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Category: Christ & Culture (Page 34 of 45)

Christian Response

May 3, 2011 / / 7 Comments

If you’re still interested in reading about and weighing in on the Christian response to the death of Osama bin Laden, allow me to link you up.

Corey Mullins, our Legacy missionary to Wollongong, Australia writes his reflections in his Mentalcourse blog here. In an email exchange yesterday, this faithful man of God considered the oxymoron, “Christian hatred.” Corey wonders why Christians look and act so much like the world and concludes it’s all about spiritual formation: “One hour on Sunday just isn’t enough to conform our thought patterns to Scripture. But, sadly, that’s all most of our people are getting.” Corey goes on to tell me about a friend of his in Korea whose church is open every morning from 7:00-8:00am for Bible reading and prayer. Many people — actually, Corey says “most” of the church’s members — come in on their ways to work to pray and meditate on the words of God. I wonder about us here at Legacy where, for almost two-and-a-half-years now, our elders and ministers open our prayer rooms every weekday morning from 7:00-8:00am. Quincy comes. And usually nobody else. Corey says most of these churches in Korea “are full of first generation Christians which may explain the difference. Maybe we’ve become lazy with our spirituality.”

David Smith, the preaching minister at the Missouri Street Church of Christ in Baytown, Texas, has compiled a list of 18 other preachers and ministers and theologians, mostly CofC, who have written articles about bin Laden’s death. The posts run the gamut of almost anything you can imagine as a Christian reaction to the death of this terrorist. The page with all the links is here. While you’re at it, go ahead and read Smith’s own personal angle here. Scroll down to his second post, Osama bin Laden Talks with God. Wow! How does he keep his job at Missouri Street writing like that?

Finally, my great friend Jim Gardner pointed me to a blog post by Kurt Willems, a former classmate of his at the Fresno Pacific Biblical Seminary. Kurt explores the things that “grieve the heart of God.” Click here.

This Sunday I am preaching from my favorite Bible verse, John 16:33. These are Jesus’ last words to his disciples before he gives himself up, before he dies on the cross as a sacrifice for every sinner in the history of our planet: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Peace,

Allan

The Death of the Wicked

May 2, 2011 / / 6 Comments

“As surely as I live,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” ~Ezekiel 33:11

I knew it the moment I watched the first images late last night of the crowds in front of the White House and in Times Square boisterously celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. I knew it this morning when the news programs showed us image after image of young men and women waving flags and singing songs on their city streets and campus squares. I knew it when I drove my girls to school and listened to the talk show hosts discussing what they would have done to bin Laden’s body had they been in charge. And I realized it when I started seeing the forwarded emails. From Christians.

I’ve known all day today that this is not how Christians behave. We do not celebrate the death of a human being made in the image of God and loved by our Father. No matter how ruthless and vile Bin Laden may be, we love our enemies. We pray for our enemies and their families. We do good things for our enemies.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” ~Matthew 5:43-45

God’s children do not dance and rejoice in the death of anyone. It’s decidedly un-Christ-like. To join in the worldly celebration of the death of a man who did not know our God is to deny our Christ and his Gospel. After all, our Lord died for us (you and me) while we (you and me) were his enemies. That’s the part I’ve not been able to understand today: doesn’t whooping and hollering and taking great joy and pleasure in the death of another human being deny just about everything Scripture teaches us about the nature and the will of our Father? Does it not oppose the clear commands from our Lord?

“Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” ~Luke 6:27-28

It is good today to grieve anew with the families of those who lost dear friends and relatives in the violent attacks orchestrated by this man. It is proper to mourn the loss of soldiers and civilians who’ve been trapped in the middle of the on-going conflict. It’s OK to acknowledge God’s sovereign use of nations and armies to enact his justice. It is right today to join the faithful lament of the prophets and the groaning of the martyred souls under the altar and cry out to our God, “How long?!? How much longer are you going to allow this to continue?!? When will you finally put all things to right?!?” Today is a day for prayer. Reflection. Meditation. Thanksgiving. Mixed feelings. It’s not a day for dancing in the streets.

I’ve known all along  that if I were to blog today about the way I’m feeling, I would be criticized. I’ve known that if I preach this Sunday on what the Scriptures say about the death of this terrorist, I might be fired. So, instead, I chose this morning to blog about God expecting more out of the people he’s blessed with his good gifts and matchless grace; about God requiring more out of his children; about God demanding more from the people he’s saved; about how that verse in Luke 12:48 is the very thing that pushed me over the top and compelled me to ditch sports radio and start preaching the Good News.

Please forgive me. I, too, have denied my Lord today.

Peace (not as the world gives peace),

Allan

Not Of This World

April 5, 2011 / / 1 Comment

My King is not like the rulers of this world. His Kingdom is not of this world. He tells us that. And he shows us that his ways and his methods and his forms are nothing like those of this world.

So why do we keep wanting to use the world’s ways and methods and forms?

Why do we think politics is the way to get things done for God’s Kingdom? Why do we think power and force and voting and petitions and boycotts and campaigns and rallies and protests are the way to accomplish our God’s plans for his creation?

All Christians have to vote Republican because Jesus is against the gay marriage position of the Democrats. No, all Christians have to vote Democrat because Jesus is against the war policies of the Republicans. No, the Church has to support the Republican party because of Jesus’ teachings against abortion. No, the Church has to support the Democratic party because of Jesus’ teachings against the gap between the rich and the poor.

If we’re going to think and talk and act this way, we might as well start waving palm branches like the crowds in Jerusalem who wanted Jesus to overthrow the Roman oppressors and establish an earthly kingdom in Jerusalem. Those people wanted to use Jesus for a political revolt. They wanted national and social and economic revolution in the name of the Messiah. They wanted Roman blood to flow in the streets. Gird your loins and grab your swords! God bless Israel!

If we think and talk and act this way, we’re forcing the children of God to choose and then pledge allegiance to the lesser of worldly evils. Jesus did not come so we could be a part of a refurbished and renewed version of the kingdom of the world. Jesus came so we could be a part of the all-new eternal Kingdom of God!

Jesus will never be President of the U.S.A.

One, because he’s not running. Two, because you wouldn’t vote for him if he were running.

Think about Jesus’ platform. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor! Love your enemies! If Jesus had bumper stickers on the back of the donkey he rode into Jerusalem they would say “Be Last!”

“Vote for Jesus! We’re Going to Die!”

Of course, our King doesn’t come with T-shirts and stickers and buttons and hundred million dollar campaigns. He doesn’t save the world with armies and markets and policies. He saves the world through sacrificial love and suffering and service and grace.

Yes, Jesus came to be King. But instead of being crowned with a gold-plated headdress of jewels, he was crowned with painful and penetrating thorns. He did not bear a warrior’s sword or a royal scepter; he was beaten with a whip and a rod. Instead of sitting on a cusioned throne and ruling, Jesus hung on a tree and died. Jesus willingly, deliberately, goes to his own suffering and death for the sake of the world.

If we follow this King as his subjects — and we do! — then we, too, will follow him into Jerusalem to the place of suffering and sacrifice and death. We will say ‘no’ to status and position and glory and wealth and say ‘yes’ to the giving of our own lives. We will reject power and violence and force and accept God’s will and God’s way even in the midst of terrible personal agony. We will refuse to consider our own needs and, instead, be much more concerned with the needs of those around us.

That’s what it means to follow Jesus. To watch him and imitate him. To determine to be right behind him no matter where he goes.

Peace,

Allan

Middle of the Village

March 10, 2011 / / 3 Comments

I’m glad Jesus is your Savior. But is he your Lord?

Is he?

Does Christ compel your every thought and deed? Does Jesus inform your every decision? Do you seek to honor him with every word and action? Is Jesus the Lord of your church life and your work life and your family life and your recreation life and your social life? Do you give Jesus the final say on every second of your every minute or do you hold out on him? Does he have some of your day, but not all of it? Does he control some of your life, but not all of it? Does he get the final vote on everything you do, or just on some of the things you do?

Is he your Lord? Or is he just your Savior?

It’s high time, isn’t it, for the lordship of Jesus Christ to move past Sunday mornings and past our churches and past our religious ceremonies and programs and into our whole world. All of it. “Jesus is Lord!” That was the confession of the early Church. Jesus is Lord. That means Caeser is not. Your corporate president is not. Your nation’s president is not. Neither is your boss or your teacher or your neighbor or your client or your child or your coach. Or your culture. Jesus is Lord.

God is bigger than we’ve ever imagined. And he wants all of us.

For some reason, we’ve allowed God to only have dominion over the things we can’t really explain. We’ll give God the Bible and Church and heaven and hell. He can rule over life and death. He can make all the decisions about salvation and judgment. But that’s an abbreviated God. That’s a “God of the gaps” who just fills in the blanks. The God of Holy Scripture is Lord over everything. He’s not just Lord over what we don’t know, but over every single thing we know and over all the things we’re just now learning. He is Lord. We must stop pretending that our God only wants to dwell in the little religious corners we’ve reserved for him.

“It always seems to me that we are trying anxiously to reserve some space for God; I should like to speak of God not on the boundaries but at the centre; not in weaknesses but in strength… The Church stands not at the boundaries where human powers give out, but in the middle of the village.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1944

Resolve right now, by the grace of God and the power of his Spirit, to put Christ at the very center of your world. Declare Jesus to be your “all and in all.” Give him, finally, your whole life; stop holding back. He’s not the last resort when you’ve run out of options; he’s not the religious specialist who only deals with spirituality; he’s not a comfort blanket when you’re hurting or an AK-47 when you’re in trouble.

He is Lord. Right smack dab in the middle of your village.

Peace,

Allan

Of Elders Meetings, Atheists, and Huskers

December 3, 2010 / / 2 Comments

Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to Steve Pelluer…

At the beginning of last night’s elders / ministers  meeting, one of our saintly-est members walked in out of the blue to pray for us. He told us he appreciated us, that he prays for us every day, and that he believes we’re all doing the right things. He prayed for us. He thanked God for us. He asked God to bless us and our families. He asked God to protect us. And this wonderful man thanked us again for allowing him the privilege of working for the Lord at this congregation. Then he begged us to use him even more. As he walked out, he patted a few of us on the back. We had been blessed.

A similar thing happened at the beginning of last month’s meeting. A couple who have only been Legacy members for about eight weeks popped in to meet everybody. They shook our  hands, and expressed a desire to pray for us. They told us they loved this church, they supported the leadership, and they had every intention of getting busy in God’s work here. And we prayed. And we were blessed.

What a breath of fresh air. What a shot in the arm. What a glorious gift of affirmation and encouragement from our Father through these dear brothers and sisters. And what a carry-over effect it seems to have throughout our meeting! Both of our past two meetings have gone really, really well. I think we’re happier, more confident, more willing to step up and do the right things, less willing to get bogged down in unimportant matters.

We always open up our time together in those Thursday meetings with a passage from Scripture and prayer. I’ve always thought that’s the best way to begin any elders’ meeting — the only way. Now, I’m re-thinking it. The past two meetings have started off really nicely.

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By now you’ve seen the stories and heard the news about the four city of Fort Worth buses that will be sporting atheist advertising on their sides beginning next week. The DFW Coalition of Reason purchased the ads for a little over $2,480 to run for 30 days. They say the slogan on the boards, “Millions of Americans are good without God,” is intended to encourage people who don’t believe in God during the Christmas season when they can feel so left out and isolated. The Christians who are being interviewed for the stories, however, see the billboards as offensive and insulting.

Yeah, the ads are insulting to Christian disciples. To suggest that one must abandon all reason to accept God as Almighty Creator or Christ as Lord is terribly offensive to me.

Now there are groups of church leaders and pastors and ministers who are pushing for a boycott of the Fort Worth Public Transit system as long as the ads are displayed on the sides of these four buses. One local preacher I saw on TV last night declared something along the lines of “If the signs go up, we will walk!” He added that their Christian boycott will “force” the city to remove these ads that “don’t agree with what we believe!” The premise of a boycott is that the offenders will be pressured by money, the potential loss of money, and bow to the boycotters’ demands. It’s an economic battle. A fight fought with weapons of money and commerce.

I know that Christ Jesus never forced his way onto anybody. He never imposed his will on anybody. He never used a position of strength to get his way. He never gathered up large groups of disciples to subdue by power those who opposed him. He never tried to influence with money. He never threatened. He never intimidated or bullied. What in the world makes Christians today think that’s the best way to handle these kinds of situations?

I imagine actually riding the buses would be a much better idea for Christians who really do want to be more like their King. I imagine the billboards would provide the perfect starter for spiritual conversations. I imagine perfect strangers on these buses — especially on one of the four buses — will be talking about the ads. “Hey, we’re actually riding one of the buses that’s causing all the uproar!”

“I don’t think it’s that big a deal. What do you think?”

And there it is. Your opportunity to share your faith. Your opening to profess your belief in a Sovereign God and his crucified and resurrected Son. Your platform to declare your hope and your peace and the heavenly source of your eternal life.

Every day we’re met with moments in which we can act like Christ or act in a way that denies Christ. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as a “christian boycott.”

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Nebraska plays OU for the Big XII title tomorrow night. And I’m torn.

On the one hand, everything in my very, very Texas bones cries out against Zero-U. My four years at Oklahoma Christian and exposure to Sooners fans there only solidified my inherited bias against the Crimson and Cream. I can’t root for OU.

But, Nebraska? I can’t cheer for them either. I’ve never personally held anything agaisnt Nebraska. I always thought Tom Osbourn versus Barry Switzer was an easy call. But Bo Pelini is a different story. Hard to root for a guy who seemingly treats players and officials and his own coaches as less than human. But the bigger issue at hand is Nebraska’s pending Big XII defection. They’re leaving the conference, abandoning the league because they feel they’re mistreated by a Texas bias. We can’t have the Huskers leave the Big XII with the championship trophy!

It should be a fantastic game. The bitter hatred between these two teams goes back more than a hundred years. This is one of the greatest rivalries in college football. And there hasn’t been this much riding on a Nebraska-Oklahoma game in decades. It’ll be nuts inside Jerry’s Stadium. And I’m going to be blessed to enjoy the game wtih one of my greatest friends, good ol’ Dan Miller, and his family. Dan is a Husker to the core. Life long. He grew up just outside Lincoln. Went to school at Nebraska. He’s been foaming at the mouth for a month.

You won’t catch me wearing red. And I’ll never sing that most banal and tiresome of fight songs, Boomer Sooner. But I’m cheering for Zero-U tomorrow.

Don’t tell anybody.

Peace,

Allan

Holy Emails

November 15, 2010 / / 2 Comments

I’m continually amazed by what winds up in my inbox.

I’m not at all surprised by coupons and get-rich-quick appeals or adverstisements for the various book stores I visit. I’m not shocked by the ocassional shout-out from a former high school or college classmate. Emails from people I’ve never met, from places I’ve never been, asking for prayers or spiritual advice don’t blow me away anymore. They used to. Now I know that’s just one of the crazy ways my God works.

No, what amazes me is the email I get, at least three or four times a week, that exists only to incite hatred or foster division or to ridicule other children of God.

This I do not understand.

Usually, these emails are sent en masse. These emails that criticize or make fun of entire groups of people based on race or socio-economic status or nationality or political party or language or religion are generally forwards of forwards of forwards of forwards. These emails can be forwarded a dozen times from Uncle Frank through some guy at church via that lady at work and her ex-father-in-law’s accountant. By the time it reaches me, these emails have been sent to dozens and dozens of different people, men and women who read the content and then forward it on to others.

And I can’t help but wonder, “What was going through my friend’s mind when he forwarded this to me and other people in our church?”

What’s going on mentally and spiritually here? I imagine that he opens the email from cousin Julie, he reads it, he understands it, and then he decides to forward it. But I know the Holy Spirit lives inside my friend’s heart. This email from him is crass and crude and hateful. How did this happen? I know my friend has died to the ways of the world, he’s died to himself, and now Christ our Lord lives in him. This email from him, though, is off-color and racist. Why did he send it? Who was guiding my friend as he hit the “forward” button and began adding names from his address book on these emails? Did he seriously consider what he had read? Did he pause even for a moment before he hit “send?” Did he pray first?

What made my friend think that Jesus would have approved the sending of that email? What made my friend think that email was holy? Perhaps my friend wasn’ t thinking.

Allow me to borrow from Jack Reese:

I cannot quite grasp it. People who go to church every week, who read the Bible, listen to sermons, take communion and pray, people who say ‘hello’ in the supermarket and root for their grandkids at soccer matches, who edge their lawns, drive under the speed limit, and show pictures of their new puppy at the hairdresser’s, people of good will and good manners with high moral commitments and low tolerance for rude behavior nevertheless speak ill of others, spread gossip, criticize, disparage, and pass judgment on those with whom they disagree. And often they do so in the name of Christ.

In a lot of these forwarded emails, I don’t see much evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, or self control.

Do your emails encourage or discourage? Are your emails holy? Does God’s Holy Spirit guide what you forward to others?

Email can be a wonderful thing. I’ve also discovered that, if we’re not thinking, it can be commandeered by Satan for his destructive purposes.

And it’ll have our name on it.

Peace,

Allan

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