Fear in all the wrong places

Several years ago I stopped watching TV news because I hate the fear.  Don't go out at night or you will be raped and murdered!  ISIS!  Ebola!

Fear is everywhere in our culture today, which is remarkable because probably there has never been a more secure time to live.  We're not really in danger of war coming upon us; we have security everywhere we live; and even all the health scares out there usually only come up because people are not as hygenic as they should be.

For all the fears that we could have, are we afraid of the wrong things?  Likely.  So my parents just got back from a trip back east to see my brother and on the way they stopped and saw some old friends.  They woke up the next morning not feeling well, but eventually left.  They arrive back home this week and find out that the people they stayed with died because of carbon monoxide poisoning this week.  Actually one of them is still alive but not expected to live...but you get the point:  this is something serious!  Had my parents stayed with these people for a few more days, this is something that could have actually killed them, something that likely happens in many places.  It's a reminder to me to a)get the furnace checked and b)make sure the carbon monoxide detector is working.

So many people today are going crazy over the fears 'out there'.  Congressmen seek to gain political points by talking them up, newscasters look for ratings by scaring the crap out of people.  'We've got to stop these horrors!', but in the end they forget about the things that are really dangerous.  What of Congress devoted as much as time to making sure every furnace in America was safe rather than criticizing policy about Ebola?  Wouldn't that actually be a more productive use of their powers?

A friend of mine was driving to work yesterday when somebody ran a stop sign and almost killed him.  It could have been much worse: only one fractured vertebrae and a lot of aches and pains.  But a serious wreck nonetheless.  But stuff like this happens all the time...people minding their own business driving to work, when somebody not paying attention causes a major, dangerous wreck.  Where's the outrage?  Why aren't our streets safer?

Carbon monoxide poisonings and car wrecks kill far more people than the Ebola virus in our country.  But one we freak out about, the others we ignore.  Maybe we'd just rather be scared by fake stuff (hello, haunted houses!) than things that are real.  But that's just stupid.

The Double Standard of 'Terrorism'

Last week in the news there was a story from Oklahoma of a man who was angry about being fired.  He walked into the personnel office of his business and decapitated one woman and was in the process of killing another woman when one of the managers came in and shot him.  A horrible story...but what captured the attention of everybody (beyond the beheading...CSI episode alert!) was the fact that he was Muslim, and that he had been trying to talk to people about his Muslim faith in recent months.  Naturally, the question became not whether this was a horrible crime, but whether or not this was TERRORISM.  Whether this was JIHAD.  Whether this was part of the evil holy war that Muslims were waging against us good Christian folks.

Everyday in the news here in our good Christian nation there are stories of bad people doing bad things to bad people.  A man goes in and kills his girlfriend and then turns the gun on himself.  Two school teachers in Louisiana are arrested for having group sex with a 16-year-old student.  A politician is found to have traded political favors for his wife getting a cushy job.  Bad things happen all the time...but how many do we call these people Christian terrorists?  Many bad things are done by good church-going folks, but it's never terrorism when we do it, we think...just bad things done by bad people.  Muslims, we say, are told by their religion to do a terrible thing.  Christians, we say, could never be told by their religion to do a terrible thing.  We overlook the fact that Christians literally 'took the cross' in 1095 when encouraged to go and invade Jerusalem (and many places along the way, Muslim and non-Muslim alike).  We forget that various Christian groups declared war on each other in the centuries after this.

Why is it that we continually call every evil thing Muslims do terrorism (and such a product of the culture of an evil religion), but every evil thing a Christian does to be simply an individual choice?  We set a double standard for these things, and quite honestly it's not fair.  As Christian people we should know better than to engage in hatred and suspicion, of thinking that 'They' are bad unless other wise proven to be good and that 'We' are good unless otherwise bad.  Grace should stop this stupid thinking that find ourselves engaging in.

But here's an exercise to help cleanse you of these things:  Next time you watch a news report of somebody done somebody wrong, ask yourself, are they Christian terrorists?  If nothing is said of their religion, assume that they are.  If 85% of Americans still identify themselves as Christians, surely their Christianity played a part in their evil, right?  Do this enough times and maybe you'll hate Christians too, just like you hate Muslims.  And the culture of fear will have won yet again.

Wednesday morning phone call

I’m lousy at remembering the details of conversations with people, but this is what I remember as closely as possible about a conversation I had this morning. 

I received a phone call this morning from what sounded like an elderly woman.  ‘Are you the traditional Church of Christ’?  Uh oh.  I wanted to flesh this out, so I asked her what she meant.  ‘I mean, the one that doesn’t have music.’   ‘Well, we have music.  We sing.’  ‘That’s what I meant.  I was just wanting to make sure that you didn’t use instruments.’

After she mentioned that she had thought we had two Churches of Christ in our town, we then proceeded to talk about why this was so.  Historically we can see this division being about personality and ‘issues’, but to me, it’s a shameful mark about the disunity of the body of Christ.  Eventually she asked,   ‘Was this the church that was identified with J__ ______’?  ‘Yes ma’am, I knew J__, but he passed away a few years ago.’  ‘Oh, OK, J__ was the man who baptized my husband and me, and I think it was at the church in your town.’

Side note that will become increasingly important:  I didn't know J__ when he lived here, but I have heard stories of his baptizing people, and I'm grateful for that.   But from what I gather he was something of a legalist.  I do know that J__ was a contentious old guy when I knew him, who preached in a small town near here after leaving this church.  The few conversations I had with him gave me the impression that he believed his own church was the only right one, and that there weren’t any faithful, ‘sound’ churches anymore, except his own, including the one at which I preach.  When he died, his little church was only a handful of people who were likely as legalistic as he was.  I’m not sure if it even exists anymore.

After a bit more talk about the two churches, she got to her point.  ‘I was wondering if you were available to baptize somebody today.  My husband wants to be re-baptized because he doesn’t feel that his first one was for the right reasons.’  Oh boy.  ‘We can, but I’d like to meet with him first.  Can I talk to your husband?’

Eventually she put him on.  I could tell he was very hesitant.  ‘So, why do you want to be baptized again?’  ‘When I first started attending church with my wife, she would take the Lord’s Supper and I did not feel as if I was able to do so.  So, eventually I decided to be baptized.  After all these years I don’t feel I got baptized for all the right reasons.’ 

Right reasons.  What is this, an episode of the Bachelor? 

‘Can I ask you something?  Are you a believer?’  ‘Yes, I am.’  ‘Do you believe in God’?  ‘Yes, I do, and in things like that.’  Things like that?  ‘Do you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins?’  ‘Yes, I do.’  ‘Do you believe you are saved now?’  ‘Yes.’  There were a few other questions I asked along this line, but again, I stink when it comes to remembering this word-for word. 

‘Can I ask you one more question?  Do you and your wife attend church anywhere?’  I was starting to get the impression that he had not attended church in awhile, because I’ve met more than a few folks who justify not going because in their minds no church is truly faithful anymore.  ‘Yes, we attend in W_______, but we live in B_______.’  ‘Maybe you need to talk to the elders or the minister of the church there about this.’  ‘I’m a private man.  I don’t want the show that they have when they baptize somebody, with cameras and all that.’ 

The beginning of the end of the conversation likely came from my response.  ‘One of the truths I have learned about baptism is that it is a very public act.  If you aren’t doing this publicly, then would this really be an acceptable baptism?’  Really, would he keep from his church family that he did this? 

He started pulling away for good at this point and was working to get off the phone.  But as he did I tried pulling this train wreck of a conversation back onto some tracks. ‘Sir, let me be honest with you.  It sounds like you don’t need to be baptized again.  It seems pretty obvious to me that you need to talk to somebody at your church in W_______ about this, the elders or a minister or somebody. Baptism is not your problem.  Trusting in God’s salvation through Jesus is.  In the end baptism is not showing off your own goodness.  It is trusting in Christ, allowing him to save you.’ 

Somewhere in the conversation I mentioned my own ‘imperfect’ baptism at the age of 11, and how I have in the last 30 years grown in my understanding of baptism and the grace of God.  We’re not saved, I told him, because we have perfect understanding.  We’re saved by God’s grace; if I got re-baptized every time I learned something new (and wonderful!) about baptism, I’d have been baptized a dozen times. 

At this point he said goodbye and hung up.  My suspicion is that he (or actually his wife, who likely is the one reminding him of his unworthy baptism and calling into doubt his faith) will be calling other Churches of Christ in the area, a traditional one (we’re all traditional around here, mind you, but that’s a post for another time) that will re-baptize him with no questions asked.  By the time I finish writing this, they’ll probably already be in their car on the way to a traditional, faithful church for him to get dunked for all the ‘right reasons’.   

Over the course of this 10-minute phone call I confess that I never got their names.  I already feel bad about how I handled this, and I am thinking about all the things I should have said, how I should have quoted Scripture about the grace and mercy of God and how only Jesus is our hope, not our goodness.  Hindsight makes us replay these conversations in our mind and makes us feel guilty for not getting it all right.    

But more than anything I feel especially bad, because this man, likely because of his wife’s ‘concerns’, lives his life in a constant fear.  Some go to one extreme in their thinking of ‘Once saved, always saved’…but far too many Christians I have come across over the years think ‘Once saved, barely saved.’  In a way, I can understand why they think like this…they’ve probably heard too many guys like J__ ________ talk about how everybody else is wrong, and you had better be certain you get it all right.  How can you ever be sure of your salvation?  More than anything, though, many never take time to understand even the very basics of God, and ‘things like that’.  Many have taught that faith is not about a relationship with God…it’s simply a list of propositions to believe and actions to prove their worthiness.  They’re so focused on what they think they have to do that they forget what it is that God does. 

I’m not sure what I’m more upset about, though…is it the legalism that brought him to this crisis (which is not entirely his fault), or the fact that he has to keep what he is doing a secret from his home congregation?  Legalism can be cured over time…but to think that faith is only a private matter, how sad is that?  How has he become so suspicious of the family of God that he wants nothing to do with the church when he is being baptized? 

Maybe I'm completely wrong about this.  Maybe I should have just dunked him and made him feel better and gone on.  He doesn't live here, so I'd never see him again likely.  But regardless, I need to pray for this man:  not because he is not saved, but because he doesn’t feel he is saved.  There’s probably been little joy in his Christian life to this point, and even less genuine Christian community with whom he can share his concerns.  And even after he gets re-baptized, probably later today, he still won’t know any of those things. 

Bumper sticker belief, part 1

You can judge a lot about people by the bumper stickers they put on their cars...

My neighbor who lives across the street seems to be a good guy...but he's been through more women since we have lived here than I have gotten rid of dust rags.  Quite a few have lived there for a few months before suddenly leaving, and now he has another one who seems to have mostly moved in, at least on weekends.

On the back of her car are three bumper stickers:  one for a sports team, one that says 'Sh*t Happens' (without the asterisk), and one that says 'Got Jesus?'  For the longest time it sorta offended me that on the one hand she had a bumper sticker that seemed to express a belief in Jesus, while at the other time expressing a crude profanity that doesn't need to be seen any more than it needs to be heard.

The more I've thought about it, though, the more I realize that there's actually some consistent truths on the back of this car.  Bad things happen, and do you have Jesus?  I'm pretty certain that there's probably not a lot of real thought put in to this by the owner of the car...she probably thought that the first was funny while the second was slapped on a moment of piety.  But the fact remains...a lot of crap happens in life, and where is your hope?  When sh*t gets dumped onto your life, is Jesus there?

Things That Annoy Me #3: "I care by supporting a cause without having to really do anything substantive..." (aka the ALS ice bucket challenge)

Half-Brother to TTAM #19: Letting your life and your likes be dictated by fads.  

It started about a week ago.  In my facebook and twitter feeds and on internet news sites I noticed that people were having buckets of ice water poured over their heads.  At first, it was just athletes and celebrities.  But in just a week it's spread to everyone.  Random people are being nominated to have buckets of ice water poured over them.  Everybody's doing it.

What is it?  Something called the 'ALS ice bucket challenge'.  I know...it's a fundraiser for ALS, and to raise 'awareness' of ALS.  In the past day I've seen probably 25 people do variations on this theme, all because they support the cause.  They care.

But here's the thing...what is ALS?  Would half the people who have taken this challenge really try to figure out what ALS is?  Has their knowledge of ALS increased because of this?  What are some ways their ability to cope with ALS has increased in the last week?  How many have chosen to take this cause up until at least Labor Day?  I'm assuming (since nobody has really explained what ALS is as part of their challenge) that ALS refers to what is sometimes called  Lou Gehrig's disease...a nasty disease in which one's body wastes away, named after the famous Yankee first baseman.  It's awful, and I wouldn't want to get it.  I support wanting it eradicated.

But, beyond raising money (something I haven't really seen anybody really doing, though one friend of mine says they have raised $31 million...but this week?  Month?  For who?), how do you really care?  How do you show your support for this?  Again, I have learned nothing even as supposedly my awareness is supposed to be raised.  How do I detect that I (or somebody I know) is coming down with this?  How should I help somebody who has this?  Where do I even give money to help researchers?  What kind of treatment options are being explored?  In all these posts, nobody has explicitly said anything about this.  Instead, they've had buckets of ice water poured on them.  And that does, what?

The reality is that this kind of 'caring' happens all the time.  Click a button on facebook, and you show your support.  That's it.  Want to get rid of an African child slaver?  Watch a Kony 2012 video!  Want to show how much you hate breast cancer?  Watch the NFL as they wear pink socks for a month!  Want to hate some other kind of cancer?  Buy a cheap plastic wristband!

Awhile back a friend got really interested in how Christians were being persecuted, particularly in North Korea.  He printed out a form letter written to the North Korean dictator and wanted me to sign it.  It contained allegations that I had not investigated.  It pledged to 'do everything I can to let the world know' of his actions.  I read the letter, not knowing much about what was going on, but had I signed it, it told Kim Jong Un that I meant business!  I am certain that all these identical form letters has left Kim shaking in his boots.

I know...I'm a harsh, unfeeling bastard.  I really am.  I must not care because I am questioning the intentions of a lot of people who think themselves well-intentioned.  I am asking whether people will actually do something substantive about things that they suddenly now have gotten interested in, or whether they are just being sheep that are trying to make themselves look good and supportive.

But maybe it's time that we start trying to do something real and genuine, rather than just do something that is full of empty symbolism.  You really want to show that you care?
-Go and find somebody with ALS or Alzheimer's or dementia and meet their caregivers.  They're probably exhausted, because those diseases (and many others) are brutal not just on the one who has it, but those who take of them.  Why not give them a break?  Agree to sit with the person for a few hours so they can go shopping or out to dinner with a friend.  If you're really brave, agree to sit up with the person for an entire night so that their spouse can get a good night's sleep.
-Ticked off about African dictators who kidnap kids?  Go an volunteer to be a soccer coach or a Big Brother or a Sunday school teacher at your church.  Actually get to know and support kids where you are, especially those who don't have good parental figures in their life.
-Angry about how certain religious minorities are being treated in other parts of the world?  Get to know a religious minority where you live.  Show them that Christians here in mid-America don't hate them just because of the color of their skin or the way that they speak or the god that they worship.  Show them genuine love, rather than sharing on facebook some article about how all Muslims are obviously terrorists.

It's time we did more than just be supportive.

It's time we did more than just tell people how much we care.

It's time we stopped with all this symbolic crap, and did something real.