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We are not Portugal

And we’re not dead. President Obama is no more. But his words still resonate. My brother-in-law Tiago: let’s do something about it?

Death took the place of sex as a taboo. The Lisbon Pirates went after it.

#thelisbonpirates #podcast

Protestants and God’s Silence

In any kind of christianity where the word is less central, it is natural to feel more God's silence. That's why Endo's or Scorsese's "Silence" resonates so much in a roman catholic culture - it's pretty obvious because it's a roman catholic story.

I'm not saying that protestant christianity, being so focused on the centrality of the word, is immune to God's silence. But the way we protestants perceive God's silence is inside the word. Let me make it even more simple: for us protestants you know God is silent when you, reading the word, hear nothing. But the word is always inescapable.

Protestant christianity's emphasis is that everything was made by the word and, because of that, the written word is the more reliable place for us to read and understand reality. We go from the word to the world, and not from the world to the word. Sure catholicism will not deny that everything was made by God's word but its emphasis is different. In a catholic perspective the word tends to follows reality and in a protestant perspective reality follows the word (in a way, this is Aquinas' scholasticism vs nominalists and Luther)

In a catholic culture the absurd will become a bigger aspect of life everytime there's an absence of an explanatory word (or mostly in spite of the existence of an explanatory word). And so we get to books and movies like "Silence". In a protestant culture the absurd is more easily confronted by the fact that, at least, you have a written word where lots of talking is happenning.

So, protestants don't feel so surprised by God's silence because God's speech is full of God's silence. Go read the Bible and witness live on tape God's silence happenning in Job's life and, most crucially, in Jesus' death. For us it's business as usal. What's the big surprise?

[Sorry for my english.]

Tiago Cavaco

On Carl Trueman

I love Carl Trueman but he knows how to be sometimes overbearing. One of the games he likes to play goes like this: a) "you think you are something"; b) "but of course you are not"; c) "then, look at me while I can be what you will never be able to". His last entry follows the logical conclusion of Luther being unreachable for low-church protestants like baptists (I'm a Baptist). The thing is that Trueman seems to rely too much on separating historical facts from their context. Let me say this in a more simple way: if you get Luther's belief about real presence away from the time he was living, you will not only be guilty of anachronism, but also misguidance. Probably you will end up saying that from Athanasius to Barth, no one would grant you, you miserable low-church evangelical!, the chance of belonging to the real catholic church.

I finished writing a book about Luther and I benefited a lot from Trueman. And I guess I can understand a little bit about what he says on real presence. But this is when you crucially need a lot from context. I am a portuguese so my culture is totally imersed on catholicism. To say that real presence would be for Luther a major cause of concern with low-church evangelicals is to be completely blind to what is much more importante for Luther which is the centrality of the Word. And Trueman should know this better because he's one of those guys that nailed it. He knows that it is the centrality of the Word that completely remodelled his understanding of real presence. In that sense, it's obvious that everyone that starts from the centrality of the Word is much closer to Luther than others who keep the old sacramentality going. Yes, a baptist is much more lutheran than a catholic. Trueman will only fool the ones who know too less about catholicism. Using the word sacrament to scare memorialists will only work if you believe in a very naive concept of sacrament.

So, Trueman should stick more to his arguments and less to the effect is trying to provoke when he defends them. Sometimes Trueman enjoys more how he's saying than what he's saying. And I can understand how Luther also enjoyed that. But to get to the point where a baptist is more distant from Luther than a catholic "becomes merely an exercise in semi-fictional hagiography in the service of self-affirmation". Put the text boldly, but remember to check the context.

Tiago Cavaco

#trueman #luther

Is it ok for an european christian to feel alright about Brexit?

I am not sure but I think it is helpful to put some things in perspective.

1. We christians believe that God is the Lord of history. That means that even when it seems things are going wrong, God is still writing his own story in the world. That should give us hope as the most enduring quality while we are reading the facts. If you're giving up on hope, you should also be giving up on understanding facts around you.

2. Rod Dreher wrote that "a Leave victory would be a strong repudiation of the elites, and in particular the unaccountable internationalists in Brussels" and I think he's on to something. Can Brexit work like a reality check for us europeans? Is there an imaginary Europe existing more on politician's heads than in the hearts of people? And what about the role of the refugee crisis in all of this? Are we really living up to the standards we claim for ourselves, as europeans?

3. I am currently reading a book on Europe, written by the late Vasco Graça Moura. Then, I want to read Edgar Morin on the same subject. As an european christian, I feel the responsability of serving my own continent while I try to understand it. That means working accordingly to the fact that we are not simply called to try here what easily works in other places of the world (generally in the USA). European christians: let's work!

Tiago Cavaco

On laziness

William Truax is reading my book on laziness and translating some parts of it.

"The promising future of the Christian is in remembering what has happened in the past. The Christian who doesn't desire to be more holy demonstrates that he understands neither his past or his future. The Christian who doesn't desire to be more holy demonstrates spiritual Alzheimers - forgetting all that God has forgiven him. Not wanting to sin less reveals a miserable memory of the errors we have committed in the past. The other side of this coin is absolutely marvelous. It turns past regrets into milestones indicating how far the Lord has brought us in our walk with Christ. When we look back on what we wish we would have done, and longingly think, "If I had known then what I know now..." it is a clear indicator of how the Holy Spirit has been sanctifying us and changing our perceptions to be more like his. We know more now and regret past sins more because our past failures and ignorance become more and more contrasted with our current understanding of Christ and his holiness. This is wonderful because it does not minimize our past sins, but provides tangible evidence, over years, of how the Holy Spirit has been and continues to be working in and through us."

Tiago Cavaco

#laziness

This is not a panic button

Carl Trueman says "the church is a culture and the West is now an anti-culture". You should read him. If he's right, christians should face society as the chaos she became.

This is not a panic button. For us, christians, society as chaos was really the first civil fact of them all - Cain was the city-builder, not Abel. So, let's not go crazy over this.

We, christians, will need an extra measure of humility. We'll be tempted to show off our cultural superiority to the world we live in. If the West has become an anti-culture, that does not mean that all the westerners consciously reject culture. Like Jesus remembered in Marks 7, it's our sin that wrecks societies, not societies that wreck people. So, we have to get our anthropology right.

Getting our anthropology right will help us not destroying our christology. Certainly Christ's salvation has an effect on society as a whole, but we should stress the fact that you need Jesus because you really need Jesus! Your life's first problem is not them, it's you. Christology is personal.

Are we building cities? We need Christ doing that. Are we watching cities coming down? We also need Christ doing that. Christ is the heart of the subject, not culture. Paradoxically, we can build a culture out of that.

Because I am a portuguese evangelical christian, it's very hard for me to feel that I am building a culture (statistically, I almost don't exist in my country). So, my anglo-saxon brothers: chill. The Holy Spirit knows how to handle all kinds of people - even the kind of people who don't get to feel they're building cultures. You will be alright.

Tiago Cavaco

#carltrueman #benedictoption

Three brief thoughts on the City To City European Conference in Lisbon

1. We need to listen to each other. I spent some time talking to two hungarian brothers. I asked one of them about his thoughts on the refugee crisis. Sometimes we are not ready to listen when words are not comfortable. He was careful and sincere and he did not make things easy for me. He treated me like an adult and shared that, as a christian, he and his christian brothers have to deal with a complex situation. Modern Europe is self-righteous about opening her borders to everyone. Russia is proud and hoping that the european civilization she despises will fall because of the refugee crisis. Pray for the refugees and don’t forget to pray for Hungary and Russia too.

2. Greek people talk and feel like portuguese people talk and feel. We are not about having questions answered like our brothers in northern Europe. We are more about being suspicious when there’s an answer for everything. It’s true that we get in trouble a lot because of that - look at our economies. But at the same time, I would say that we can help our northern european brothers when right now their best shot at sharing christianity seems to come out empty. Because Reformed Christianity never arrived to southern europe, we’re used to being a minority - which will be very helpful for every christian in the west.

3. Casa da Cidade did a great job opening its church to make the conference work. They have a solid culture of serving people. Me and the guys that came from Igreja da Lapa were inspired and desiring to learn more from them. Thank you, Pastor João Martins!

Tiago Cavaco

#citytocity

What I shared in the CTC European Conference in Lisboa

[I was asked by the City To City European Conference to share some words from my experience of pastoring in Lisbon.]

I’m Tiago, I’m 38 years old and I pastor a baptist church in Lisboa. We call her Igreja da Lapa. Whenever missionaries come from outside Europe and visit us, I always say three things. First: welcome! Second: the Bible says God wants to save europeans. And third: that happens slowly.

It’s very important to explain that we, europeans, are not simple people. We are not better than other people because of that. And we are not worse than other people because of that, either. It’s just the way we are and it has to do with our history. But Jesus Christ has grace enough for us.

Even when Tim Keller writes a masterpiece like “Center Church”, we, europeans, have to say: “It’s not that simple, Tim”. And we make our own edition of “Center Church” with european people adding: “It’s not that simple, Tim”. This fact helps to explain why things happen slowly in Europe.

We, europeans feel suspicious when things look simple. Because we feel like life is not simple. That’s why our intellectuals are especially hard to understand. Because being hard to understand feels more in tune with life itself. If someone comes from the outside making things look simple, in the back of our minds we’ll say: “this person does not understand existence”.

So it’s hard sharing the gospel in Europe. God is not an easy thing to talk about. You can talk about God in other places of the world and people will feel free or liberated. You talk about God in Europe and it feels heavy, like having to deal with a painful family subject. This doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit will not work here. But it means that He will work here probably in a different way than He works in other places. And we should be following the Holy Spirit when we share the gospel. There is no other way.

So, to make things even more complicated, I am a portuguese evangelical christian. Being a portuguese evangelical christian is almost a contradiction. It’s seems like a contradiction because the Roman Catholic Church was in Portugal even before Portugal was Portugal. Being a portuguese without being a roman catholic is like a bug in your system - everything looks like it’s going to shut down. So, every portuguese evangelical christian is only semi-portuguese. Sting used to sing that he was a legal alien, being an “englishman in New York”. It’s not that different from being a portuguese evangelical christian - we are legal aliens. We exist but we don’t belong.

Great opportunities come out of being a legal alien. You can get away with things that normal humans can not. Because you don’t belong, you are more willing to take risks. Remember, they can never put you out if you never fit in. In that sense, I believe that a country like Portugal can be a terrific place to share the gospel. If the gospel means depending on a higher power, you don’t need to be in line with the civil powers of your land to share it. If we are talking about sharing Christ when you feel out of step with the world, I guess portuguese evangelical christians can help. We’re very good at being ok with not being understood.

But there’s a problem too. Sometimes we are excessively ok with not being understood. We can even get to the point of loving not being understood, and we can even get to the point of not caring about not being understood. And when that happens, you’re not behaving like a christian anymore. You are starting to feel superior in the way you live out your faith. And that is a very spiritually dangerous place. If we are talking about only sharing the gospel when you feel out of step with the world, I guess portuguese evangelical christians can be a great example, which is not necessarily a good thing.

So, it’s a good thing being a portuguese evangelical christian because you don’t have an easy mainstream religion. But it’s a bad thing being a portuguese evangelical christian if that means not caring for those in the mainstream.

Eight years ago we began a new church here in Lisbon. After five years, we went on with that new church merging her with a old dying church, at the other side of the city. Right now, we are a kind of a false old church. When we want to feel respected, we say we have 86 years old, which is technically true, because having more than 8 decades is a lot for a protestant church in Portugal. When we want to feel free, we say we began our thing less than a decade ago. We can have them both. We have a largely young fellowship of people, having a good number of twenty and thirty somethings, with lots of kids. We’ve been gathering more than a hundred people each sunday, which is a very encouraging figure for a portuguese standard.

Portugal, like Europe, is changing a lot. We are not a deeply catholic country like we have been before. Most of the people will still present themselves as roman catholics, but serious and committed roman catholics are a minority within catholicism. One good thing about nominal christianity is that it is very easy to beat. Nominal christianity is intellectually and emotionally weak. Thus, it’s hard to feel atracted to nominal christianity. When you meet a nominal christian you know he is closer to leaving christianity than he thinks. Which, in the long run, means that as nominals get out, you can get a better perspective on what real christianity is.

As a church, we walk away from being hostile towards serious catholicism because serious catholicism also tries to walk away from nominal christianity, like we do. That does not mean that we are not very upfront about our protestant convictions. But it means that we choose nominal christianity as a greater enemy to our faith, also because even in evangelical circles you can find nominal christianity. Being very anti-catholic is a very common thing for portuguese evangelical christians that right now doesn’t help them sharing the gospel outside the very small protestant environment.

As a church, Igreja da Lapa is traditional inside and punk rock outside. Some of us grew up in the 90’s Lisbon suburban punk scene and we are still trying to keep things real. We don’t try to be rock'n'roll during the service because being rock'n'roll is generally a very american way of doing religion. America is a young continent and still feels like a teenager about its faith. In Europe, being weird will only make things unnecessarily hard for you. We’re ok not being understood, but let’s not lose perpective on the people we are trying to reach. So, our services are pretty traditional and they can feel foreign to people outside the evangelical community, but foreign in a way they can expect. We prefer to be strangely traditional than traditionally strange.

It’s on the outside that we will feel free to try different things. We make records and we write books that are available in regular shops. We are not having loads of people coming from the outside. Remember, this is still Europe. But we are asking God to make us more available there, in that very, very large space where the gospel still feels dangerous, alien and, hopefully, continues to be good news. Probably it will happen slow. And what’s the problem if that is the way God wants to save europeans?

Please pray for us.

Tiago Cavaco

#cityticity

Don’t call it a comeback

"One reason why I trust that Jesus is God is because Jesus deals with me as God would. He tells me things that should be unbearable to listen to as a human being. But if he is God, as I believe he is, I have some consolation. This consolation does not mean that the unbearable things he tells me become wonderful to hear. But it means that, Jesus being my God, I can feel comforted because the power to endure the unbearable things he tells me is his power and not my own." Traduzido por William Truax.

Eric Metaxas

"The story of a life somehow is the most powerful apologetic."

The United States of America, an endangered species.

Sitting or Standing

There's an esthetical reason that shows why "Evolution Versus God" is an ethically wrong documentary: questioner and answerers are not even once at the same level.

Homosexual marriage is oppression on gays

The first reason why I'm against the so-called homosexual marriage is a christian one: marriage in the eyes of God happens only between man and woman. But there's a non-christian reason to why I'm against homosexual marriage: marriage between a man and a man or between a woman and a woman forces them to behave heterosexually. And, in that sense, homosexual marriage is a kind of oppression on gays. Ask a homosexual that has lived the crazy San Francisco seventies if he liked the eighties compulsive arrival of condoms. Nowadays he'll use them because it prevents greater dangers. It's something tolerated but never desired. Because condom forced a crazy lifestyle in a not-so-crazy fashion. Homosexual marriage is definitively different from condoms but, in my perspective, follows the same path - toleration of homosexual lifestyle as long as they behave. We have bright homosexuals opposing homosexual marriage at the same proportion we have dumb christians supporting it. Generally it boils down to monogamy. Why was homosexuality portrayed as a perversion (and a dangerously exciting thing) during the History of the World? Because it could function as an activity practiced within marriage. Homosexuals were outlaws, not refugees. And their charm came out of that too. Homosexual marriage tends to 'heterosexualize' homosexuals, giving them something that never belonged to their DNA: monogamy. And I see the proof resting on the fact that unfaithfulness is what in the Bible can get heterosexuals out of marriage, while faithfulness is what naturally homosexuals are claiming so they can be in. However, they'll have their citizenship broadened and their fun tightened. Dumb christians support homosexual marriage trying to look progressive while casting the oldest of institutions. If the point is fraternity with the revolution, why not go all the way and get rid of the whole thing? What about our non-married heterosexual brothers? Don't they deserve the same love from the Church? If we're into the affirming business let's not deny the marriage happening when there's none, in the prestidigitation mode so dear to people inside the cultural conversation. Monogamy will look good for gays if it surfs on sentimentality. That's what's happening culturally. Maybe the ones who have more experience on monogamy (the heterosexuals) could do our homosexual friends a favor and tell them to keep pure from it. Carl Trueman gets it talking about "one of the supreme ironies of the contemporary politics of homosexuality. A movement originally built upon the idea of transgression, the breaking of taboos and the crossing of boundaries has become one of the most intolerant and conformist movements ever to emerge within liberal democratic societies." Monogamist homosexuals are the worst kind of persecution over gays. Free them!

Tiago Cavaco

If you want to go soft on theology please sin harder

The typical softie's reaction: “oh man, there we go again with these old tags”. And the softies will go on: in my theological thinking there's no place for stereotypes like soft or hard. And softies will zenith themselves: I build my own universal references. You can tell a softie by the way he will get so soft that almost anything in the living universe will exist as a result of his softness. A softie is a mountain of love giving birth to the whole cosmos in a perpetual loop. For a softie the Creator is a sleepy rapper that forgot to stop the sample machine while performing his only ballad. The softie will call himself christian but will always feel pantheist. Everything is about his relation with everything.

But there's something very wrong with a softie (something even more wrong than his theology). A true softie is someone devoted to spot the edges that don't belong there (and sometimes he's right about that), but he never has fun destroying them. Because of his character a softie has a real hard time having fun (in order to have fun with something you have to be different from the thing you're having fun with and if you're a softie you take yourself to be a part of the things you're having fun and you end up not being capable of fun). An example: a softie will rant about the unjust rule of an american evangelical christian not being allowed to drink (in my country evangelicals drink) but he'll hate beer.

So my advice goes: if you want to go soft on theology please make ends meet. Good theology exists also to prevent us doing what we're unfortunately very good at - sinning. Bad theology exists to help us feel good doing bad. That's the point. Bad theology has a goal. Bad theology is not happy with generating conversation but with generating crime. Why am I saying this? Because I do not only believe in this but I have done this. In my worst times of soft theology I was hard on sinning. At the end of that, one thing I´ve discovered about myself and God: theology has to do with thinking because has to do with being. And when you're not the God of yourself you'll get very importance out of believing in a certain way because its connection to living a certain way.

Last word for softies. A word of encouragement. If you're going soft on God you're philosophically allowed to go hard on the Devil. You can preach sundays and smoke pot on saturdays. You can fast on weekends and get drunk on week days. You can tell people to marry and cheat on your wife. If you're going there, buy the shirt. Flaunt it. Do it. At least get some good old fun of being wrong.

Tiago Cavaco

The Theology of Coming Out

If religion has lost importance in the West, the western religious people are more challenged to remain so. Even those who are trying to keep the faith have to use the language of the age of skeptcism. In our time God is not a popular word and we, believers, will sometimes find it missing in our own lips. We don't need to curse to talk the idiom of the death of God.

Eighteenth century english actors rushed to George Whitefield's sermons to improve their acting skills. Nowadays preachers try to impersonate the stand up comediant's flow so that the Holy Ghost will not lose rythm. There's nothing inherently wrong about learning forms from those which we disagree in content. But we should remember that famous verse from Macluhan's gospel: at least sometimes, media gets to be the message.

If you get into a fight over theology a common punch comes from the angle of "I grew up in your tradition but I came out of that". It's always a way of getting biographical credit over the subject and it respects the contemporary dogma that an opinion is more likely to be valued when the speaker shows experience. And mostly, experience rooted in the mystical wonders of departure. Maybe it's a blend of Descartes' empirical knowledge with late 20th century's pop-existencialism. The fact is that it works. A guy who's getting out is terribly more attractive than a guy who's getting in. And believing your father's religion is one of the most heinous crimes of the day. Loving deserters and despising proselytes is proper of a culture who doesn't know where to get but still respects the idea of getting somewhere.

The apex of our obsession with deserters is more visible in media's lustful piety. There's an altar for everyone who comes out. This is why homossexuality got it's revenge of centuries of scandal in the current path of beatitude. Gays are the new pilgrims and you can't mess with them. Camille Paglia is still one of the few old-school perversion-type voices of lesbianism and she's hated by who? Of course, lesbians and homossexuals in power. Paglia knows that the greatest moment about depravity is the minute you get in, not the one you walk away from normality. Her authenticity comes from her genuine amusement, something paradoxically very hard to find in the LGBT world.

It's ok to talk about coming out of things every time we're getting into something better. In the Bible, more convincing than leaving a life of sin is getting a new one of sanctity. Both of them are possible because the work of the Holy Spirit. But we should drop the coming out card if we're using it just to impress. At least if we're still giving some credit to the old-fashioned idea that a good life is also a convincing one. Don't celebrate leaving your old shack if you're remaining homeless. Get yourself a proper house where you can host someone.

Tiago Cavaco

Who lays down in the operating table?

A friend once told me: "we should be the ones to lay down in the operating table to be dissect by Scriptures, not vice-versa". Quoting Hebrews 4:12, he wanted to make the point that modern scholarship devoted itself to study Scriptures in a way that they end up to be their owners, boasting in their own knowledge and achievements.

He was right in pointing one of the dangers of scholarship. Any biblical study, any theology (either biblical, systematic, practical, etc...), that does have the knowledge of God as its basic principle and the Glory of God as it's end, it's useless. We should recognize that we can easily fall in that temptation (especially in our reformed-high-intellectual circles). But affirming this is, at the same time, assuming that the study of the Bible is a fundamental exercise of the Christian faith. "Do you understand what you're reading?" (Acts 8:30). The question is, therefore, not if we should study the Bible but what is the attitude we should have when we read, study or meditate in Scriptures.

Ironically, I believe that my friend's shot backfires, if we rightly observe the western culture we live in. It seems to me that, so many times, the popular modern hermeneutics read Scriptures with suspicion, with fear of what it may say.

Oddly, some seem to demand the Word to repent from its teachings. That happens every time we approach Scriptures with the same condescending attitude that Peter spoke to Jesus (forgetting the answer, I dare to say - Mt 16:20-23).

Oddly, some, on the basis of their own understanding, put on old (if they do not reject it) the acceptance of its teaching, forgetting we are the ones who are in need of God to enlighten our minds. Isn't it strange that part of the new interpretations of the biblical text have their origin in some inability to understand or accept it? Isn't it strange that many of the new insights arise from a dissatisfaction of its sufficiency? Isn't it strange that part of these new interpretations emerge in a desire to conciliate the new human knowledge (whether science, cultural, or others) with the 'obsolete' biblical texts?

Oddly, some no longer consider Jesus and his teachings (as expressed in the Gospels and in the Apostles teaching) as the fullness of revelation. Instead, the Canon (can we even speak truly in this terms anymore?) is just the beginning of a revelation that we, as modern people and with a lot more knowledge and wisdom, are in a position to improve.

Modern people should be remembered that spiritual humility is not epistemological uncertainty, as Timothy Keller said. The right Christian attitude continues to be the one that Augustine set forth: "Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

When we approach Scriptures, we should be the ones to be lay down in the operating table, not vice-versa.

Tiago Oliveira

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