The night was Christmas Eve a few years ago and I was standing outside fighting with the llama. As I recall, the dispute was over the agreement we made with his owner. We needed him to lead the purple king of the Magi entourage down the center aisle for our Christmas Eve service but he was one of those animal actors who didn’t want to work because we had overlooked certain details of his rider (he required Avian drinking water and we used Dasani). Being Egyptian, it’s in my blood to win such battles with the camels and llamas (the camel’s western hemisphere cousin) but my parents immigrated so their sons would never have to deal with these humped stubborn beasts!

As a child this was of course how I always dreamed I would spend my birthday. As a pastor, this was of course, how I always dreamed of being part of the Christmas Eve service. Eventually, I threatened to call his agent the diva came to reason and fulfilled his duty. This was just one episode of an entire Christmas drama production my church would put on to celebrate the birth of Jesus. For the record, those productions were done pretty well. In fact, for the size of our church, it was pretty amazing. We had a few retired men who would build these elaborate sets to convert the sanctuary into a starry Bethlehem. Almost the whole church got involved which sounds nice but when church people are involved, they usually bring their problems. Each year, there was something, who would play Mary, it’s a singing role you know, who would play Jesus, we need more choir members, more instrumentalists, “so and so” was going to be out of town and the classic, “this looks like last year”.

We would do two of them that night, and this was my fifth Christmas production at that point. I remembered my thoughts at the second service from previous years. By then it was after midnight, Christmas morning, and I would be standing in the back of the sanctuary. The drama portion had been finished, everything was quiet and we had moved into the candle lighting time before singing, “Joy to the World”. That moment used to always redeem the chaos for me but this particular year took a toll on me and I found myself wondering, “Would Jesus have celebrated His birthday (His coming) like this?” and further, “Would He want me to celebrate it this way too?”

As I recall us taking the Christmas offering in giant Christmas stockings (I kid you not), I feel confident saying that Jesus may have skipped His own party. He may have even preferred the pub across the street. I hope that doesn’t come across as offensive. While I do not deny that I am prone to exaggeration and at times feel the need to provoke and instigate, I actually thought and find little reason not to believe this. This goes beyond the fact that Jesus ate and drank with prostitutes and tax collectors (the worst of betrayers of His community), but rather I am more interested in what celebrating the coming of Jesus looks like.

I think Jesus would have us be with those we love and find ways to interact and bless those we don’t know. Celebrating Jesus’ coming is to imitate His ministry. To love, to serve, to live in humility, to pray without pretense, to intentionally sacrifice in hopes of bringing joy to the world and glory to the Father.

Tonight I won’t be fighting with a llama but I look forward in attending our Christmas Eve service tonight (it’s a different type of service at my current church). Tonight, tomorrow, and most days, I am (and hope to be) grateful for things like the season of Advent, projects like the Advent Conspiracy and with the leading of the Holy Spirit, trying to live a life that reflects Jesus’ coming. I wish the same for anyone reading this – May you be filled with the joy, hope and peace of Jesus’ coming. Merry Christmas friend.

The first serious book I read about ecumenicalism and interfaith was Peter Kreeft’s  Ecumenical Jihad.  In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, I was reading just about anything from  Dr. Kreeft.  I loved telling my fellow students at my baptist seminary that my favorite living  author was Catholic.  Ecumenical Jihad was the call to people from different religions to join  together to reclaim morality in our society.  Though it was not the first time I thought good  of Muslims, it was the deepest most convincing dialogue I’ve read.  Unfortunately the  aftermath of September 11th ended a lot of the discussion that Kreeft’s book encouraged.    It may be time to re-read it.  But before you do, I’d like to encourage you to go get Samir Selmanovic’s new book – It’s Really All About God. I was fortunate enough to read his manuscript a couple months ago and was thrilled by it.  With no exaggeration, it’s one of the best books I’ve read all year.

I have met Samir a few times and have found him to truly be a good man.  He’s very welcoming and gracious with whomever he meets and I have yet to hear a negative word about the man.  So who better to write a book on interfaith than Samir?

Call it the gift of prophecy, call it growing up as a conservative evangelical (which I consider myself), call it a hunch, but I know what some of you are thinking:

“Interfaith what is that – a new ecumenicalism?”

“I bet he says he’s a Christian but that all roads go to heaven.”

“He’s probably one of those soft Christians that says he really loves Jesus but loves everybody like Mohammed, Buddha, and Oprah.  And we all know THAT is not Christianity.”

He doesn’t say any of that. Among the many beautiful and powerful things he says is God is bigger than we can realize.  You probably know that but may not have heard it written as well.

You may want to assume that Samir was born into some privileged religiously liberal family and after years of higher education, drinking wine with the spiritual hipsters, and with nothing to lose, he decide to ruffle a few feathers and write this.  You could assume that but you would be wrong.  His work is born out of a lot of pain and agony and like many, it seems he’s wrestled with an angel as well.

Samir was born into a Muslim family in Croatia.  In early chapters he tells of how warm and wonderful his family life was.  That is until he converted to Christianity during while serving in the military and all that changed.   He and his family live in the post 9-11, New York City.  He has endured a lot of criticism from many various and different religious sources and has not compromised his Christian faith. In fact, throughout this book on interfaith, Samir repeatedly affirms his Christianity and love for Christ.

This book is great for people like myself who are certain of their Christian faith but are open to the goodness of other religions.  This does not mean that I affirm all the beliefs of other religions.  Nor does Samir.  This does not mean that I even believe we are worshipping the same God, nor does it mean that we will share the same after-life.  Again, I stand by my Christian understandings but for me, the posture of the true follower of Christ should be more open to spending time AND appreciating the beliefs of others.  I was convicted and found so much value in it and I really want to recommend it to you.

The book was released a few weeks ago and I bought two.  (For those who don’t know, Barnes and Noble will automatically reorder a title when you do that. The second time it sells out that quantity, it automatically orders more). Anyway, if this is not a threatening idea to you but you are interested in reading the book, I encourage you to purchase a copy or even consider doing something similar as me.  I bought the other book because I really want to share this book with a fellow conservative evangelical who may be a bit skeptical of this.  I’d like to read it together and discuss it together over coffee or a beer.  My goal is not to convince you that other religious are just as true as Christianity; I don’t believe that.  But God is bigger than we have realized and there’s a lot to gain from those who think and live differently from us and it’s a conversation worth having.  So, who’s in?  Is there a fellow open-minded conservative Christian evangelical in the house? I have an extra copy.

I read with a bit of pride and a hint of skepticism as I read this CT article, Liberty Unbound concerning Liberty University and Jerry Falwell.  After 15 years of thinking about Dr. Falwell, I’m still not sure what to make of him.  As the chancellor walking around campus, he was great.  He had a terrific personality, had a sharp sense of humor and it’s always magnanimous when a ruler of a kingdom chats with the lowly.  It was when he was speaking into a microphone from behind a pulpit that I would get a headache.  It was when he would appear on Larry King or on a news program that I would wince.

It would be a greater problem if I dared to question his motives and I hope I do not come across that way.  In fact, I believe he genuinely cared about the good of everyone from his students to Larry Flynn. The problem was not his motives, but instead the words and methodology he chose to describe his care.

It remains to be seen if I will ever be able to let go of the Teletubbies fiasco.  A brief recap, one of the Teletubbies was outed and Falwell basically said watching the show might make your kids gay.  Though Falwell was not the first to mention this but the Washington Post, it was his strong words that began the controversy.  To me, it seemed to be a fundraising effort to al the grandfathers whose worst fear was that their grandkids would become gay.  I can hear it now, “Thank God for the cultural watchman/warrior Jerry is.  Let’s write a check to that school of his and turn on some Gaither music.”

To me, this was not counter-cultural or prophetic, but rather it demonstrated a lack of understanding of culture and came off sounding pathetic.  However, if the idea was to rally the conservative troops then mission accomplished – in fact, you could even call it brilliant.  If it was to engage the culture, hmmm, bad intelligence and poor exit strategy.

I am still trying to repress the memory that it was Dr. Falwell that appeared with Pat Robertson shortly after September 11th.  The idea that God was punishing America for its immorality is a very dangerous accusation.  While I am very much aware that God punished Israel in the Old Testament, it is not theologically responsible to assume that America is the “new Israel”.  To most, the Church is Israel and that changes everything.  Second, even if America was the OT Israel and God really was punishing America and chose this way, the prophets didn’t appear in the Jerusalem Gazette the day after Babylon came to town and said, “We told you so!  Repent or burn … in captivity and burn some more in hell!  There’s a timing issue that those in the broadcast culture were not sensitive about.

We could go on but here’s my point, Dr. Falwell was a better pastor-chancellor than televangelist.  For the most part, the vision of Liberty is a solid one when it comes to the topic of a Christian university.  That’s not to say that it’s the only model, nor am I saying that all Christians should even attend a Christian college, however, Liberty has done some good things for the Kingdom and Dr. Falwell was an important part of that.

This leaves me asking a few questions:

What if Dr. Falwell had never been a televangelist?

1. Would Bono have heard of him and the Old Time Gospel Hour?  Would I still smile every time I heard “Bullet the Blue Sky”?

2. Would Reagan have been elected President if it weren’t for the Moral Majority?

3. Would Jerry’s church (Thomas Road Baptist) been able to birth Liberty?

4. Would he had died at the relatively young age of 73?

Indeed these questions are difficult to answer but I think they are worth asking.  Many like to assume that if Falwell had not been the celebrity that he was, the school would not have been founded.  Some would like to assume that if he had not been on television that we would have had an even more godless America.  I wonder if Liberty would have been as conservative and as strict if it didn’t have such a spotlight on Jerry’s school project.  I wonder if it would have run into the financial mess in the late 80’s and early 90’s if Dr. Falwell didn’t feel the pressure from those watching. I wonder if Reagan would have been just fine without Dr. Falwell.

It could have gone the other way.  Bono might have befriended Falwell like he did Bill Hybels.  Reagan may or may not have been elected and a Moral Minority had been formed to be a subversive voice for those who were weak and in despair.  Jerry’s church could have been cool as opposed to what it was in the 80’s and 90’s (if you witnessed a singing Christmas tree,  you know what I mean).  Maybe he would have lived longer, did more work and perhaps he would not have been so polarizing.

Maybe Liberty would have been more interested in creating a film school than a law school.  Maybe Jerry would have befriended Ellen Degeneres instead of feuding with her.  Maybe he would not have been important enough in the eyes of the world for her to have returned his calls. Who knows really but that would have made more of an impact on Christian college kids than Teletubbies.

It may be true that I have the ulterior motive of trying to reconcile the tension of Falwell and my Liberty experience but I now look back and seriously wonder about this.  Especially now that he’s passed and the Falwell sons have taken over.  With credit to their dad, the school is in great shape but to their credit (Jerry Jr. and Jonathan) the future looks very promising.  As an awkwardly proud embarrassed alumni reconciling the paradox of it all, I look forward to seeing what happens next.