgender identity in the United Kingdom should be worried. It is history repeating itself, and if cisgender folks stay silent and don’t stand up for the vulnerable in this community, history will keep repeating itself.

An argument that is continuously raised by the Christian right is that trans folks are not acceptable to God and that Jesus was against trans folks.

The only response we can give to that is FALSE.

While modern medical knowledge is part of a wider conversation on observable transgender identity in our modern era, it is naive to think transgender folks are only a phenomena of the 20th and 21st century. People do not change that much.

The fact that the Gospels, and the Bible as a whole, are silent on the conversation of queer folk is all we really need to know to realize for the early Christian community – and by extension the Hebrew community of our origin – did not have a problem with queer folks.

The counter argument often offered at that point is there were no queer folks around at the time. Another argument we can mark at FALSE.

All we have to do is look at the artwork of Pompeii, a community destroyed by a volcanic eruption just ten years after the destruction of the Hebrew Temple in Jerusalem, and thus preserved in a moment in time, to know queer folks have always been a part of society.

I am not a Queer historian, but I am a Christian historian, and there is absolutely no reason to even consider that Jesus was not accepting of everyone.

A considerable number of Christians stood against the destruction of the Nazis. Yes, some of them died, but they still stood for what was right.

We owe everyone in our society as well as those who came before us, and those who will come after us, the honesty of our faith in standing for the vulnerable and not allowing history to repeat.

THAT is what Jesus would do!

How can we ‘pray without ceasing’?

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The first time I remember hearing the injunction to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17), I thought it was the strangest thing ever. How can you do that? We have lives that need living, after all.

Admittedly I was a teenager at the time, and my imagination was still developing.

We do tend to take things literally, at least when we first hear something from the Bible. We have been conditioned that way through Sunday School and our cultural understanding of Christianity. It is one of our first reactions, so we need to wait for our second reaction before we make a move.

Pray unceasingly… it is possible. We don’t have to change our lives to do it though, just change how we understand prayer.

When many of us think about prayer, we think about long worded petitions to God, as we hold a certain prayer position that often includes our heads bowed, eyes closed, and hands pressed together. But prayer is so much more.

Walking prayers, like walking meditations, are things we do all the time, and we probably don’t even realizing it. Thoughts flow through our minds and get some attention before they flow out again. Those are prayer.

Hearing sirens and hoping no one is seriously hurt, is prayer.

Feeling joy at the wind blowing our hair and the sunshine on our face, is prayer.

Desperation to get out of a scary or abusive situation, is prayer.

Every moment of every day, every thought and emotion, every reaction or observation… those are all prayers.

We do not need to be long winded when spending time with God. Even in the Gospels Jesus says “when you pray, pray like this”. He did not say ‘pray this prayer’, as the church has reported for the last 2000 years. He said pray LIKE this.

Pray for what is around you, your concerns, your joys, your guilt, your awareness.

Pray with your heart, your soul, and your mind.

Pray with words and emotions and intentions.

Pray without ceasing, because every moment is an opportunity to be in God’s presence.

Were there white people in the Bible?

/ thebarefootevangelist / Leave a comment

I am sure by now most have seen the meme going around that declares there were no white people in the Bible and then suggest everyone waits while the person reading it gets with the message.

I respect the intent and the point being made. It is a direct rebuttal to “white Jesus”, that is not factually accurate in any way, shape or form.

However…

This is where as a Christian historian I have to pull the plug. I try to stay away from terms and arguments like “always” and “never” unless it is extreme circumstances, as they usually get a person in trouble. It sets up a dynamic that demands analysis, and so let’s analyse.

In this case, the meme is making a statement that is factually unprovable. There were thousands of people involved in the Bible as writers, characters, and editors. The Bible itself was composed orally for centuries before it was put into written form. Over that period more than a dozen cultures interacted, clashed, fought wars, invaded and expelled the people who had once lived in that territory. Bottom line: people moved around. This is before we take into account trade routes and caravans moving throughout Europe, Asia and Africa.

By the time Paul started writing his letters c. 50 CE, Rome had expanded to modern day Germany, Austria, Belgium, England, and all of Europe from south and west of those points. These people integrated into all levels of Roman society. Some Roman troops brought families with them wherever they were sent, and some of those family members stayed to form relationships with the local population. It was also the practice of Rome to move around military and government officials so no one would be fighting their own people.

So, were their white people in the Bible? Probably. But we have no idea who as none of this is provable. The vast majority, including Jesus, were Semitic peoples. That cannot be disputed. But to say absolutely that there were no white people in the Bible? No, we cannot do that with any credibility.

What is wrong with being wrong?

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What is wrong with asking questions first rather than jumping to conclusions?

Several years ago I passed a rally where recently ‘born again’ new Christians were trying to convince others that what they experienced was the way to real faith. They were definitely caught up in the excitement of something new. I got into a conversation with a few of them and was correcting some of their misassumptions about the Bible – which they had been taught to read as tracts, not in context. Their leader, pastor maybe, stormed over and started yelling at me. I said I was only helping to clarify some facts and than I had an education in the subject. He snarled and threatened me, and I can’t remember how the conversation got there but he demanded to know from me if Jesus sinned. I simply asked him what he meant by the word ‘sin’. He scoffed and stormed away.

It was a simple question. I couldn’t give him a yes or no answer until I knew what he meant by the words he used. What if I was wrong?

This past week I have been dealing with a number of situations where people outside of religion and the church have been wrong. But rather than ask questions, they have forced their opinions on others. Why do we do that? What is so wrong about being wrong? And what is so difficult about asking questions first and recognizing that we might not have the full picture?

People often tell me I know so much about a subject, and while I’m widely read, I also go back over information to make sure I’m right before I present it. And then if I’m challenged I can either say no, I followed through on that too, or, I can say I never thought of looking at things that way. I could be wrong.

It’s okay to be wrong. Even Jesus was wrong. In the story of the  Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7:24-30, and Matthew 15:21–28), she challenged Jesus. When Jesus response to her was tone deaf, she rebutted with an expression of faith and belief, calling Jesus up short. In the end he had to agree with her and did as she asked.

All of us can be wrong, but rather than hide that or avoid that, we should welcome being wrong as the first step to learning. It’s okay to be wrong, just make sure it leads to growth.

Should we pray for a revival?

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During congregational prayers this past Sunday, one of the older men said he wanted to pray for a revival of the church. He of course meant the church that he remembered from his youth, probably 1950’s or 1960’s. In his memory that was when the church was really good, when his social life revolved round youth groups, sports groups, dinners, choir, Sunday school, and regular worship.

I don’t think he appreciated how I actually prayed about that revival, about how in a post-Covid world, it would look different than church revivals of the past.

Many of the older members of our congregations look back at the church of their youth with fondness, nostalgia really, and wish they had that again. But nostalgia is a trap, and what they remember is probably not what it was really like: women being denied leadership, no one of ethnic difference being welcome, only one or two socio-economic levels represented. And judgy…

Over our 2000 years attendance at church has ebbed and flowed, more attendance in the hard times, less in the good times. Every generation has had a new way to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. For many people today, finding their faith happens outside the traditional institutional church, not inside.

We have to give up the idea that revival means filling church buildings on Sunday morning. Our commission is to help people discover and understand that Jesus shared love with everyone. Jesus never asked us to fill church buildings. Jesus asked that we share the Good News that we can build a new world by caring for each other and working together.

So sure… we prayed for revival, but we can’t control how the Holy Spirit moves through people. The only thing we can do is accept that when revival does happen, it won’t look the way we imagined it.

Leaving toxic people behind

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I was asked recently about toxic people and if we should keep forgiving them, the whole 70×7 and turn the other cheek stuff. To be honest, those two passages have been used to justify a lot of abuse and unacceptable behaviour, and we have to rewrite those scripts.

Toxic people are draining and inconsiderate, and if they are full blown narcissists, calculated destruction of your psyche is involved. There is a level of contempt there that should not be accepted today, and I do not believe was acceptable to Jesus at all.

Over the centuries the story of turn the other cheek has been used as a way to force mostly vulnerable people to accept poor treatment. Jesus asked us to, so therefore we cannot challenge it, is how that usually goes. But that is completely out of context. The real point of that story was to stand up to power. In the culture of Jesus’ day it was common for masters to slap slaves or servants, or even members of their own family, in public. There was a ritual about it. It had to be a backhand on one cheek, just once. The person receiving the slap was to be humiliated in public, and the power dynamic was maintained. By offer the other cheek, it was an act of rebellion. The shame shifted from the person receiving the blow to the person giving it.

This was never a story about accepting continued abuse.

When Jesus talked about love and forgiveness, he was not talking about forgetting. In fact that whole ‘forgive and forget’ was Shakespeare, not the Bible. The most common verb in the Hebrew Scriptures is “To Remember”. Forgetting was never part of the deal.

We can forgive, and we should for our own sake, but there is no call on us to forget. We can love, and we should, but the love is Agape – the love of our neighbours, community. There is no expectation in that word that we will allow mistreatment. We can love the world without being friends with people who hurt us. Like, love, tolerance and acceptance are all separate concepts and practices. They are choices, and we can choose to say no. That does not stop us from wanting good things for them, it just means we do not have to be part of that process or relationship.

So toxic people? Love them if that is what you feel, and then walk away. The Biblical expectation of that is far greater than any acceptance of continued mistreatment. We were never commissioned to be victims.

Feed Your Faith

/ Debbie B / Leave a comment

In this episode, Debb and Deb discuss how to maintain and grow your faith when the life has other plans. It’s a tasty serving of practical tips for staying grounded in your faith in decidedly crazy times.