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Christianity’s Las Vegas – Part Two

October 10, 2012 / / 1 Comment

I posed a couple of burning questions yesterday regarding the way national politics seem to bring out the very worst in American Christians: 1) Why do we think it’s OK to speak and act and think in decidedly un-Christlike ways when we’re speaking against the people of a particular political party or acting in response to a political speech or thinking in terms of political gains and losses? and 2) If earthly politics fosters so much unchecked un-Christlike behavior in our Lord’s followers, why do we push the Church to get involved?

We’re using Bryan Roberts’ article “Seven Things Christians Need to Remember About Politics” as a guide for our discussion. His premise, that politics is the one area in which the sins of Christians are completely excused, is one with which I agree and one with which I have plenty of experience. I can’t tell you how many emails are sent and forwarded to me, almost daily, by some of the strongest Christians I know, full of slander and lies, insults and condemnation, threats and boasts.

And that leads us to the first thing Christians need to remember about politics:

“Both political parties go to church.” I’d say it a little differently, maybe. Christian brothers and sisters are in both political parties. Your own congregation is made up of Republicans and Democrats, flaming liberals and hard-core conservatives, moderates and extremists. If I’m wrong about this and only conservative Republicans go to your church, your church is doing something terribly wrong.

The political party lines in the United States are drawn in chalk. They’re constantly being erased and redrawn and they’re very easy to cross. And neither party’s shifting platform is perfect. You can’t say real Christians vote only Republican or a person can’t be a Christian and vote Democrat. Some Christians say we all have to vote Republican because Jesus is against the gay marriage position of the Democrats; other Christians say we all have to vote Democrat because Jesus is against the war policies of the Republicans. Some say the Church has to support Republicans because of Jesus’ teachings on abortion; others say the Church has to support Democrats because of Jesus’ teachings on the gap between the rich and the poor. This kind of thinking and talking and acting forces God’s people to choose between the lesser of two worldly evils. What’s a guy like me supposed to do? My personal commitments to following the King make me pro-life. I am pro-life to the max: anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, and anti-war. What party is pushing that political platform? How is a Christian supposed to choose between a party that kills God’s unborn children in the U.S. and a party that kills God’s born children in Afghanistan? I’ve got one set of politicians bragging about execution numbers and deporting immigrants and another set of politicians in bed with Hollywood and promoting safe sex education for our teenagers. A theologically-thinking disciple of Jesus would have a very difficult time honestly choosing one political party over another.

The Kingdom of God is not defined by worldly political parties and platforms and lines, and neither are its citizens. We must come to the realization quickly that in the U. S. there is not one righteous party and one evil party; there is not one good set of candidates and one bad set of candidates; there is not one Christian choice for President and one un-Christian choice for President. There is one single, massive, corrupt, and worldly system that is powered and motivated by the principles of this world and that the Kingdom of God is working right now to overthrow and conquer.

I would encourage you to never label a person who belongs to or supports “the other” political party, whichever party that is. Don’t insult them or threaten them. Don’t hate them or condemn them. One, those are decidedly un-Christlike things to do. Two, they might be a faithful brother or sister in Christ whose political choices are guided more by the Spirit of God than yours.

Peace,

Allan

Christianity’s Las Vegas

October 9, 2012 / / 2 Comments

(Scroll to the bottom of this post for details on the contest for all the books.)

Bryan Roberts has written a blog post that was modified into a recent article for Relevant magazine, a periodical that explores the tricky relationship between Christ and culture. The article is titled “Seven Things Christians Need to Remember About Politics.” I believe in these last few weeks before the U. S. presidential elections, we would greatly benefit from an honest assessment of the tension between being a Christian and being an American; we would mature and grow from an open discussion of the tension between following Jesus and being a United States citizen. Roberts’ article doesn’t go nearly deep enough, it doesn’t fully answer all the questions. But it’s not meant to. It’s intended to make us think better and to foster more meaningful conversation.

I’m not going to spend seven posts on this. But we are going to consider this together for the rest of the week. We’ll break down the seven things starting tomorrow. For today, I just want to share the opening lines of the article to provoke some thought. And some comments.

Political discourse is the Las Vegas of Christianity — the environment in which our sin is excused. Hate is winked at, fear is perpetuated, and strife is applauded. Go wild, Christ-follower. Your words have no consequences here. Jesus doesn’t live in Vegas.

Not only are believers excused for their political indiscretions, they are often cheered for committing them. Slander is explained away as righteous anger; winning arguments are esteemed higher than truthful ones; and those who stir up dissension are given the pulpit. So forgive me if I balk when pastors tell me the church should engage in the political process. Why would we do that? The political process is dirty and broken and far from Jesus. Paranoia and vitriol are hardly attractive accessories for the bride of Christ.

Rather than engage in the political process, Christians have a duty to elevate it. Like any other sin, we are called to stand above the partisan dissension and demonstrate a better way…. It’s time we talk politics in a way that models the teachings of Jesus rather than mocks them.

Roberts hits on two of the bigger questions I’ve got when it comes to Christians and worldly politics. One, why do we think it’s OK to speak and act and think in decidedly un-Christlike ways when we’re speaking against the people of a particular political party or acting in response to a political speech or thinking in terms of political gains and losses? And, two, if earthly politics fosters so much unchecked un-Christlike behavior in our Lord’s followers, why are we always pushing the Church to get involved?

When the Church of Scripture says “Jesus is Lord,” it means “Caeser is not;” when the Church of the Bible says we are citizens of Heaven, it means we are not citizens of the Empire. In the United States, the line between the two is blurred at best. During election seasons, it almost gets obliterated.

Let’s stretch our thinking on this. Let’s reflect on the Gospel implications. Let’s re-imagine our thoughts and words and re-cast them in the ways of our Lord and his cross, re-shape them in light of the new creation of his resurrection. May we be a people who receive one another as Christ receives us, who forgive others as we’ve been forgiven by God, and who love others as fearlessly and unconditionally as God loves us.

Peace,

Allan

(Today’s post is #995. On the quickly approaching day of the 1,000th post, we’ll celebrate by holding a drawing to give away a bunch of books. The only way to enter the drawing is to “comment” on any of the posts between September 20 and the day of the drawing. You can enter one time per post, up to 14 total entries, but you can win only one prize. The grand prize is all three books of the John Mark Hicks series on the sacraments of the Church of Christ: Come to the Table, Down to the River to Pray, and A Gathered People. A total of eight books will be given away, all classics, all have had a profound impact on my thinking and preaching and writing. They are my favorites. See the September 21 post for the complete list.)

A Matter of Life and Death

October 2, 2012 / / 4 Comments

(Commenting on this post automatically enters you into the drawing for all the books we’re giving away in conjunction with this blog’s upcoming 1,000th article. Scroll way down to the posts on September 20 and 21 for details.)

While studying this week for our sermon on obedience to Christ’s commands (John 15:10-14, “Obey My Commands”), I’ve come across the text of a sermon from Ephesians 5:21ff preached by William Willimon on the topic of submission. While discussing how the world has subtly attacked the Christian doctrine of submission and declared war on our lives of obedience, Willimon speaks about the importance of our Sunday morning worship gatherings. He calls our worship assemblies “a matter of life and death.”

A couple of years ago, I was invited to preach in the congregation where a friend of mine serves. The congregation is located in the heart of one of our great cities. The congregation is entirely black people who live in the tenement houses in that part of the city. I arrived at eleven o’clock, expecting to participate in about an hour of worship. But I did not rise to preach until nearly twelve-thirty. There were hymns and gospel songs, a great deal of speaking, hand-clapping, singing. We did not have the benediction until nearly one-fifteen. I was exhausted.

“Why do black people stay in church so long?” I asked my friend as we went out to lunch. “Our worship never lasts much over an hour.”

He smiled. Then he explained, “Unemployment runs nearly 50 percent here. For our youth, the unemployment rate is much higher. That means that, when our people go about during the week, everything they see, everything they hear tells them, ‘You are a failure. You are nobody. You are nothing because you do not have a good job, you do not have a fine car, you have no money.’

“So I must gather them here, once a week, and get their heads straight. I get them together, here, in the church, and through the hymns, the prayers, the preaching say, ‘That is a lie. You are somebody. You are royalty! God has bought you with a price and he loves you as his Chosen People!’

“It takes me so long to get them straight because the world perverts them so terribly.”

Paganism is the air we breathe in this current world; consumerism is the water we drink; individualism and imperialism are the oxymoronic values that shape us. These things capture us, they convert our kids, they subvert us Christians. We live in a hostile place for discipleship. That’s what makes our congregations, our communities of faith, and our appointed times of corporate worship, a matter of life and death.

We must regularly speak together about God in a world that lives as if there is no God. We must talk to one another as beloved brothers and sisters in a world which encourages us to live as strangers. We must pray to God to give us what we can’t have by our own efforts in a world that teaches us we are self-sufficient and all-powerful. What we do together on Sundays matters a great deal.

Peace,

Allan

False Vines

September 24, 2012 / / 1 Comment

(Posting a comment on this article automatically enters you into the drawing for the books to be given away in conjunction with the upcoming historic 1,oooth post. See the previous couple of posts for details.)

“I am the true vine… Remain in me and I will remain in you.” ~John 15:1-8

Jesus calls himself the true vine. He urges us to stay connected to this true vine, to remain in this true vine, in order to produce fruit, to prove their discipleship to the King, and to bring glory to God. Jesus is the true vine. And that tells me there must be some false vines out there to which we sometimes attach ourselves.

We know what these false vines are. We recognize them as counterfeit and temporary. But the people who are connected to these vines all look pretty happy. They all look like they’re doing OK. So off we go…

Chasing after the false vines of money and power. Connecting to the false vines of pleasure and fame. Seeking our identity in the false vines of career and the athletic achievements of our children. Obsessed over and addicted to the false vines of entertainment and technology. Drawing energy and life’s meaning and purpose from the false vines of nationalism, patriotism, and worldly politics.

Like Jeremiah’s wild donkeys in heat, we can’t be restrained. We run after these false gods and connect ourselves to these false vines with barely a second thought. Like the people in Jeremiah, we proclaim, “I love foreign gods, and I must go after them!”

We need to all be reminded that this world’s politics is a false vine. The politics of this world are producing the rotten, stinking fruit of polarization and alienation, threat and insult, fear and hate. This nation’s politics are to the point, and have been for years, that if you disagree with me on just one issue, you are the enemy and you are thoroughly evil from head to toe. If you disagree with me on just one point, I label you and the conversation stops. I don’t listen to you anymore. All hope for community with you is abandoned. I label you and put you in your proper category and I insult you. You and your party and your candidate and your ideas and your intelligence and your character and your mama and your daddy and your greasy granny!

There is nothing remotely Christ-like about any of that.

As disciples of the Messiah, we must quickly come to the realization that in this country there is not one righteous party and one evil party, there is not one right set of candidates and one wrong set of candidates. What we have is one massive corrupt and worldly system that is powered and motivated by the principles of this world and that the Kingdom of God is working right now to overthrow and conquer! It’s a sinful and worldly system that the holy Son of God came to oppose and destroy!

As baptized disciples of Jesus, we are citizens of the eternal Kingdom of God. And God’s Church is very political. We are very committed to political thought and political actions. But our politics are not of this world. We belong to a Kingdom that is not of this world. We pledge allegiance to a King who is not of this world. So we do not do things the way the world does things. We do things the way Jesus does things.

This world will not be saved by power and force. You and your family are not going to be protected by your petitions and votes. Jesus has come to save and protect by sacrifice and submission, by selfless love and service. And I don’t hear any of that in today’s political ads. I don’t see any of that on anybody’s platform.

Our politics are entirely different because our King is unlike any other. Jesus is the true vine. He is not planted in the dirt of this world and thus destined to blow away. He is the true vine who is rooted in the eternity of God. Everything else we might attach ourselves to is a fake. It’s false. And it will suck the life and energy and meaning and purpose right out of you. Jesus is the only source for the life and energy, meaning and purpose we need to live as holy children of God. There are no other sources. And there is no other way.

Peace,

Allan

Benevolence and Evangelism

May 29, 2012 / / 2 Comments

Benevolence and evangelism are not the same thing. They are very closely related; but they are not the same thing. To equate benevolence and evangelism, in word or deed, is to distort the Gospel of Christ and to do harm to the uniqueness of God’s salvation.

Look, I know church people who poo-poo (is that how you spell it?) medical mission trips and humanitarian relief efforts. “That’s not evangelism!” they shout. They say the church shouldn’t be paying for it. And I know church people who take these trips and make these efforts who counter with, “Of course, it is evangelism!” They point to the prophets and to Jesus, the greatest prophet, to validate the money they’re spending on food and surgeries for the poor.

Benevolence is not evangelism, but the two definitely go hand-in-hand. You can have benevolence without evangelism; it happens all the time. But you rarely, if ever, get evangelism without benevolence. When we equate the two, though, we wind up losing what is the single most unique thing disciples of Jesus have to offer to a lost and dying world.

Anybody can do benevolence. There are many motivations for feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. You don’t have to be a Christian to do good deeds. Non-disciples do it every day. But Christians have the Gospel of Jesus Christ by which the world can be reconciled to God in a righteous relationship for eternal life. Nobody else can make that kind of offer. No one else can give that kind of invitation. Without confusing the two, Christians need to become good at both.

In his little book Generous Justice, Timothy Keller writes about the importance of benevolence and its undeniable relationship to evangelism:

“Imagine an eloquent Christian preacher who every Sunday delivers compelling sermons. But one of his female parishioners comes to learn that the minister verbally abuses and browbeats his wife daily. After she discovers this, she unsurprisingly finds his sermons completely unpersuasive. Why? His deeds contradict his words, and so his words have no power. Imagine instead a new minister whose public oratory is quite mediocre. However, as time goes on, the parishioners come to see that he is a man of sterling character, wisdom, humility, and love. Soon, because of the quality of his life, his members will find they are hanging on every word of his preaching.

When a city perceives a church as existing strictly and only for itself and its own members, the preaching of that church will not resonate with outsiders. But if neighbors see church members loving their city through astonishing, sacrificial deeds of compassion, they will be much more open to the church’s message. Deeds of mercy and justice should be done out of love, not simply as a means to the end of evangelism. And yet there is no better way for Christians to lay a foundation for evangelism than by doing justice.”

In other words, they won’t care what you know until they know that you care.

For the past two thousand years it’s been proven over and over again: Benevolence and evangelism go hand-in-hand. The Roman emperor Julian hated the Christian faith, but he had to admit that they were gaining new converts because of their tremendous generosity:

“Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers… the impious Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well.”

For disciples of Jesus, evangelism certainly starts with benevolence. But benevolence alone does not constitute evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both. Follow the cup of cold water with a drink of living water. Extend the meal with a taste of the bread of life. Tell them about the King who motivates your good deeds and invite them to join us in his eternal Kingdom. Not just benevolence. Not just evangelism. To be Christian, it must be both.

Peace,

Allan

ONE

May 25, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A great friend sent me a copy of a Wall Street Journal article a couple of weeks ago. Now, I don’t read the Wall Street Journal; I read Texas Monthly, Sports Illustrated, and the Dallas Morning News. And this friend knows that. But he knew I’d be interested in the article. And I am.

The headline read “Pastors Call a Truce on ‘Sheep-Stealing'”

The article is about a Christian effort in Charlotte, North Carolina called Charlotte ONE, a collaboration of about 40 different area churches trying to reach the nearly unreachable people between the ages of 18 and 29.

“This group of evangelical and mainline Protestant leaders decided to create one young adult ministry that would provide all the bells and whistles required, without replacing church. Charlotte ONE does not perform baptisms, weddings, funerals or offer communion. It doesn’t meet on Sundays or have a single pastor in charge. Charlotte ONE organizers see it as a kind of ‘funnel,’ taking in a wide swath of people and trying to pour them out in the right direction. The group takes its motivation from Jesus’ words in John 17:23: ‘Let them be one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as much as you have loved me.'”

The article goes on to mention a similar effort in Arizona, Phoenix ONE, and to detail the success of the cooperative coalition. Ninety-eight percent of Charlotte ONE attendees claim the program has “enriched their personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and 42-percent say it helps them “connect to their own local churches.”

As I’m reading this article I couldn’t help wondering, “Why is the Wall Street Journal writing about this?”

Why do they care? Why am I reading about this in the Wall Street Journal and not in the Christian Chronicle or Christianity Today? What made the Wall Street Journal write about church?

Because Jesus said if we would ever unite and become one, if his disciples would ever come together and live and work and serve and love as one body, the world would notice. The world would pay attention. And the world would know. They would see it as different and they would believe.

The article itself says as much:

“Such regular and extensive cooperation of mainline and evangelical Protestant churches from every major denomination is not a typical feature of American religious life. They are more likely to be competing for each other’s members. But desperate times call for desperate measures.”

If we’ll ever put aside the petty little things that divide us and truly join with all other Christian disciples in serving our world in love, if we’ll ever commit to uniting as one as is the unmistakable holy will of our King, it’ll make an immediate and radical difference in the world. People will sit up and take notice. And they’ll believe. Until then, I’m afraid we’re just more noise competing in an already very noisy and competitive world.

Praise God for Charlotte and Phoenix ONE. May God help us see and do the same kind of things to his eternal glory and praise.

Peace,

Allan

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