The Kingdom, The Kids, & The Cowboys

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Category: Christ & Culture (Page 1 of 42)

Opposed and Irreconcilable

May 13, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Before we get into today’s topic, I would like to make a modest and sensible proposal: the Mavericks send their number one lottery pick, along with Anthony Davis, to the Lakers for Luka. Please.

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I am continuously in search of ways to better articulate my conviction that the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world are incompatible. As disciples of Christ and citizens of God’s Kingdom, we already have our politics. We belong to a holy country without borders and we have a crucified and risen King, we have laws for getting along together and taking care of those around us, we have rituals and traditions that keep our story straight and our loyalties in place, we have ways and means for effecting change and transforming the world.  And all of it stands in direct opposition to the politics of the nations. The two kingdoms have opposite foundations and goals, opposite ways of getting things done, opposite methods for changing peoples’ lives, opposite ideas about wealth and power and force, opposite values–opposite everything.

Our King tells us we cannot serve two masters. We will love the one and hate the other, we will be loyal to one and despise the other. Jesus tells Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world; if it were, my servants would fight.” The politics of God’s Kingdom and the politics of worldly empires not only have nothing in common, they are each directly opposed to the other’s goals and ways and means of reaching them.

My brother, Keith, has heard me talk about this for about 20 years now. He doesn’t agree with me on every point–in his own words, he doesn’t see it as an “either/or,” he’s more of a “both/and.” But he’s come across an article by Paul Kingsnorth, a Christian writer living in Ireland, that articulates my views very well. The article is titled, “Against Christian Civilization” and was published in January by First Things. And it’s excellent.

On the third page Kingsnorth quotes Charles Alexander Eastman, a Dakota Sioux who was eighteen at the time of Custer’s Last Stand: “There is no such thing as ‘Christian civilization.’ I believe that Christianity and modern civilization are opposed and irreconcilable.”

I’ve read this piece five times now and I’m impressed with the expert way Kingsnorth weaves his narrative, and I’m thrilled with the clarity it gives the reader and for the potential for moving my conversations forward with others.

I’m asking you to read the article. It’s right here. And it will take some time. It’s thirteen pages and it covers a lot of historic and theological ground. I think you will find it helpful in, at the very least, understanding where I am and, I pray, wrestling with your own understandings and Christian calling regarding what I call Church As State.

Read it today. And I’ll write more about it tomorrow.

Here’s an excerpt to entice you to click and read:

“When we read the life of Jesus of Nazareth, in fact, it is impossible not to see a man who was, in some fundamental sense, uncivilized. He did not tell us to get good jobs and save prudently. He told us to have no thought for the morrow. He did not tell us to generate wealth, so that economic growth could bring about global development. He told us to give everything away. The rich, he said repeatedly, could never attain the Kingdom of Heaven. He did not tell us to defend our frontiers or to expand them. He told us never to resist evil. He did not tell us to be responsible citizens. He told us to leave our dead fathers unburied and follow him instead. He told us to hate our own parents and to love those who hated us. Every single one of these teachings, were we to follow them, would make the building of a civilization impossible.

What we are really hearing about, then, when we hear of defending or rebuilding ‘Christian civilization,’ is not Christianity and its teachings at all, but modernity and its endgame. It is the idol of material progress–the progress that has shredded both culture and nature–which is causing such grief everywhere. ‘Christian civilization’ is not a solution to this; it is part of the problem. And when actual Christianity is proposed instead, the response is so often the same: Oh, yes, that’s all very well, you fundamentalist–but what practical use is it?”

That last line reminds me of G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” in which he says Christianity has not been tried and found lacking; it’s been found difficult and never really tried.

Go Stars!

Allan

Re-Thinking: Part 2

April 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

My good friend Blu Malone sent me this picture yesterday. A good friend knows you well enough to understand what really irritates you and how to use it to make you laugh. Well done. I love this. I would like it on a sticker. Like six of them. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Here at GCR, we’re trying to tackle the reluctance we have to speak to our friends and neighbors about Jesus. We haven’t stopped believing in Jesus Christ as our risen and coming Lord and the source off all truth and light and the only way to salvation. But we have mostly stopped talking. We’re not sharing the good news of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the way we used to. It seems to me that as we address the problem, we should acknowledge a few things we need to stop believing. There are some things we accept as real, that just simply aren’t. And those things can keep us from sharing the Gospel with the people God puts right in front of us every day.

I mentioned two of these things in this space yesterday. We need to stop believing that the Church is in decline and that the Church is irrelevant. Here are three more things we need to stop believing so that we’ll feel more able to talk about Jesus with others.

Don’t believe that people in our culture are not seeking God. It’s not true. Yes, we live in a pluralistic, post-modern, post-Christian society now and there’s no going back. Yes, Christianity is no longer viewed as the only way to God and truth is no longer a fixed, eternal reality. Truth is now something each person decides for himself or herself. And, yes, there are more agnostics, skeptics, and atheists in this country than there’s ever been. But that doesn’t mean they’re not searching. They’re all searching! They’re all seeking! And there’s tremendous potential here for God’s Church.

The research is showing that we’re on the front edge of a backlash against all the pluralism and individualism in the U.S. We’re discovering that living in a world without universal truth is a lousy way to live. We’re learning that addiction to our screens and earbuds isn’t healthy, that it’s doing real damage to our relationships and what it means to be human. And people are looking for something else. They’re searching for a meaning outside of themselves. They’re seeking a purpose higher than their own tweets and posts, something more important than their careers and entertainment. People today are starting to recognize all the noise and clutter for what it is and they’re looking for something genuine and authentic. Something they can trust. People are open to it. People are seeking. And that gives the Church an exciting opportunity.

And what about the idea that everybody’s a Christian? No, we’ve got to stop believing that everybody in Midland or everybody in your town already goes to church. Because they don’t. And we also need to stop believing that people who don’t follow Christ have all heard the Good News about Jesus and thought it through and made the choice to reject it. That’s not true. Census data in Midland County and a couple of more recent surveys show that almost 50% of the people in our city don’t have a church home. Almost half! Barna research that was released last week shows that only 38% of the people in Texas go to church at least once a month. The chances are higher right now than they’ve ever been in your lifetime that your next-door-neighbor doesn’t go to church.

And there’s an increasing number of people who just don’t know much at all about Jesus. Over the last couple of decades, kids in this country are being raised differently than the ways you and I were probably raised. And there are lots of men and women in their 20s and 30s who’ve never heard the Good News. They’ve never heard it. We need to stop believing everybody has.

And we must stop believing that the Gospel is too complicated to share. The Good News of salvation from God in Christ is not hard. It’s simple. But for several generations now–for sure in Churches of Christ, I think–we’ve put too much emphasis on knowing all the details of our rules and regulations and being able to explain and proof-text our inconsistencies and loopholes, that we’ve made sharing the Gospel kind of scary. We’ve turned into a people who’d rather not say anything to our friends about Jesus than risk saying something “wrong” or not being able to answer a tricky question. For a variety of reasons, we’ve come to believe it’s a sin to admit to somebody, “I don’t know.”

The Good News is not complicated. It’s the very simple and beautiful truth that God’s eternal salvation through his crucified and risen Son Jesus is a gift. It’s a loving gift. And his limitless grace continually washes us and covers the stuff we don’t know.

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who’s going to oppose us? What’s going to stop us? What are we afraid of? Trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or sword? The culture, the media, the government, or the atheists? No! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us!

It looked bad when the world carried out the crucifixion of Jesus. But God used it to save all humanity. It felt bad when the world executed Stephen and scattered the Church. But God used it to expand the borders of his eternal Kingdom. Today, we can be certain that our God is using the circumstances and conditions in Midland right now, and in your community, to do more through his Church than we can possibly dare to ask or imagine.

The question is: What do you believe?

Peace,

Allan

Re-Thinking What You Believe

April 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Happy April 15. The day of the year we realize that taxation with representation ain’t that great, either.     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We believe that Jesus is raised from the dead and is reigning right now at the right hand of God. We believe that salvation comes by no other name than Jesus. We’re very clear on the things we believe. But a lot of us have stopped talking. We haven’t stopped believing, we’ve just stopped talking. But in the Bible, believing IS talking. Why don’t we talk about Jesus with the people around us?

What’s happened? We sincerely believe all the right things. But I wonder if we also believe some wrong things. I wonder if there are some things we need to stop believing. Are there things in our heads and our hearts that we believe to be true, that really aren’t? And do these false things we believe contribute to a church culture in which we don’t talk about Jesus with others the way we used to? I think some of the false things we believe have the potential to shut us down as Gospel proclaiming followers of the risen Christ.

Allow me to present a short list of some things we need to stop believing so we can be more effective witnesses to the Good News.

We need to stop believing that the Church is in decline, that it’s getting smaller and weaker. That’s not true. We hear it, we read it, and we repeat it. But it’s just not true. Yes, the Church in America and in Texas is declining in membership and attendance. The Churches of Christ in this country are losing numbers at an alarming rate–that’s undeniable. But I wouldn’t call it smaller and weaker. I believe the Church is getting smarter and stronger.

Fewer people are going to church. But the ones who are going, generally speaking, seem to be deeply committed to our Lord and his cause. As the numbers go down, the dedicated disciples of Jesus are gearing up. They’re giving more, they’re volunteering and serving more. The Church is not getting smaller and weaker, the Church is getting leaner and meaner for the mission. We’re becoming better equipped and prepared and motivated to do what we are ordained by God to do.

Remember, this has always been our God’s preferred method. Gideon brought 32,000 men to God and said, “We’re ready to fight!” But God wouldn’t give Gideon the battle plans until he had trimmed his numbers down to 300. It was David, not Saul, who defeated Goliath. God told his kings not to count the numbers of people, not to measure the size of the armies. When the kings counted, everybody got in trouble. God’s preferred method is to use five little rolls and two fish to feed the multitudes. God likes to use a tiny mustard seed to shade all the birds.

The Church is not in decline. God is weeding us, sifting us, pruning us–he’s getting us ready for something truly spectacular in his Kingdom.

We also need to stop believing that the Church is irrelevant. We hear that the Church doesn’t know what’s going on in the world, the Church is out of touch, the Church doesn’t have a genuine impact on real people’s lives. That’s just not true. Don’t ever believe it.

The churches right now today are rebuilding Asheville, North Carolina and all those towns in the Carolinas that were devastated by Hurricane Helene. Not the government, not the Red Cross, not the insurance companies–they all left a long time ago. The churches are rebuilding those homes and restoring hope to those families. Same thing with the wildfires in California and the wildfires in the Texas panhandle. God’s Church is always first on the scene and God’s Church is always the last to leave.

Disciples of Jesus are the ones who provide free health care to the poor. God’s Church provides shelter for the homeless. Followers of Christ feed the hungry kids and furnish the transitional housing, and train the unwed mothers. God’s Church advocates for the immigrants and refugees and defends the wrongfully imprisoned. Christians build the schools in Kenya and run the clinics in Honduras.

Christians understand the physical, incarnational aspects of salvation–we always have. In the early days of the Church, the apostles healed the blind and crippled and fed the poor. In the first 150 years of American history, God’s Church established 90% of the colleges and universities and built 100% of the hospitals. Don’t let anybody ever tell you the Church is irrelevant or out of touch. It’s not true.

I’ll add three more things to this list tomorrow.

The point is that if we believe these false ideas about the Church then, yes, we can start believing that we’re hanging on to a dying idea, that our message has no power, that the world has passed us by, and that God’s not as interested in saving people as he used to be. We’ll stop talking. It’s time to re-think what we believe.

Peace,

Allan

Better Christians!

February 9, 2025 / / 0 Comments

“We don’t need more Christians; we need better Christians.” ~Francis Chan

Most of our culture in America right now, especially with the majority of people younger than us, are turned off by Christians. The world is sick of Christians. People don’t listen to Christians anymore. So, as Christians, it’s tempting to think, in order to win the world, we need to be less Christian. Christians don’t have credibility in our society anymore. People seem to be angry at Christians. So, maybe we shouldn’t act too Christian all the time. Maybe we should relax our Christianity every now and then.

No. The whole premise is wrong.

Yes, we do hear the world complain about Christian fanatics. These fanatics get born again and they start screaming against things. They holler and yell and make speeches and forward posts against politicians and parties and same-sex couples and evolution and abortion and the homeless and immigration. Pick a topic, pick any issue, and Christians can appear to be very judgmental and intolerant and loud.

That’s what turns people off.

And when that kind of behavior is done in the name of our Lord, it turns me off, too.

Most people say those folks are too Christian. They need to lighten up on their Christianity. They’re too radically Christian. They take their Christianity too seriously.

No. Those kinds of folks are not Christian enough. They’re not taking their Christianity seriously enough.

The people who are considered extreme Christians are overbearing, self-righteous, harsh, and opinionated. But they’re not radical Christians; they’re not Christian enough. They may be radically zealous and extremely bold. But they’re not radically humble. They’re not extremely compassionate. They’re not over-the-top loving or extravagantly forgiving or fanatically empathetic. They’re not sacrificial servants. They’re not like Jesus very much at all.

Some Christians can be arrogant and selfish and actually be a hindrance to the Gospel. We can be working against our God as he redeems and restores the world. We say we carry a message of grace, but how are people going to experience it as truth when we act that way? Sometimes, in the name of Jesus, we just run over people. We can be so narrow-minded and stubborn sometimes that nobody’s right about anything but us. Jesus totally embodied a powerful message of truth that called people to repentance and accountability and a choice. But he never ran over anybody.

If we are really fanatics and radical Christians–too Christian–the world would fall in love with our God. If the world saw all of us walking to the cross, walking with a cross, serving and sacrificing, dying to ourselves and dying for one another, loving unconditionally, forgiving lavishly, showing mercy and grace to all, speaking only kind words–radically Christian!–the whole world would fall down and worship our God.

Peace,

Allan

The Will of Jesus to Practice

November 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

More and more research is being released about the effects of cell phones and digital technology, telling us what we already know, what we’ve known for 20 years. But somehow it keeps being presented and received as groundbreaking. What? Cell phone bans result in academic improvement? No way!! Who could have ever guessed that? The latest is coming out of the Dallas School District where Robert T. Hill Middle School banned all phones on campus five years ago. According to school officials there, the campus culture has shifted. There has been a 75% decrease in bullying (I’m not sure how they measure that), and a 13-point gain in the number of students meeting the standards of the STAAR tests. According to the story from Channel 5 in Fort Worth, the biggest pushback generally comes from the parents. Not the students. Parents complain they need to be in constant contact with their children. Of course, because we want to raise our kids to need to live with us into their 30s.

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Our first “4 Midland” pulpit swap and Thanksgiving service is this Sunday. I’m preaching at First Baptist this Sunday morning and Steve Brooks, our brother from First Methodist, is preaching here at GCR. Darin Wood, the pastor at First Baptist is preaching at First Presbyterian while their pastor, Steve Schorr, is preaching at First Methodist. And then all four of our churches are coming together Sunday evening for a combined Thanksgiving service. In advance of these glorious events, I’m posting this week about Christian unity as a gift of God to receive, our Church of Christ heritage to embrace, and, today, the will of Jesus to practice.

My prayer, Jesus says, is that all of them may be one. May they be brought to complete unity. It’s this unity, this uncompromising love and acceptance we have for all baptized disciples of Christ, that will prove to the world Jesus really is who we say he is. Our unflinching commitment to love and accept and unite with all Christian brothers and sisters will astonish the world!

Well, Allan, not ALL people who’ve been baptized. A lot of people are not baptized like we are. A lot of churches don’t do the Lord’s Supper like we do. We can’t worship with and have fellowship with ALL Christians.

That’s why the Church is not astonishing the world.

Our Lord’s prayer is for unity. Christ’s will is for complete unity among all his followers. We need to get there. So, let’s lay it out.

If God accepts someone, I have to also. I can’t be a sterner judge than the perfect judge. I don’t know anybody who would say, “Well, God certainly accepts this woman as a full child of his, but she doesn’t meet all of MY standards. I’M not going to accept her.” Nobody would say that. The truth is, I must fellowship everybody who has fellowship with God. All the saved. Everybody who’s saved.

So, who is saved?

Well, all those who hear, believe, repent, confess, and are baptized (by the way, that’s another Church of Christ creed).

All those who hear what? The Gospel! And believe what? The Gospel! Who repent and confess what? The Gospel!

Okay, what’s the Gospel? That Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, that he alone is Lord, and that we’re saved by faith in him.

The Bible sums it up in several places, but that’s pretty good. Believe in Jesus as the eternal Son of God, declare him Lord, and, by faith, submit to his lordship in baptism. We’ve never required anything else. The Church through the centuries has never demanded anything more. We’ve never asked anybody their position on atonement theory or women’s roles before they’re baptized. We don’t put a person in the water and then catalogue all their beliefs on the plurality of elders and the age of the earth before they’re saved. Now, some of us try to do that after they’re saved! We can act like a health club sometimes: “The first month is free but then, after that, you’re going to pay through the nose! For the rest of your life!” No, that stuff is not the Gospel. The apostle Paul says nothing but Christ and him crucified.

“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” ~Romans 15:7

We are called to accept others by the same standard as when Jesus Christ accepted us, to continually accept others based on the way they were accepted at their baptisms–the way you were accepted at your baptism. Your acceptance by God is a gift. The fact that Christ Jesus accepts you is nothing but pure grace. Now, show that same grace, share that same gift, to everyone who calls Jesus Lord.

Peace,

Allan

Our CofC Heritage to Embrace

November 19, 2024 / / 0 Comments

The Cowboys ushered in the experimental phase of the 2024 season last night by getting blown out at home. Again. Among the miscues and missed opportunities against the Texans, the mass of penalties and the highly questionable play calls, double-fumbles, a boinked field goal, and a botched fake punt, Mike McCarthy’s biggest post-game regret was that he didn’t give Trey Lance a couple of series at the end. The roof fell down on the Cowboys last night, both figuratively and literally. Forget the Lombardi Trophy, this team can’t even compete for the Governor’s Cup. I’m reminded of the immortal words of Bum Phillips after his Houston Oilers dismantled the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day in 1978, “I’d rather be Texas’ Team than America’s Team any day.”

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My gifted and talented brother, Keith Stanglin, the executive director of Center for Christian Studies in Austin, has written a brilliant article on the new Apple Intelligence commercials that are airing multiple times during almost all college and NFL football games. You’ve seen the spots: the mom making an AI generated video for her husband after she forgets his birthday, the guy in the boardroom who uses AI to generate a report after being called on the carpet for not doing his work, the employee sending an AI email to his boss that hides the fact he’s a disengaged slob at work. Keith points out the obvious. These commercials don’t try to hide what AI is all about; the ads emphasize it as the selling point. Laziness and deception. Cheating. Hiding. The old vices are the new virtues. AI calls evil good and good evil. And most of our world embraces it giddily. Thank you, Keith, for your words of wisdom and warning. This is a great read.

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In advance of our first annual “4 Midland” Thanksgiving service this Sunday at First Baptist, I’m writing this week about Christian unity. Yesterday I posted about Christian unity among all disciples of Jesus across all denominations as a gift from God to receive. Today, I’d like to present Christian unity as our Church of Christ heritage to embrace.

215 years ago, Thomas Campbell was preaching fiery sermons about Christian unity in western Pennsylvania. His convictions about the unity of all Christians and those sermons got him censured by his presbytery and then fired by his synod. At the same time, another Presbyterian preacher in Kentucky, Barton Stone, dissolved his presbytery to unite with everyone who desired to move away from denominational labels and just be known as Christians. In September of 1809, Campbell wrote what he called the Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington County. It was a call to Christian unity based on Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and on the whole of Scripture that presents complete unity as God’s holy will for his people.

Some of the Declaration and Address is tough sledding; it was written over two centuries ago. But I love reading it. It’s our founding document in Churches of Christ. This document is where we get, “Speak where the Bible speaks and be silent where the Bible is silent,” although I’m afraid we’ve become a people who speak where the Bible speaks and, where the Bible is silent, we have even more to say. Our foundational Church of Christ creeds come from the Declaration and Address. “Christians only, but not the only Christians.” “No creed but Christ,” which, ironically, is a creed. I can’t find, “guide, guard, and direct” in this document, but I know it must be in there.

The Declaration and Address reminds us in Churches of Christ that we began as a Christian unity movement with a deep conviction that all Christians are one. All Christians are together. Our unity in Christ transcends all denominational differences and it should be demonstrated in visible and public ways for the sake of an unbelieving world.

I’ll share just a couple of passages:

Proposition 1 – That the church of Christ upon earth is essentially, intentionally, and constitutionally one; consisting of all those in every place that profess their faith in Christ and obedience to him in all things according to the scriptures, and that manifest the same by their tempers and conduct.

Proposition 2 – They ought to receive each other as Christ Jesus hath also received them to the glory of God. And for this purpose, they ought to all walk by the same rule, to mind and speak the same thing; and to be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.

Proposition 9 – That all that are enabled, thro’ grace, to make the Christian confession and to manifest the reality of it in their tempers and conduct, should consider each other as the precious saints of God, should love each other as brethren, children of the same family and Father, temples of the same Spirit, members of the same Body, subjects of the same grace, objects of the same divine love, bought with the same price, and joint heirs of the same inheritance. Whom God has thus joined together no man should dare to put asunder.

Introduction, pages 9-10 – Not that we judge ourselves competent to effect such a thing; we utterly disclaim the thought. But we judge it our bounded duty to make the attempt, by using all due means in our power to promote it; and also, that we have sufficient reason to rest assured that our humble and well meant endeavors shall not be in vain in the Lord. The cause that we advocate is not our own peculiar; it is a common cause, the cause of Christ and our brethren of all denominations. All that we presume to do, then, is to do what we conceive to be our duty, in connexion with our brethren; to each of whom it equally belongs, as to us, to exert themselves for this blessed purpose.

It was a radical, mind-blowing vision. Christians only. Unity in Christ. For the sake of the world. Putting aside personal preferences and tearing down denominational walls. Campbell and Stone dreamed and prayed for the one Church we read about in our Bibles, the one Church Jesus prayed for at that last supper, the physical and tangible unity of Christ’s Church that proves to the world he really is Lord.

It was risky. Dangerous. It cost them their jobs. It cost them relationships with family and friends and professional colleagues. But Campbell and Stone valued the sound doctrine of Christian unity more than they valued their own church’s distinctions that divided them.

A couple of times in the Declaration and Address, Campbell writes, “What? Shall we pray for a thing and not strive to obtain it?”

Peace,

Allan

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