What I did on my Summer Vacation

What did I do this summer? Write, write, write, write, and write. I did some other things too. We had quite a few summer visitors in our home, including our daughter and her family, and all of Jude’s siblings and their spouses. Whew! We enjoyed the lakes, mountains, and ocean. We went swimming often, saw some summer theatre, and I did some summer preaching. The typical things. It was a good summer.

In the midst of it all I worked on a book. My habit is to write nearly every day for a few hours each day. I always wake up early and write at least three hours a day. Some days many more than that. I don’t think there was a single day between Memorial Day and Labor Day that I did not write.

I love writing. I would write even if no one read what I wrote. (I suspect that is actually the case with some of my books.) My newest book is the most personal one I have written so far I get to share the joys and difficulties of being a pastor. The book is entitled, What Your Pastor Won’t Tell You (But I Can Because I am Retired). The title is meant to be humorous, but much of the material in it is very serious.

I did research for this book for months before I started writing. I also got to walk down memory lane, revisiting the painful moments of ministry as well as the wonderful times. In this book I deal with a wide range of practical, spiritual, ethical, biblical, and theological issues. I share personal experiences and moral convictions on a wide range of subjects.

If you are interested, you can get the Kindle version free for the next three days. (September 19, 20, 21) If you want the paperback, you will have to pay for it. Here’s the link to both. I just ask one thing. If you read it, please leave a brief (one or two sentence) review of the book on Amazon. In the meantime I will keep writing. I already have an idea for my next one. Time to start the research!

Christian Voting

I am writing this article after the September 11 primary and before the November 6 general election. The political signs in my front yard will remain up for another two months, although I suspect that my neighbors wish they wouldn’t. I take voting seriously. I research the candidates and vote in every election.

I see voting as a spiritual exercise as well as a civic duty. Even though church and state are separate, my voting and faith are not. That does not mean that I vote only for people who share my Christian faith. I don’t care whether a candidate is religious or not. I am just as willing to vote for an atheist, Jew, or Muslim as a Christian.

Neither do I vote by political party. I am no party loyalist. I am a member of that endangered species called “moderates.” Officially I am “undeclared.” I am equally likely to vote for a Libertarian, a Democrat, or a Republican. I have even voted for Constitution and Green Party candidates.

Furthermore I do not vote primarily on the issues. The issues are important. I have personal opinions on the major issues facing our nation. I would rather have a politician agree with me than not. But I often vote for people I disagree with on some issues.

Some Christian groups would have you believe that issues are all important. That Christians must vote for people who share their social agenda regarding the hot button issues of our day, regardless of the candidates’ other qualities. But when I look to the Bible for guidance on such issues, it is not that clear. I see support in the Scriptures for both sides of every issue. The Bible is not a Christian Voters Guide.

For me, voting as a Christian means voting for persons, not positions or policies. In this bitter political climate I am looking for people who are not ideologues, who will cooperate with people they disagree with. I vote for persons based on their character, not their politics. I believe that if we put persons of high moral character into office, then they will do the right thing when the occasion arises.

 

So I look for a person of honesty and integrity. A person who does not lie – which is harder to find the higher you go up the political food chain. I want a person of high moral character. Someone who treats other people – especially their political opponents – with respect. A person of honor who is willing to say and do the right thing even if it costs them the next election.

Those are hard to find. The last time I voted for a president who actually won was in 1976. That was Jimmy Carter. He was too honest to get a second term. Of the two campaign signs in my front yard, one is for a Republican and the other a Democrat. I know them both personally, and they are people of honor. 

That is spiritual voting. Christian voting means voting for the best person running. Honorable persons who will speak and act from a deeply held personal morality, and not according to their party leaders or what is popular at the moment. Persons who are concerned about the needs of the most vulnerable members of our society – the people Jesus cared about - not the desires of the most powerful. People who will do what is right no matter what. That is how this Christian pastor casts his vote.

What Do You Write?

I do guest speaking these days. Usually, but not always, in churches. I will often be introduced as a retired pastor and an author. The follow-up question is “What kind of books do you write?” My short answer is “religious” or “spiritual.” But I have found that those short answers do not answer the question adequately. Those words can mean almost anything these days.

In this blog post I will attempt to answer that question more fully. What do I write? My books fall into three categories. One is Biblical. I have written books on the Biblical books of Esther, the Song of Solomon, and Revelation. I wrote a book exploring the resurrection of Jesus in the New Testament, entitled The Evolution of Easter. I also authored my own paraphrase of the Parables of Jesus.

A second category of books is Ministry, with a smattering of Church History thrown in. These are The Baptist Church Covenant, A People Called Baptist, and my first book, More Than a Purpose, which is an analysis of the megachurch movement.

A third category is Spirituality. These books are dearest to my heart. My best-selling book is a modern translation of Brother Lawrence’s The Practice of the Presence of God. The second most popular is The Tao of Christ, which is a Christian version of the Chinese classic The Tao Te Ching. 

Third is my modern retelling of John Bunyan’s classic, The Pilgrim’s Progress, entitled The Seeker’s Journey. I also have books on my personal spiritual practice: Experiencing God Directly and Living Presence.

A couple of books do not fit these three categories, so I will put them into a third uncategorized category. There is my exploration of the New Atheism entitled Thank God for Atheists. I also published a children’s book, which is my sole attempt at writing fiction. I wrote it decades ago, chapter by chapter, to read to my young daughter at bedtime. It is entitled The Hidden Ones.

I have a new book coming out this fall which encompasses multiple categories. It is entitled What Your Pastor Won’t Tell You (But I Can Because I’m Retired). It includes chapters on ministry, science, the Bible, church history, theology, and ethics. I get personal about the difficulties of being a pastor. I also deal with some controversial issues that most pastors avoid. Topics like abuse, LGBTQ issues, evolution, climate change, and many more. I speak uncomfortable truths to comfortable Christians.

That is my writing career in 500 words or less. So what will I reply next time I am asked what type of books I write? Probably “religious” or “spiritual.”

If you are interested in any of these books you can read more about them on my Amazon author page. Just click HERE or do a Google search for “Marshall Davis books.”

Understanding Revelation

People have a lot of different reactions to the Book of Revelation. Some are confused by it. Others are afraid of it. Some are obsessed by it. Most are ignorant of it. The average person has likely never heard their pastor preach a sermon from the Book of Revelation. Most mainline pastors have never studied it in depth, much less led their congregation in exploring the last book of the New Testament.

But I – in all my naiveté and egotism – took it upon myself to lead my first fulltime church after seminary in a weekly, verse-by-verse, study of Revelation that lasted six months. I had the confidence to attempt this because of a course I took in seminary, which was taught by a young professor (now deceased) named James Blevins.

It was an eye-opening course! When I enrolled in the class all I knew about Revelation was what I had read in Hal Lindsey’s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970. (That dates me!) The Left Behind series of books and movies that dominated the 1990’s and 2000’s were only a twinkle in the eye of Tim LaHaye.

I assumed that the only way Revelation could be interpreted was in a futurist manner, meaning that it predicted events to happen in the future – our future. Dr. Blevins showed me another way; it should be read like the prophetic books of the Old Testament. It has to do with events in the time it was written.

Most of Revelation is about the near future from the Apostle John’s point of view. The author of Revelation says this repeatedly in the prologue and epilogue of Revelation. It takes intentional blindness to miss those verses. But Christians – if nothing else – are very good at self-deception.

Blevins presented Revelation as a cosmic drama, patterned after Greek and Roman plays performed at the great theatre in his adopted hometown of Ephesus in Asia Minor (present day Turkey.) He presented this view in his book Revelation as Drama (1984). That idea was not original with him, but it certainly was new to me. It really struck home to me when I later visited the ruins of ancient Ephesus.

Revelation was intended to be heard and seen – like John heard and saw it. To demonstrate his point our large seminary class actually performed the whole book of Revelation. (I was the “mighty angel” of Revelation 18:21). I will never forget the experience. Revelation came alive for me, and I actually understood it! It was like seeing a Shakespeare play performed for the first time. Incomprehensible Elizabethan English actually makes sense when heard live on stage.

I have never forgotten what I learned in seminary, and what I taught my first church in Southern Illinois.  I have kept the notes I used back then and referred to them throughout my forty year ministry. I have preached and taught Revelation in every church I have served. Finally after many years I have published my understanding of the Book of Revelation in a new book entitled Understanding Revelation.

In short it says that Revelation is more about Christ with us now than it is about deciphering clues to the date of Christ's Second Coming. That will be disappointing to date-setters, but good news (the literal meaning of the word “gospel”) to Christians seeking to make sense of this strangest book of the Bible.

Revelation is extremely relevant to today. Not because its prophecies are being fulfilled in today’s newspaper headlines, but because Revelation teaches timeless truths applicable to every historical era, including our own. I invite you to read Revelation and my book (preferably together). I hope that as a result you will come to understand the Book of Revelation a little better.

Father’s Day Ideas

Everyone celebrates Mother’s Day. Woe to any son or daughter who does not call – or better yet, visit - their mom on Mother’s Day! Mother’s Day celebrations have been around for over a hundred years. State celebrations of motherhood began in 1908, and by 1911 every state was observing the holiday.

Father’s Day was a lot harder to get started. Individual cities tried to get it going as early as 1910 but it would be decades before it really caught on. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a Father's Day proposal accusing the US Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "singling out just one of our two parents." Amen.

In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972. By the mid-1980s, the Father's Day Council wrote, "Father's Day has become a Second Christmas for all the men's gift-oriented industries."

A second Christmas? It does not feel like Christmas to me. My wife gets so many flowers on Mother’s Day that our house looks and smells like a funeral home. But Father’s Day? Not so much. Not that I am complaining.  I am allergic to most flowers. It used to be that I got my annual supply of new neckties on Father’s Day. But since retirement I wear ties only sparingly, so that gift idea has been sidelined.

Actually I don’t really want presents. I’ve got more than enough stuff. I do not need to attend a Father’s Day brunch or buffet at a local restaurant, if there are such things.  I get phone calls, and I appreciate them. I also get greeting cards. Handmade ones from my grandkids are my favorites.

I do not need presents. I just feel blessed to have children and grandchildren who love me and whom I get to see on a regular basis. Their hugs are all the gifts I need. Coming to church with me on Father’s Day would be nice. There is nothing this old preacher loves more than to see a pew full of descendants on Sunday morning. To be honest, the smile on their mother’s face when we are all together in church is the best gift this old dad can get.

So let me suggest a gift idea for those of you wondering what to get your father for Father’s Day. I suggest that those of you with a living father go to church with him. If he normally doesn’t go to church, then bring him with you. It will do him good to have his kids honor him in this public way.

But don’t make him dress up. Blue jeans are fine. That is what I normally wear to worship these days when I am not preaching! Then maybe take him to that Father’s Day buffet after all. The way to a man’s heart is still through his stomach.

Going Deeper

It has been almost two years since I retired from fulltime pastoral ministry, and people still ask me, “How do you like retirement?” My answer is always the same: “I love it!” I love the freedom to explore theological and philosophical matters more deeply.

When I was a fulltime pastor I had to be cautious about what I preached and wrote. That is why very few pastors are prophets – and vice versa. I always weighed the impact of what I said and wrote upon my parishioners and my church. My main concern was “growing the church.”  Theologically that meant reiterating the basics of the Christian faith.

Now someone else can feed the sheep, and I can delve into areas that were too risky to explore before. I can venture into unexplored territory without having to worry about the safety of those following me. I feel the need to ground my faith more firmly on truth. These days it is more important to me to believe what is true, rather than what is PC (politically correct) or EC (evangelically correct.)

So I explored nonduality, and didn’t worry about colleagues accusing me of pantheism or mysticism. My book Experiencing God Directly came out of that experience. I studied atheism, and ended up writing a book praising the New Atheism (Thank God for Atheists.) I propose that God is using the New Atheists as his prophets to speak to his recalcitrant church. That is not popular with religious folks, who tend to think of atheists as the enemy.

Most recently I finished researching and writing a book on the resurrection of Jesus, entitled The Evolution of Easter: How the Historical Jesus Became the Risen Christ. I explore how the story of Easter changed over the course of the first one hundred years of the Christian church. 

I trace the development of the story of the resurrection of Jesus from the early experiences of the apostles to the final writing of the gospels decades later. In the process I read gospels that never made it into the New Testament. In short I dug into earliest Christian history until I hit bedrock. Then I put what I learned into a book.

The questions I ask are too risky for some people to consider. The truths I uncover are unsettling to those trying to keep their childhood religion intact. But I am more interested in what is true than what is safe. I live by Socrates’ maxim:  The unexamined life is not worth living. I let nothing about my religion go unexamined. I am willing to throw any sacred cows into the fire.

In my book Thank God for Atheists I examine the basic premise of theism: Is there really a God?  In my book The Evolution of Easter, I examine the foundational event of Christianity: Did Jesus really rise from the dead? These are dangerous questions. Most Christians will not seriously consider them, for fear of losing their faith.

In the end I have come through this examination of Christianity with a stronger, but more nuanced, faith. In some ways I have become the unconventional thinker that I scorned during my conservative days. In other ways I have become the person of faith I wanted to be in my younger days. In the end I prefer unconventional truth to conventional wisdom. Dangerous truth is always better than prepackaged orthodoxy.

Now I preach with more conviction because what I preach has been tested. I invite you to travel this path. But I warn you, it isn’t easy or popular. As Jesus said, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” But it is worth it.

Ashes to Ashes

I admit that I have not always been enthusiastic about Ash Wednesday services. As a Baptist the holiday has seemed too “Catholic.” Many Baptist churches do not even observe Lent. During my ministry I have always acknowledged the official start to Lent, but usually with a Lenten Bible Study. No ashes.

In my final five years as a pastor I participated in an ecumenical service held at a nearby Congregational church each Ash Wednesday. But never a palm ash graced my forehead. Then a few years ago they began offering ashes on the palm or the back of your hand. I gave it a try. It was meaningful.

Then last night I attended the Ash Wednesday service at the Community Church of Sandwich, where I was a pastor for many years. The words, hymns, and quiet of the service spoke to me. “Ashes to ashes,” the preacher intoned.

It just so happened that earlier that day my wife and I had gone out for a Valentine’s Day lunch at a Chinese restaurant. On the way home we caught a glimpse of snow-capped Mount Chocorua in the distance. She mentioned our plans to have our ashes scattered at the summit of that peak after our deaths.

“I wonder who will bring our ashes up there,” she wondered aloud. “Our kids,” I replied. “Maybe our grandkids.” Then a few hours later I was listening to the preacher say the words “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

For months I have been reading the first century Roman philosopher Seneca as part of my morning devotions. (I read a portion of the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Stoics.) I am on the second volume of a collection of works by the Stoic philosophers. I am presently in the middle of Seneca’s famous essay, entitled “On the Shortness of Life.”

It all seemed to fit. Suffering from vertigo for the last five weeks and having to walk with a cane has made me especially conscious of my vulnerability. I greet other people with canes. We compare canes. There is a cane camaraderie. A friend loaned me a crampon to attach to the end of my cane so I can navigate icy terrain.

I am now acutely aware of, and empathize with, older folks who have a difficult time walking. I know it is only a matter of weeks or days (I pray) before I am cane-free and skipping down the road. But for now I am very conscious that I am not immune to the Law of Entropy.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Infirmity and mortality put life in perspective. They bestow wisdom, which gives our days meaning. Life is precious because it is brief and fragile. “O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12) That is what I learned on Ash Wednesday.