Author: David Crump

Author, Speaker, Retired Biblical Studies & Theology Professor & Pastor, Passionate Falconer, H-D Chopper Rider, Fumbling Disciple Who Loves Jesus Christ

The Resurrected Jesus at Work!

I am extremely blessed to be part of a local church that believes one of its major responsibilities is to love the surrounding community.  And the most significant way to love other people is to introduce them to the resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ.

More than 120 people were baptized at the various Easter services our church conducted this past weekend!

Jesus is alive.  He continues to forgive sin, bring us into the waiting arms of our heavenly Father, make us new people, and lead us into new life in the kingdom of God.

Where Palestinian Lives Don’t Matter

17 dead.  773 wounded, or is it 1,400?  How many more victims will there be this week, or in the weeks ahead as Palestinians continue their Land Day protests?

Every victim shot with live ammunition.  Bullets fired at unarmed people standing dozens, if not hundreds, of yards away from the soldiers.  Unarmed marchers and high-powered rifles separated by a steel fence and a wide no-man’s land imposed from on high.

Over 100 snipers staring through high powered scopes.

Deadly shots fired into crowds kneeling in prayer, marching in protest.  Smoke and tear gas wafting through the air, encircling their heads, burning eyes, nose and throat like Hades’ own sulpherous fumes reminding them of hell on earth.

The army is proud, boasting that they know precisely where every bullet landed (a tweet since removed from Twitter). Each death a deliberate murder.  Every injury an intentional maiming.  Every wound a purposeful assault on the image of God.

The largest, most technically advanced military in the Middle East tries to convince us that young men with rocks, slingshots and burning tires pose an “existential threat” (as they say) to nuclear armed Israel.

Perhaps Israeli soldiers now fear deadly smoke inhalation from 100 yards away, as Palestinians cover their faces, sputter and gag against the hundreds of tear gas canisters raining down on their heads.

We are reminded that Palestinian lives don’t matter, not to Israel.

Nor do Palestinian lives matter to America, which once again seeks to block the U.N. resolution condemning the slaughter.  America, the lumbering moral Frankenstein, mesmerized by Israeli propaganda, suffers from a cauterized, national conscience seared like a piece of raw meat by a red-hot iron.

No.  Palestinian lives don’t matter to the United States, where Israeli lobbyists write US foreign policy in the Middle East.  Palestinians are inconvenient human fodder in need of bulldozing by Zionist racism and international neglect.

It is impossible for these Palestinian to make contact with the Israeli soldiers aiming at them from the opposite side of the fence.  Yet, these soldiers posture heroically while discussing the Palestinian “threat” they now mow down by bravely firing remote-controlled machine guns into the Gazan killing fields – the guns’ operators safely sitting many miles away in the Sinai desert.

It is like shooting fish in a barrel, except that these fish are human beings and the barrel is the Gaza Strip, a place that many observers have described as “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

Glenn Greenwald (one of the most important investigative journalists working today) asks a most revealing question, “Imagine if an Arab-majority country were imprisoning 1.8 million Jews in an open-air cage, preventing them from leaving, controlling all aspects of their deprived civic lives, then picking them off with snipers in the back when they protested. Might the reaction be different?”

What would the United States be saying to the United Nations then?

No, Palestinian lives don’t seem to matter, except to their Creator.

The Christian church knows that the Lord God Almighty cares deeply for the Palestinian people, as he does every human being.  And the Lord keeps score. He will not forget their suffering, come judgment day.

  • Please take a few minutes to watch Max Blumenthal – an investigative journalist who has spent a considerable amount of time in Gaza – describe what is happening now.
  • Also, read Gideon Levy’s article containing this lead: “The shooting on the Gaza border shows once again that the killing of Palestinian’s is accepted in Israel more lightly than the killing of mosquitoes.”

Zionist Settlers Attack Palestinian Farmers…Again

Gideon Levy is a brave and principled Israeli journalist.  For years his column in the daily newspaper Haaretz has been a near solitary voice documenting Zionist crimes and abuses against the Palestinian people.

Here is an excerpt from today’s column, “When Settlers Beat Palestinian Fathers in Front of Their Sons.”

“Raafat heard his father screaming in pain. He saw the Israeli draw close and hit his father in the head with his rifle butt, as he lay helpless at the foot of the hill. Raafat recognized the man from an attack the previous week, when he had also acted brutally. Jumaa urged his son to escape, so the thugs wouldn’t hurt him, too.”

I encourage you to read the entire piece and to check in on Mr. Levy’s work in Haaretz regularly, if possible.

Gideon Levy lives with personal bodyguards. He continues to write, travel and speak despite the regular death threats he receives from his fellow citizens.  While similar threats have driven other critics of Zionism from the country, Mr. Levy chooses to remain in Israel.

Gideon Levy is one of my heroes.

His is a prophetic, humane voice crying out for justice and love of neighbor in the midst of a racist Zionist nation, responsible for profligate state-sponsored violence, discrimination and bloodshed.

 

When Police Officers Become Executioners

 

John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute and author of the book Battlefield American: The War on the American People, has written an important and very timely article at The Greenville Post.  It is entitled “Enough is Enough: Police Violence Plagues America.”

The ghastly stories about unarmed black citizens, such as Stephon Clark, being gunned down by police officers have become an almost daily occurrence.

It is unconscionable.  It has to change.

Below are the article’s closing paragraphs.  I encourage you to read the entire piece:

“You want to save lives?

“Start by doing something to save the lives of your fellow citizens who are being gunned down every day by police who are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

“You want to cry about the lives lost during mass shootings?

“Cry about the lives lost as a result of the violence being perpetrated by the U.S. government here at home and abroad.

“If gun control activists really want the country to reconsider its relationship with guns and violence, then it needs to start with a serious discussion about the role our government has played and continues to play in contributing to the culture of violence.”

The gun control movement needs to confront this looming shadow of an increasingly militarized police force that all too frequently (and needlessly) resorts to deadly force, especially when confronting people of color.

Thankfully, African-American students at Parkland High School are beginning to gain some attention as they describe their fears as black citizens living in an increasingly militarized America (here, here, and here, for only a few examples).

FADA Will Legalize Religiously-Based Bigotry

22 Republican senators (including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Orrin Hatch), led by Mike Lee (R-Utah), are trying for a 3rd time to shepherd the “First Amendment Defense Act” (FADA) through Congress.

Using the 1st amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion, FADA would codify legal discrimination against members of the LGBT community, as well as anyone having sex outside of marriage.

It is an “anti-discrimination” law that would legalize discrimination.

The bill’s language is classically Orwellian.  It states that FADA will “ensure that the Federal Government shall not take any discriminatory action” against those who excuse their own discriminatory actions as a requirement of their religious faith.

In other words, under the guise of “protecting opponents of same-sex marriage,” FADA will legalize discrimination against LGBT people, including heterosexuals guilty of fornication.

There are so many things wrong with this effort, both in its motivation and execution, it is hard to know where to begin.

Not too many years ago, identical “religious liberty” arguments were the foundation stones supporting racist Jim Crow laws throughout this country.  Business owners could legally refuse service to black people and get away with it, because their discrimination expressed a “deeply held” religious conviction.

The passage of time has not improved the fatally flawed logic behind FADA.  Nor has it sweetened the discriminatory stench clinging to its proponents.

Neither can it hide the blatant avarice lying at the root of this legislation.  For it is largely motivated by the love of money.

Reading the bill reveals that, without exception, every example of potential, government “discriminatory action” – the threats to religious freedom that FADA aims to defend against – concerns maintaining an organization’s tax exempt status or other government financial benefits.

In other words, the goal of FADA is to ensure that no one will lose their religiously-based tax breaks, while exercising their right to indulge in religiously-based discrimination.

What hypocrites religious people can be, especially when fighting to protect the preferential status granted by a government tax exemption.

Such people, who insist on defending their place at the public trough, should be expected to keep the same public rules as everyone else.  If they don’t like it, there is a simple solution:  surrender your tax exemption.

Furthermore, the renewed push for FADA is another example of the Religious Right’s persistent lust for social and political power.  It is a quest for control.  Not simply to have a place in the public square, but to control access to the public square.

It is another chapter in the Right’s continuing desire for a new age of Christendom.  In Christendom, the Christian church holds sway over who is in, who is out, and who plays by which rules.  As expressed by FADA, Christians would implement a bizarre misapplication of church discipline to those living outside the church. (I know, my theological slip is showing.  I do believe that the ancient, and entirely Biblical, prohibition against same-sex intimacy is correct and remains legitimate.)

Granted, the courts will continue to have difficult debates on the legal status of the numerous, and highly variable, religious freedom claims brought before them.  But there is no Biblical foundation to the claim being made by certain Christians that faith in Jesus requires them to have no business dealings with LGBT people.

That is a self-righteous distortion of Christian witness.

The apostle Paul confronted this very misapplication of church discipline in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.  Some members of the church misunderstood Paul’s earlier warning to remain separate from “sexually immoral people.” They mistook him to mean that they couldn’t do business or associate with people outside the church who lived at variance with Paul’s ethical teaching.

However, every Greco-Roman city in Paul’s day was filled with people living any number of alternative, “immoral” lifestyles (as defined by Christian teaching). It was virtually impossible to conduct any type of successful business, including Paul’s own ventures as a traveling tent-maker, without striking deals with such “immoral” customers.

Here is Paul’s correction to the Corinthian mistake:

I did not mean for you to stop associating with the people of this world who are immoral…In that case you would have to leave this world…What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.

Only a racist, discriminatory, judgmental religion fears compromising its moral values by allowing the faithful to rub shoulders and do business with those unlike themselves.

The 1st amendment already protects that sort of religious bigotry.  There is no law against being a religious white supremacist.  But neither should there be a law guaranteeing the tax-exempt status of religious bigots who trample on the laws protecting equal access to the public square for everyone else.

The Morning the Elders Walked Out on Me

It has happened to me before, but not by so many – and at both services!

I believe that every church elder in the first service, and several congregants and/or visitors in the second service, walked out at the midpoint of my message.

More than that, the elders called me into a meeting between services to tell me why they were so upset and to suggest changes to my next message.  I learned later that one elder wanted to stop me from speaking again altogether.

What did I say that was so upsetting?

No, I was not deconstructing the Trinity or denying Jesus’ incarnation.  Those might have been messages worth boycotting.

My message title was “Seeking God’s Kingdom First and Foremost.”  The Bible passage was basically the Sermon on the Mount, focusing especially on Matthew 6:33, “But seek God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness first, and all these others things (i.e. food and clothing) will be added to you.”

After surveying the specific kingdom righteousness insisted upon by Jesus (reread the Sermon on the Mount) – that is, mercy, peace-making, non-retaliation, non-violence, forgiveness, servanthood, etc. – I then turned to the question of practical application.

Specifically, how might the American church behave differently if everyone claiming to follow Jesus truly lived out Jesus’ command in Matthew 6:33?

What might it look like for our kingdom citizenship to trump (no pun intended, but what’s a writer to do?) our American citizenship?

How should Jesus’ kingdom righteousness over-rule popular views of American righteousness?

Then I got specific. I said, Let’s focus on the priority of being non-violent, merciful peacemakers living in American, the greatest purveyor of death, violence and destruction in the world today.  What should that do to us?  What should we be doing ourselves?

So, I offered a few examples, illustrated with readily available information that every American can look up for themselves.

  • The United States is the largest arms dealer in the world, selling almost half of the military weapons purchased by other developing countries.
  • The United States is arming and enabling Saudi Arabia’s assault on the people of Yemen, contributing to what is now the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
  • Many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly during our unending wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, many of whom have been innocent civilians blandly labeled “collateral damage.”

I then suggested that Christians ought to be appalled by America’s participation in such horrors. We can never endorse, much less support, such ruthless destruction.

In fact, as kingdom citizens who are also citizens of a supposed democracy, we should take advantage of the political means at our disposal to speak out, object and strive to change our nation’s addiction to bloodshed and warfare.

THAT is a part of what it means for disciples to be “salt and light in this world” (Matthew 5:11-16).

I then suggested a few practical, local avenues available to those who want to do something in a hands-on way.

Well, the exodus began well before I was even half-way through the statistics on American war-making.  The elders explained that they walked out because I had stopped talking about Jesus and instead “turned to politics.”  The Jesus part was great.  Then the politics ruined everything.

I was told that a church service ought to be a “safe place” for everyone.

Oh my.  Where to being?

My experience provides a text-book example of SO many of the things that have gone wrong with the American church.

  • Since when is worshiping the Holy One and hearing divine revelation supposed to make me always feel safe? Try telling that to Moses as he trembled before the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-6).
  • When honestly proclaimed, the gospel of Jesus Christ comforts the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable.  And the American church is filled with an abundance of oh-so-comfortable people. After all, that is the primary reason many attend church in the first place, to be comfortably confirmed in their comfort zones.
  • This nationalistic, play-it-safe attitude was exactly the mindset of the German Christian church in the 1930s and ‘40s, filled with Nazi sympathizers supporting Adolf Hitler. (See the discussion of this phenomenon in my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America). I suspect that these folks would have happily listened to politics had it been their brand of Christian nationalist politics. (Actually, I am still mystified as to why raw facts and figures are heard as bad politics…).
  • Recall that Jesus’ says, “Woe to you when everyone has only good things to say about you!” ( Luke 6:26).  In other words, the church is in big trouble if our mission is only to help people feel safe and secure.
  • This sad attitude is perhaps the most damning indication of the American captivity of the church, happily enslaved to US consumerism and the self-help gospel of wealth and success.
  • I strongly suspect that most of these folks are afflicted with consciences horribly numbed by Fox News idolatry. This network has been a scourge in our country and has almost single-handedly transformed historic conservatism (a respectable tradition) into an ungodly, mean-spirited, narrow-minded mob fueled by idolatrous, nationalistic propaganda. Honestly, any “Christian” who depends on Fox as his/her sole/primary source of news and political information ought to repent and be ashamed, be very ashamed.
  • The gospel has always been inherently political. This can only be avoided by truncating the truth. Politics concerns itself with a people’s governance, the management of public interaction/conversation and the exercise of state power. Once you acknowledge the universal sovereignty of the Lord Jesus, become a citizen of the global kingdom of God and submit yourself to Jesus’ instruction in kingdom ethics, it becomes impossible to avoid open confrontation with the public powers-that-be.  Especially when they demand an allegiance contrary to Christ’s rule.
  • Fortunately, the African-American church in this country has always understood this.  Predominantly white churches need to listen and learn from our black brothers and sisters in Christ. We have much to learn. And they have a wealth of experience to share.
  • The fact that these obvious conflicts of interests (and power) go unrecognized by so many (white) folks calling themselves Christians, and then cause such discomfort and bizarre behavior when discussed from the pulpit, illustrates the widespread, colossal failure of American church leaders to engage the gospel fully and to discuss the broad spectrum of its practical application in their teaching.
  • We need to change.

Alas, I could go on, but I will stop here…for now.

P.S.  I must add that after both services, I received much more positive feedback from people who understood the issues involved and were eager to follow Jesus obediently in this dimension of their lives, too.  All in all, it was an encouraging day that demonstrated the Holy Spirit’s work in a way that, I trust, is representative of the church at large.

Our Lives Matter and the Church #nra #ourlivesmatter

As an avid outdoors-man and hunter, I own a few shotguns.  Yet, every sensible citizen will recognize that America, and that includes the American church, has a serious problem not shared by any other country in the world – rampant gun violence.

Looking west, people fill Pennsylvania Avenue during the “March for Our Lives” rally in support of gun control, Saturday, March 24, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Hoping to build on the success of the #Black Lives Matter movement (and here), young people of all ethnicities across the country are marching today in the #Our Lives Matter Campaign (also here). Their commitment to speaking out, activism, demonstration, political engagement, non-violence and civil discourse is inspiring, convicting and hopeful.

Perhaps the need for gun reform in this country will not be pushed onto the

People take part in a march rally against gun violence Saturday, March 24, 2018, in New York. Tens of thousands of people poured into the nation’s capital and cities across America on Saturday to march for gun control and ignite political activism among the young. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

back burners this time, as it always has been in the past.

As the principle advocates for non-violence in our world, Christians should support and participate in this important moment in our history, expanding the conversation beyond gun control.

Here are a few of my thoughts on the basic principles (in no particular order) that need to be understood for any civil conversation about gun control to move forward

Protestors carry placards and shout slogans during a demonstration calling for greater gun control, outside the US Embassy in south London on March 24, 2018.
The London rally, in solidarity with the US movement ‘March For Our Lives’, is one of hundreds of gun control protests taking place globally. / AFP PHOTO / Tolga AKMEN (Photo credit should read TOLGA AKMEN/AFP/Getty Images)

positively.

  1. We need to recognize that the NRA is not a citizens’ organization. It is not defending anyone’s civil rights. The NRA is a lobbying organization that works exclusively for the financial benefit of gun manufacturers.

2. Thus, the NRA will continue to do whatever it can to block new gun control measures. The NRA has changed considerably from the days when it worked with President Roosevelt to pass the first federal gun control laws (the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Gun Control Act). Those days are long gone.

3. A crucial element in any future success must involve cutting off NRA funding to our elected representatives. Or voting them out of office. This will require lots of effort and grassroots organizing.

4. No sensible person is arguing that there is a single “silver bullet” (pun intended) solution that can end all mass shootings or other violent gun-crimes.

5. But understanding that no “one thing” will solve all our gun violence problems is never a reason for doing nothing at all, as many seem to suggest.

6. Effective solutions will be multi-faceted. Tightening restrictions on gun ownership will be only one element of a much bigger picture. We need a national conversation with a wide range of expertise and experience at the table.

7. Whatever the original intent of the Second Amendment – some argue it was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves from oppressive government; others argue that it was to permit armed militias to defend the government against citizen revolt – the framers never envisioned the type of weaponry being used today.

8. I am sorry, but no civilian has “a right” to own and operate whatever type of lethal armaments they choose. Certainly not if such ownership is free of any and all government regulation or oversight.  Remember, there was a time when people could drive cars without a license.  Not anymore.

9. No “right” stands in splendid isolation, independent of social responsibility. The 1st amendment does not give me the right to recklessly cream “Fire!” in a crowded theater.  Is irresponsible speech more dangerous than an AR-15 equipped with a bump-stock and a high capacity magazine?

10. Yes, all lives matter equally. We can rejoice that a nation-wide movement for gun control seems finally to have begun.  Yet, let’s also recognize and confess the latent racism brought to the surface in American society when it requires multiple mass shooting of principally white victims before the issue becomes front page news.

Sojourners’ “Reclaiming Jesus” and the Sin of Selective Outrage

Jim Wallis and the Sojourners team recently convened a group of Christian leaders at a private retreat in order to pray, lament the state of American politics, and compose a declaration entitled “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis.”  The statement’s opening paragraph reads:

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake. It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

Although I agree with 90% of this statement’s agenda, I am afraid I would not be able to sign it (not that I have been asked) because I believe that it contributes to the very polarization it seeks to condemn.

I, too, am outraged at the conduct and the policies of our current presidential administration, but my outrage did not begin with Trump’s election.  Neither has my personal lament been confined to protesting only Republican administrations.

In this respect, the Sojourners statement is no different from the boiler plate criticisms of religious and political progressives made by the religious right.

Where was Sojourners’ outspoken “concern for the soul of our nation” when President Obama embraced and expanded the many violations of American civil liberties begun under President Bush?

They were mute, along with the rest of the Democratic Party establishment.

They were silent as Obama prosecuted more journalists and whistle-blowers under the Espionage Act of 1917 than all previous presidents combined (here, here, and here).

They were silent when Obama misled us about extending the practice of warrantless surveillance.

They remained silent when Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act enshrining the outrageous practice of “indefinite detention” of American citizens.

They were silent when we catastrophically overthrew the Libyan government, leaving it the failed state of a suffering people that is now free to entertain open-air slave markets.

Where was Sojourners’ call for national repentance when President Obama lied to the American people about the large number of civilian casualties from American drone strikes?

Did they condemn the president as he simply redefined an “enemy combatant” to be any “military aged male” killed by a US drone?  No, they did not.

But, Abracadabra! In a wondrous act of political smoke and mirrors, Obama’s drones suddenly became modern marvels of military accuracy, rarely killing any civilians at all!  (See this report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or this Atlantic article on how Obama paved the way for Trump’s policies today, or this Reprieve report on Obama’s lies).

Where was the collective lament over Obama’s weekly staff meetings where he gathered military advisers to ruminate over his secret “kill list” – a list that included American citizens! – selecting whom they would assassinate next – all free of any public trial, defense, or offering of inculpatory evidence.

No.  I am sorry, but this call for “Reclaiming Jesus” is a statement of religious hypocrisy writ large.

Followers of Jesus who truly understand that their citizenship in the kingdom of God always takes precedence over every political, partisan or national allegiance, will never limit their prophetic critique to only one political party and its representatives.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is an equal opportunity offender.

The Sojourner’s statement can only become acceptable if its authors:

  1. Confess their sin of selective outrage, acknowledging that their silence during the Obama years helped to enable the evil committed under that Democratic administration.
  2. Admit that their own political partisanship has crippled their ability to speak and to be heard today as true, unbiased witnesses to the gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God.
  3. Determine that “Reclaiming Jesus” is only the first in a series of non-partisan statements that will seek to hold every administration, every political party, and every elected official to identical standards of public righteousness, according to our best understanding of Jesus’ kingdom ethics.

Strengthening the Community of Kingdom Citizens, An Excerpt from My New Book

Here is an excerpt from my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America, pages 190-94. Consult the print edition to follow up on the notes.

Available from: Eerdmans or Barnes&Noble or Amazon

Strengthening the Community of Kingdom Citizens

My brief but significant experience of spontaneous community that hot Chicago night offers a good corollary to the central role that should be filled by the Christian church in the implementation of Jesus’s kingdom ethics in this world. As the community of flesh-and-blood citizens inhabiting God’s kingdom, the church is called to be the birthplace and the supportive family that assists faithful disciples in both the blessings and the risks awaiting anyone daring enough to obey Jesus’s upside-down model of loving God.

In fulfilling this mission, God’s kingdom community will be characterized by a number of essential features, none of which are electives from which we may pick and choose as we like. Rather, they are each defining traits that identify the church as church, as opposed to its being a curious religious/ social club. First, every kingdom community will be awash in biblical teaching that explains how Christ not only died for us but also how he lived for us in order to exemplify the way of salvation. A community of the redeemed will worship and adore the Lord Jesus for his gracious sacrifice, and it will exemplify his teaching and ministry throughout the regular affairs of daily life.

Consequently, the material contained in this book should not be unfamiliar to members of the body of Christ. On the contrary, all of these lessons should be old hat for anyone who regularly attends a Christian church, as familiar as a child’s nursery rhyme to even the youngest novice disciple. Wherever Jesus’s teaching is new or unfamiliar, remedial measures need to be vigorously implemented by church leaders, for the community obviously has not fulfilled its responsibilities. Anyone inclined to reject Jesus’s gospel lessons as objectionable or unrealistic requires mentoring by more mature disciples who can explain the importance of following Jesus faithfully from their own personal experience. As both Martin Luther and Søren Kierkegaard insisted, in this world the true church is always the church militant, never the church triumphant.

Whenever the church becomes a byword for prosperity, comfort, and success, or offers nothing more than a blasé ceremonial blessing draped over a safe, middle-class life proceeding without inconvenience or interruption, then the church has ceased to be the church. Those who refuse to embrace the difficulties of authentic discipleship need a good talking to, an occasion on which they are told, gently but firmly, that their behavior belies their confession. Jesus warned the boastful disciples who were seeking recognition for their gifts of prophecy and miracles:

Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?” Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.” (Matt. 7:21–23)

We dare not forget that the Father’s will, previously described by Jesus in Matthew 5–7, never says anything about working miracles, exorcisms, or delivering prophecies. Rather, true disciples reveal themselves as those who are poor in spirit (5:3), meek and merciful (5:4–7), behave as peacemakers (5:9), are persecuted for the sake of Jesus and his gospel (5:10–12), never carry grudges (5:21–26), always speak the truth and keep their word (5:33–37), love, serve, and pray for their enemies (5:28–48), share generously with anyone in need without ever demanding repayment (6:1–4), forgive all those who sin against them (6:14–15), and make faithful kingdom citizenship the number-one priority of life (6:33).

No one can follow the Lord Jesus by moving exclusively along broad, smooth, level, six-lane highways festooned with convenience stores, gas stations, restaurants, and health spas. Jesus warns us in advance that he rarely travels those routes. His preferred pathways are dusty, narrow, steep, rocky, inconvenient, lacking in amenities, and often dangerous. No one can complain that they weren’t warned. Jesus commands us to “enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matt. 7:13–14).

Serving among such faithful Christian communities entails the cultivation of a normative Christian self-understanding throughout the entire body of Christ that focuses on the ultimacy of life in the kingdom of God. The focal point of a disciple’s identity is life in Christ, not nationality, gender, sexual orientation, career, hobbies, levels of personal consumption, leisure-time pursuits or political activities. This self-understanding will express itself as community members (a) consistently think, believe, and behave according to the upside-down values of God’s kingdom; (b) remember that this world is not the believer’s true home, that we are only pilgrims here, strangers passing through a fallen world on our way to a perfected, eternal home; (c) learn not to value what the rest of this world values so that we remain free of its deceptive power—for us “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21); (d) remember that we are always sinners saved by grace, even as we are being sanctified through experience. This means that following Jesus—at some level, in some way—will commonly run contrary to our natural inclinations. When my faith in Jesus never makes me the oddball in the board room, then I know that I have lost my way somewhere along the line.

Human nature, being what it is, will frenetically poke and prod each of us, looking for a way to turn this advice into the framework for a new game of spiritual one-upmanship. But kingdom communities will consciously foster an environment that rejects legalism and works-righteousness while making grace-filled obedience to a forgiving Savior central. We will bear each other’s burdens, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn (Rom. 12:15), not guffawing at those who bungle or turning green with envy at those who succeed. Richard Burridge makes an important observation in his book Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics, when he notes that, whereas Jesus’s ethical instruction is always rigorous and demanding, his actual treatment of repentant sinners, including his doubtful disciples who often fail him, is always gracious and forgiving.2 Anyone who genuinely wants to follow Jesus can always have another chance—another chance to do the hard things he tells us to do. Jesus is like the patient parent who anxiously anticipates the day when his child will walk all the way to school by herself; but as long as the child remains an infant, he lovingly cheers her on at every feeble act of faith, no matter how imperfect, one faltering step at a time. But he never excuses her from the task of walking.

Moments of fellowship and mutual support in such communities will extend well beyond the typical chitchat about ball games and vacation plans. It will include regular stories of how our friends have taken risks, suffered setbacks, and been shunned by others in their efforts to live for Jesus. The church community will be able to recite the details of miraculous interventions, dramatically transformed lives, amazing answers to prayer, and the refreshing presence of the Holy Spirit—all of which occurred because faithful brothers and sisters were serious about the risky business of following Jesus.

Conversely, there is no reason for God’s kingdom people to expect similar behavior from those living outside of the kingdom or to shun unbelievers for violating the norms of kingdom living. Unfortunately, this is an ancient confusion that many in the church perpetuate today. When the apostle Paul condemned sexual immorality within the Corinthian church (1 Cor. 5:1–5), he urged the community to discipline the guilty parties by banning them from the fellowship until they repented and changed their ways (vv. 2, 5, 11). Discipline was a tool for redemption. The church, however, grabbed the wrong end of the stick and mistakenly assumed that Paul’s admonition “not to associate with sexually immoral people” (v. 9) meant that they should not have any dealings with people outside of the Christian community. This is always the easier—and more self-righteous—decision to make. However, Paul offers a quick correction:

I have written you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people—not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral. . . . In that case you would have to leave this world. . . . What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. (1 Cor. 9–13)

The church suffers from a massive delusion when its members think they are justified in refusing to do business with “sinners” outside of the community. Are we to assume that Paul, the tent-maker (Acts 18:3), never sold a tent to local shoppers in the marketplace because they, like everyone else in the ancient world, prayed to their household-ancestor deities before family meals?3 I doubt that very much. Consequently, Christians are not being persecuted when they suffer the legal consequences of such self-righteous discrimination against those unlike themselves. Whatever the penalties may be for this misguided misbehavior, none of it has anything to do with following Jesus of Nazareth, the man who feasted with sinners, tax-collectors, and prostitutes.

Finally, a community of kingdom citizens will work to break down the traditional, destructive liberal/conservative political dichotomies by doing evangelism an proclaiming historically orthodox theology while simultaneously encouraging widespread counter-cultural kingdom living and social activism among its members. The modern American evangelical church’s unhelpful identification of historic orthodox theology with conservative Republican politics, while it identifies and links liberal, unorthodox theology with progressive Democratic politics, has always been a poisonous misrepresentation that is damaging to both ends of the political spectrum. The kingdom of God can never be identified by way of anyone’s political Rorschach test, as though we can project a new tax policy or foreign affairs initiative on the screen and then discover God’s will in the fine details.4 Real disciples simply will not fit into anyone’s partisan mold because Jesus’s kingdom mindset is not of this world. I once told a colleague that he had given me one of the nicest compliments of my life when he said in exasperation that he could never predict where I would come down on a controversial social issue. I smiled and said, “Thank you. I hope that is because I am trying to think biblically, not politically.”

I am still trying.

The church must continually plug its ears to the numerous strategies that are offered for manipulating earthly power for kingdom purposes by grabbing the reins of government. The lie of that power is as old as the devil himself. Those who would co-opt the kingdom of God for their own partisan agendas need to listen again to Jesus’s rebuke when that very temptation was first offered to him in the wilderness: “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only’” (Matt. 4:10).

Admittedly, equally sincere disciples will not always agree on where the lines of kingdom faithfulness should be drawn. One of the intractable debates that divided the German Confessing Church in the days of the Third Reich was a stubborn disagreement over when resistance against the state was genuinely theological and confessional (and therefore justified) versus when resistance was merely political and not truly a result of faithfulness to the gospel (and therefore unjustified).5 As a result, the Confessing Church never extended its critique of the Nazi government beyond its interference in church affairs; and it never criticized Nazi foreign or domestic policy. For example, Confessing Church leaders such as Pastor Martin Niemöller never opposed the Nazi anti-Semitism laws because the enactment of those laws did not interfere with normal church life.6 After the war Niemöller confessed that his own anti-Semitism had blinded him to the demonic nature of the Nazi discrimination laws. Today it would be well worth the time for church members to prayerfully discuss—with Bible in hand and an unwavering focus on the personal character cultivated by kingdom citizenship—what the gospel’s implications are for a Christian’s response to the laws, policies, and actions of our own government. In how many ways has American Christianity been blinded to the right-minded implementation of God’s upside-down kingdom values because of our own cultural conditioning?7

A Spider’s Web of Corruption

For more on Yemen, here is an excellent summary (from Democracy Now!) on the political machinations and disturbing developments coming out of Washington D.C. over the past few days.

It offers fine interviews from knowledgeable people, a C-SPAN clip of Sen. Sanders on the Senate floor, more about the Saudi crown prince, Trump’s weapons deal, and Yemeni suffering.  It is about 15 minutes long.

I hope you will set aside a few minutes to keep yourself apprised of the many nasty strands that make up the spider’s web of US foreign policy.

Thanks.