I am so sick of America right now. Not the beauty of it, not the idea of it...but the reality of 300+ million people screaming at each other. We're still overwhelmingly wealthy but we run around bitching and moaning about everything. It's like we're tired of being happy.
We find this the most in our current political situation. On the one hand there exists Trump and his enablers in whatever remains of the 'conservative' movement. These are the people who have all the political power and are seeking to use that power only for the benefit of themselves. These people are easy to mock, though they see themselves as the virtuous persecuted moral majority. They have lost all spiritual and political credibility with many of us, but their desire to Take Back America, to Make America Great Again continues on in their self-righteous pea-brained minds. On the other hand is the 'liberal' movement. These people actually have the upper hand in the culture wars at the movement. Americans as a whole are tolerant and increasingly acceptable of all that they stand for in sexuality, in lifestyle choices, in whatever is the issue of the moment. They may have no political sense at this point beyond just screaming about how unfair the other side is, but they are winning the long game. I have no home here, either. Calling wrong right will never be right. Accepting all things, and demanding others do the same, is no way to get me on their side. Some things are simply wrong, and deserve to be called wrong.
Both sides have so much of what they want, but they're never happy, and led by the increasingly shrill ideological press telling people what they want to hear, they just get angrier and angrier. And their yelling is giving me a headache. I'm tired of both, and just once I'd like somebody who is a good solid moderate, like I still think 70% of American really are, who will speak on my behalf. Who will say,
-I don't really like big government and taxes, but we have to pay for things like roads and schools and national security so that we don't burden the future generations with our bills. Having to do stupid fundraisers so that after-school activities is not healthy. Letting our infrastructure crumble because we've had to gut the transportation budget so that we can again cut taxes is stupid. Things cost money, and squeezing these things down until government does the job poorly and then claiming that all government is inefficient and wasteful is, shall we say, moronic. Let's figure out what we need to buy, get the money to do it, and do it well. I couldn't care less about the big government vs. small government argument anymore...I just want good government.
-I accept that people may have different lifestyle choices. This is America, after all, the land of the free. I need to accept that you may live differently than I do, and though I may not like it, I can accept it. But by gosh, stop telling me that I'm a bigot if I think homosexual behavior is a sin; this is not the same thing as racial civil rights! Fine...you can be married and have all the legal rights you want, but stop telling me I have to approve of it. And stop saying I'm a Nazi if I think people should use bathrooms that their genitals suggest they should. Stop it with this politically correct nonsense that the military, a place of group cohesion above all things, has to accept everybody's individual cross-dressing choices.
-I am thankful that we still have a great social safety net in which the poorest and neediest amongst us are provided for; it's a God-given blessing to take care of some, and in fact there will always be people like this. But stop thinking I have to enable people to live lazy, fat, unhealthy lives. I'm sick of making charity calls at people's houses when they can't pay their utility bills and noticing that they have a 60" TV in the front room. They make their choices in freedom...but don't expect me to pay for them.
-I think it's great that America is a land of opportunity. Technology and entrepreneur risk allow people to become wealthy. But stop telling me that it's fair that we keep suppressing wages of the poorest amongst us even as we say that a rising tide lifts all boats. No, it doesn't. Too many people are sinking out there because tiny boats are flooded by the wakes of all the yachts. Raise the minimum wage already. If it means a billionaire has to sell a yacht once in awhile, fine. And stop with the argument, "If people on minimum wage just had more ambition, they wouldn't be on minimum wage." That's just stupid. There's a reason we don't let some people into medical school. Some people ain't smart. Some people are not good at many things. But they still have a right in the wealthiest culture in history to be able to live without worrying all the time, even if maybe we ought to make them take a personal finance course once in awhile.
Just looking at my above gripes makes me completely ineligible for public office. Somebody will call me intolerant or a libtard or think I am contradicting myself or something else...I'd be shouted down before I even got to the third line of my stump speech. But more than anything, I just can't be heard through the roar of the tumult. I'm not screaming these things out in ALT-CAPS and so my voice isn't going to be nearly as loud as the idiots that have taken to Breitbart or Vox. There's simply too much common sense for people in an ideological rage to hold onto. My political career would be over long before it started.
Yet somewhere out there somebody has enough sense to unite those of us in the middle who are sick of both sides screaming at us and making us afraid, and they can do it better than I do without offending everybody. Maybe we're too far gone, I don't know...but as it stands now, I'm just about sick of it all.
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Evangelism and Bible Study
This one will be unpopular. Hold on.
The opening line in any Church of Christ evangelistic move is always the same: "Would you like to have a Bible study?" Throughout my life I have acquired dozens, if not hundreds, of pamphlets that all center on a study of the Scriptures in order to bring somebody to the point of baptism. Though they all have their quirks, all jump from Scripture to Scripture along this journey. This was how I was trained to do 'personal work', to bring people to Christ.
As I have gotten older, however, I am finding that this is not the best method for today. Quite simply, in my opinion beginning with Bible sutdy focuses far more on the head, about finding out about Christ and about the church than it does on the heart, in which somebody follows Jesus.
It's not that I think Bible study is bad...far from it. But I do wonder whether or not we should rather focus upon Bible study more after somebody is baptized rather than when somebody is simply learning God's will for the first time. Because my experience is that learning to be a genuine follower of Jesus Christ is not so much about knowing all the right things to know, but rather a heart that loves Jesus and sees his impact in the lives of other believers. Isn't this what Hebrews 1:1-2 is saying about how God speaks to people today, or how John 1:1-5 speaks of Jesus as being the 'word' of God? Most of the people I have had the honor to baptize in my life chose to be baptized not because of a perfect kind of head knowledge, but rather because they had seen in me (and in others) the power of a changed, sanctified life. Later on they would study Scripture and want to know more detail of what that life looks like...but I wonder whether or not we have baptized a lot of heads and not so much their hearts.
Here's an example: many of the pamphlets I have looked at will have a long section about the need for the church. And that's absolutely right...the church is the body of Christ, and a new (or any) Christian cannot hope to thrive or grow without the church. But most pamphlets will speak about the church: the 'qualifications' of elders, what makes God happy in worship (prayer, the Lord's Supper, giving, Bible study, and especially non-instrumental music), and perhaps, in some of the more modern ones, the need for love. Yet again, while these things might be right in their teaching, often they do little to really draw somebody into the church. If a preacher or a church member has a private Bible study with somebody and that person is then baptized, most often to this point there has been little or no real contact with the church. No chance to see it as a place of love, fellowship, and good works. It's no wonder, then, that many new Christians quickly fall away from the church, because they never had a chance to know it!
Another problem with these kinds of studies is that many people today are not so willing to follow along the proof-text path. One might bring up a subject like the inspiration of Scripture...and usually most studies will jump straight towards 2 Timothy 3:16-17 or 2 Peter 1:20-21. Fair enough, this is how I was taught and I believe these truths. But then there are questions...reading the context, these Scriptures are speaking of the Old Testament, not the New, what then? Or should we immediately accept the statements from Scripture itself about its inspiration? Don't all religious texts (the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.) do this to some extent? Quickly this leads us down a path of subjects that many even faithful Christians do not know about. Simply following along the old paths that many were trained with are no longer enough.
I am more convinced than ever that evangelism, in this day and age, is not easy, but it is possible if we will allow time for people to see the life of Jesus within us. But we're not usually ready for that...we'd rather have them buy our understanding of things, and shake the dust off of our feet when they are not so ready to accept it.
We are Bible-believing Christians, but first and foremost we ought to be Jesus-following disciples. If we really live like this, people will be able to see him in us and that will make all the difference.
The opening line in any Church of Christ evangelistic move is always the same: "Would you like to have a Bible study?" Throughout my life I have acquired dozens, if not hundreds, of pamphlets that all center on a study of the Scriptures in order to bring somebody to the point of baptism. Though they all have their quirks, all jump from Scripture to Scripture along this journey. This was how I was trained to do 'personal work', to bring people to Christ.
As I have gotten older, however, I am finding that this is not the best method for today. Quite simply, in my opinion beginning with Bible sutdy focuses far more on the head, about finding out about Christ and about the church than it does on the heart, in which somebody follows Jesus.
It's not that I think Bible study is bad...far from it. But I do wonder whether or not we should rather focus upon Bible study more after somebody is baptized rather than when somebody is simply learning God's will for the first time. Because my experience is that learning to be a genuine follower of Jesus Christ is not so much about knowing all the right things to know, but rather a heart that loves Jesus and sees his impact in the lives of other believers. Isn't this what Hebrews 1:1-2 is saying about how God speaks to people today, or how John 1:1-5 speaks of Jesus as being the 'word' of God? Most of the people I have had the honor to baptize in my life chose to be baptized not because of a perfect kind of head knowledge, but rather because they had seen in me (and in others) the power of a changed, sanctified life. Later on they would study Scripture and want to know more detail of what that life looks like...but I wonder whether or not we have baptized a lot of heads and not so much their hearts.
Here's an example: many of the pamphlets I have looked at will have a long section about the need for the church. And that's absolutely right...the church is the body of Christ, and a new (or any) Christian cannot hope to thrive or grow without the church. But most pamphlets will speak about the church: the 'qualifications' of elders, what makes God happy in worship (prayer, the Lord's Supper, giving, Bible study, and especially non-instrumental music), and perhaps, in some of the more modern ones, the need for love. Yet again, while these things might be right in their teaching, often they do little to really draw somebody into the church. If a preacher or a church member has a private Bible study with somebody and that person is then baptized, most often to this point there has been little or no real contact with the church. No chance to see it as a place of love, fellowship, and good works. It's no wonder, then, that many new Christians quickly fall away from the church, because they never had a chance to know it!
Another problem with these kinds of studies is that many people today are not so willing to follow along the proof-text path. One might bring up a subject like the inspiration of Scripture...and usually most studies will jump straight towards 2 Timothy 3:16-17 or 2 Peter 1:20-21. Fair enough, this is how I was taught and I believe these truths. But then there are questions...reading the context, these Scriptures are speaking of the Old Testament, not the New, what then? Or should we immediately accept the statements from Scripture itself about its inspiration? Don't all religious texts (the Quran, the Book of Mormon, etc.) do this to some extent? Quickly this leads us down a path of subjects that many even faithful Christians do not know about. Simply following along the old paths that many were trained with are no longer enough.
I am more convinced than ever that evangelism, in this day and age, is not easy, but it is possible if we will allow time for people to see the life of Jesus within us. But we're not usually ready for that...we'd rather have them buy our understanding of things, and shake the dust off of our feet when they are not so ready to accept it.
We are Bible-believing Christians, but first and foremost we ought to be Jesus-following disciples. If we really live like this, people will be able to see him in us and that will make all the difference.
Saturday, July 1, 2017
The American President
Yesterday we arrived home after a much-needed week-long vacation out into the mountains. It was nice to get away, and nice to be 'off the grid' for a few days as I could not get cell phone service many places we went. Not being able to Twitter or Facebook was healthy for me.
Of course, coming back in yesterday there was once again an instance where my first reaction was "Trump said WHAT?" Once again, our adolescent president took to his Twitter handle to say something stupid and vulgar about people whom he feels hurt him. Regardless of when you are reading this, you don't have to check the date, as likely he will say something just as offensive a month or a year from now, just as he said something stupid a month or a year ago. It never ends with this man. Even his supporters may shake their heads and say that he shouldn't say that, but they continue to support this man and so enable his idiocy.
However, after a week of seeing America, even as I enjoyed our trip and am blessed to live in a country with beauty everywhere, I am more and more convinced that he is truly an American President. That is, he actually represents a good percentage of my fellow citizens. A few hours west of here driving through a small town I saw a huge sign that had in crude printing, "Hillary Urine A**hole". I have no idea what that means, exactly, but I am sure that it is not word of praise.
A few days later, I was driving a state highway doing 75 in a 65. A huge pickup was behind me and obviously wanted me to drive faster. When he finally got past me, he gave me the middle finger...not just for a moment, but for a good 15-20 seconds...he wanted me to know for certain how much he hated that I was only going 10 miles above the speed limit.
And then the other day we were visiting an amusement and water park in a large American city. Such places, as I get older, are more and more uncomfortable for me because of the teeming masses of people (I'm a bit of a claustrophobic), but it's not just that there are people there, but that these people who represent so much of America are really quite disgusting. Young couples who have no shame of PDA while waiting in lines, guys who have T-shirts with middle fingers on them to show how rebellious they are, and all kinds of people with terrible tattoos that they have to expose. Near the end of the day I was waiting in the overcrowded waterpark for my kids and a youngish woman with blue hair was screaming on her cell phone, "Mom, it's all just f***ing s**t!" I started to listen in as she screamed for a good ten minutes about how this had been a terrible day because all her friends started going their own directions. No great tragedy, I think, but for her it led to a profanity-laced tirade towards her mother.
Yes, this is the America that voted for Donald Trump. Vulgar, rude, and often disgusting. If we get the president that truly represents America, I don't think we could have made a better choice.
Of course, coming back in yesterday there was once again an instance where my first reaction was "Trump said WHAT?" Once again, our adolescent president took to his Twitter handle to say something stupid and vulgar about people whom he feels hurt him. Regardless of when you are reading this, you don't have to check the date, as likely he will say something just as offensive a month or a year from now, just as he said something stupid a month or a year ago. It never ends with this man. Even his supporters may shake their heads and say that he shouldn't say that, but they continue to support this man and so enable his idiocy.
However, after a week of seeing America, even as I enjoyed our trip and am blessed to live in a country with beauty everywhere, I am more and more convinced that he is truly an American President. That is, he actually represents a good percentage of my fellow citizens. A few hours west of here driving through a small town I saw a huge sign that had in crude printing, "Hillary Urine A**hole". I have no idea what that means, exactly, but I am sure that it is not word of praise.
A few days later, I was driving a state highway doing 75 in a 65. A huge pickup was behind me and obviously wanted me to drive faster. When he finally got past me, he gave me the middle finger...not just for a moment, but for a good 15-20 seconds...he wanted me to know for certain how much he hated that I was only going 10 miles above the speed limit.
And then the other day we were visiting an amusement and water park in a large American city. Such places, as I get older, are more and more uncomfortable for me because of the teeming masses of people (I'm a bit of a claustrophobic), but it's not just that there are people there, but that these people who represent so much of America are really quite disgusting. Young couples who have no shame of PDA while waiting in lines, guys who have T-shirts with middle fingers on them to show how rebellious they are, and all kinds of people with terrible tattoos that they have to expose. Near the end of the day I was waiting in the overcrowded waterpark for my kids and a youngish woman with blue hair was screaming on her cell phone, "Mom, it's all just f***ing s**t!" I started to listen in as she screamed for a good ten minutes about how this had been a terrible day because all her friends started going their own directions. No great tragedy, I think, but for her it led to a profanity-laced tirade towards her mother.
Yes, this is the America that voted for Donald Trump. Vulgar, rude, and often disgusting. If we get the president that truly represents America, I don't think we could have made a better choice.
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