Does God Need a Government Bailout?

There was a diary up on website Daily Kos yesterday by an Iranian poster, a man with dual American-Iranian citizenship, on the current situation in Iran. He has some interesting insights as to the country and the situation and he shares some of the views of his father, who was visiting Iran during the election.

But in an addendum he added this morning, the diarist made a statement about Islam in Iran that I think has broader applications to Christianity as well:

...I think the argument that ultimately takes down the theocracy in the long term is not one that seeks to fight Islam, but one that defends Islam; someone very bright and eloquent in Iran will have to come out and speak the simple truth, which is that the only way to respect Islam is to respect that it can draw in believers by choice - instead of implying that it cannot. Putting Muslim tradition into government law suggests that people will not follow Islam willingly, being forced to do so under threat of punishment by the state, and since only those who follow Islam willingly are true believers, such a state is detrimental to the Muslim faith, not helpful; in the years since the Revolution, religion has primarily become a lexicon for the young to get ahead in politics, while their true feelings become more and more secular, and the amount of devout believers in Iran has only declined. The only way to respect Islam is to respect that it can draw in believers by choice - instead of implying that it cannot.

-- "An Iranian Kossak's Perspective on Iran" by ShadowSD

There's a saying of Luther's that I always like to quote to the effect that no one will be dragged by the hair into Heaven. I think that is the real argument in favor of the Separation of Church and State. Placing religious ritual in the hands of the Government and giving the State power to enforce Faith diminishes Faith, and replaces Love of God with Duty to State.

Does anybody pay taxes out of a love for Christ? Does anyone obey the speed limit out of a respect for God's Creation? Does renewing your Driver's License bring you closer to Heaven?

But we Christians tend to like those little glimmers of our religion we see reflected by the State: appeals to God on our currency, graven images of the Decalogue in our courthouses. We feel comforted by their presence, and feel threatened when they are challenged, as if an attack on a shallow symbol of civic piety is somehow a threat to God himself.

But doesn't that diminish God, making him seem too weak to stand up to the Forces of Secularism without a Government bailout?

No. God is big enough to take care of himself; and even more than public sacrifices, he tells us, he desires a humble heart. Liberals like to say that you can't legislate morality; well, you can't legislate sincerity or humility very well either.

If we really believe that America is a "Christian Nation" -- which personally I don't; at least not in the way some people seem to mean it -- then let us show that by living Christ's Love and being living witnesses to it, and not by relying on Caesar to maintain outward rites and symbols of piety.

In a way, it's really a Captialist idea, isn't it? Let our beliefs compete in the open market for souls without depending on Government Inscentives. If we are sincere and godly in our faith and our lives, people will respond and come to us, even without Government Regulation.

What could be more American than that?

This Flesh and Our Time, I Hope or There is Nothing

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?
One of Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin's most famous paintings.

“All who have meant good work with their whole hearts, have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language, they should be at once tripped up and silenced: is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? and does not life go down with a better grace, foaming in full body over a precipice, than miserably straggling to an end in sandy deltas?” Robert Louis Stevenson in "Aes Triplex" (1878)


We here upon earth, beings of flesh are told that if God were good we are not meant to suffer. Or because God is good we are meant to suffer. Or that we are dust in the wind. Or that we are important in the eyes of God. Which leads any bright or evenly modestly intelligent person to be confused and ask... Why are humans alive? What is our purpose? Well, ... we all love. We all suffer. Is our purpose here to love and suffer?

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.” Woody Allen

Scholars of human wisdom argue over what is important, what is true, what is absolute... And in the end, there is no agreement, and no amount of cultural relativism can assuage the pain of not knowing. We beg for the truth, we seek it, and in the end do we have any answers?

Romans 5:3-4 “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope”

So then what are we? Are we cast out refuse or are we the glory of God? Why are we here? Why do we suffer? Every moment spent upon earth is lost. How you live every moment is important, because despite our desire to live forever, we do not. We endure the tragedies of the time we live. We endure the pain and sorrows of life. And we live. We have children or not, we do that which we are born to do, or not, and we find love, or not. We are here to do something, whatever that something is.

“Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life.” Horace, Roman Poet. 65 BC-8 BC

I believe God exists, therefore, there is a consequence to my life here upon earth aside from simple cause and effect. I believe in eternity, in God, in the plan of redemption through Christ. I believe in forgiveness. This isn’t a confessional, it is a statement as to purpose, for my time here upon the earth. But amongst everything else, I believe we are meant to suffer. Not for the pain, nor for the loss, but for the lessons. We toil in the fields in which we are working, and we toil in the world in which we are breathing and living. Toil itself is not our life however. So are we meant to suffer? If not why do we? If we are wise we allow life to teach us about more than just the moment we exist in. If we let God use our pain to instruct us, to allow our scars to help others, we grow.

Proverbs 16- 7 “When a man's ways please the LORD, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

You can discuss fate, or destiny, you can chat all you like about faith and purpose, but the only thing we know, is our existence, and if we believe in God there are a whole series of consequences that follow. God has given us a guide book, and a spirit, to take us through all the journey. If you believe, you must act, if you act, you will learn, and then you believe even more. You pray, you are tested, you overcome, you rise up. If you aim yourself at being, instead of wanting, you become something more.

Calling Down Judgement

(cross-posted from Street Prophets)

When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.
(Luke9:54-55 NIV)

I learned a new word this week. It's "Imprecatory Prayer". That's the name for the type of prayer where you ask God to smite the wicked, (specifically, those people you don't like).

Apparently is it a favorite petition of Pastor Wiley Drake, a Baptist minister and former Independent Vice-Presidential candidate who broadcasts a weekly radio show. He stated this week that the murder of Dr. George Tiller was an answer to prayer and that he was also praying "imprecatory prayer" against President Obama.

In a later interview, he explained that yes, he was indeed praying for the death of the President. He was humble enough to allow God to choose the method of Obama's extinction and to qualify that the smiting is contingent on Obama not turning to God and not turning his life around. Nevertheless, Drake is praying for Obama's obliteration as earnestly as Jonah prayed for the destruction of Nineveh.

Drake goes on to explain that there are many examples of imprecatory prayers throughout Scripture and he is only asking that God follow precedent.

I dunno. It seems to me that just because you have a classification for a type of prayer doesn't mean you should pray it. Yes, there are examples in the Bible of prayers calling for the destruction of God's Enemies; but without knowing which examples in particular he's thinking of, I suspect that they don't mean what he thinks they mean.

I was always given to understand that God Desires Not the Death of the Sinner, but Rather that he Turn from his Evil Way and Live. The Psalmist assures us that God is slow to anger and abounding in love (Psalm. 102:8). Drake seems to be asking that God hurry up and get cracking with that anger thing.

Now, on a certain level, a prayer is the heartfelt expression of the soul to God. A prayer does not have to be a worthy prayer or even a good prayer. I think that even if I pray for something utterly selfish, like that I win a million dollars or that my neighbor down the street whom I hate have a coronary, that prayer has some value in that I am earnestly talking to God and where there is even that bit of communication there is an off chance that I might actually hear God saying something back to me.

I think this is why we have some of the prayers in the Psalms that call for the destruction of Israel's enemies. The Book of Psalms is not a record of God talking to us as much as of God's People talking to God. The Psalms also include prayers of grief and of bitterness; prayers that question God's justice and ask where he's gone. It would also have prayers of anger.

But it's one thing to vent in your private personal prayers to God, and quite another thing when you are leading others in prayer. A leader, like Drake, is not just praying for himself; he is encouraging others to share in his prayer and to join with him. Therefore he has a responsibility to try and shape his prayer in a way that will bring his fellows closer to God, rather than weld them into a spiritual weapon against the heathens.

It's said that when Albert Einstein famously stated that "God does not play dice with the Universe," his colleague Nils Bohr replied, "Albert! Stop telling God what to do!" In a similar fashion, when we make requests to God in our prayers, it is good for us to remember to add, "Thy Will be Done."

And if we really must demand that God smite the Wicked, let us not forget that we ain't exactly without stain ourselves.

Breaking Legalism Addiction

"One of the challenges of ministry is helping legalism addicts. They flit about from place to place, but they can’t 'rest' until they find it."
--Mike Cope

I've been teaching from Galatians in our Sunday morning Bible study and the process has taught me a lot about legalism. I used to think of it as something that Pharisees and modern-day traditionalists had exclusive rights to, but not according to Paul's definition.

In talking about Jewish Christians who demanded the circumcision of Gentile Christians, Paul makes it clear that the real issue isn't whether or not following rules is a good thing. I've always had a problem with human authority, so I'd love it if Paul was blatantly condemning all rule-following, but that's really not his point for writing the letter. He says right out that it doesn't actually matter whether or not you're following certain rules (Galatians 5:6).

Paul takes issue with the idea that following these rules is what makes you acceptable to God. He says over and over again in the letter that it's faith in Christ that does that (especially in Chapter 3; check out Galatians 3:2-5 for a good example). If you replace Christ with rule-following, you've changed God's message and have removed Christ from the picture (Galatians 1:6-9). That's serious stuff.

But rule-following can take many forms. It's not just the tobacco/alchohol abstinence that was the focus of so many congregations I grew up in. It can also be the pressure to attend group worship every week. It can be daily Bible-reading and/or prayer time. It can be a particular kind of worship experience or worshipping with a particular group of people (usually ones who think most like you do) . It can be as simple as communing with God in nature. None of these are bad things to do in themselves. In fact, they can all be very good things and some of them are outright examples of obedience (which I'll talk more about in a second). But none of them save us. None of them make us acceptable to God.

If you feel like you need to be surrounded by nature to feel close to God, there's a problem with your relationship with him. If you don't think you're okay with God unless you're at church every week, that's a problem too. If not reading your Bible for a few days makes you feel like you've fallen from grace; if you have to experience a particular kind of worship with a particular kind of people to be connected to him... something's wrong.

Paul says that there's only one thing we need to do to have a relationship with God and that's to trust that he wants one with us. When we believe that; when we have faith in that, we're okay with God. We're accepted by him. We're saved.

It's as simple as that, which is why most people have a hard time with it. We want to complicate it. We want to have to do something. We want it all spelled out and written down so that we can see whether or not we've obtained it. Legalism (that is, attempted-salvation-by-rule-following) is by definition a lack of faith.

Which is not at all to say that obedience is unimportant. We're accepted by God solely on the basis of whether or not we trust him to save us. But that trust can be measured. My relationship with God isn't just something that I speak into being. It's got to be real. My saying that I trust in God isn't the same as my actually trusting him. If I really do trust him - if I really do have a relationship with him - that's going to make itself evident in the things I do. As Paul says, we were called to be free, but that freedom makes itself known as love and service (Galatians 5:13-14). If we're not obedient to God, then that says something about our faith; about our trust in him.

But it's absolutely vital that we get the order right. Obedience doesn't save us. The relationship does.

Reading Pile: Darwin's Sacred Cause

Experimental Theology has an excellent rundown of Adrian Desmond and James Moore's Darwin's Sacred Cause. If the book is half as thought-provoking as Richard Beck's post, it'll be well worth reading.

As Beck points out, the book shows Darwin to be a spiritual, moral man whose thoughts on evolution were the result of trying to find scientific evidence that supported biblical ideas about the common ancestry of all mankind. Deeply fascinating stuff.

Leading Towards Evangelism

My entire life I've heard church leaders wonder aloud about the most effective way to encourage their congregations to reach out to non-believers. This quote from James (True Story: A Christianity Worth Believing In) Choung perfectly sums up my current thinking on the subject:

There really isn't any replacement for a pastor modeling it. I'm not saying that all pastors have to be gifted in evangelism. In fact, it's almost better if the pastor fails a lot, because that makes him or her seem really human—just someone trying and taking risks, which is what you want the people in your congregation to do. Don't try to over-program it. Just share. By the grace of the Lord, one person may actually come to faith. Once that happens, share that story. Let the story make an impact. It's very hard to rouse people up about evangelism for a sustained period of time. You can do it in the short term with a great talk by a gifted speaker; but if you're not out there doing it, and sharing stories about doing it, the enthusiasm will die quickly.

I'd substitute "pastor" for "leaders" to be more inclusive and not have the paid staff shoulder all the responsibility, but other than that he's right on.

Perfect

Some have said that in Buddhism one attempts to push the imperfect out and allow the divine perfect in. Islam suggests that we must be moral in order to over come our fate, and be made ready. Various religions, along with Christianity suggest we must overcome our immoral nature... but not every religion has a figure like Christ as the center point.

Someone I respect as a creative talent and person asked me if it was true that I believed all that “Jesus Magic, that Jesus lived died and came back, that he did all that groovy magic stuff, and never f‘d a woman.”

Well, you’d have to admit I said, if he did all that, he’d have to be magical, or different. No man born of flesh could have or has done that. The person said his biggest thing wasn’t the miracles, but the coming back from the dead. I understand that I said, but Jesus was flesh born but the son of God. His way was prepared, his goal was achieved, and his example offers us a chance to overcome death. The person looked incredulously at me.

But if you look at the way the world looks at Christ, it shouldn’t surprise you. Christ is presented as almost impossibly good, impossibly moral, and perfect. Even the nonbelievers see him as someone presented as moral, good, positive and would be great if true. But their belief in his reality, the true Christ, is stunted, by a world view that nobody is perfect, 1, nobody should bother to be because it cannot be done, 2, and, the reason he would have been perfect is because he was actually a God and thereby it is a false comparison, humans are imperfect.

The cult of imperfect is one that is far greater than any religion, because it encompasses people from every religion and every state of mind. Cynicism is poison, because it cripples your ability to believe, and it exists for a few important reasons. Nihilism is a belief pattern that suggests that there is no meaning inherent in the universe and thereby we are free to create our own belief structure. There is also failed perfectionist logic. We believe that perfection is good, but it is wholly impossible to achieve, therefore it is foolish to attempt.

But Christ was made of flesh, whatever we know from what he told us, we know that he suffered same temptations, and same flesh bound pains and worries.

While the nonbelievers look at Christ positively, if askew, the same is not for Christians. The world looks at Christians from a variety of perspectives, only a few being positive, because, when you’ve done wrong in the name of your religion it stains you, but also, when you tell others that there is only a single path, it stains you too. So it isn’t just the bad Christian acts and bad Christians, but that the world hears what Christians say as being judgment, and damnation. But we are both imperfect and hopefully striving to become perfect, and born of flesh

Christ did not die to make us perfect however. Christ died to allow us to have communion with one who was perfect. The perfect lamb had to be slaughtered and its blood poured out, to bring forgiveness. Yes we pursue faith, yes we pursue doing righteous things, but perfection is not our goal. By giving ourselves over to the promise of redemption through the blood, we take upon ourselves a desire to become better. Better is better than nothing, and nothing is exactly what you will accomplish if you never seek to grow, morally or otherwise. It is the journey of a Christian that seasons their wisdom, we learn every time we succeed true, but we grow with every step, so long as it is an attempt to become what we are told we can become, moral.

Perfectionism, and the lack of it, Cynicism and its prevalent stain, and Failed Perfectionism all present the Christian with an obstacle. But none stand in the way of how Christians can escape the common view, by just attempting to live what we’ve been told, instead of telling others what to do, and presenting them with a seemingly impossible accomplishment.

All redemption by us for sin is impossible, by the way, for it is only by the blood anyone can be saved.

Do we want to be Christians?

In my last post I wondered about who would be left once the church has shrunk as far as it's going to shrink. As my dad pointed out in the comments, I was probably being overly optimistic in hoping that the - as I called them - "hate-filled bullying Christians" would be the ones to leave. Dad said that "those who work so hard to force their beliefs on others will not give up. They might be the last ones standing."

I have to quote the rest of his comment too, because it's a lot more realistically optimistic than my initial thinking was:

One source of hope for me is the growing movement to be, what I would call, just church. Perhaps this is God's answer to the negative positions of much of the institutional church. Perhaps God is setting us up to be the one church, universal, separate from the institutional church. It is indeed the institutional church that is losing members. Maybe the "religious right" will be the last ones standing in the institutional church while the one church, universal, non-institutional grows like crazy.

That reminds me of something my pal Mark Winstead said on his blog: As a brand, the name "Christian" is tainted. Mark goes on to make a strong case for dumping the name completely. After all, from a Biblical perspective it's a lot less common than simply "disciple," "follower," or even "friend." "Believer" is another one I hear used a lot.

When I teach, I make an effort not to use religious words like "apostle," "disciple," and even "church." They carry too much baggage. Instead I try to refer to "missionaries," "followers," and "congregations." It's semantics, but I find it helps keep me focused on the real meaning behind these concepts instead of what thousands of years of tradition have turned them into.

I wonder along with Mark: What if the followers of Christ who aren't that interested in maintaining the institution of the church stopped calling ourselves Christians? What would that look like? I'm not to the point where I'm willing to deny being a "Christian," but I'm desperate for a way to differentiate between myself and those who've usurped the name.