Tag: Following Jesus

More Thoughts, and a Few Stories, on the Cultural Captivity of the Church

Years ago I came across a great book written by Douglas Hyde entitled Dedication and Leadership.  Hyde was a former Communist turned Roman Catholic who wondered why his Communist comrades had uniformly displayed deeper levels of commitment to world revolution than the typical Christian had for the gospel of Christ.

One of his suggestions for explaining this disparity focused on the church’s lack of anything resembling Bolshevik self-criticism. Recognizing that Communism required a complete reconstruction of the way people think about and interpret their world, the movement gathered members together into small groups for discussion and “self-criticism.”

Together these Communist study groups held each other accountable to purging old ways of thinking and behaving, while assembling, piece by piece, the renewed mind of a faithful, Communist ideologue.

Hyde laments that it is a rare church indeed that invests any deliberate effort into helping its members cultivate disciplines of healthy spiritual introspection, self-examination, and Christ-like self-criticism.  Yet, this is precisely what Paul expects every Christian to be doing as a part of their daily discipleship.  In Romans 12:2 the apostle says,

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is…

Fallen, sinful minds like ours (you will understand, dear reader, that I assume you too are a guilty sinner like me) do not renew themselves automatically.  Yes, every Christian has the Holy Spirit to turn the impossible into the actual, but personal effort is the required fuel for all personal transformation.

Thus, far too many folks who call themselves Christians fail to think or to behave like people directed by the mind of God.

I was reminded of this personally a while back when talking with a friend about my time visiting my youngest daughter as she worked in the Kenyan slums surrounding Nairobi.  I was struck by the near universal happiness regularly on display in the lives of these people living in the most squalid poverty imaginable.

I couldn’t get over the beautiful smiles and the hearty laughter that I saw spontaneously erupting from the poor and destitute.

My friend listened to me and then quietly asked – with a beautiful smile on his face – David, why is it surprising that the poor would be happy?

That sentence hit me like a ton of bricks.  Good question, I said to myself.  Why indeed?

I suddenly realized, with the help of a friend exercising some good Christian/Bolshevik self-criticism, that I harbored an unrecognized prejudice.

I had spent my entire life in Christian ministry teaching people that money cannot buy happiness; that the love of money is the root of great evil; yet burrowed deep inside my brain remained this hidden assumption that people who lack money certainly can’t be truly happy and content.

Figuratively speaking (I hate it when people say “literally” when they mean “figuratively”), this moment of critical self-awareness blew my mind.

It also reminded me that cultivating the mind of Christ is a life-time process that demands daily self-criticism as well as good friends who are in the habit of similarly criticizing themselves.

Only such genuine disciples can make other disciples.

Getting together in small groups to socialize and hang out together is all well and good, but in and of itself, socialization it is a not an effective recipe for growing serious followers of Jesus.

I was thinking about this particular problem as I attended a Saturday morning men’s breakfast at a nearby church.

The speaker began by deriding what he believed were secular society’s efforts at emasculating, even feminizing, modern men. The church needed to help men to proudly reassert their masculinity.  Or so we were told.

(I found this a very strange thing to be saying in the age of the #MeToo movement.  But evangelicals have lived in a cultural ghetto for a long time.)

To facilitate the growth of masculine, godly men, the speaker announced that he was starting a new men’s Bible study for the church.  A handy video played on a big screen up front introduced the study’s content.

The 300 or so men present in the auditorium with me were all treated to a 5-minute action movie showing Navy SEALS fully armed, wading through water, jumping out of helicopters, and firing their weapons at (and undoubtedly killing) unseen enemies. A very masculine sounding narrator described how this new study (now available nation-wide) would teach us vital principles for godly manhood from the Navy SEALS handbook.

I groaned audibly and nearly regurgitated my breakfast.

I had spent my entire life thinking that Jesus of Nazareth was our perfect model for godliness.  Silly me!

Worse yet, I now discovered that my personal Bible study needed to be directed by a military training manual. Rats!

Those of you who know me will not be surprised to learn that it took all the self-control I could muster to remain seated.  Every fiber of my being wanted to stand up and loudly denounce the secular, unthinking, anti-Christian rubbish being shoveled out from the stage.

Sadly, I was witnessing another instance of American evangelicalism’s cultural captivity to the godless forces of social conformity. Political conservatism, militarism, patriotism, the myth of American exceptionalism, and gross nationalism had all conspired to trample the gospel of Jesus Christ into the ground, buried beneath the spit-polish black boots worn by “Christian soldiers” LITERALLY marching off to war.

And THAT is godly manhood?

We had been divided into groups of 10 sitting at circular tables. As the meeting drew to a close, we were encouraged to talk among ourselves about the morning’s lessons.

I believed that it would be irresponsible of me to say nothing. I had to speak my mind, fully convinced that I was speaking with the mind of Christ.

So, I grabbed the moment and told the other men at my table that this was a horrible example of un-Christian, anti-Biblical thinking infiltrating the church.  I will spare you all the details of my little speech condemning everything we had just been subjected to, but I will mention the response of a young man sitting opposite me at the table.

This young man in his 20s had accompanied his father to the breakfast.  As I spoke, his head began to nod heartily in agreement. As I finished, he said that he was glad I had spoken up. He told us all about how difficult it had been to grow up in Montana where everything in the surrounding society insisted that he become a tough guy, a macho-man, a fighter.

Not even the church provided any refuge from the cultural conditioning of a male dominated society where rugged individualism depended on a daily overdose of testosterone.

This young man, quite rightly, wanted to become more and more like Jesus, not a Navy SEAL.  He finds words of life in the holy Scriptures, not in a military training handbook.

He was fighting against his church’s cultural captivity, not surrender to it.

So, why was the “men’s pastor” employed by the church promoting a program developed by a nationally known evangelical media organization that will teach men to conform to American culture rather than stand against it?

The Day I Met a Kenyan Saint

I had obviously taken the wrong bus. I thought I was going to the Kenyan Museum of Natural History. Instead, I was let out on the side of a road facing a large open savanna with a few scattered trees.  I decided to try again tomorrow, but in the meantime, the savanna was new to me and waiting to be explored.

As I wandered into the grass, I quickly noticed a woman off in the distance praying beneath a tree. She was shouting with a loud voice in Swahili with her arms in the air.  I decided to pray for her. Having no idea to whom she might be praying, I asked the Lord Jesus to show himself to her if she were praying to another deity, and to bless her with positive answers to her prayers if she were praying to him.

Wandering further into the open grassland, I discovered a large warthog who seemed quite comfortable with approaching strangers. So, I sat down close enough to share in his morning activities.  After all, how often does one get a chance to share a seat with a wild warthog?

I communed with my new, multi-tusked friend for no more than a few minutes when the woman who was praying approached me and asked to sit with me.  I said, Yes, of course, and asked her about her morning prayers.

A smile spread across her face as she told me about her relationship with Jesus Christ and her desire to preach the gospel, in America if possible.  I quickly began to ask about the Lord’s work in her life. How did she become a follower of Jesus?  Where did she live?  What about her family?

I then heard a very sad but revealing story about faith and suffering.

She lived in the nearby slum; tin roofs covering cardboard shanties

A Nairobi slum bordering opulence

bordering the prairie just visible on the horizon.  She had been a Christian for about one year.  During that time, her husband had left her and taken away her children.  He and his family objected to her faith in Christ and wanted nothing to do with her. The children were forbidden to see her.

She shared one successive story of heartbreak after another, yet each chapter of her loss was punctuated by some declaration about the goodness of God; how much He loved her, and how much he had done for her.

Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me. The details of her story were tragic. While the statements about the Lord’s goodness were non-specific.  I finally asked, “Can you tell me about one specific way in which God has shown His goodness to you recently?”

She paused.  I waited.  After several moments of thought, she looked at me, smiled and said, “My heavenly Father sent His one and only Son to die on the cross and rise again so that He can forgive me of all my sins.  Since my Father has done that for me, what more does He ever need to do to show me His goodness?”

I knew in that moment I was sitting in the presence of an African Saint.

Here was a poverty-stricken, maligned and persecuted disciple of Jesus who was also filled with the joy of the Lord.  She was daily experiencing the power of Christ’s resurrection and the hope of eternal life made possible by Easter morning.

She was suffering but not beaten down; oppressed but not defeated.  The world had been against her, but she knew that Christ was for her, and that was enough.

That woman will forever provide a model for me to emulate. I have never had reason to weep as she had. Yet, her eyes and her heart were set on Jesus, and no one could wipe the overflowing joy from her face.

I pray that this Easter season, I will take a few more steps to becoming more and more like her.

Why is Slaughter More Acceptable Than Nudity?

(This is the third in a series of posts addressing questions about the cultural captivity of the church.  You can read the previous posts here and here.)

During my last semester as a college professor, I came across a surprising article in the weekly student newspaper.  At least, I found it surprising; though in retrospect, I should have been known better.

It was a detailed review of a newly released computer game.  I didn’t pay any attention to the game’s title because I was so caught off guard by the fact that the student newspaper at a Christian college had no qualms about praising, and encouraging others to buy, the latest graphic game of military slaughter.

The reviewer described in bloody detail the game’s improved graphics, enhancements that depicted the bloodshed more realistically than ever. (I wondered how he knew what realistic blood splatter looked like.)  The game was the newest “first person shooter” game. (That is, a game where the player holds the computer gun in his/her hand, then points and shoots at human figures on the screen in order to survive and accumulate points).

All in living color, of course.

I initially considered writing a letter to the editor to express my dismay, but I thought better of it.  Why not wait to see if anyone else shared my dismay.

No one did, apparently.  Or, perhaps they were biting their tongues like me.  Several weeks passed with no response.

So, I devised a better plan.  I would submit my own article reviewing the latest version of my favorite sex game.  (No, I have never played any such thing, but I assume that they must exist.  My imagination was not strained at all by concocting one ex nihilo.)

My review would go on and on in effusive detail praising the graphic depictions of the female (or the male) anatomy – in living color, no less – and the many arcane, sexual positions available as the player scored more and more points by scoring with more and more sexual partners.

Then, at the end of my imaginary review, I would admit to my satire and ask a simple question:  Why, dear reader, are you preparing to write a letter to condemn my fictitious review when you had nothing to say about an earlier review glorifying a graphic, bloodthirsty game of war, complete with exploding bodies and crushed skulls?

What kind of moral calculus is that?

I wish I had gone through with my plan, but I didn’t.  It was my final semester before moving on, and I didn’t quite have the energy needed for another campus-wide controversy.  In my experience, many readers of that particular newspaper had difficulty recognizing, much less appreciating, the art of satire.  And my days as an educator were coming to an end.

But my questions remain.

Why is bloodshed and human slaughter, the kind of violent acts that our Lord Jesus explicitly prohibits, so much more acceptable to Christian people than images of nudity and sexuality?

No, I am not diminishing the destructive power of pornography.  But is pornography any more corrosive to the human psyche, any more more dehumanizing for those who participate in it than a blood-thirsty killing game that transforms a player into a butcher, that desensitizes him to the horrors of murder, pain and human suffering?

At least sexual intercourse was God’s idea, and He blessed it with the bonds of marriage.

But human violence arose from the sulpherous heart of original sin. Our Creator rendered his eternal verdict over this brand of wickedness when He cursed the first murderer, Cain, and banished his blood-stained hands from his presence.

Does the church think or act any differently than the rest of our violent society when it comes to this problem of casual, gaming violence?  Murder as entertainment?

I don’t know the definitive answer to this question, but I suspect that on average, we are no different than anyone else in the neighborhood who relaxes after school (or work) by watching a computer screen filled with atrocious, bloody acts of human carnage created by yours truly.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman has written a fascinating and disturbing book examining the psychological effects of violent video games on children and adolescents.  It’s entitled Assassination Generation: Video Games, Aggression, and the Psychology of Killing (Little, Brown and Co., 2016).

Grossman excerpts the findings of a medical report presented to Congress in July 2000 by a coalition of 4 professional medical, psychiatric and pediatric associations.  Their congressional report concluded that:

“Well over 1,000 studies…point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children…[V]iewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children. Its effects are measurable and long-lasting…[it] can lead to emotional desensitization toward violence in real life.” (10-11)

Grossman also compares first-person shooter games to the military training methods used to desensitize soldiers to killing on command.  He says:

“Violent video games teach kids to kill using the same mechanisms of classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and social learning employed to train soldiers.”

What happens when a depressed teenager who is addicted to violent video games and feels that the entire world has become his enemy grabs a family gun and walks to the local mall?

We all know the answer to that question.  We have seen on TV time and again.

Sadly, this is the kind of world we live in.

What are the people of God doing to address the social plague of daily violence traumatizing our school children?  Placing armed guards inside our churches is the devil’s own suggestion, though I have seen and read about many churches doing just that.

But surely, everyone can understand, that is not the way of Jesus.

We need to examine ourselves and confess to the many ways in which we have eagerly conformed to a godless society. We are unable to find wisdom in the mind of Christ because we are too busy entertaining ourselves (for hours and hours) with the latest version of Call of Duty and Modern Warfare 2.  So, we turn to armed guards instead of the Spirit of compassion.

Ask yourself this question.  Can you imagine Jesus sitting for hours in front of a computer screen, laughing with glee and giving himself high-fives over his rising body count as he plays Call of Duty: Black Ops?

How many throats could Jesus slit?

The question answers itself.

It is long past time for God’s people to return their eyes to Jesus, the lamb of God, prince of peace, our suffering servant who came not to kill but to be killed.  What does he ask of his church today?

The Cultural Captivity of the Church — Prelude

(This is the first in an unspecified number of posts that I will periodically produce addressing what I believe is the #1 silent killer of Christian faith in America:  the average believer’s failure to recognize the dangerous, cultural smog polluting our spiritual lungs every single day.  The posts will consist of various thoughts as they emerge from the mists of my own mental confusion.  I have been thinking about the issues involved for a long time, but have held off on posting my thoughts for reasons that I no longer feel are binding.  So here goes.  Please, let me know what you think.)

Here is my thesis:

A primary responsibility of every Christian leader in every Christian congregation is to help God’s people learn to see through the lies, distortions and misrepresentations of reality that are created for us by our culture.  (I begin by assuming that knowing reality fully requires knowing Jesus Christ.)

The most dangerous distortions are those that warp our perception of the things that matter most – questions of human existence, meaning, purpose, responsibility, and, of course, a right relationship with our Creator.

So here is every Christian’s challenge:  We spend the majority of our lives

swimming through an unfiltered stream of cultural pollution.  No, I am not condemning all things secular.  Neither am I suggesting that we should try to jump into a different, a more Christian, stream.  I am afraid that’s not possible, despite the testimonies of its many proponents.

I am afraid that we are what we are where we are.   Period.

Our culture permeates everything, usually in ways that we don’t understand or even begin to recognize.  Which is one important reason why the oft-repeated arguments in favor of solving our cultural problems by creating an alternative, Christian culture with Christian schools, Christian unions, Christian political parties, etc. is always doomed to fail.

These attempts at “engagement by means of alternatives” will always fail to address the problem because, first, we cannot extricate ourselves from ourselves.  We will always be the people creating the alternatives.  We are bound to who we are, where we are, and where we come from, alternatives be damned.

Secondly, even if we withdrew into the hinterlands of the furthest wilderness, we will always bring the pollution along with us.  The source of that pollution is a part of us, buried deep within, because we are all fallen sinners.

Thankfully, this life is not painted solely in tones of black and white.  The question is not about who is good and who is bad.  Everyone and everything in this world are always a mixture of both.

Even a polluted stream can contain elements of its original, God-ordained balance, the biological diversity including fish, insect life and vegetation that makes it all worth preserving.

Sadly, however, those polluted fish now have no choice but to breathe the dirty water, inhaling the pollutants along with the oxygen.  Human beings have so successfully polluted this planet that scientists can find mercury polluting the flesh of those flightless, tuxedoed birds coddling their eggs on the ice flows of Antarctica.

We are like those penguins and those fish.

The church’s cultural corruption is every bit as universal, which is why working to learn how to recognize the problem, working to learn how to address the problem, working to learn how to remedy the problem together within the Body of Christ is an essential part of spiritual maturity.

It is also a non-negotiable requirement of responsible church leadership.

Every Christian leader ought to be making this challenge a central ingredient in his/her job description. How do I recognize cultural corruption within the church?  How do I learn to see it within myself?  How can I help others to do the same?  Then, having learned to recognize it, what can we do about it?

How can we survive swimming in this culture without being suffocated by its corruption?  And, in what, precisely, does its corruption consist?

These are the kinds of questions we have to ask ourselves.

I’ll give you a hint of where I’m going with this argument.

The usual suspects of sex, divorce, alcohol, and tithing are the not church’s greatest threats.  They are significant problems, but they are not the “heavy metals” of our cultural corruption.  They are only the bacteria that eat away at a weakened body already diseased.

How Can Anyone Claim to Believe in Jesus When They Don’t Understand The First Thing About Him?

A newly discovered 4th century papyrus contains a number of Gospel sayings (e.g. pericopes) that present a shockingly different portrait of Jesus.

Scholars are uniformly surprised that such widely divergent alternatives could possibly exist.  For example:

Blessed are those who resort to violence to defend themselves, for they will control the earth.

Blessed are those who carry a loaded Colt .45 Peacemaker, for they will be called Sons of the God of War.

When someone hits you on the right cheek, turn your snub-nose .38 upon  them and shoot with accuracy.

Do not resist the urge to overpower an evil person, with deadly force if required.  Use all means necessary to ensure that you and your lovely ones never feel threatened in any way.  For your life is more valuable than anyone else’s.

It should be obvious that no such papyri exists.  Just to be crystal clear, this is a spoof.

Sadly, in this age of infantile evangelicalism, we can no longer take it for granted that the average church-goer understands either New Testament teaching or the gospel portrait of Jesus.

Another perfect example of the dire, debilitating condition of conservative Christianity in this country appears in the NBC news story below.  It’s called “Armed Volunteers Train in Hopes of Protecting Parishioners Against Potential Attacks.”  Take a look:

The interviews speak for themselves.  It’s all oh-so American.  It’s also as contrary to Jesus’ model, his ethics and the Kingdom of God as one could possibly imagine.

Class Warfare in America. Whose Side Is the Church On?

(This is the first in a three-part series on class warfare in the U.S.)

Americans have been fighting a serious class war for at least the past 30+ years, and the lower classes, especially the poor, are getting the stuffing beaten out of them.  Few people want to talk openly about America’s class war, but it’s a fact.

The church needs to get to grips with it.

Instead of siding with the rich time after time, the people of God must stand up for the poor.  We need to recognize that our current tax policy, which serve as a major offensive weapon in the billionaires’ arsenal against the poor, is a moral catastrophe.

Trump signs the 2017 Republican tax plan

Did you agree with President Trump’s tax-cut plan passed by Congress last year?  Did you cheer for his budget with its massive increases for the nation’s military-industrial-surveillance complex?

If you said Yes to either of those questions, then you supported a HUGE transfer of wealth that was taken away from the poor and the middle-class, and handed over to the rich and that new class of “people” called corporations.

THAT, my friends, is class warfare waged through the utterly undemocratic processes of Washington D.C., where the majority of our politicians are bought and paid for by millionaires, billionaires and corporate lobbyists.  They don’t represent you and me.  They represent big money.

We all need to get over the long out-of-date Cold War fear of saying anything that might sound even slightly Marxist (oooohhh, the big, bad boogy man…) and recognize that our society has been viciously twisted by a brutal 30+ year, class war being waged from the top down.

That war has empowered America’s richest families and biggest corporations to stomp the needy into the ground – not only in this country, but around the world.  (Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; The Inside Story of How American Really Took Over the World, to learn about just one example of the international scope of America’s economic war against the poor).

As I demonstrate in my book, I Pledge Allegiance (see pages 155 – 157), it was not Karl Marx but Jesus Christ who insisted on building a just society – beginning with the Christian church – where everyone’s needs could be met, and no one need go without.  Ages before Karl M. was even a glimmer in his father’s eye, Jesus’ church was living by a definite code: “from each according to your ability; to each according to your need.”

That’s right.  Marx was ripping off Jesus.

Recently, the newly elected Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, suggested raising the upper tax bracket to 70%.  Naturally, like robotic guard dogs hardwired for mindless assaults against anything that threatens their gold-plated, private communities and the corporate powers-that-be, the usual conservative, Republican and DINO (Democrats in name only) suspects have uniformly attacked this young, bright politician.

Paul Krugman (a Nobel Prize winning economist) is absolutely correct in applauding Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s view of taxation.  Take a look at his latest editorial, “The Economics of Soaking the Rich.”  Below is a brief excerpt, but you should read the entire piece:

“I have no idea how well Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will perform as a member of Congress. But her election is already serving a valuable purpose. You see, the mere thought of having a young, articulate, telegenic nonwhite woman serve is driving many on the right mad — and in their madness they’re inadvertently revealing their true selves…

 “The controversy of the moment involves AOC’s advocacy of a tax rate of 70-80 percent on very high incomes, which is obviously crazy, right? I mean, who thinks that makes sense? Only ignorant people like … um, Peter Diamond, Nobel laureate in economics and arguably the world’s leading expert on public finance…And it’s a policy nobody has ever implemented, aside from … the United States, for 35 years after World War II — including the most successful period of economic growth in our history.”

Did you know that during the post-war period Krugman refers to, the upper

Professor Paul Krugman

tax bracket in this country was 90%?  That’s right.  The richest Americans paid 90% in taxes on a portion of their income.

Many people fail to understand this point, and the pundits who feign moral outrage at such suggestions will never explain this point in public.  After all, they are not trying to inform; they are working to protect their own financial interests.

When someone like Rep. Ocasio-Cortez suggests implementing a 70% tax rate, it does not mean that every American would pay a 70% tax on every dollar earned.  Not at all.

It means that the wealthiest Americans (and corporations) in the highest tax

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

brackets would pay a 70% tax on a portion of their total income.  What portion would be decided in negotiations over the subsequent budget changes.

That’s called “from each according to your ability.”  I also call it good sense.

If Dwight Eisenhower, a Republican president, could smile on a 90% tax bracket fueling a healthy post-war economy, then why can’t today’s Congress embrace a 70% tax bracket; especially when we are repeatedly told that our current economy is booming?

Simple.

First, far too many of our elected representatives are millionaires or richer!  The typical member of Congress is 12x wealthier than the typical American family.  Time Magazine referred to Congress as the millionaires’ club.  How enthusiastic will these people be at the thought of raising their own taxes?

Second, Washington D.C., and the American public, continue to be mesmerized by the dark enchantment of a mythical, fire-breathing monster called “trickle-down economics.” This farcical tax policy was conjured up from the pit by President Ronald Reagan, the national bamboozler-extraordinaire.  Others have relabeled it supply-side economics or Reaganomics.  But call it what you will, it remains the same destructive strategy for continually enriching the rich while further impoverishing the poor.

Only one thing “trickles down” from the powerful billionaires standing on top of you in this class battle.  Take a guess at what it is.  (I’ll give you a hint:  it ain’t well paid jobs or affordable health care.)

Here is some more analysis from a real economist, Paul Krugman.  Also, please look at the impressive graph included in this part of his article:

“You see, Republicans almost universally advocate low taxes on the wealthy, based on the claim that tax cuts at the top will have huge beneficial effects on the economy [the supposed ‘trickle-down’ effect]. This claim rests on research by … well, nobody. There isn’t any body of serious work supporting G.O.P. tax ideas, because the evidence is overwhelmingly against those ideas…[emphasis mine]

“Why do Republicans adhere to a tax theory that has no support from nonpartisan economists and is refuted by all available data? Well, ask who benefits from low taxes on the rich, and it’s obvious.

“And because the party’s coffers demand adherence to nonsense economics, the party prefers ‘economists’ who are obvious frauds and can’t even fake their numbers effectively.”

Yes, the multi-millionaire, Ronald Reagan (worth $10.6 million in 1981 dollars when he took the president’s office) launched a new, immoral class war against the poor and the middle-class.  Reagan whipped up irrational – even racist – hostilities against “big government” and supposedly ghetto dwelling “welfare queens” in order to sell his political snake oil dressed up as a tax plan.  However, the real goal was producing a vast economic benefit for Reagan’s friends and campaign donors, members of an exclusive club I call the Triple-Bs:  Billionaires and Big Business.

The working poor, the needy, the destitute, and even the middle-class, have been losing ground ever since.  That lost ground includes their homes, jobs, savings accounts, educational opportunities, health care and government assistance.

It is long past time for the conservative church, all those who consistently vote Republican, to wake up and smell the coffee.

You have been naïve (perhaps) but not guiltless co-conspirators in the heartless exploitation of America’s poor and needy, our children, our sick, and our elderly.  It is time to rip off the cruel partisan blinders, repent of our selfishness and confess, “Yes, we need the politics of Jesus!”

From each according to your abilities.  To each according to your needs.

What is Christian Worship? Part 5  Dispelling Two Common Errors

We have come to the end of this study in New Testament worship vocabulary, but I cannot close without taking note of two common obstacles that frequently hamper leaders who wish to act on the theology we have discovered by putting our theological conclusions into practice.  Perhaps you would like to review that theology in parts one, two, three and four.

 The key theological issue at stake is the New Testament’s elimination of the Old Testament distinction between the sacred and the profane (recall, especially, part four in this series).

Jesus Christ has made the Old Testament/Covenant idea of special/sacred space (a temple), personnel (priests), and activities (ritual offerings) obsolete.  The New Testament even goes so far as never to identify baptism or the Lord’s Supper as acts of “liturgy” or “worship,” as surprising as that may be.

But, for some odd reason, many churchgoers prefer living in a quasi-Old Testament world. Here is where we encounter the first obstacle.

Perhaps many churchgoers secretly prefer the idea of living life day-to-day as a truly profane existence.  After all, stepping in and out of God’s presence, spending the majority of our time free from the presence of God, seems preferable for those who don’t want to deal with Christ’s Lordship.

In any case, humanity’s predilection for an obsolete manner of religious thinking appears in our need to invent new ways of importing Old Testament structures into the New Testament church.  It happens all the time in every tradition.  Think of the many ways we reinstall the

Cathedral of St. Mary

sacred/profane distinction into the Christian life.

We create uniquely sacred people with ordination ceremonies.  We even call them “priests,” as opposed to all of the other Christians who become the “laity.”

We Christianize sacred spaces via grand cathedral/church architecture, and we then refer to these places as “God’s house.”

We elaborate uniquely sacred acts through sacramental liturgies that may only be performed by the appropriately sacred personnel (i.e. the ordained) inside the proper sacred space.

All of this, every last bit of it, is absolutely wrong as far as the New Testament is concerned.  All I can say is, thank God that the grace of Jesus Christ is so bloomin’ big that it extends even to wrong-headed people like us.

The second obstacle issues from the first.  It becomes the rational justification for the ecclesiastical mistakes described above.

One of my former colleagues loved to repeat this standard rationale, imagining that he had slain his opponent (usually me) with a single thrust, “If everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred!”  Have you heard that one?

In other words, by this logic we’ve got to create ‘special’ moments/places/personnel in order to preserve some sense of the divine majesty.  Otherwise, familiarity will breed contempt, and it’s only a matter of time before any sense of awe before God is melted away into the mundane mix of inattentive daily living.

Right?  If so, let’s reintroduce Old Covenant thought and its priestly structures from stage-right.

No.  This is exactly the wrong thing to do.  Let’s think about it for a moment.

The first flaw in my friend’s argument is a matter of simple logic.

Notice that my colleague’s objection to the New Testament perspective on worship must assume the continuing validity of the sacred/profane distinction in order to make its point.

In other words, it ignores the very assertion it pretends to refute.  To put it another way, it tries to dismiss New Testament teaching (i.e. there is no more sacred/profane distinction for those who know Jesus) by keeping its feet firmly planted in the Old Testament framework (i.e. we must observe the sacred/profane distinction if we want to truly worship God).

The next time you hear someone using this invalid claim calmly inform them that you reject the premise of their conclusion.  Ha!  Not really.  They probably won’t know what you mean.

At the end of the day, this “sophisticated” sounding refutation of New Testament teaching is really nothing more than a stubborn refusal to come to grips with the newly redeemed creation awash with God’s unfettered grace now available through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

While I certainly understand the pragmatic concerns that lead people to cling to Old Covenant distinctions, I remain convinced that any practical decision contrary to biblical teaching, no matter how “helpful,” will ultimately prove crippling to God’s people.

It is better to wrestle with the difficult implications of sound theology than it is to ease the burden of church leadership by choosing expediency.
Yes, the innate limits of the human attention span may well require that we demarcate certain times and places for special events, i.e. a designated place…at a designated time…to gather together…for particular events and practices…as a community of faith.
BUT let’s never confuse the pragmatic needs born of human limitations with the proper theology of the New Covenant.  We do such things to accommodate human weakness, NOT because there are any real differences between different times, special places, or specially ordained people.

Christian worship, New Testament worship, is an obedient lifestyle where every day is received as the gift of God’s holy presence, personally indwelling us through the Holy Spirit, conforming us to the perfect image of His one and only eternal Son as we sacrifice ourselves in following His call.

Live out THAT life and you will worship and glorify our holy God all day every day without fail.

Chris Hedges Challenges Us to Put Faith Into Practice

Truthdig – an online magazine that I read regularly – has published an excellent essay by Chris Hedges describing the anti-war protests of Phil and Dan Berrigan during the 1960’s movement against the war in Vietnam.  It is entitled “Resistance is the Supreme Act of Faith.”

I became a follower of Mr. Hedges’ work years ago when I read his excellent book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, reflecting on his many years as a war correspondent.  It’s a book that I believe every American should read.

I have copied selected excerpts from the Truthdig article below.  You can find the entire piece by clicking on the title above.

“The struggle against the monstrous radical evil that dominates our lives—an evil that is swiftly despoiling the earth and driving the human species toward extinction, stripping us of our most basic civil liberties and freedoms, waging endless war and solidifying the obscene wealth of an oligarchic elite at our

Catholic priests, Phil and Dan Berrigan, leading an anti-Vietnam, anti-draft demonstration

expense—will be fought only with the belief that resistance, however futile, insignificant and even self-defeating it may appear, can set in motion moral and spiritual forces that radiate outward to inspire others, including those who come after us. It is, in essence, an act of faith. Nothing less than this faith will sustain us. We resist not because we will succeed, but because it is right. Resistance is the supreme act of faith.”

…….

 “The Berrigans, who identified as religious radicals, had little use for liberals. Liberals, they said, addressed only small, moral fragments and used their pet causes, in most cases, not to bring about systemic change, but for self-adulation. Liberals often saw wars or social injustices as isolated evils whose end would restore harmony.”

…….

 “The Berrigans excoriated the church hierarchy for sacralizing the nation, the government, capitalism, the military and the war. They argued that the fusion of secular and religious authority would kill the church as a religious institution. The archbishop of New York at the time, Cardinal Francis J. Spellman, in one example, sprinkled holy water on B-52 bombers and blessed the warplanes before their missions in Vietnam. He described the conflict as a ‘war for civilization’ and ‘Christ’s war against the Vietcong and the people of North Vietnam.’  Phil Berrigan, the first priest to go to jail for protesting the war, celebrated Mass for his fellow prisoners. The services were, for the first time, well attended.”

 I, personally, wish that churchmen like the Berrigan brothers would include a more forthright, verbal witness to Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God in their lifestyle of public resistance.

On the other hand, they at least are/were doing the work that precious few evangelicals bother to think about.

I wish that religious activists like Chris Hedges, a former Harvard divinity student, could understand that the foundation stone of spiritual death in this world is not found in temporal systems of repression, whether social, political or economic, but are rooted in the all-pervasive nature of humanity’s sinfulness.

On the other hand, he at least publicly identifies and  condemns the many evils that most evangelicals bless and embrace.

The kingdom of God on earth will never erupt from within.  It is a foreign entity, a rule from witsout, that only arrives with the resurrected Jesus.  I believe that this fact is the beginning of our only hope in life as well as in death.

But I also wish that more men and women who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ would also understand the essential, moral, spiritual continuity that ties Christian self-denial to our faithful resistance against all forms of evil, whether that evil shows itself in militarism, warfare, capitalism, nationalism, inequality, civil religion, racism, or injustice.

The church’s failure to make  this connection consistently, to think and to behave with coherence across all these areas of life, cripple our witness, stunt our spiritual development, and abandon a needy world to the merchants of half-measures.

I encourage you to read Mr. Hedges’ weighty words and think about his lessons through the lens of Jesus’ own ethics.  Perhaps, my book I Pledge Allegiance can help, if this is a new exercise for you.

A Story of Christian Self-Denial in Palestine

Terry and I always make a point of worshiping with Bethlehem Evangelical Church whenever we are visiting the West Bank.  On this occasion I took some time to visit and have coffee with pastor Nihad Salman.  I specifically wanted to talk with him about what it is like to be a Christian leader in the Occupied Territory.

Pastor Salman not only answered my questions, he provided a moving example of what it means to live a life devoted to faithful Christian discipleship.  The Christian population in Gaza and the West Bank has dropped dramatically in recent decades, not so much because of “Muslim extremism” (though it certainly can be difficult for Christians to live freely in a predominately Muslim society) but because of the many pressures and insecurities created by Israel’s military occupation.

Pastor Salman’s repeated message to me were these words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross

Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity

and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”  (Matthew 16:24-25)

Whoever loses their life for Jesus’ sake will find it.

Whoever works to save their life will lose it.

Nihad repeated those words over and over again in the course of our conversation…with a great big smile on his face.  And he shared story after beautiful story of the ways in which God’s grace is changing lives in the West Bank.

Many members of Nihad’s extended family have moved to the United States.  They regularly call trying to persuade him to relocate with his family as well.  “You can pastor another church here in America,” they insist.  “Your children will have more opportunities with better educational choices.  Get out of there while you can.”

Becoming a parent can sometimes become the greatest stumbling block to

Illegal Jewish Settlements are surrounding Bethlehem cutting it off from the rest of the West Bank

faithful discipleship.  Which is the reason Jesus warns us that his followers must love Him more than their own children.  He said, “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

So, this is what Nihad tells his family living in America: “Yes, my children could have better opportunities for important universities and high-paying jobs in the United States.  Yes, they may only have basic employment here and never make much money or have the opportunities your children will have.”

 “But Jesus has called me to be a pastor in Bethlehem.  He tells me that I must lose my life for His sake if I am to find true life at all.  And that includes the lives of my children.  They, too, must learn to lose their lives for Jesus. And we are all finding a wonderful life of mercy and grace here in the West Bank.”

Yes, I had the privilege of drinking coffee, praying and reading scripture

The light of the gospel is shining brightly in Bethlehem

with a saint in Bethlehem.

I was encouraged by Nihad’s model of genuine Christian discipleship, for here is a man who has said No to himself and Yes to our crucified, resurrected Lord Jesus.

This is what real Christianity looks like in every part of the world.

Please remember to pray for Pastor Salman, his family and the ever-expanding ministry of Bethlehem Evangelical Church.

P.S.  This particular church is not alone.  Over the years, Terry and I have worshiped with a wide variety of Christian churches throughout the Bethlehem area.  The gospel is being proclaimed widely by many faithful men and women in Palestine.

Politics as Witness

The Christian blogosphere, Patheos, has published a guest opinion piece by Daniel Darling and Dean Inserra entitled “What Is Politics Doing to Our Witness?”.  I have copied the two, closing paragraphs below.  You can read the entire piece here.

“While the fracturing of friendships over politics is unnecessarily sad, even more tragic is the experience of those outside the church who may engage in a conversation about the gospel, because they have seen the church in action on their social media timeline and have decided that this is a gospel not worth investigating. Have we gained the world and lost our souls?

“As we steward our earthly citizenship, let us always be pointing, by the words we say and the way we say them, to a citizenship in a city whose builder and maker is God. Let’s not gain a political world and lose our missional soul.”

The authors thankfully remind their readers that a disciple’s citizenship in the kingdom of God takes priority over all other allegiances.  I admit that I am biased here, because this is the core of my message in my new book, I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st Century America.

Unfortunately – at least in my view – that is where the similarity between these two authors’ and myself ends.  For, while they rightly lament the unseemly levels of hostility and slander that often characterize Christian political discourse nowadays, a concern for personal deportment marks the beginning as well as the end of their concern.  Apparently, politics’ main threat to Christian “witness” is its power to fuel hostility within God’s family.

The glaring hole in this argument, however (and, again, I am not dismissing the importance of this solitary observation), appears in the authors’ failure to connect (a) the specific policies enacted by our politics to (b) the ethical norms demanded of us by citizenship in God’s kingdom.

The Patheos article leaves both the real-world consequences of our political choices and the personal demands of kingdom citizenship unaddressed, unspecified.  Both “the kingdom” and “politics” remain blank cyphers waiting to be filled in by the individual in whatever way they think best.  Of most importance is ensuring that our conversations on these subjects is always winsome.

Apparently, winsomeness is the key to winning people to the gospel.

But if the kingdom comes first, shouldn’t the kingdom be determining the shape of my politics, going above and beyond the shape of my demeanor when talking about my vote?

Is it ok to vote for genocide as long as I debate the decision with kindness?  I am sure these two authors would say “no” to that question.  But on what basis?

Here is my question:  What if my political decisions are rooted in fear and hostility?  Is that acceptable, as long as I talk about my xenophobic, fear-based political life in a calm, friendly, winsome tone of voice?

If the kingdom of God really does come first in my life, shouldn’t the Father’s kingdom ethics, as taught by Jesus, exercise control over my political actions – actions that go well beyond the way I talk with others about my choices?

Isn’t the content of my politics as (if not more) important to “my Christian witness” than my personal deportment?

That, my friends, is the crucial existential break that has set American evangelicalism and the Religious Right adrift, lost in its own sea of moral relativism.  The compartmentalization of a contentless kingdom, discreetly isolated from our idiosyncratic political choices, has left America with an individualistic church fueling a heartless, destructive politics, all in the name of Jesus.