Church Voices

At some point prognostication from Christians concerning economic doom and gloom makes it difficult to believe that they believe things like “Our father in heaven…. give us this day our daily bread”.

I was supposed to have published an articled entitled “Cthulianity” today but I got busy and it didn’t happen. So to the few who that promise was made I bring you via twitter Fake Pastor Mark [Driscoll].

Its funny cause its about 3/4 true. A sampling:

Only fought 5 guys on the way home after service last night. Then baptized them

Good thing people are getting saved in Seattle. Plan B to equal out the dogs-to-christians ratio was not as pleasant.

Apparently you can’t train good customer service… or if you can, companies don’t know how.

Don’t ask me how I’m doing if:

1) You don’t really care.

2) It isn’t going to change the way you treat me.

I was in the local grocery store the other day and the cashier asked me if I found everything okay.  It’s company policy for them to ask.  I’m not sure why, though, because when I explained that in fact I had not found what I wanted, she said, “I’m sorry.  Your total is …”. 

Today I was on the phone activating a credit card so that I could get free stuff with it (just kidding).  The website wasn’t working properly so I had to call.  The automated system transferred me to a live person who asked me how I was.  I was frustrated from a series of events including the problems on the website and made that known (in more of a defeated tone than one of anger).  She proceeded to tell me about some program to get more of my money and I said, “No, thank you,” as soon as she took a breath.  She then asked me to keep in mind blah blah blah.  The spiel was taking even longer than they normally do, so I interrupted again.  Only instead of simply saying “No thanks,” I asked her if she heard me tell her I was frustrated at the beginning of the call.  She said that she did.  I then told her that when somebody is already frustrated, it’s not a good idea to press the issue when they say no.  She then told me that she was simply asking me to keep in mind blah blah blah (seriously, she went right back to the spiel).

Don’t ask if it doesn’t matter.

For the last 20 months I’ve been on a theological crash course that’s illuminated the scriptures for me almost more than any other experience in my life. That crash course is called fatherhood. Interestingly enough one of the statements that has been made repeatedly to me is how great it would be to be a baby. Everything is taken care of for you, you’re fed, everyone loves you, and you have no responsiblity.

I don’t think this is true.

It must be incredibly hard to be a baby. You have no idea why you’re being taken to the places you’re being taken to, you have no idea who most people are, or what’s going on at all. Every parenting advice book I’ve read has the same advice: babies need routine because they have no idea what’s going on.

Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
1 Corinthians 13.9-13

These verses are often quoted in the context of discipleship, usually in terms of discussing what someone used to do or used to believe, with the implication being that anyone who does those things, or believes those things are still immature and will grow out of it if they are truly disciples.

These verses have absolutely nothing to do with discipleship.

Instead these verses describe our life here, and our life in eternity. Here we don’t have any idea what’s really going on. Like babies we have a very limited knowledge about how God is working, about what is happening to us, and about how the world works. The terrible irony of how this verse is wrongly used is that those who claim to now be knowledgeable, unlike their previous child-like state are people who are unaware of how much we can’t possibly know.

That’s not to say that we can’t know anything. Even babies know something of their world.

Babies know their parents love them.
Babies know when they hurt.
Babies know when they’re hungry.
Babies know their family members.
Babies know when they’re not at home.

Not to stretch the metaphor too far, but I think its fair to say we know the rudimentary make up of what’s going on. We know who loves us, we now what He did to save us, but much of the how and why of what’s happening, especially when we hurt isn’t clear. Sometimes a baby hurts because a doctor has administered a life giving shot, other times a baby hurts because he has a life threatening illness, and no baby alive has figured out which is which.

Any number of short and simple descriptions of a Christ-follower’s life is available to us in scripture (to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God is my favorite of the bunch), but how and why this world and how and why God operates in this world often isn’t clear, and all too often the things obscured by the cloudy bits of the mirror are what separates us from each other. We have been given a clear command that we are to love each other and we will be known as His disciples by that love, meanwhile churches split, relationships dissolve, and no clear disciples of Christ are known because of arguments about what is behind those clouds have been allowed to dominate the focus, energy and ambition of the church.

Cal Thomas has already co-written one book that is critical of trying to use the kingdom of this world in service to the kingdom of God. Now, in the wake of the election, Thomas has written a column that calls for abandoning the power of the world in order to pursue the kingdom of God.

Scripture teaches that God’s power (if that is what conservative Evangelicals want and not their puny attempts at grabbing earthly power) is made perfect in weakness. He speaks of the tiny mustard seed, the seemingly worthless widow’s mite, of taking the last place at the table and the humbling of one’s self, the washing of feet and similar acts and attitudes; the still, small voice. How did conservative Evangelicals miss this and instead settle for a lesser power, which in reality is no power at all? When did they settle for an inferior “kingdom”?

Evangelicals are at a junction. They can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the One they claim to follow. By following His example, they will decrease, but He will increase. They will get no credit, but they will see results. If conservative Evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify God, they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.

Its hard to argue with his conclusions in light of scripture:

But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Let me now remind you, dear brothers and sisters, of the Good News I preached to you before. You welcomed it then, and you still stand firm in it. It is this Good News that saves you if you continue to believe the message I told you—unless, of course, you believed something that was never true in the first place.

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.

When you add to the gospel, you diminish the gospel, and you end up with ugly statements like this:

“Ninety-six percent of black voters supported Barack Obama and the majority of these voters were influenced by black preachers to put race ahead of their country and their faith,” said Rev. Peterson. “How can ministers who are supposed to lead their flock to Jesus Christ instead lead them to a socialist like Obama? The truth is that most black ministers don’t have a real relationship with God and they are leading their congregations to hell. These blind leaders helped elect their black ‘Messiah’. This ‘Messiah’ happens to be the most left-wing member of the U.S. Senate,” said Rev. Peterson.

Oddly enough I was unable to find the portion of scripture that says: Welcome to hell. Population: black democrats.

And you thought your church had problems!

I’m curious about something I’ve noticed among intellectual deconverts, such as Ex Apologist and John Loftus. Self proclaimed apologists earlier in their religious lives, after a gradual process of deconversion they maintain that all the arguments for the existence of God are logically fallacious. Moreover, the Bible becomes entirely historically unreliable and all of the traditional atheological arguments such as the problem of evil and the incoherence of the concept of God, though once thought to be unpersuasive, become unstoppable forces. And, of course, Christianity is responsible for social evils, after all.

I have my own thoughts. But what do you think is to be made of this?

I’ve got the post election blues. And its got absolutely nothing to do with who won or who lost*. My post election blues stem from the reactions of Christians on both sides of the political aisle, because there’s enough classlessness to go around.

I’ve seen McCain supporting Christians (or at least anti-Obama Christians) use rhetoric that amounts to ex communicating their brothers and sisters over who they voted for. These same people are willing to tolerate people in their church having a positive view of health and wealth preachers like Joel Osteen or TD Jakes, but if you have anything less than a negative view of Obama apparently that calls your salvation into doubt.

I’ve seen Obama supporting Christians accuse their brothers and sisters of hating the poor, and of being racists.

And the predictions, the predictions are the worst. I’ve seen predictions of the coming economic cataclysm (I can only imagine what it looks like to, say, a Zimbabwan when Americans wring their hands about recessions, meltdowns and the sky falling), predictions of concentration camps full of Christians, predictions of first amendment redaction, and predictions of the coming anti-Christ. Do you really expect people to believe your testimony or to take you seriously when you give the gospel when you make wild eyed predictions like this? Or how about when you tell people about the sovereignty of God and how God is our father who cares for us?

Don’t get me started on the classlessness. I shouldn’t be surprised by it now since the realm of politics has become synonymous with those who are willing to say the worst possible thing about their opponent even if those things only have a tenuous connection with reality at best. It hasn’t ended with the election of Barak Obama either. The demonization of Sarah Palin has continued right through the election, and of course the heat is turned up on Obama as well. I’ve seen Christians on both sides using derogatory insults that only differ from playground insults in their greater degree of viciousness. These classless and derogatory insults and accusations are venom and saltwater pouring from the mouths and minds of a people who claim to have the water of life.

I guarantee you that sooner or later your political ideology will be defeated. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not your discipleship survives. Jesus told his disciples they would be known by their love for each other. Are we loving each other in this post-election?

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Part of the reason that Democrats can take extreme stands on abortion is because they have nothing to gain by being more moderate, and nothing to lose by being extreme.