Happy Birthday

Ooh Rah, Devil Dogs!!! Happy Birthday! Keep making our country proud!!!

Let’s Fill the Aisles of Church and American Government

The coming election has many believers more than a little concerned. Ironically, we believers are sitting on both sides of the aisle in this election. Many on the evangelical left are passionate supporters of Barack Obama with the same flow of intensity of many, like myself, on the evangelical right.

Many well-meaning believers see this passion and proclaim it displaced. God is not a Republican, the bumper sticker says in rather large print (or a Democrat in especially small print). If we’re honest, the calls for leaving the aisles of American politics and returning to the aisles of Church are sounded more often to those on the right.

While that’s a separate blog topic in and of itself, I’d like to issue a call for more Christian involvement … not less. I’m going to pretend for the moment that Christians of all socio-political-leaning species are criticized equally for their political passion, and I’d like to defend the likes and musings of Jim Wallis and James Dobson equally. Please allow me to suggest that calls for disengagement are unwarranted at best and ignorant at medium and dangerous at worst.

One criticism muses that God is not a Republican or a Democrat. This sermon usually preaches against passionate political ivolvement in general and warns that we are unnecessarily dividing ourselves as believers specifically. However, this criticism fails to create a room full of purple republicrats or demopublicans, holding hands and singing “Kumbaya.” This is not because we are attempting to make Jesus an American or nonesense like that. Those of us who feel great passion about our political musings … on the left and the right … often times have put much thought and prayer into our ballot boxes. Our politics tend to flow from our faith … not vice versa. I’m not saying that we’re perfect, but I am attempting to give us all … left and right … the goodwill benefit of the doubt. According to Jim Wallis to truly live as a Christian, you will work publically to eliminate the curse of poverty. According to James Dobson working to eliminate the scourge of abortion flows directly and vibrantly from a Christian world view.

To expect any different is to expect that we can somehow have values-neutral politics. And by default politics is a values game. Every law that is passed is based on someone’s idea of right and wrong.

Another criticism is that we Christians should simply be in the business of doing Church. This sermon preaches against any work besides spreading the Gospel in the world. However, the “Gospel” is more than simply saying yes to Jesus. The full Gospel includes ministering to physical needs, so that people can actually pay attention to something more than their all-encompassing hurt. Thus, as Christians we should be involved in more than simply giving an altar call … as vitally important as that is. In fact Jesus in Matthew 25 in no uncertain terms informs us that we’ll be judged on how we ministered to “the least of these” out in society.

Those of us on the right and the left can agree on the “what” at this point. Where we differ is in the “how.” We can also agree that ministering to the least of these involves more than putting on band-aids. It also involves initiating acts of prevention. Moving into “ministries” of prevention moves one into the realm of public policy.

Another criticism is that seeking to participate in politics means that Christians are trying to take matters into their own hands … which means they are attempting to walk by human power and not by faith. For people who offer this criticism I have one simple question. When your fridge is empty, do you simply wait on God to send his ravens to feed you … or do you go to the store? There is precious little difference between these two scenarios. Yes, we as believers are called to live by faith. However, faith is not simply waiting for God in expectation. That is hope, not faith. Faith is a bit different. Faith is more than believing. Rather faith is believing that spurs one to action for a purpose. Biblically-speaking, faith necessitates action. Jesus will be none-too-impressed with our inactivity in society based on some misguided hope that he would show up and do it all … without us. Who, pray tell, are the hands and feet of Jesus?

Another criticism is that Jesus and Paul did not work in politics and did not counsel believers to do so either. Yet, such a criticism is an arguement from silence. Scripture does not say that Jesus brushed his hair or his teeth. Nor does it say that Paul went to the bathroom indoors or washed his hands afterwards. Rather the things that Jesus and Paul did teach us, as is shown above, necessitate Christian involvement in the politcal spectrum. Jesus and Paul lived in the Roman world, where government “of the people, by the people, and for the people” did not exist. However, that is the world in which those of us in the States do live. What this world necessitates is a responsible citizenry to govern themselves. We have chosen to do so through a republican/federal form of government, wherein we participate through our representatives, political action committees (formally) and through phone calls and conversations around the water cooler (informally). It can be argued that taking the way of non-action in our world is lazy at best and down-right sinful at worst.

One last criticism is that seeking political participation is merely a guise for a power trip. Again, I concede that many people … Christian and non-Christian / Republican and Democrat … are power hungry. However, the question must be asked: is seeking power wrong … in and of itself? Biblically-speaking (based off of Psalm 8 and the Genesis account of creation) man was given stewardship responsibility for the earth. This by default involves holding some measure of power. Because there is more than one person in the designation, man, this involves some measure of power being held by people over other people. So the real question is not whether we are power-seeking. The real question is what are we going to do with the power entrusted to us? A related question is how best to structure this organization to mitigate the effects of human sin nature?

Some argue that Christians should not impose their values on non-Christians. However, every law is someone’s idea of right and wrong. Do we really want the depraved imposing their value-systems on the “least of these?”

Again some simply say that non-engagement is the way to go. However, on a purely hypothetical level, how are we going to organize society if every single person in the world is evangelized and discipled? Will religious leaders govern us? Ask the Reformers how well that worked. Whether we like it or not human nature will always be with us.

As a Wesleyan, I fully believe we are promised real (not hypothetical) victory over sin in this life. However, reality shows this arrives at differing times and places for every individual and for varying degrees of sin. We need systems of societal organization (government) to mitigate this sin nature. Paul said that God sends the government as his personal minister to do such a thing … with pockets filled with goodies for good behavior and a sword for disobedience. Again, do we as believers want the lowest common moral denominator making public decisions for the general populous?

So, I insist that in general as believers living in America, who take their faith as their authoritative and guiding light, we have a responsibility to be politically involved. Let’s fill the aisles of Church and American government.

Remembering 911

On September 11, 2001 I was student teaching in a small high school in Georgia. I remember the agitated and flippant attitude I felt as the school sent “runners” to every classroom, instructing us to turn on our TVs. We were interrupted. The students we had at the time needed precious little help in being distracted. I remember the disbelief I felt as the runner quickly informed us of a tragedy going down in New York, before rushing off to another classroom. I remember the shock I felt as our class watched the second tower fell … we were in complete silence.

For one moment in time those kids actually felt some measure of weight of responsibility that each of us as American citizens has in making our society safe and good. For perhaps the first time many of those students felt some measure of vulnerability.

Today is the day that we remember not our individual rights but our individual responsibilities to help nurture the safety and welfare of others in our beloved country. Let us never forget.

And … let us not forget to offer gratitude for this Bush administration. Whether you like him or loathe him, his administration and our military has kept us safe from more heinous attacks. On this day … offer up a little gratitude.

Evangelical Socio-Political-Engagement Savy at “Saddleback Showdown”

Perhaps you saw the “Saddleback Showdown” tonight on Fox News. Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were both given roughly one hour of roughly the same questions from Pastor Rick Warren. Both candidates in my opinion did very well and most likely scored points with “the evangelical vote.”

To be honest … like many other conservative evangelicals … I was very skeptical of listening to Obama … and McCain for that matter. Yet, tonight, Obama did strike my heart strings on several issues. Obama’s strongest point of connection came … oddly enough … during his answer on an important change in views. He now values work as an invaluable component of welfare “reform.” Work brings dignity, to paraphrase him, and it helps reconnect the person to the community in a productive way. Obama nuanced evil in ways that we do indeed need to be discussing … such as Darfour and poverty at home. For far too long we conservative evangelicals have abdicated our responsibility to influence thought and action in this area … and as a result … the left has dominated this discussion. Obama did define marriage as between one man and one woman.

Though I thought Obama did very well in answering Warren’s question on abortion and life … from the standpoint of being proudly pro-choice … the content of his answer only served to emphasize the need to defeat him in November. While the point at which a person develops into or becomes a soul might be “above (his) pay grade” to answer, he was very clear and out front with his stance on the war in Iraq. What elevates these two issues to two different philosophical “pay grades?” Though Obama defines marriage between one man and one woman, he is for civil unions. He did very well in emphasizing the communal aspect of personal responsibility … until these two issues … abortion and the definition of marriage. While, yes, Obama did emphasize the need to reduce the number of abortions and the number of “unwanted” pregnancies … this only serves to obscure the very real holocaust taking place. Why did he not address bringing emphasis to personal responsibility with regard to one’s sexual appetite? No sex outside marriage equals no pregnancy … wanted or unwanted.

McCain did very well. He was quick and sharp with the “right” answers to the questions. To be honest I was a bit uncomfortable with McCain’s answer to the question: does evil exist and what do we do with it. It felt to me like he was close to defining evil as anyone who opposes America. Now he did not say that. Older Americans will no doubt hear him in the light in which he intended to communicate. To his credit he did emphasize that America does have faults and we need to to talk about them. And to his very good credit he did grieve our response after 911 as to encourage Americans “to go shopping” instead of volunteering to causes greater than themselves. This helps to anchor his rhetoric. Though I am very sympathetic to federalism, there are perhaps some issues which do need to be addressed nationally. Same-sex “marriage” is one of those issues. McCain, though believing in “traditional marriage,” said he would leave this issue up to the states to decide … until it forcibly crossed state lines. I am afraid that at that point it would be too late, which is why something needs to be done now.

I felt McCain was strongest on the need for school choice, national defense, life beginning at conception, and on the tax issue. McCain did a great job of communicating that wealth as a designation is rather arbitrary and that taxing someone on the basis of supposed wealth is akin to theft by the government at worst … and harmful to society as a whole at best.

Despite whether anyone agrees with this format or not, it certainly shows that Evangelical socio-political sophistication is a bit more than a sweaty fat man thumping his Bible on the street corner. Surely no one can argue with Warren’s closing encouragement for dialogue and debate and his plea for civility in the process … and expect to be taken serious. This format tonight demonstrated that while abortion and homosexuality are indeed important issues for the “evangelical vote,” they are by far not the only issues many of us care about.

Self-Consumptive Patriotism and American Global Leadership

Perhaps questioning calling attention to a common type of patriotism … which I dub “Self-Consumptive” … can be a cause for concern. Typically, there are two voices in this topic, which scream the loudest, drowning out all other voices. Voice one is from the fringe-left … and at times from the moderate-left … denouncing all forms of patriotism. Voice two is from the fringe right which only allows gushing sentiment over our country and way of life.

While it is certainly understandable that these two voices exist (they are reactionary to the perceived dangers of each other), it is unfortunate. Patriotism certainly does not need to be deported, as C.S. Lewis once quipped that we deride patriotism and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. On the other hand we blindly give absolute allegiance to anyone to our peril.

The point I have been attempting to make over the past couple of posts is that the version of patriotism … that I find as appetizing as vomit … is an unthinking, blind, and often reactionary patriotism of self-consumption. This type of patriotism is love because someone or something gives me something … or makes me feel a certain way.

While any love will exact a certain amount of good feelings in anyone from time to time, unfortunately in our day, love is almost solely defined by what someone does for me or how someone makes me feel.

What happens, then, when those feelings run dry … or out all together?

True love from my standpoint, while certainly containing good and positive feeling caused by someone or something else, is more properly defined by what I do and and give to someone or something else.

In short love is primarily a verb … not primarily a feeling.

The Rand Corporation has produced very welcome findings that we Americans are still heavy-weight competitors on the global scene in Science and Technology.

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG674/
Scroll down the page to download the Online PDF of their document.

What will be the results of raising generations of Americans to be primarily self-consumptive? Only time will tell. My prediction is that self-consumption can in no way aid our efforts in producing global leadership in various important areas … such as science and technology.

And certainly self-consumption will not grow dynamic churches, whose Lord calls us to die to self. Self-sacrifice for God and neighbor is ironically the older, supposedly outdated form of patriotism that calls one to self-sacrifice for God and country, as taught by the Boy Scouts.

A Red, White, and Blue Cross?

Patriotism can be a glue, holding a people together. Patriotism can be a virtue, propelling people to self-sacrifice for their neighbors and posterity. Patriotism for believers can be a way to worship God for his marvelous provisions for their peace and safety. Patriotism, for believers, may also simply be their prosperity, thrown into Aaron’s fire … out of which pops a calf, wearing red, white, and blue.

Sunday, I believe, such a calf popped. To be fair such a calf may have unwittingly popped, but popped it did on a bulletin, which appeared in a number of churches celebration of July 4th by Cathedral Press (http://www.cathedralpress.com/every_08.html). What, pray tell, is the central message of this picture?

Before I tell you the two messages that I take away from this picture, allow me to draw your attention to certain aspects. The word that immediately draws your attention is “FREEDOM.” Below that is this family, complete with a dog, posing in front of the American flag. Fireworks are blazing in the background.

Let’s stop here. What seems to be the message so far? To me it seems to be a typical message about the preciousness of our American freedom and its gloriousness.

Question: How many of our families, today, look like that? I would say not enough. Yet, even those of us who come from broken families carry with us ideas of “freedom.” Freedom in pop culture means the ability to do whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. Like it or not, this is the interpretation of the word freedom that immigrates into this picture. And I’m taught from day 1 of living in this country that freedom (however it’s defined) is mine by right.

Now allow me to direct your attention to the obscure words under the picture, “…IS OURS IN CHRIST.” I mentioned above that there are two messages I take away from this picture … as a whole.

1. I, personally, can have the American dream (however that’s defined) … if I become a Christian.
2. In order to preserve my American dream, I need to get everybody to go to church on a regular basis.

Now there is actually a third message that explodes on the scene, once these two messages are understood:

• My American dream is the most important facet of Christianity and achieving my American dream is what God cares most about.

These messages are inherently selfish and borderline … if not blatant … idolatry. This is the American culture and way of life dictating to me what Christianity is all about. How might this picture look to believers, living in oppressive regimes overseas? Might it communicate to them that reward of choosing Christ as Lord is the American Dream? Might it then suggest that they are not as good a quality of Christians as those of us living in the States, because they are suffering under repressive regimes? Might it suggest that we Americans think we are somehow better Christians than those living under repressive regimes … because we have the favor of God on us they do not?

Whatever the messages those people living in repressive regimes might take away from this picture, a statement by a Kenyan pastor to the largely American student body of Asbury Theological Seminary a couple of years ago is quite telling. He told them he believed it was harder to be a Christian in America, than in Kenya or any other number of African states. His point was that prosperity can dull one’s sense of duty and need for self-sacrifice for others and need for real, living, breathing faith in everyday life … which is the lifeblood of Biblical Christianity.

When the lines between patriotism and Biblical Worship of Jesus, our Lord, are blurred, our American culture often times dictates the terms of our Christianity. Given the secular-progressive value system of contemporary American culture, such a blurred distinction renders both flag and cross tarnished.

Is all of this what was intended by the bulletin picture creator? Let’s hope not. Let’s hope the creator meant that true freedom (which is freedom from sin and freedom for Christian ministry in the world) is found only in Christ … but that message is stolen by the mingling of the flag, the fireworks, and the word “FREEDOM.”

Consider portions of verses from our national hymn, “America, the Beautiful,” published in 1895 and revised a couple of times since. Each of the four verses extols the natural beauty of our great country. She arrests our attention in each verse, “America! America!” to certain character traits she believes are necessary for our country:

• From Verse 1: God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
• From Verse 2: God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.
• From Verse 3: May God thy gold refine till all success be nobleness and every gain divine!

When was the last time self-control was extolled as an American virtue? At one time it was … or at least a genuine prayer of the American people who were largely Christian. But that time is long passed. We must take great care to ensure the freedom of Bible-Jesus-Christianity from our American secular-progressive culture … lest we find the sun setting on the American Church.

What Does “Free” in the Framers’ “Freedom” Mean?

Approaching the country’s birthday this Friday (which is actually today, the 2nd), we will hear many heart moving, wrenching, palpitating songs and messages about the founding principle of our country … freedom.

But what exactly does the “free” in the Framers’ “freedom” mean? We live in a free country, so I can do whatever the ____ I want … right? The American flag being flown on loan advertisements means that I can be free to purchase whatever I _____-well please … right? America is that place my school guidance counselor told me that I can be whatever I want to be … despite the fact I’m a senior with an 8th grade reading level and an inability to spell my own name … right? Freedom is that sponsorship from the government to do with my sex whatever I want … because it’s my body and I have freedom of choice (so long as I vote for them) … right? After all they told me that “the man” is the point man for society holding me back … so they’re going to take care of me and ensure that I have the same life results as those unfortunate people who have to work all their lives. Didn’t they get the memo that Uncle Sam would take care of them too?

Allow me to take the liberty to correct such “interesting” and all-too-common but highly inaccurate myths about the Framers’ concept of freedom. Yes, it is true that according to Jefferson, the D of I’s author, that we are “endowed with certain inalienable rights ….” Inalienable rights are those given by God that cannot be given nor taken away by man.

If you were to take the time to read the Declaration of Independence … which means of course that some measure of effort is required … you might come across the phrase “the laws of nature and nature’s God.” The hands that rock the cradle of the Framers’ “freedom” are nature’s laws and nature’s God. In other words any concept of freedom that is inconsistent with common human reason and God’s divine revelation as found in the Bible is not among the “self-evident truths” of the Declaration and the Framers. In other words still further, it is not I who defines my own life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but the God who is the God of both nature and of the Bible. And what did Jesus say were the two most important laws of God?

1. Love God
2. Love neighbor

Freedom is less about being free to do whatever the ____ I want to … and more about being able to do the most good for my neighbor and society with the least intrusion from the government. Therefore the inalienable rights of the Declaration are not so much about individualistic and privatized rights as about the free opportunity to practice individual responsibility towards God and neighbor without having to worry about a tyrannical government that thinks it is above nature’s laws and nature’s God.

For further reading on the Declaration of Independence, check out the Heritage Foundation:

• http://www.heritage.org/research/features/almanac/pdf/declarationintro.pdf
• http://www.heritage.org/research/features/almanac/pdf/declaration.pdf