A Response to 'Salt & Light Resistance'

Recently I became aware of an open letter in our movement of Churches of Christ from a group calling themselves 'Salt & Light Resistance'.  I read the letter and then co-signed what they were saying.  A few days later, I got an email back from them asking why I signed, as this letter had been recognized in our 'national newspaper of record', the Christian Chronicle.  I've spent some time thinking about why I have signed to this letter, yet remained publicly quiet on so many other things, even as I (rarely) voice my frustrations, screaming into the universe, in this blog setting.  So here was my response.  

I co-signed the open letter from Salt & Light Resistance recently, not as a Democrat or Republican, not as a political liberal or conservative, but first and foremost as a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  While not perfect, I believe that the letter does a good job in promoting the values of this Kingdom in opposition to the many things in our nation today that are the very antithesis of the Kingdom.  

I feel compelled to mention, however, that the warnings given in the letter might well not be as strong as they could have been.  One of the most discouraging aspects of the past decade has been found in a consistent 82% of so-called 'evangelical' Christians voting and resolutely supporting President Trump and his MAGA minions.  I would suspect that the numerical percentage of those within Churches of Christ are similar; in other words, about 4 out of 5 of those of us in Churches of Christ who proclaim on Sundays that Jesus is Lord, that we are called to live faithfully before God in all ways, look at President Trump and his actions and believe that they are good and even godly.  To me, this is the sign that we have become a Biblically illiterate people, and that our moral foundations are not only shaken but have withered to the point that they are almost non-existent.

Recently, as part of a political stunt in which the Bible is being read at the White House in honor of our 250th anniversary, President Trump read a passage from 2 Chronicles 7:11-22.  It's a passage of Scripture that speaks to a people who might one day in the future think of themselves as God's people but have in fact lost their way.  In it, the Lord appears to Solomon and speaks of the need for his people to 'humble themselves', to 'pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways'.  I was struck by the gall and arrogance of this president reading such words with a straight face.  Can we ever think of our president, whose intention to build ballrooms for his wealthy benefactors and erect arches to celebrate his 'triumphs' (I use that word laughingly) and imprint his image on statues and passports and monuments and even currency, as being a man who humbles himself?  Can we ever think of our president, who seems to relish rounding up and expelling 'the Other' and blaming them for all of our ills, seeking out the face of the Lord?  Can we ever think of our president, who glories in enriching himself through scams such as cryptocurrency and 'Trump Phone' and quid pro quo arrangements with foreign governments, as ever turning from wicked ways?  

It should not be surprising that we live with such wickedness in the Oval Office; we would do well to re-consider David Lipscomb's warnings about civil government and the way they turn us away from God's Kingdom.  Evil has existed in the highest reaches of political power in every era.  But what has been most painful to me has been watching how so many Christians nod in approval at so many things he has done, or at least want to join in his red-hat cult of personality.  Can we not see that in following his evil we are going down much the same road as our Israelite ancestors?  I have heard many fellow Christians loudly proclaim that they believe God has sent President Trump our way to bless us.  But could it be that God has in fact sent him to curse us and bring destruction upon us?  Romans 1:18-32 reminds us three times that a people who engage in wickedness are given over to their sin; if we are a people who are upset about sexual immorality, why are we supporting a twice-divorced man who has engaged in numerous illicit affairs and has been accused by more than two dozen woman of sexual assault and (perhaps) even dipped his toes into the waters of pedophilia?  If we are a people who want to end malice and deceit, why are we supporting a man who recklessly lies about basic facts and spends several nights each week taking to social media to denounce anybody who will not lick his boots?  If we are a people who get upset about the world's haughtiness and boastfulness, why are we supporting a man who posts pictures of himself as Jesus and demands prizes and honors from anybody and everybody?  In President Trump, it seems to me that God may well have given given American over to the worst of her sins.  

Each week as I plan sermons and classes I try and remember the words of a mentor in my earliest days when I was asked to preach for one of the first times.  His words to me were simple: "Preach the Word!"  I have sought to take to heart those words in the thousands of times I have stood before God's people since.  But in recent years I have found such a disparity between what I read about in God's Word, versus the actions of those people who claim a kind of godliness but deny the very fundamentals of what a life as a Christ-follower looks like, that I am terrified for our nation's future, not to mention the future of the church.  Will we wake up and realize the peril that we are in?  

In closing, I need to say that this summer I am finishing up 31 years of full-time ministry in Churches of Christ.  I have been blessed to work with churches over those years who are made up of people from different walks of life, different political ideologies, and different cultural backgrounds, and I have been blessed that I have never had to endure an open split or even a loud rupture in the local church.  God's people are more resilient than we give them credit for.  But maybe it's now time for me to start becoming more vocal about naming evil for what it is.  To proclaim the Kingdom now also means that we must name those things in every era that stand against it.  

I Am Your Retribution

Recently in my daily Bible reading I read from Psalm 109 I came across these words: 

6 Appoint a wicked man against him; let an accuser stand at his right hand. When he is tried, let him come forth guilty; let his prayer be counted as sin! May his days be few; may another take his office! May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!  May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!  May the creditor seize all that he has; may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil!  Let there be none to extend kindness to him, nor any to pity his fatherless children!  May his posterity be cut off; may his name be blotted out in the second generation!  May the iniquity of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out!  Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth!  For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted, to put them to death.  He loved to curse; let curses come upon him! He did not delight in blessing; may it be far from him!  He clothed himself with cursing as his coat; may it soak into his body like water, like oil into his bones!

This hit home for me, because in my mind in recent weeks I have often thought about something like this for our current president and his adminitration.  The evil of Trump and his basket of deplorables has rarely been matched in the near 250 years of our nation.  It's not simply any one thing...but the cruelty to immigrants, the financial grift, the harm he has done to anything good our nation was doing, the appointment of like-minded depraved individuals...after awhile I cry out, as many do, 'How long, O Lord?  Why do you allow this to happen?'  Shouldn't we as people be taking up arms and removing these people, by force if we have to?  

Yet there's something about the Trump administration that gives me pause...could it be that God has sent him here to bring punishment upon our nation?  Throughout Scripture we find that when God decides to punish people, he often does one of two things.  The first is what we often think about: direct punishment.  Think Sodom and Gomorrah.  Think Herod being struck down and his body eaten by worms.  Think Israel being overrun by their enemies.  Each of these goes back to God directly bringing wrath upon individuals or nations.  

But a second way in which God comes after people is by allowing them to destroy themselves.  I think particularly of the words from Romans 1:18 and following:  For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

Three times in this passage, following various forms of sin within humanity, God says in effect, 'OK, that's what you want?  I'll give you up to those things.'  In effect, God is allowing people to suffer the consequences of their choices, and such things might well destroy them.  This is not God's desire, of course, but the hope is always that people will repent, call out to God, and turn away from sin.  Only then will God relent from his wrath.  

So...could it be that with the chaos of the past six months we are bearing the fallout of our unrepentant sin?  Think about some things that have defined the United States in recent years: gross materialism, sexual immorality, and self-absorption, to name just three things.  How have we been given over to these things to our destruction?  

We are, by almost any measure, the most powerful economy in human history, all designed to meet any and every human desire.  We dispose of things so quickly because we have so many more (newer! shinier!) things to take their place.  We crave stuff rather than the God who has blessed us in so many ways; this is sometimes called idolatry.  So how might God let us be punished?  Who is the epitome in our nation of wealth?  Could it be a man who loves a gold-plated toilet seat and has gilded the Oval Office?  Could it be a man whose family is grafting milllions of dollars from foreign investors (golf courses, casinos, hotels) by making his own interests more important than the nation's?  Could it be a man whose recent attachment to crypto has caused those trying to get his ears to fill the coffers of his family?  Has not God given us over to the ideal of what we crave by showing us the depravity of its worst excesses?  

We are a nation that has become obsessed with sexuality.  Sure, there are some who gnash their teeth about LGBTQ or various forms of sexual immorality, but look a bit closer and they are no different than anybody else, only seeking to take away the rights that they themselves have.  People define themselves in our modern era by their sexuality, and believe that nobody (not even God) has any right to tell them to temper their desires to any more than what God has authorized.  So how might God let us be punished?  Perhaps by electing a man (with 82 % support of 'evangelical' Christians) who has more divorces in his life than all other presidents combined?  Perhaps by putting into power somebody who has routinely bragged through history of his sexual conquests?  Perhaps by making into the emperor one who is an adjudicated rapist and likely child molester?  Has not Donald Trump become the person that embodies our sexual depravity?  

We are a people who are fully and completely self-absorbed.  While there may be some benefits of the  therapeutic process, the adoption of the navel-gazing mindset in our nation is complete.  Life is about how much I am to be happy.  Get in my way, and I'll destroy you.  I am the center of my own universe.  Rather than think about how we are called to serve our neighbors and love those who aren't quite like us, even many Christians today live with a mindset that is as anti-other and unChristian as those who know nothing about the love of God.  So how might God let us be punished?  Maybe it's by putting in charge of this country the most self-absorbed person of the 21st century, a man-child whose every waking thought is 'how can I gratify every desire I have today?'  Perceived enemies are to be destroyed.  Aliens and strangers are cast out without due process.  The 'other' means nothing to us.  They're 'not like us'.  

Maybe you think I'm going way off the deep end here...maybe we really do need to rise up and destroy these wicked people who do wicked things.  But I think back to just over a year ago when Trump was campaigning, and one thing that he said over and over again to his supporters:  "I am your justice.  I am your retribution."  Could it be that he didn't really know what he was saying, that God was warning us through these words about might well happen if we don't turn from our evil ways?  Could Trump be the retribution upon our nation, the instrument of his divine wrath?  

However you choose to see Trump, his ascension to power for me is a call for our nation to repent...and that's not something I am seeing happening.  His supporters are glorifying him and his wickedness, while his opponents are just infuriated and want to see his downfall.  Few people seem to be seeing this time in history from a spiritual perspective.  Our de-Christianization may well be finding its nadir in the reign of Donald Trump.  

Weddings, funerals, and a changing religious landscape

I guess my wife and I were something of trailblazers.  When we decided to get married over 20 years ago, we had two ideas: I wanted a small wedding, and she wanted to get married on the beach.  So we decided to go to Myrtle Beach and invited only her parents and mine; my brother, who lives a few hours from there, decided to invite himself as well.  We had a nice simple wedding on the beach done by an old guy we found online, went out as a family for dinner, and started our honeymoon.  

When I first began in ministry over 30 years ago, most people still got married at a church.  Part of my job was occasionally meeting people that had no connection to the churches at which I ministered and finding time to do a brief bit of premarital counseling before walking them through the sanctuary and fellowship hall and letting them plan their big to-do.  Often times I would never hear from them again after the wedding, but I wished them well and hoped that in at least some tiny way the need for Christ and the church would have rubbed off on them.  

I got to thinking about this recently, as the daughter of a cousin of mine got married last weekend at a venue not far from here.  Even as these were people who were raised in church, I don't get the impression that getting married at a church building crossed their mind.  Instead, they chose one of the many venues that are found in the city and countryside these days...often a barn with a pretty view, a banquet hall with plenty of room for a dance floor, perhaps even an old church building that has been repurposed for weddings.  When was the last time I went to an actual church wedding?  It's gotta be over a decade, I think.  

In some ways I don't feel too bad about this...administration and wedding plans have always been the two things I have enjoyed the least about ministry.  Starting about 10 years ago, I made the conscious decision to try and avoid doing weddings for anybody I didn't know...but now it's been years since I've even been asked.  Many of the times I officiated at weddings I always felt I had the same value in the eyes of the couple as a color scheme or the right kind of flowers in the reception hall.  

Yet watching the change over these years has also brought me some sorrow, this idea that people in our country have bypassed churches, even God, in their weddings.  While I am glad that people are still deciding to get married (as long as I don't have to do it!) rather than simply live together, this diminishing of religion in one of the most sacred moments of a person's life speaks volumes about the real place of Christianity in America.  There's a line in the wedding vows in which a person makes a commitment to their spouse 'before God and before these witnesses' that now is no longer necessary, at least in part.  

As much as I have never cared to do weddings, I have always felt more at home in funerals.  Funerals actually allowed me to do my job of ministry, serving and blessing families in some of the most painful moments of their existence.  It's a terrible time, but I actually feel useful, and over the years I think that I've been able to bring some real healing for people.  While I never say that I 'want' to do a funeral, I always feel honored to do so.  

But the cultural landscape on this, too, is changing.  While I still get called to do funerals occasionally, more and more I have noticed that for many people, even Christians, these are being replaced by a 'celebration of life'.  My experience in these things is that, while at times they are still being held in funeral homes or even churches, God and his eternal promises are rarely in view.  Rather, we sit and random people (almost never ministers) talk about what a good person ____ happened to be.  Maybe they went to a church, probably not, but that's not what defined the deceased.  Instead of the goal of life being a desire to be with the Lord forever in eternity, it's enough that such people live on in the hearts of others.  

This year I have pondered a lot about the change in my country...it's easy to point out the apostasy with which many Christians have paraded about in their Christian nationalism or worship of their orange god.  But it may be that when the history (and decline) of Christianity in the United States in the 21 century is written, the change we have made in funerals and weddings may have been the canary in the coal mine.  If religious faith, even a shallow kind of religiosity, is removed from two of the most important elements of a culture's ritual identity, what does that say about how important it is in our daily lives?  A lot, I think.

Pro-Life?

It appears that almost a half-century abortion is going to be illegal again in many states.  Roe v Wade is finally going to be overturned.  The prayers of many Christians in this country it seems have finally been answered.  

As a Christian there is a large part of me that is happy at this development.  If, as many of us believe, abortion is something tantamount to murder, for it to come to an end (or at least be more strictly prohibited in many places) is something to give praise to God.  It appears that we are becoming a more 'pro-life' country after all.  

But are we?  In the weeks since the leak has come out that the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v Wade, I've thought a lot about abortion in a way that I've never thought about it before.  In truth, it's never been a big issue for me.  As a male who has been faithful to one woman and am grateful for the two children I have, I have not had to worry that my 'seed' has been scattered out in places where it should not be.  I don't lay awake wondering if I have other kids out there by other women.  In some ways for me abortion is more of a symptom of the problem of infidelity and casual sex.  

But I also know that for many it's not quite this simple.  While many abortions really are about convenience, there are others for whom it is a health issue for the mother, or a socio-economic desire to not stretch limited resources of a poor family, or about putting an end to the trauma of a rape or bad relationship.  I would doubt that very many abortions are as selfishly considered as pro-lifers would have us believe.  

And then there's the question of whether or not it's really murder.  I've come to think that in the last 3-4 months of a pregnancy, when the fetus is now viable outside the womb, that murder isn't too strong a word to describe the termination of a pregnancy, if there are no other complicating factors.  But in the first 4-5 months of a pregnancy, when the feteus is not viable, I'm not sure murder is at all a fair term.  Is abortion in the fourth month of a pregnancy, perhaps not long after a woman unexpectedly realizes that she's pregnant, anything fundamentally different than taking birth control pills?  My wife has used the little yellow pills (to great effect) since we've been married during the time when having a child was not desirable: in the first few months of marriage, in the time between pregnancies, and now as we are both squarely middle age and not at all desiring to have a child.  Others have not been so lucky...even as they use accepted birth control practices, it is still possible to 'slip one past the goalie' and get pregnant...not something all families, even the most loving ones, desire.  Should we punish them because some have this sentimental view that children are 'sacred', a gift from God?

Yet as I've thought about this issue the past few weeks, the one thing that I keep coming back to again and again with this issue is the idea of what it means to be 'pro-life'.  That's a term that those against abortion have taken as their self-identifying label.  But I've learned that it's a very particular type of 'pro-life'.  While these generalizations are not true for everybody, they are more true than not.

-Many would identify as pro-death penalty.  That is, a living human being deserves death for some crime that he/she has done.  

-Many are very much pro-second amendment in that they want no restrictions on guns or firearms.  Even though hundreds of people die in this country each day due to gun violence, they want no limitations on their guns because of their sense of 'freedom'.  

-Many showed themselves during the pandemic of the past two years that they don't really care about the lives of others.  Many 'pro-life' people were the ones most against mask regulations or social distancing or even vaccines that study after study showed saved lives.  Even as over a million people died in part from the pandemic in this country alone, these were the ones who used slogans like 'my body, my choice' when it came time to refusing simple measures that would have kept people from dying.  

-Many are very pro-military, not just in national defense but in American militarism.  The very purpose of the military was summed up by the late Rush Limbaugh, who said that the purpose of the military was 'to kill people and break things'.  

-Finally, many who have marched and demanded that abortion be ended care nothing for the quality of life of that child once he/she has been born.  This is shown by their opposition to public school funding, expanded health care, and other programs that will enhance a child's life.  The moment that child leaves the womb, for many pro-lifers, is the end of our responsiblity as a society to ensure that this child grows up healthy and prepared for what life throws at them.  

Are these all overgeneralizations?  Perhaps.  Some people are consistently pro-life to their credit.  But most people, especially those who proudly wear the label, aren't pro-life at all.  They're hypocrites.  And we need to call them out for what they are.  If we are going to absolutize the value of a human life, shouldn't we do this across the board, not just as it applies to women's health issues?  Because if we don't, 'pro-life' is in fact just a hidden way of controlling the lives of women and telling them what they can and can't do, even as 'freedom' becomes the absolute for so many in our culture today.  

From Young Conservative to Middle-Aged Disciple

I will admit it: I've changed.  Part of me wants to fall back on the expression, "I didn't leave my party, they left me."  And while that may be partially true (the GOP of today is a dried-out shell of what it was 30 years ago), I've also distanced myself from much of the ideology and politics of my youth.  Occasionally people I knew long ago will be surprised that I don't support Trumpism, that I believe the current movement of mainstream conservatism to be wholly unChristian and pagan.  After they accuse me of supporting abortionists and radical leftists (I don't) because in their dualistic mindset you're either a True Believer or in league with devil democrats, a few may still have enough of a curious mind as to ask why I've changed.  So, having thought about this over a long period of time, let me explain.  

I grew up Republican.  My parents didn't talk about politics much directly, but I knew that they were big supporters of Ronald Reagan and occasional donors to the GOP.  I inherited from them and the conservative community in which I grew up a sense that conservatism was morally pure.  On the one hand I was told that Democrats wanted to support gay rights, abortion on demand, women in the military, and tax increases for hard-working Americans.  Republicans, however, were morally superior.  They supported 'traditional family values', an honest work ethic, and a sense that America was God's great blessing to the world, and even the endless wars we seemed to export were part of a greater moral crusade.  And so if Democrats were not quite the America-hating enemy they would someday become, they were yet Wrong.  I absorbed this mindset as being the proper patriotic Christian worldview with little teenaged rebellion.  

At age 17 I entered into a Christian university of my religious heritage that had a decidedly conservative ethos.  Its leaders in the past had been anti-communist activisits and its leaders in the present were God-fearing American patriots.  The economics courses in which I minored had a decidedly free-market bent (Free To Choose by Milton Friedman was the sacred text).  The American Studies program of which I was an invited member invited speakers like Ed Meese, Alan Keyes, and William F Buckley.  And so while one of my main polysci professors (who has long left there) was a closet liberal and covertly challenged some of the America-first proclaimations that seemed so comonplace on the rest of the campus, it was not suprising that I was strengthened in my resolve to be a good Republican and conservative.  That, after all, was what being a Christian was all about, right?  

After a few years of trying to figure out what to do with my life, I started graduate school in Christian ministry.  While it was of the same university umbrella as my undergraduate work, this school, instead of being in a small rural town, was located in very urban Memphis.  While there I was exposed to a much more critical understanding of my faith, moving me beyond childhood Sunday school religion to a more disciplined and cohesive kind of discipleship that demanded that I read all of Scripture, not just those parts that affirmed my faith.  While I was still very much a conservative Christian at this point, simply being exposed to other ways of thinking became a very important part of my Christian journey.  

And this journey continued on as I began my first ministry positions, first working in campus ministry in the midwest and then as a pulpit preacher for a small rural church on the west coast.  That both of these places were outside of the Bible belt (or at least on the edge of it) might have been important: the only churches that were willing to hire an untested and unmarried minister were ones that had few other options.  Most of my classmates who had more charisma and more family and more connections were able to settle into a classic southern religion heritage, but I was not.  And quickly it became apparent that no longer was I 'comfortable' in my setting; while I still preached with churches in conservative parts of America (and yes, rural Oregon may be the single most politically conservative place I've ever lived), it wasn't so much of a religious conservatism of doing right and pious living that surrounded me.  Rather, it was a kind of ideology that had shed much of its religious heritage and was more firmly rooted in an individualistic ethos of "It's all about me.  Government is evil.  I do what I want to do, and nobody can tell me otherwise."  As I get older in hindsight I can see that in fact this is what mainstream American conservatism was becoming, but at the time it seemed simply a product of the place in which I lived.

This turned out to be a great challenge of faith to me, because as I began my fledgling ministry career, I was still a solid conservative.  Being unmarried and having far too much time on my hands, I began listening a lot more to the growing conservative media that began springing up at that time in response to the perception that mainstream news outlets were too liberal.  Rush Limbaugh became a daily listen.  Fox News became a fascination for me, and not just because of the cute blondes in the short skirts that seemed to be on every program.  And reading other crusading conservatives and connecting with other like-minded individuals on this new thing known as the 'World Wide Web' helped reaffirm much of what I believed.  Bill and Hillary Clinton were evil.  Liberals hated America.  Only conservatism could save America from the socialists who would destroy it.

Yet being in an area in which my social life was greatly restricted while being too socially awkward to do much about it, I had a lot more time to continue digging into the Scriptures and understand more of what it was that I preaching.  It's not that I tore off my old understandings, but I did start challenging them in a way that I had not before.  Reading the prophets of the Old Testament, for example, started to undermine my belief in prosperity as a proof of godliness.  In fact, it started to become clear to me that God wanted much more from me than to simply be a Good Religious Person...he wanted me to walk in his own Goodness.  Passages like Hosea 6, Amos 5, and Zechariah 7 helped me to see that my faith was not this individualistic American piety that I had long believed it to be...rather, it was also to be about seeking out justice for the fallen, showing mercy to those in trouble, and defending the cause of those who were oppressed.  I began to wrestle with the many denunciations of hoarding wealth while others suffered and how many of my conservative Christian brethren sought to separate out religion from everyday life.  We couldn't let our religion get in the way with the American pursuit of prosperity, could we?  Paired with a re-reading of the social laws of the Torah in which the need to do right by one's neighbor was central to being righteous before God, and I began to see that while my earlier understandings were not fully wrong, neither were they complete.  Were we to simply explain away the radical social re-ordering of the Jubilee year, in which society was to economically reset in order to bring about equality and fairness?  Were we to ignore the warnings about the economic injustice so prevalent in that era which were to bring about God's wrath, and rather continue to believe in a 'health and wealth' gospel in practice, if not in name?  

Of course, it was likely the writings of the New Testament that caused me to think most differently.  Having read the Bible through many times, it was (and still is) impossible to fully seek to do as Alexander Campbell advised in trying to read the Bible as if we've never read it before.  Even today sometimes in my reading I find myself simply nodding and affirming myself.  Yet it was in reading about the mission of Jesus in Luke 4:18-19 that I started to see that if the church is really the body of Christ, shouldn't it be doing what Jesus did?  It became much more difficult to explain away the commands of Jesus to sell everything and give to the poor and then come and follow him (Mark 10:21).  It became obvious that we were to honor Zacchaeus (Luke 19) not just as a 'wee little man' but as an example of somebody who gave up a life of radical self-interest in order to radically follow Jesus. And in reading the reality of the early church in Jerusalem as it concerned the social order conforming to the needs of many, it became more challenging to think about how they shared all they had and 'gave to anyone as he had need' (Acts 2:44).  For most of my life I was taught that we were to be New Testament Christians, who were called to do Bible things in Bible ways.  And for the first time in my life, it became apparent that this was true not just in the few hours we met together as a church, but daily as we sought to be disciples in all that we did.  

And so my inner struggle grew, not just with what I was (and was not) seeing in the American church both local and in the culture, but also within myself.  How was I to reconcile the conservatism of my youth with the discipleship I yearned for as a true disciple of Jesus?  I began to listen much more critically to the right-wing media that I had allowed to be my political guidestar...and I began to realize how far away it was from Christianity that I was reading about in my Bible.  Was I to despise liberals, be suspicious of immigrants and people of other races, and be only concerned about my financial well-being and individual freedom?  Or was my Christianity that sought out the needs of others more important?  

I suppose there have been many stops along the way in this journey.  

-Sometimes it symbolic, like the time after 9/11 when on a church down the street from where I lived a huge American flag was planted on top of the cross that graced the top of their building.  Did the flag really trump the cross?  Sure seemed that way for many within the church!  

-Other times it was witnessing the loud and angry nationalist fervor of many of my fellow Christians: were they citizens of the kingdom of God first, or were they American citizens first?  This was long before I really started to dig into the depths of Jesus' teaching about the Kingdom and what that was all about, but even through those days I knew something was not quite right.  

-It increasingly struck me as odd that the 'culture wars' that many Christians were fighting had little to do with authentic Bibilcal Christianty and was more about maintaining social order.  And the generals they continued to follow in such wars themselves time and again turned out to be more morally corrupt than those they preached against!  

-And through it all, I continued to see how many of my fellow Christians continued to nod politely at the preaching of the gospel of grace and love and righteousness, yet only really get excited about kicking ass in the Middle East, whatever football team they rooted for, ensuring that they could buy the most powerful weapons they can get their hands on, and conservative promises to 'take back our country' from the liberals (or libtards, or democraps, or any other derisive names they had for anybody who aren't as patriotic as the flag-waving Americans think themselves to be).  

Even after all this, it's not that I think myself a liberal as I pass a half-century of life.  Far from it...I'm probably still a bit right-of-center on the political spectrum.  I don't think much of some social programs that seem more about good intentions than verifiable results.  I wish there were no more abortions and no more broken families.  I think we are better off with judges who read the law for what it says, not what they want it to mean.  I struggle with why tax dollars ought to prop up the degrading lifestyle of the willfully obese or the careless or the addicted or the many others who refuse to change their ways.  And while I'm more likely than I used to to think that in a pluralistic country we ought to tolerate the lifestyles of those which our faith considers sin, this does not mean that I believe we should be so tolerant as to be restricted to silence when it comes to challenging those who live and promote self-destructive lives, nor seek to enable sin in the name of 'diversity'.  The gospel which we proclaim should not be altered to fit the moral relativity of today.  

It's not easy to find the right balance, especially in this age in which we are so polarized between Right and Left.  I'm not alone in feeling that I have no real ideological home these days.  The GOP has lost all moral and intellectual credibilty, the Democrats have ideas but few of them fresh, and any other position seems likely to make us into a party of one.  I'm a registered Libertarian, but I don't take it seriously because they don't seem to, either (c'mon, win something, anything, anywhere!); nor do what I think libertarianism means (freedom from oppression so that we can serve others) is the same as what most others think libertarianism means (freedom for me so nobody ever tells me what to do).  

Yet do I really need that ideological home?  As a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I feel as if I truly do have a home already.  I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, not perfect in myself or my understanding of the world around me, but transformed by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit.  I am liberated from sin not to serve myself, but to be a blessing to people around me.  It struck me awhile back that when Paul talked about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, his line concerning those fruits 'Against such things there is no law' is not a throwaway line but a recognition that if we truly live as people producing spiritual fruit, there's nothing anybody can do against us, there's no law or government edict that can truly deprive us of the freedom that is most important.  Yes, sometimes because we proclaim that Jesus Christ is King we will face opposition, even persecution.  But the things that far too often define what American Christianity is about today are far removed from the core gospel.  Such things (e.g. gun rights, obsessing about personal freedom, rallying against government involvement in health care or social services, American Exceptionalism, fervorously supporting the military and the police, border controls, etc.) are far more American than they are Christian.  Without a doubt, we are living in an age in which the substance of American Christianity has been diluted to the point that, as Jesus would have said, its salt has lost its saltiness and deserve to be thrown out.  

I don't know the way back for our country, beyond the Biblical pattern of repentance, crying out to God, obedience, and seeking reconciliation with our neighbors.  Unfortunately, as the history of Israel makes clear, such things only seem to happen when God sends a plague upon his people; they have to hit bottom to wake up and see what is righteousness again.  Even then, people often refuse to change...and in the meantime we are so comfortable in our American Christianity that I don't see any hint that there will be revival anytime soon.  Maybe COVID should have been that wake-up call...much like economic recessions, 9/11, or other national crises should have been seen as the bullhorn of the Lord.  But the people most refusing change, it appears, are those many Christians who have accepted Donald J Trump (or, less commonly, amoralistic liberalism) as their Lord and Savior.  Apostasy often appears to be the final portion of any once-great nation's spiral into sin, and as a whole we are going down that road with eyes wide opened, parading ourselves into oblivion.  

As for me and my household, though, I'd like to proclaim as those Hebrews entering Canaan all those years ago, 'we will serve the Lord.'  It's not that we will get it all right.  And over the next years of my life I will continue to change and grow.  Some of the stuff I mention here might be childish ramblings to my older self.  But I do think I'm closer to the truth now than I was as a young conservative.  I'm a middle-aged disciple, and I can live with that.  

Yesterday

Last weekend we went and saw Yesterday, a movie that asks the question, 'What if the Beatles (and ciagarettes and Coca-Cola and Harry Potter) had never existed, except in the minds of a few people'?  It wasn't a great movie, and my IMDB rating of 8 is probably inflated by the fact that I simply love the Beatles and will pump up anything that has their music in it.  And Lily James is quite nice to look at for two hours. 

One would think that the world would impoverished today had not John Lennon and Paul McCartney and George Harrison not had that first gig in the basement of the church building long ago.  But the world of this movie acted as if nothing of real importance had still been lost.  Ed Sheerin could still write songs; music really wasn't too much different (but Oasis never existed, whatever); people lived their lives just as we would today.  We wouldn't be teaching our kids about Sgt Peppers, or the sadness of John Lennon being shot (would Forrest Gump exist, then?), or Paul McCartney asking us whether or not it's OK to like Silly Love Songs.  This, likely, was the great weakness of the movie.

Watching this movie, though, posed two great questions for me as a Christian who really struggles with our post-Christian world...first, if Christ had not been born, what difference would it make?  All of history hinges upon him.  Many evil things have been done in his name, of course, but the genius of all civilization really rests on his bringing Life to people.  There have been books written about this topic, of course...but I daresay that books as they now exist would not have been available without him. 

But there's a second question that keeps coming to mind: if everybody woke up tomorrow and only a half-dozen people remembered Jesus and what he means, would that make a difference in the lives of many people?  Or let me ask it this way: does Jesus really make a difference in the lives of many people?  Would him not being real make a difference in the lives of 10% of Americans?  Or would people keep going on as they always do? 

We live in a country that claims to follow after Jesus...but how do we sync this up with the fact that most Americans claim to think that a wicked and vulgar man like Donald Trump is a great president, God's own man in the White House?  I struggle with this question everyday.  Am I one of the few people on this earth who remember who Jesus really was?  And what this means for how we live?  Or am I just deluding myself, and everybody is else is right on him and I'm just prejudiced?  Am I just going crazy worrying about things that don't really matter? 

I'd like to think that I'd be singing his praises even if nobody else on earth knows who he really was.  And maybe there are others who would do the same, even as they have that look on their faces of confusion at just what on earth is going on with everybody else.  But I don't know...and I'm glad that Jesus really does exist!  May he be praised. 

Cancelling Church

Our little church almost never cancels church.  But tonight while walking in for our Wednesday evening Bible classes I noticed that the weather that was predicted at 9:15 was coming in at 6:15.  A slow, steady freezing mist that covered everything like stink on a politician.  A few times I almost slipped, and by the time I arrived at our church building, having all along thought we were having church, I noticed that every car I walked by was covered with a glaze.  Talking to a few of our teachers, I quickly deduced that yeah, this might be a good time to stay home. 

Maybe we were a lot tougher in years gone by.  Maybe we were a lot more faithful to the Lord.  Truth is, we will get up and still drive to work tomorrow and earn that paycheck.  If the Chiefs had a game tomorrow night, I can think of many people who would brave brutal highway conditions (not to mention 4+ hours out in the hypothermic conditions) to go to the game. 

But while I sometimes wonder if maybe we have priorities messed up, as I get older and have experienced the misery of falling on the ice more than a few times, I think it's better to stay home.  Were it daylight, of course, that would be another story.  But nighttime?  I'm home. 

(And let me say, there is absolutely no chance that our local school district will be in session tomorrow.  We've only had one weather day so far this year, and they are just itching to have another.  I told my kids that they get $20 if we are in school, I'm so confident of this.  I certainly have no desire to drive my overglazed bus tomorrow.) 

The Bible in School

So there's a story that's gone under the radar a bit this week, that Trump is trying to shore up his base by encouraging schools to study the Bible, though it's never something he himself did.  Years ago I might have thought this was a good thing...but the older I get the more I could see that this might be a disaster for what remains of the Christian faith in this country.  It's not just that the closer Christians get to worldly power that they become less effective. 

But my first reaction this week in hearing this is "Who's going to be teaching?  And how will they approach the Bible?  Through the eyes of faith?  Or simply as just another book to be studied?"  Those who are older can appreciate the Bible as a literary masterpiece, I believe...but what about children?  Do those of us who are trying to instill a sense of faith through Biblical teaching really want to open the doors of others misusing it for a right-wing political agenda?  Think about it...

-In Joshua 10 there's the story of the sun standing still while Joshua holds up his hands and Israel fights a battle.  How's that going to be handled by somebody who does not look at Scripture through the eyes of faith? 
-When 1 Samuel 18:3 speaks about the covenant relationship David and Jonathan had because of their love, how's that going to be presented in this world in which same-sex relationships are affirmed?  Will it really be taught in its context or will it be used by teachers with certain agendas that conservative Christians would strongly object to? 
-Will the story of the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus be taught as fact, or as a myth explaining Christian origins?  The same could be asked about creation. 
-When it comes to reading Revelation, how will that be interpreted?  What if it is taught by a literalist who sees it as a timeline for the end times through a dispensational premillennial lens? 
-And heck, what will economic conservatives do when it comes to reading about the church in Acts selling all they have and pooling resources together?  Or reading prophetic denunciations of the wealthy buying second homes while the poor don't have anything?  Can you really see little Johnny come home and telling his MAGA parents that the Bible teaches communism? 

In a perfect world I want my children to learn Scripture as much as possible.  But I know about Scripture enough to know how badly it can be handled, sometimes even within the church.  So then do I really want my children to be confused at this point in their lives?  Someday they will have to make some hard decisions on how to read Scripture...but I want them guided by people of faith, not by public school teachers whose faith I know nothing about. 

Church As Experience

One of the things I have noticed in recent years is the trend that churches have to not call their gathering times 'worship' or 'services' but rather 'experiences'.  Awhile back I noticed in a nearby town how a church sign promised 'a new experience every week!' 

I think that's a lot to ask of the church or its leadership, to be honest.  We come together 52 weeks a year, more if a church still has Sunday night or Wednesday night gatherings, and for us to think that we have it within us to create something magical and overpowering each time is foolish, if not arrogant.  We gather together as God's people and bring not just our passions and our talents, but our brokenness and our sin.  Sometimes this means that memorable things may happen...but often it leads to heartache and confusion. 

The church as described in the book of Acts was often timid and uncertain as to what it ought to do, until the Holy Spirit would come and send preachers out or prompt a season of giving.  Even under the guidance of the apostles, they were often no better off than we are today, until God came and his Kingdom became manifest among them. 

I'd love it if every week we had church and something dynamic happens (there is another church near here whose name is 'Dunamis' and has a giant fist on their sign).  But rather than promise something that is not our power to give, we do better to simply be open to waiting for God's mighty power to come instead.  That, then, will be the 'experience' that will convict the world and change our churches forever. 

Deconstruction is easier than building up

Today is the election for the Alabama U.S. senator in which an accused pedophile with a history of being removed from office multiple times will likely defeat a former federal prosecutor with a history of putting away Klansmen because he has R after his name instead of D.  And, as voters know, this means they are true to the Constitution, live with integrity, and are specially blessed by God, while the other team hates God, hates America, and hates everything good. 

It amazes me how far our national intelligence and morality have plummeted in recent years, and this is just one of many examples.  I mean, when GOP now stands for 'Groping Or Perving', there's a problem.  Yes, I know...BOTH SIDES are wrong.  But at least the Democrats and liberals seem to be exiling their failures even as the GOP is intent on building them up higher and denying that they did anything wrong. 

(Take a breath.  Look at your own plank.  Realize that these problems are bigger than you.  Now, continue.) 

It's so easy to point out all the problems with our world...but to be honest, I am at a point that I have no idea (except the power of God) how to make things better.  The other day I figured out what my problem is...I know exactly what is wrong with something, I know how systems work, and I can see patterns.  But making something good out of it?  I'm not your man. 

So I was watching my daughter and her team play basketball, and it became very apparent that there were a lot of problems with their plan...they were not setting screens, the guards were not passing into the bigs, and they were not communicating on either defense or offense.  I could see all their problems...maybe I would be a good scout for a sports team, as I can always see the problems and what is being done. 

But, like a lot of Americans, I'm really bad about figuring out how to make things better.  I can yell and scream and point fingers, but fixing the problem, and building up my fellow man?  Nope.  This is why for all my morbid interest in politics, I have never had any desire to run for any public office except for the anointing of Dictator.  It's why I'm not a great coach...I can see what is going on, but I can't make the kids do what I want them to do in my mind.  It's why I stink at video games...I can figure out all the patterns within the game, but I don't have the ability to exploit them. 

Maybe our world is just too complicated today to make a difference in.  We'd rather just tear things and people down than build it up to something good. 

Monuments, Statues, and Other Silly Things...

This weekend our family took a quick roadtrip that included Coronodo Heights, just north of Lindsborg, KS.  Here's the backstory: in 1541, Coronado was looking for his cities of gold, and legend has it that as he climbed this little hill on the Kansas prairie he looked out and said to his friends, "Screw it, boys...it's time to go home."  Almost four centuries later some transplanted Swedish scholars at the college in Lindsborg found a piece of Spanish armor on top of this hill and declared that this was where Coronado had made his fateful decision.  Thus they dedicated the place to the principle of "Give Up...It's Good For You!" and built something of a castle monument on top of it that looks out over the prairie...thus the name Coronado Heights.  Likely there's very little to substantiate the claims that Coronado made his decision on this hill.  But it makes for a nice story and it allows tourists like me to to go up on this hill and recount some kind of vision of history, no matter how true or incomplete it may be.

I got to thinking about this today, in light of the marches and counter-marches and general forms of hand-wringing that seems to have consumed our country in recent weeks.  Basically all over the south (and elsewhere) cities are bowing to pressure to remove statues that stand to honor the 'heroes' of the Confederacy, men like Robert E Lee or Stonewall Jackson.  Many white southerners are very upset and have had their feelings hurt about this, claiming that this is simply whining on the part of people who don't want their own feelings hurt, that we shouldn't be 'erasing history' after all these years  Proponents of taking down these statues claim on the other hand that these statues should never have been built, as they give public honor to those who rebelled against our country and supported a slave system that is immoral.

I've come to the firm belief that, while some people are overly sensitive about all things and this can turn into a slippery slope that would even take down Jefferson, Washington, and other slave-owning leaders who fall out of favor of history, it's a good thing to take down these statues.  What clinched it for me was reading about how many of these statues were erected.  Most were built in the 1910s and 1920s during a time in which the Ku Klux Klan was on the march in this country; Woodrow Wilson and other leading politicians were openly anti-negro (Wilson closed off much of government employment to blacks, for instance) and the impending death of the last Confederate war veterans prompted many who fondly remembered 'the good 'ol days' to build these statues as a memorial to the 'lost cause'.  It was not only not politically incorrect to publicly proclaim white superiority, it was almost expected and even demanded.  And so, with claims that restoring Southern Heritage was vital, these statues of heroic Confederate war heroes, always in military pose and dress, were erected.

Needless to say, blacks and other minorities did not have a say at this time...indeed, they were politically powerless to stop the building of statues.  To do so would have meant great danger and even lynching...remember, Jim Crow laws were at their height during this time, and approved of people in the highest of offices in our country.  And so these statues were erected, and have now stood for almost a hundred years.

But of course now we live in a different age.  Racism is no longer openly accepted by most, and the rise of 'alt-right' Klansmen and Nazis brings about universal condemnation (except by the President, but that's another post).  Many who still support these statues are by no means racist...they genuinely do feel that this is a part of their heritage that outsiders do not understand, and they feel that they are being singled out for ridicule and contempt.  They are correct in saying that race is not only a southern problem, but a national one...indeed, many northern cities such as Chicago and Boston have faced equally challenging racial issues over the years and often have a shameful history of their own.

Yet simply crying 'Heritage!' is no longer good enough.  The heritage that is being supported is naive at best and immoral at worst, because it's a form of heritage that looks back to a time in which 'blacks knew their place', a time in which southern values openly tolerated belittlement and hatred of certain people simply because of their skin color and ancestry.  How on earth these things could have been considered Christian continues to amaze me; and the fact that many people still defending these things claim Jesus as Lord shows me that this blind spot is still very real.  Shouldn't Christians want to break down walls of hostility rather than build them up?  Shouldn't followers of Jesus Christ look to the good of others instead of their own in all things?  Yet in this instance Christians have fallen woefully short of living out their faith.

I wonder what would happen if revisionist history came to inspect Coronado Heights.  Again, there's very little real evidence that this hill is anything more than an interesting geological spot on an otherwise flat landscape.  But what if Native American groups decided that Coronado was a villain and a thief, would we need to change the name of that hill?  Would the good people of Lindsborg fight valiantly to keep that name and claim that it's about heritage?

Honestly, I doubt anybody would care that much.   5 centuries in the past is a long time, and nobody has a vested interest in keeping Coronado's name alive; remember, the people who wanted to lift up Coronado were Swedes, not Spanish.  But I'm sure that somebody would fight to the end as a matter of their self-identity, and spout all kinds of foolishness and falsehood to keep the spirit of Coronado's 'heritage' alive.  Maybe they would even claim the economic argument, that this place brings about tourism and jobs and other forms of what has become the conservative religion.  Rather than realize that true history is dependent upon actual scholarship and truth, creating symbols that have nothing to do with reality seems to be the way many want to live out their history.  People will always have a way of getting worked up about the dumbest of things.

The Handmaid's Tale and Biblical Illiteracy

I have been watching The Handmaid's Tale, adapted from the book of the same name, on Hulu the past few weeks.  Not the greatest show I've ever seen, but it's still a solid 8.  Two things keep running through my head as I watch it.

First, how do the villains in movies in which Bad Guys Take Over The World always find such a ready and willing supply of henchmen?  The premise of this movie is that a plot is devised in which the government is overthrown by militias sympathetic to this cause.  This, of course, makes one wonder where the police and military and national security agents were in all this.  In addition, in this age of constant Big-Brotherism, how extensive could the Gilead government be considering there are it seems a dozen dudes in black vests and stocking hats sitting on each corner in Boston?  And are these henchmen all being paid good wages?  Did none of them have wives or girlfriends who found out and reported these plots?  How on earth did this million-man militia arise without somebody at the Washington Post or the FBI getting word of it?

But second, and more importantly, what has really struck me about this show is how prevalent Biblically illiteracy would have to be for people to allow it to happen.  One of the key points of the show is that when the handmaidens are essentially raped each month in the hopes of producing a healthy heir, a passage of the Bible (Genesis 30, I think) is read as a guide for how this can happen.  Now, bad hermeneutics have enabled people to justify many terrible doctrines and practices over the years...but usually in every age there have people who have stood up and said, um, I think you are completely misunderstanding the Bible.

The more I think of it, though, even people who claim to be most religious often have no idea what their holy books actually teach, and ignorance allows those who misuse those books to get away with such things.  Those who should know better stay silent because, in the end, they don't really know, and when the evil people of Gilead point to Genesis 30, the people who know that this can't be right cannot say why it is not right.  Of course,  goes in many other directions as well...today many use the Bible to support conservative principles such as low taxation, income inequality, or 2nd amendment rights; of the latter issue, the one that cracked me up the most was the one in which Jesus' disciples say to him, "'Look, Lord, here are two swords.  And he said to them, 'It is enough.'"  As if Jesus was saying that self-defense weapons were justified before he went to the cross.  Liberals, too, misuse the Bible, thinking that Jesus only preached unlimited love and freedom without responsibility, salvation by just 'being good people' and the like...but again, they are just as wrong as conservatives.

This, my friends, is another reason why Biblical literacy matters.  It's not just about ensuring that we avoid sins, but that we don't get ourselves believing that the Bible endorses rape, extreme patriarchy, or any other kind of foolishness.  If we don't know what is right, then we can't very well speak up for what is right, can we?

Beauty and the Beast...so gay, so sad

So the new Beauty and the Beast movie will have a repressed gay henchman longing to love his Gaston.  Some of my fellow Christians, of course, are up in arms about this.  A drive-in movie theater in Alabama has refused to show it, stating that they absolutely will not compromise on what the Bible teaches.  We're horrified...SHOCKED...that something like this could come out of a Disney studio.

So...what's my feeling on this?  I'm not even going to begin to justify what others are doing, but instead say that I believe that a lot of this is overblown.  First, if you are expecting Disney movies to teach morals to your children, that's a problem.  Second, homosexuality is now a part of American life, whether you like it or not.  It's part of what America IS now...and so when a Disney channel shows have a character who has two moms, it's not that surprising.  Should be shocked that even 'family' movies reflect this trend, much as they historically treated Asian as slanty-eyed lispers or blacks as subservient farmhands?

And third, and most importantly...if you want to do away with movies that, as one Facebook post I saw said, you couldn't watch with Jesus sitting next to you, then how many Hollywood movies could you really watch?  Why are you so mad about this and so ready to pony up $10 for everything else?
-A chick-flick in which the unmarried couple sleeps together half-way through the movie...is that Christian?
-An action movie with lots of gratuitous violence as a man takes vengeance on a gang that hurts his family...is that Christian?
-A buddy cop movie with lots of foul language...is that Christian?
-A romantic family flick in which a woman falls in love with a beast who wears fancy garments...ummmm...

The point is this...getting freaked out that a gay character is in a Disney movie is most likely counter-productive.  See it, don't see it, have a conversation about your family values with your kids...do whatever you want.  But stop it with the outrage.  You don't own the studio, though you've given them a ton of your money over the years.  Your whiny self-righteous bitterness brings more shame onto Jesus than this movie ever will, and others can see it.  No wonder people don't take your Jesus seriously.

Facebook Live Worship

A local church has been advertising on their sign in front of the building that they now will Facebook Live their worship services on Sunday morning.  A friend of mine, a youth minister in another town, has also been doing much the same thing with his Sunday school classes.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.  On the one hand, for a younger set who might well not be able to come to a class due to work or distance reasons, this might well be effective in helping to teach them faith facts.  And so on this, I applaud the outreach.  Heck, I podcast my Sunday morning sermons and I know a handful of people listen to this each week for various reasons (they help in the church nursery or they are people I have known in the past who like my preaching are two reasons I have heard).

Yet when it comes to local worship, advertising locally in a small town, I wonder about this whole idea of videostreaming.  Essentially it says, yes you are here in town, perhaps even close enough to walk, but you just don't want to get out of your pajamas in order to have a spiritual experience.  But, it is objected, what about the old people who can't get out?  Again, I get it (though my experience is that a. most older people have no idea how to get videostreaming and b. if anybody will make it services even when it's uncomfortable, it's the old people), though I wonder if this is simply an example of trying to fill a niche that doesn't need filling.  

But my biggest concern is this: I wonder if internet worship makes us spiritually incomplete.  For the power of church is not just in going and absorbing some good preaching or hearing the songs of faith.  There's something about the necessity of community, of sitting next to somebody who may be very different than you but who likewise proclaims that Jesus is Lord.  There's something about leaving the comfort of home to go a place that may at times be intimidating or downright scary and encountering the presence of God in a special place.  There's something about realizing that we are more than individuals who come to God, but that we are a people united in community.  All this is very difficult to do in front of a computer screen.

Of course, maybe this is the faith of a new day.  So often we hear how people like God, but they don't really like Christians or the church.  And so if people live on their phones and their screens are are increasingly starved for real human contact, isn't this the kind of God that they want to like?  Should we be surprised that 'worship' without the need for human interaction is becoming so common?

Fall Gospel Meeting!

Another trip to the mailbox and I come up with a flyer for a local gospel meeting (the church of Christ term for 'revival') at a church three towns over.  I usually put these up, though I don't expect anybody to go.  This one, though, I decided not to put up.

I was baptized at a fall gospel meeting 35 years ago.  I don't remember the details of the sermon, but I knew after hearing it that I needed to be baptized, that I needed to be saved or I was going to hell.  While the gospel, I have thankfully learned over the years, is much more than hellfire and brimstone, it's important to hold out the truth that we preach Christ and him crucified and how he is the only way to salvation.  To preach the gospel should impact the church now, but also expand the gospel to those who do not know it.

And so I got this flyer about a gospel meeting, and the theme, in large ALL CAPS, was 'The God of Order'.  Go down to see what is being preached each service: 'The Origin of Civil Government'; 'The Christian and Civil Government'; 'Is God Blessing America'; 'The Christian and the World'; and finally 'Freedom is a Privilege, Not a Right'.

I looked this flyer for a stated gospel meeting and I asked, 'where is the gospel in this'?  Now, I did not go and hear these sermons, but I am guessing (based on who is speaking and the church holding the meeting) that it is heavily tied to a politically right wing message of law and order.  In these days of Black Lives Matter vs. Blue Lives Matter, this message stands only with the latter, not the former.  America, in this viewpoint, is the great savior...one could even say that the United States of people's imagination is the One True Hope in this world.  Our job is to submit to the Order of this world, salute the flag, put our time in at the nebulous civil religion of American Christianity, and  be thankful that we are blessed even as we curse those who point out the unChristian things that even good Christian folk are guilty of.

This is not the gospel.  Call it a seminar on Christianity, but don't call it a 'Gospel meeting.'  If Jesus is not front and center of all things, don't go and calling something else who has taken his rightful place the gospel.  Blasphemy is just around the corner when we do this.

I earnestly hope that I am wrong, and that somebody will come to Jesus through this meeting.  But I am afraid that they are drifting further and further away from the gospel and embracing the ideology of America First.  The flag is once again trumping the cross...and we are all lesser for it.

Naked self-interest

I'm glad I have this quiet little spot to post things that will never get read by anybody.  In truth, I don't want people reading most of what I have to say, though as I say in the heading there are certain things I have to get of my head.  Preaching the gospel is far more important than anything I will say here, and I don't want to distract from the gospel, ever.  My ideas may be OK or not, but Jesus can save people.  Big difference.

But I still cannot fathom how people can vote for Donald Trump.  Christian people, people who have been going on and on the last eight years, "We need a Godly man in the White House!"  And now they are firmly behind Trump, who might be the most immoral man ever to have a shot at it (sorry, Thomas Jefferson).

But then I realize what modern conservatism has become: a naked appeal to absolute self-interest (be it about guns, taxation, 'state's rights', etc.), even as it is cloaked in the form of godliness.  That, my friends, borders on blasphemy.  And what makes it even more sad is that many church-going people are completely and totally blind to this fact.

I suppose both major ideologies these days are about self-interest...liberalism champions abortion and gay rights and welfare, which are all about the individual wants...but at least liberalism has the decency these days to do these and rarely call it 'Christian'.  Conservatism has so distorted the gospel message in recent years though that many Christians no longer really know what they are supposed to believe or how they are to live.  Or, what may be more true but more scary, they know and they just don't care.

It's been a long time since I thought this was a Christian nation, and we drift further from this ideal every day.  May God have mercy on us.

Friday Trump rant

Ugh.  New studies are showing that somewhere around 80% of white evangelical voters are backing Donald Trump.  Yep, the same people who have for years talked about how we need a Godly, Christian man in the White House are now saying that they want to vote for Trump.

Look, I'm not expecting anybody to vote for Hillary in protest to this man who, for all we can see in him, has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.  And I'm sure that some of these people are more afraid of Hillary and Bill Clinton and liberalism than anything else and so are more anti-Hillary than they are pro-Trump.

But...how can you vote for somebody like this?  I mean, it's not that there are not other choices out there.  There are dozens of other candidates who have declared, even some who are going to be on our ballots in the fall.  But no, we vote for Trump.  The Republicans have used white evangelicals as a steady base for years even while never actually doing anything for them...what are they really expecting Trump to be able to do for them that others (who had genuine, if sometimes misguided beliefs) have not?

Let me take a break and go scream.

I've repeated endlessly my statement that the Kingdom of God stands above and sometimes against the Kingdom of the United States.  They are not equal nor similar...one relies on Godly power and righteousness, the other on military might and material wealth.  And Christians are mistaken if they are expecting their primary support for one to lead to the prosperity of the other.

And haven't Christians learned everything by the last 20-30 years of the de-Christianizing of America?  That the youth in our country are staying away or leaving the churches in droves should have warned us that the current politicalization of Christianity is not working.  But we keep doing it, even to the point that we throw our support behind Trump.

Of all the things Christendom in America has to be ashamed of, the support of Trump has to rank near the top.  Why don't we just go and admit it...we were never concerned about somebody with real values, about somebody wanting to make this a Christian country again.  We just wanted power.  That's it.  Power.  And in doing so we drag the glory of Christ through the depths of hell.

This is getting embarrassing.  May God save us from ourselves.

Fear and hope

This morning my YouVersion devotional was about fear, and how we as Christians need to not be afraid.  "...for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control."  (2 Timothy 1:7)

Then, sadly, I had to go on Facebook and see the posts of a handful of friends, all of whom claim to be Christians, whining about whatever culture war battle seems to be terrifying them now.  All posts rang out with a message of fear: they invite us to be angry, afraid, and generally pissed off at everybody and everything...though they in the end do nothing to make things better and certainly show nothing of God's power or love.

And so here's my mini-rant for this Monday morning.  STOP BEING AFRAID OF EVERYTHING.  Especially if you are a Christian, stop it with the endless whining about the culture war and instead live as you ought to.  Stop being surprised that the world lives as it lives...I'm sorry you live with this myth that we live (or ever have lived!) in a Christian nation, because there really is no such thing.  And stop being afraid of the world around you...you have the light of Jesus Christ in you, a treasure in your jar of clay (cf. 2 Cor. 4:7, Matthew 5:16).

So stop being afraid of the theoretical transgender boogeyman who is coming into your public bathroom; if you have to, go in packs for self-protection or just do your business at home.  Stop listening to the loud shills who say that if we elect _______ America is dead (remember, Democrats survived eight years of Bush, and Republicans have survived eight years of Obama, no matter how much their voices may be gone from their screaming).  Stop acting as if this world is all there is, because it's not...the kingdom of God will never fail.

Paris, November 2015

A quick note to my fellow Christians:

Since when did fear and loathing become a part of the Christian message?  For many this is now the default position of all public words.  The things we used to keep to ourselves we can now broadcast instantly on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr.  Maybe it's better to have kept those things to ourselves...but then again, putting them out in open demands a response.

The easy response, of course, is to blast them all to hell.  It's what our base instinct tells us to do.  They attack us or our friends and we want blood.  We demand justice, and we certainly have the power to do something about it.  The bad guys are already being bombed and hunted down around the world.  Heck, as one friend said, in 1945 we nuked the Japs and we haven't had problems with them since...so why not do the same?

But remember: we do not respond as they do.  Why do we find it so easy to explain away Jesus' words about turning the other cheek?  Peter told his readers that we are to always regard Christ the Lord as holy, that it is a better thing to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.  God spoke through the prophet Isaiah during a time of invasion and said, 'Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread.'  When did we start letting the fear-mongers and the Lamech disciples tell us what it is that we need to be doing?

I don't have all the answers.  Governments will do what they do, for they are earthly kingdoms that fight earthly battles.  But for Christians we can never let the terrorists make us live in perpetual terror and to fight their battles for them.  God has made us better than that when he transformed us and given us his Spirit and made us citizens of his Kingdom.  Remember this as you speak and post.  

The Kentucky County Clerk

The gay marriage fight continues on.  I've posted on this before, and really don't have much else to say, but I am interested in the ongoing drama going on in Kentucky.  An elected clerk in the courthouse has decided that she cannot issue marriage licenses to gays because of her faith, and even as the courts have ruled against her, she continues to resist.  Now she says that she will not issues licenses to anybody.

The question of conscience has now become the new battleground in the fight over homosexual rights.  Should those who sincerely feel that homosexuality is sin (I am one of them) have to do things that go against their conscience?  Should bakers have to bake wedding cakes for gay couples?  Must Christian adoption agencies have to place children with gay couples?  It's a hard question: on the one hand, it does seem 'hateful' to deny somebody a service that would be offered to other couples.  But on the other hand, are we 'blessing' a sin by helping somebody carry out that sin, no matter how small?

As a preacher I would feel compelled to say no to any gay couple that asks me to do their wedding.  I cannot think that it is right to take part something that I feel to be sin.  Maybe it will come to a point that I cannot do any weddings so as to be 'non-discriminatory', but I do know that people will always be able to be legally married, whether in a church or in a courthouse.  Life and marriage will go on without me.

But as I have said before, because the legalities of marriage are dependent upon the state (e.g. inheritance rights, visitation rights in hospitals, custody rights for children), I do believe that gay people should have a legal right to be married and have that marriage recognized by the state.  To deny them the same rights as straight couples seems to be an unlawful form of discrimination.  I may not like or approve of what it is that they are doing, but as one who still has a libertarian bias, it is not in my power to say whether or not they can be married.  I know of many straight couples that I think should not have been married (for various reasons)...but that's not in my power to contest from a legal point of view.

And so when it comes to the Kentucky clerk who will not issue licenses, here's my belief:  she should either resign or be removed from her position.  She does not have to like the law, but if she is an officer of the state, she has to carry out its policies or resign.  If her conscience cannot allow her to do what the law requires, then she should step aside and let somebody else should do the job.  Imagine a police officer who is Rastafarian:  his religion tells him that drug enforcement of cannabis users is wrong.  Should we keep him in his job?  Or imagine a soldier who decides that he cannot kill for any reason based upon his understanding of Scripture.  Should he continue to be a soldier?

Perhaps the laws were different when she was elected; too bad.  Laws change, and even if as Christians we do not like the change, it is our duty to accept it in society, and officers of the law are compelled to carry out that law.  If they cannot carry it out, then resign your post.  When it comes to a law we do not have to like it, promote it, or affirm it.  In our democratic form of government we might even work to change it.  But accept it as law of the land we must.

Here's the thing about this story that most amazes me, though.  The woman who will not allow gays to marry has been divorced and remarried three times.  From a very literal understanding of what I read about divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, then she should not have been allowed a marriage license, either, for her current marriage!  But the law of the state seems to be that somebody can be divorced and remarried as many times as possible; what of a clerk who held that she could not issue licenses to anybody with a previous marriage on their record?  We would not tolerate that, would we?