Excerpted from John D. Caputo’s On Religion:

We say that we want the future to be “bright,” “promising,” “open.”  The force of the future is to prevent the present from closing in on us, from closing us up.  The future pries open the present by promising us the possibility of something new, the chance of something different, something that will transform the present into something else.

Let us make a distinction here.  There is a relatively foreseeable future, the future for which we are planning, the future on which we are all hard at work, the future we are trying to provide for when we save for our retirement or when a corporate team sets up a long-term plan.  Let us call that the “future present,” by which I mean the future of the present, the future to which the present is tending, the momentum of the present into a future that we can more or less see coming.  I have no intention of lightly dismissing this future.  Institutional long-term plans, retirement plans, life insurance policies, plans for the future education of our children, all such things are very serious, and it is foolish and irresponsible to proceed without them.

But there is another future, another thought of the future, a relation to the future which is the future that is unforeseeable, that will take us by surprise, that will come like a thief in the night and shatter the comfortable horizons of expectation that surround the present.  Let us call this the “absolute future.”  When it comes to the relative future, the future present, we have “reasonable expectations,” “cautious optimism,” “bulls and bears,” but as regards the absolute future we must be like the lilies of the field who sow not, nor do they reap, but who are willing to go with what God provides, which also means that they are ready for anything.  For the relative future we need a good mind, a decent computer, and horse sense, those three; for the absolute future, we need hope, faith, and love, these three.

With the “absolute” future we are pushed to the limits of the possible, fully extended, at our wits’ end, having run up against something that is beyond us, beyond our powers and potentialities, beyond our powers of disposition, pushed to the point where only the great passions of faith and love and hope will see us through.  With the “absolute future,” I maintain, we set foot for the first time on the shore of the “religious”…

With a notion like the absolute future, we move, or we are moved, past the circle of the present and of the foreseeable future, past the manageable prospects of the present, beyond the sphere in which we have some mastery, beyond the domain of sensible possibilities that we can get our hands on, into a darker and more uncertain and unforeseeable region, into the domain of “God knows what” (literally!).  Here we can at best feel our way, like a blind man with a stick, unsure and unsteady, trying to be prepared for something that will take us by surprise, which means trying to prepare for something for which we cannot be prepared.  We cross over the border of rational planning methods, venturing into the sort of thing that makes corporate managers nervous, venturing out onto terra incognito.

The absolute future is not much help in planning an investment strategy, where the idea is to guess the trends; nonetheless, as every fund manager eventually finds out, it belongs irreducibly to the structure of life in time.  This is the sphere of the impossible, of something of whose possibility we just cannot conceive.  But of course, the impossible happens, which is the import of the story of the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.  So it is not simply or absolutely impossible, like “p and not-p,” which would reduce it to incoherence, but what the French philosopher Jacques Derrida calls “the impossible,” meaning something whose possibility we did not and could not foresee, something that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, that has never entered into the mind of human beings (1 Cor 2:9).

So I am plainly advising us to revisit the idea of the impossible and to see our way clear to thinking the possibility of the impossible, of the impossible, of the possible as the “im-possible,” and to think of God as the “becoming possible of the impossible.”

Q Our church can’t seem to get an effective outreach effort going. What’s working these days?

A Recently I read about one church’s attempt at outreach that included hiring a petting zoo and giving elephant rides to get people in the door so the church could hit them up with a gospel presentation. With all due respect to that particular effort, I have a hard time believing that God needs a circus in order to connect with people in our communities.

A more effective and natural means of connecting with your community is to get involved with events and things already going on. As one critic of the church recently quipped, “How come you Christians don’t show up at anything that you can’t control?” That’s hard to hear, but worth considering.

Check out the community events calendar in your local newspaper and get involved! You’ll find things like book clubs, poetry readings, musical performances, ecological preservation gatherings, neighborhood association meetings, and more! Certainly these are the kinds of things Christians also enjoy and love, and they provide a natural platform of common interest on which to build relationships without any pretense or ulterior motive. There is certainly nothing wrong with having outreach events, but perhaps it’s our turn to show up.

—Bryan Berghoef

This FAQ appeared in the Banner in October 2010.

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Q I often wonder if I’m a genuine Christian because I’m not actively sharing my faith. My attempts at outreach or evangelism seem phony and inappropriate.  What should I do?

A If you’re trying to talk to someone about your faith because you feel pressured to or because of some misconception about what a genuine Christian is, your attempts will be phony and inappropriate.

In our cultural context today, relationships are the most fertile ground for the gospel. The days of showing up and knocking on people’s doors with a “plan for their life” are over. Think of the last time a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon knocked on your door. What was your reaction?  Exactly.

Now think of the last time someone shared with you a favorite recipe or a story about how his child just learned to ride a bike or about a great movie she just watched—no doubt it was natural and unrehearsed. Sharing a story about God can and should be just like that.

A true Christian witness doesn’t need to think about saying the right thing or inserting the right verse because his or her life is focused on following Jesus and living out the kingdom of God. This kind of authentic faith speaks for itself.

Develop friendships with people outside of your Christian circle—people you meet at the bookstore, a favorite restaurant, or at the office. Invite a casual acquaintance over for dinner. Offer to help him with a house project. Get to know her over coffee. Seek such a person out as a friend rather than as a target, and your words and life will be seen and heard differently.

In this context faith issues can become a natural part of your conversations, rather than a forced and sudden presentation. Relax and entrust the whole thing to God. As you do, you’ll find that God has a way of arriving in unsurprising ways and places.

—Bryan Berghoef

This FAQ appeared in The Banner in April 2010.

A church in west Michigan recently decided that it is no longer a “church,” but a religious community open to all beliefs.

Many are responding by declaring this a tragedy.

Now there is certainly something to mourn when a community seems to turn its back on its original tradition. Yet I wonder if the common reaction that this is a horrible and tragic event is the only way to view this. Perhaps our own response is in some ways the tragic one. We see this development and fear. We fear the unknown. We fear different beliefs. We fear unbelief.

But maybe there is a bright side here. This community is not turning its back on Christianity so much as openly welcoming people of various beliefs. There is something to admire in this, I would think.

Too many of us instantly invalidate any belief systems other than our own. We hear the words “Jew,” “Muslim” or “atheist” and assume there is nothing useful or valid in such perspectives. That itself is a tragedy.

Perhaps in our Christian religious communities, we have become like some of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, who had no space for anyone who had a thought or perspective that didn’t line up with their own. Jesus spent time with those who were marginalized in his society. Perhaps these people are the marginalized in ours.

In that light, maybe a church that decides to open its doors to such folks is not descending, but ascending. How? By acknowledging the image of God that is present in all of us — and being honest enough to engage and respect people with the positions they actually hold, rather than make sure they submit to a full doctrinal examination before they even are allowed in the door. One would hope that becoming more like Christ makes you more Christian, not less.

I wonder if this community, in making space for more than Christianity, will facilitate more honest interactions and conversations between Christians and those of other faiths than will ever happen in our traditional churches.

Some of you are thinking, “A worship service is really a gathering to worship God, and a Christian worship service is a gathering directed toward the triune God of historical Christianity, so clearly it is entirely appropriate for such a gathering to be strictly ‘Christian.'”

Yes. I agree. But the truth is, most people of other faiths would likely never even contemplate showing up for a gathering at our churches, and I can’t help but think that Jesus, in all his Jewishness and lack of proper attire, might not be welcome there either.

The communities I grew up in were not lacking in such churches.

What they were lacking were places where the religious space is open to honest dialogue and interaction, where people can be respected — whatever their views.

Far from a tragedy, I would say this change is a welcome addition to the spiritual landscape.

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Bryan Berghoef is the pastor of Watershed Church, located at the Village in the Grand Traverse Commons. He also facilitates weekly Pub Theology conversations at Right Brain Brewery and is a member of ACORD: The Area Council on Religious Diversity.

This article originally appeared  in the Traverse City Record-Eagle on August 21, 2010.