Never say good things can't happen

So, I have recently developed a friendship with a Lutheran Vicar, Nadia, who pastors a church called House for all Sinners and Saints. We come from VERY different theological (and therefore) practical perspectives, but through our friendship God has shown Himself bigger than our meager understanding of him.

Nadia is writing a book that everyone should own, entitled Salvation on the Small Screen. In it, she chronicles 24 consecutive hours of Trinity Broadcasting Network, and keeps a running total of how much you would need to spend if you bought all the stuff they pawned off on you each hour.

Over our friendship, we have learned much from each other, and have been mutually encouraged by one another. I was honored that she has chosen to write about me in her last chapter. Here is the excerpt:

Something has happened over the last few months of writing this book that is so beautiful, and nothing I would ever have anticipated: I have a wonderful new friendship with an evangelical pastor. I'm certain this would not have happened even a year ago, but rather than my recent exposure to the "other Christians" serving to further entrench me in my progressive Christian ghetto, it has made me more open to my Christian neighbors so to speak. I'm not sure why this is, perhaps this is due to the fact that I've been forced in the process of criticizing TBN to also look closely at the holes in my own tradition. Anyway, I now have an evangelical friend. He's even the pastor of a church I wrote a heavily mixed review about on my blog, and he still wants to be my friend, which makes me feel even worse in only the way true grace can. He began to show up to the monthly Theology Pub I hostess. Having just graduated from a very conservative seminary, I like to think he comes because he's never actually heard good theology before and he secretly loves it. I'm certain he has an entirely different explanation. The point is that we have become friends. Recently we met to discuss a sermon he was working on the concerned suffering and the cross. I came with a few pages of notes on Luther's Theology of the Cross which he genuinely found intriguing if not helpful. As the discussion continued he mentioned that he was wanting to use a particular passage in Colossians "where Paul was trying to say…" I stopped him. "You know" I offered "that we don't really think Paul wrote Colossians". "Neither do we" he countered "We think God did". We laughed. Hard. And after high-fiveing each other we went on with our conversation. It was so beautiful.

Another time when I was struggling with a particularly unattractive personality defect (let's just call it sin), I didn't think of my Lutheran friends, I thought, I want a good solid evangelical to pray with me, and voila! Josh to the spiritual rescue.

I think in the end Josh and I are able to acknowledge that both of our traditions are inadequate and have found that our friendship helps us both make up for a little part of that inadequacy.

My full immersion into the world of TBN and a Christianity that can seem like it's from another planet entirely, has, rather than strengthening my confidence in the sufficiency of my own Lutheran tradition has actually weakened it. I see the holes.



God is good, isn't He? My friend, Nadia, I am incredibly grateful for you. Keep up His Good Work.