So there are a couple of phrases we’ve got on our church staff that are really helpful.
The first one goes something like this “help me understand”.
Ever had that awkward moment when someone does something not very good or rather weird strange and you need to talk to them about it – the above phrase is excellent in confronting without confrontation. It’s a modern take on Jesus’ compulsion to speak the truth in love.
The second phrase we have around our staff is the Bill Hybel’s classic “always say the last 10%”.
Ever been in a situation where you are talking to someone – but you hold back from saying everything that needs to be said. You might have said 90% of what needs to be said – but that last 10% is so crucial. It’s also the most difficult to say – in the right way for the right reasons.
So why am I telling you this?
What’s this blog about??
If you’ve been reading my two blogs you’d see a confession by one blogger about blogging anonymously. So here’s a Scottish pastor’s musings – giving the last 10% and hopefully helping you understand.
Confession is leaving the church and the Christian’s vocabulary.
This is bad.
Interesting BBC article today on confession. The article is entitled “Two sexes ‘sin in different ways’”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7897034.stm?lss
The report came amid Vatican concerns about the declining rate of confessions. A recent survey of Catholics found nearly a third no longer considered confession necessary, while one in 10 considered the process an obstacle to their dialogue with God.
It’s the classic outworking of Christian individualism and I’ll-make-my-remarks- anonymously-because-I-do-not-live-to-or-for-anyone-else.
Harsh but true words; the last 10% kind of words.
Protestantism has never embraced confession – sad when the Apostle’s all did.
Catholicism embraced it but then used it to allow a few take individualism to a dictatorial level.
But it needs to return for the church to be saved.
If we confessed out sins would we need to act anonymously ever??
If we confessed our sins would we need anyone to tell us the last 10%?
If we confessed our sins would we need anyone to ask us ‘help me understand?’
With confession comes humility.
With confession comes transparency.
With confession comes grace.
With confession comes hope.
With confession comes salvation.
Just some musings …..but musings I began to practice many years ago and since then I've never needed to be anonymous.
Live in the light.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Why we deserve to lose Prop 8.
So it’s January 1, 2009.
What a last few weeks we had in 2008.
It began with inviting a comedian to take our entire Sunday service to kick off Christmas – even my open minded, golf playing, now also pheasant and Bambi hunting wannabee yuppie younger brother who loves the music of Queen and has over 5000 songs on his iPod sync’d to his big Merc thinks that was pretty risky!
Then it was running a church service with two adults suspended on a plank of wood at what seemed like 30 feet high (it was more like 4 feet) all to illustrate Joseph going out on a limb for God. It felt like 30 feet high because inadvertently one of the people I spontaneously chose to help me suffers from acrophobia. And then another couple I chose might be more than a couple …maybe there were three people out on the plank. Of course we’d calculated the weight to anchor measurements – hopefully we had it right…..as we heard the plank make a breaking sound!!!
Sunday service planning and execution is no easy business.
But then came the request to host a funeral service in our worship center – for the local Buddhist congregation – incense, Buddhist altar and all.
The last month of the year was a risky month.
But is love not always risky.
We went ahead with the Buddhist ceremony in our facility because Jesus told us very clearly to ‘love our neighbors.’
Never easy to love.
Risky to love.
Hard sometimes to love.
But is that not the core of our faith.
Love.
Love moved God.
Love moved Jesus.
Love called us.
So we sit at the start of 2009.
I know this year will have its share of risky decisions. Not because our church staff is sitting around dreaming of what next whacky thing to pull off just to be controversial - although sometimes we get up to that also (how else do pastors have fun) - but because we are committed to following the way of Jesus which is a way of love.
Love can’t not be risky.
What is so sad, and so urgently in need of fixing, is that this risky form of love is the very opposite to how people perceive Christians.
Let’s take the Prop 8 battle of November.
Whether right or wrong (check out my blog of June 11, 08 “Are you martyring or being a martyr.”) Christians cannot enter into this debate without being viewed as bigots with hate and homophobia because for way too long Christians have failed to show any love - even a crumb of love towards those who do not share their views.
That historic failure leaves Christians with no right now to speak.
There is a warning Christians in America need to heed from what happened in the UK in the late 1980’s. Christian hate and bigotry left them powerless to speak with any impact and subsequently Christianity slid from a place of influence to a silent, mocked voice. The results - Evangelicals dropped from 25% of the population down to a mere 7% and are still slipping.
May 2009 be a year we put the brakes on our arrogant assumption that because we’re right we should be listened to, and may it be a year that we hit the throttle of demonstrating risky love.
What a last few weeks we had in 2008.
It began with inviting a comedian to take our entire Sunday service to kick off Christmas – even my open minded, golf playing, now also pheasant and Bambi hunting wannabee yuppie younger brother who loves the music of Queen and has over 5000 songs on his iPod sync’d to his big Merc thinks that was pretty risky!
Then it was running a church service with two adults suspended on a plank of wood at what seemed like 30 feet high (it was more like 4 feet) all to illustrate Joseph going out on a limb for God. It felt like 30 feet high because inadvertently one of the people I spontaneously chose to help me suffers from acrophobia. And then another couple I chose might be more than a couple …maybe there were three people out on the plank. Of course we’d calculated the weight to anchor measurements – hopefully we had it right…..as we heard the plank make a breaking sound!!!
Sunday service planning and execution is no easy business.
But then came the request to host a funeral service in our worship center – for the local Buddhist congregation – incense, Buddhist altar and all.
The last month of the year was a risky month.
But is love not always risky.
We went ahead with the Buddhist ceremony in our facility because Jesus told us very clearly to ‘love our neighbors.’
Never easy to love.
Risky to love.
Hard sometimes to love.
But is that not the core of our faith.
Love.
Love moved God.
Love moved Jesus.
Love called us.
So we sit at the start of 2009.
I know this year will have its share of risky decisions. Not because our church staff is sitting around dreaming of what next whacky thing to pull off just to be controversial - although sometimes we get up to that also (how else do pastors have fun) - but because we are committed to following the way of Jesus which is a way of love.
Love can’t not be risky.
What is so sad, and so urgently in need of fixing, is that this risky form of love is the very opposite to how people perceive Christians.
Let’s take the Prop 8 battle of November.
Whether right or wrong (check out my blog of June 11, 08 “Are you martyring or being a martyr.”) Christians cannot enter into this debate without being viewed as bigots with hate and homophobia because for way too long Christians have failed to show any love - even a crumb of love towards those who do not share their views.
That historic failure leaves Christians with no right now to speak.
There is a warning Christians in America need to heed from what happened in the UK in the late 1980’s. Christian hate and bigotry left them powerless to speak with any impact and subsequently Christianity slid from a place of influence to a silent, mocked voice. The results - Evangelicals dropped from 25% of the population down to a mere 7% and are still slipping.
May 2009 be a year we put the brakes on our arrogant assumption that because we’re right we should be listened to, and may it be a year that we hit the throttle of demonstrating risky love.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Gospel Makes It Possible To Have Such A Radically Different Life
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Listen to the words of a lady who grasped how amazing the gospel is:
If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would like a taxpayer with “rights” – I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace – then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.
[Timothy Keller, The Reason for God p183.]
I love that quote. She’s got it.
It is these radical asks of grace that make the Christian life so radically different – because when God asks he empowers.
This asks are beyond the realms of human or natural boundaries. In his grace he asks us to forgive those who wrong us. In his grace he asks us to trust him even when the darkest cloud hovers over us. In his grace he asks us to give – even our last dollar. In his grace he asks us to turn the other cheek. In his grace he asks us to forego how the world defines success – give up for his values and his Kingdom.
In his grace he asks us to die to self and live for his kingdom and his gospel.
And when get this you begin to live a radically different life – a life that some don’t understand. But what a life.
So why are so many Christians living dull, ordinary lives.
Maybe it’s because they have assumed they are saved by their works and they refuse therefore to let God ask anything of them.
But maybe these works are different than we think. Sometimes our ‘works’ are our biblical knowledge, or our “daily devotional time” or our ‘Bible study”. We’re not doing door to door work like some cults but so often we default into a works based salvation and we miss the radical call of grace….we stop listening to it too busy doing our ‘works’.
Of course nobody would ever confess this. But the evidence is in the ordinariness of our living. Christians are boring. Christians are just like everybody else. The words ‘radicals’ and ‘revolutionaries’ are absent from all but a few. [Take Jake and Renée. Living in Guadalajara to then head to Guatemala to plant a church …..with their little daughter and no money!! …check out their blog @ jakenrenee.blogspot.com - radicals.]
Grace more than knowledge, more than theology, more than church activity, more than Christian piety makes you open to do whatever God asks. Risk, boldness, radicalness…are products of grace not of works.
So Christ followers out there ….live in grace …it’s an adventure. Read about it; learn about it; but most of all live it.
So church pastors out there ….. teach grace; saturate your campus with grace; model it …it will transform your congregation.
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Listen to the words of a lady who grasped how amazing the gospel is:
If I was saved by my good works then there would be a limit to what God could ask of me or put me through. I would like a taxpayer with “rights” – I would have done my duty and now I would deserve a certain quality of life. But if I am a sinner saved by grace – then there’s nothing he cannot ask of me.
[Timothy Keller, The Reason for God p183.]
I love that quote. She’s got it.
It is these radical asks of grace that make the Christian life so radically different – because when God asks he empowers.
This asks are beyond the realms of human or natural boundaries. In his grace he asks us to forgive those who wrong us. In his grace he asks us to trust him even when the darkest cloud hovers over us. In his grace he asks us to give – even our last dollar. In his grace he asks us to turn the other cheek. In his grace he asks us to forego how the world defines success – give up for his values and his Kingdom.
In his grace he asks us to die to self and live for his kingdom and his gospel.
And when get this you begin to live a radically different life – a life that some don’t understand. But what a life.
So why are so many Christians living dull, ordinary lives.
Maybe it’s because they have assumed they are saved by their works and they refuse therefore to let God ask anything of them.
But maybe these works are different than we think. Sometimes our ‘works’ are our biblical knowledge, or our “daily devotional time” or our ‘Bible study”. We’re not doing door to door work like some cults but so often we default into a works based salvation and we miss the radical call of grace….we stop listening to it too busy doing our ‘works’.
Of course nobody would ever confess this. But the evidence is in the ordinariness of our living. Christians are boring. Christians are just like everybody else. The words ‘radicals’ and ‘revolutionaries’ are absent from all but a few. [Take Jake and Renée. Living in Guadalajara to then head to Guatemala to plant a church …..with their little daughter and no money!! …check out their blog @ jakenrenee.blogspot.com - radicals.]
Grace more than knowledge, more than theology, more than church activity, more than Christian piety makes you open to do whatever God asks. Risk, boldness, radicalness…are products of grace not of works.
So Christ followers out there ….live in grace …it’s an adventure. Read about it; learn about it; but most of all live it.
So church pastors out there ….. teach grace; saturate your campus with grace; model it …it will transform your congregation.
The gospel makes it possible to have such a radically different life.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Would America Vote For An Ugly President?
So we’ve just begun our new Sunday morning teaching series called Jesus is President. We kicked it off with a talk about Jesus being an ugly president (listen, download or itune it at www.reedleyfbc.com).
The cynic might suggest that politics is all ugly and so yep, we would vote for an ugly president.
But Jesus was ugly in a different way.
One of the prophets (the 8th century BC prophet called Isaiah) spoke of the coming Messiah and how ‘he would have no beauty that we would desire him’, and comments on how people would hide their faces from him. What ever Isaiah meant, he certainly meant to paint the picture of a coming Mashiach (Messiah) - President – would not fit the normal mold.
And Jesus didn’t fit the normal mold.
The normal mold required you to be born into a certain line – in Jesus’ day the line of the Hasmoneans. It required you to be part of their dynasty. Jesus wasn’t.
The normal mode required you to be approved by Rome. Some called this the genius of the Roman Empire, they approved of client-kings – local kings of provinces within the Roman Empire who were loyal to Rome and could help them administer local and religious matters. Jesus wasn’t.
The normal mode included being approved of by the right people, getting the nod from the hierarchy, learning the right hands to shake, if not the right handshake. Jesus didn’t do any of that …in fact the crowd that he most annoyed in his teachings and behavior were the established crowd.
To them Jesus was ugly.
His teachings were rebellious – too far left.
His associates were outsiders.
His parents unschooled.
And as for his campaign manager – some weirdo from the desert dressed in camel skins and he ate locust on a stix.
And then there was the central reason he was ugly. He appealed to the commoner - a group of people in that day known as the am ha-arets - immigrants, illegals, the religious illiterates. No one bothered with the am ha-arets. They were ignorables.
The Jesus campaign swung through their territory. In fact he spent most of his campaign out in the sticks, in backwater places, border territory where no one else would venture. Jesus connected with the commoner.
Anyone else like ugly – I do.
Going to be a fun series – listen along..
The cynic might suggest that politics is all ugly and so yep, we would vote for an ugly president.
But Jesus was ugly in a different way.
One of the prophets (the 8th century BC prophet called Isaiah) spoke of the coming Messiah and how ‘he would have no beauty that we would desire him’, and comments on how people would hide their faces from him. What ever Isaiah meant, he certainly meant to paint the picture of a coming Mashiach (Messiah) - President – would not fit the normal mold.
And Jesus didn’t fit the normal mold.
The normal mold required you to be born into a certain line – in Jesus’ day the line of the Hasmoneans. It required you to be part of their dynasty. Jesus wasn’t.
The normal mode required you to be approved by Rome. Some called this the genius of the Roman Empire, they approved of client-kings – local kings of provinces within the Roman Empire who were loyal to Rome and could help them administer local and religious matters. Jesus wasn’t.
The normal mode included being approved of by the right people, getting the nod from the hierarchy, learning the right hands to shake, if not the right handshake. Jesus didn’t do any of that …in fact the crowd that he most annoyed in his teachings and behavior were the established crowd.
To them Jesus was ugly.
His teachings were rebellious – too far left.
His associates were outsiders.
His parents unschooled.
And as for his campaign manager – some weirdo from the desert dressed in camel skins and he ate locust on a stix.
And then there was the central reason he was ugly. He appealed to the commoner - a group of people in that day known as the am ha-arets - immigrants, illegals, the religious illiterates. No one bothered with the am ha-arets. They were ignorables.
The Jesus campaign swung through their territory. In fact he spent most of his campaign out in the sticks, in backwater places, border territory where no one else would venture. Jesus connected with the commoner.
Anyone else like ugly – I do.
Going to be a fun series – listen along..
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
How come he got Napa?
I'm still not fully back from my summer break ....body is present in Reedley but my mind is still in limbo ...so no major blog article until after Labor Wk'd .....the official end of summer!
However, in the meantime....during the summer some good friends from Napa joined our team in Kenya and are now partnering with us the Furaha Community Center in the Huruma slum - its incredible work that is happening there and to have more join us - the Kingdom of God is advancing.
Pete wrote an excellent blog article about that partnership - here's the link enjoy reading it:
http://www.peterrshaw.blogspot.com/
However, in the meantime....during the summer some good friends from Napa joined our team in Kenya and are now partnering with us the Furaha Community Center in the Huruma slum - its incredible work that is happening there and to have more join us - the Kingdom of God is advancing.
Pete wrote an excellent blog article about that partnership - here's the link enjoy reading it:
http://www.peterrshaw.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Why do people believe in human rights?
Some times I'm reading, and what I'm reading is just brilliant. Just now I'm really enjoying Tim Keller's book "The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism". [I've referred to his book before on this blog - Christianity Can Save The World, April 27, 2008].
Well early this morning before heading out for a Church Management Team breakfast meeting I'm reading another chapter from it - and boom ...brilliant.
So I decided I wanted to stick it on my blog for others to appreciate his insight and wisdom. So enjoy reading this small section for his book ....Chapter 9 "The Knowledge of God":
Conservative writers and speakers are constantly complaining that the young people of our culture are relativistic and amoral. As a pastor in Manhattan I have been neck-deep in sophisticated twentysomethings for almost two decades, and I have not found this to be the case. The secular, young adults I have known have a very finely honed sense of right and wrong. There are many things happening in the world that evoke their moral outrage.
There is a problem with their moral outlook, however.
In many cases I have to put on my philosophy-professor hat in order to be a good pastor to people. A young couple once came to me for some spiritual direction. They "didn't believe in much of anything" they said. How could they begin to figure out if there even was a God?
I asked them to tell me about something they felt was really, really wrong. The woman immediately spoke out against practices that marginalized woman. I said I agreed with her fully since I was a Christian who believed God made all human being, but I was curious why she thought it was wrong.
She responded, 'Women are human beings and human being have rights. It is wrong to trample on someone's rights."
I asked her how she knew that.
Puzzled, she said, "Everyone knows it is wrong to violate the rights of someone."
I said, "Most people in the world don't 'know' that. They don't have a Western view of human rights. Imagine if someone said to you 'everyone knows that women are inferior.' You'd say, 'That's not an argument, it's an assertion.' And you'd be right.
So let's start again. If there is no God as you believe and everyone has just evolved from animals, why would it be wrong to trample on someone's rights?"
Her husband responded: "Yes, it is true we are just bigger-brained animals, but I'd say animals have rights too. You shouldn't trample on their rights, either."
I asked whether he held animals guilty for violating the rights of other animals if the stronger ones ate the weaker ones.
'No, I couldn't do that."
So he only held human beings guilty if they trampled on the weak.
"Yes."
Why this double standard, I asked. Why did the couple insist that human being had to be different from animals, so that they were not allowed to act as was natural to the rest of the animal world. Why did the couple keep insisting that humans had this great, unique individual dignity and worth? Why did they believe in human rights?
"I don't know," the woman said, 'I guess they are just there, that's all."
......this conversation reveals how our culture differs from all the others that have gone before. People still have strong moral convictions, but unlike people in other times and places, they don't have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and other things good. It's almost like their moral intuitions are free-floating in midair - far off the ground.
[Keller begins to end this chapter by writing] ......If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists.
This leads us to a crucial question. If a premise ("there is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ...then why not change the premise?
I highly recommend the entire book .....Keller writes well, he breaks down difficult philosophy into understandable examples ...and he prods deep into our logic and reasoning to help us search out truth and God.
A great summer read. Enjoy.
Well early this morning before heading out for a Church Management Team breakfast meeting I'm reading another chapter from it - and boom ...brilliant.
So I decided I wanted to stick it on my blog for others to appreciate his insight and wisdom. So enjoy reading this small section for his book ....Chapter 9 "The Knowledge of God":
Conservative writers and speakers are constantly complaining that the young people of our culture are relativistic and amoral. As a pastor in Manhattan I have been neck-deep in sophisticated twentysomethings for almost two decades, and I have not found this to be the case. The secular, young adults I have known have a very finely honed sense of right and wrong. There are many things happening in the world that evoke their moral outrage.
There is a problem with their moral outlook, however.
In many cases I have to put on my philosophy-professor hat in order to be a good pastor to people. A young couple once came to me for some spiritual direction. They "didn't believe in much of anything" they said. How could they begin to figure out if there even was a God?
I asked them to tell me about something they felt was really, really wrong. The woman immediately spoke out against practices that marginalized woman. I said I agreed with her fully since I was a Christian who believed God made all human being, but I was curious why she thought it was wrong.
She responded, 'Women are human beings and human being have rights. It is wrong to trample on someone's rights."
I asked her how she knew that.
Puzzled, she said, "Everyone knows it is wrong to violate the rights of someone."
I said, "Most people in the world don't 'know' that. They don't have a Western view of human rights. Imagine if someone said to you 'everyone knows that women are inferior.' You'd say, 'That's not an argument, it's an assertion.' And you'd be right.
So let's start again. If there is no God as you believe and everyone has just evolved from animals, why would it be wrong to trample on someone's rights?"
Her husband responded: "Yes, it is true we are just bigger-brained animals, but I'd say animals have rights too. You shouldn't trample on their rights, either."
I asked whether he held animals guilty for violating the rights of other animals if the stronger ones ate the weaker ones.
'No, I couldn't do that."
So he only held human beings guilty if they trampled on the weak.
"Yes."
Why this double standard, I asked. Why did the couple insist that human being had to be different from animals, so that they were not allowed to act as was natural to the rest of the animal world. Why did the couple keep insisting that humans had this great, unique individual dignity and worth? Why did they believe in human rights?
"I don't know," the woman said, 'I guess they are just there, that's all."
......this conversation reveals how our culture differs from all the others that have gone before. People still have strong moral convictions, but unlike people in other times and places, they don't have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and other things good. It's almost like their moral intuitions are free-floating in midair - far off the ground.
[Keller begins to end this chapter by writing] ......If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that he does not. If you insist on a secular view of the world and yet you continue to pronounce some things right and some things wrong, then I hope you see the deep disharmony between the world your intellect has devised and the real world (and God) that your heart knows exists.
This leads us to a crucial question. If a premise ("there is no God") leads to a conclusion you know isn't true ...then why not change the premise?
I highly recommend the entire book .....Keller writes well, he breaks down difficult philosophy into understandable examples ...and he prods deep into our logic and reasoning to help us search out truth and God.
A great summer read. Enjoy.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Are you martyring or being a martyr?
So it’s a balmy early summer evening and we’re sitting around the barbeque enjoying a Saturday evening when one of the group pop the question ‘Gilbert, what do you think of California’s recent law allowing gay marriage?’
For those who read this blog across the pond and have no idea what this is all about let me explain. In May California Supreme Court past a ruling giving the right to marry to same-sex couples, making CA the second state, after Massachusetts to legalize marriage for same-sex couple.
In light of the Supreme Courts action some Christians have started talk of a renewed drive for a U./S. constitutional amendment. Other Christians have spoken of how ‘this decision puts marriage at risk all across the nation”, others suggest churches should ‘work to overturn it.’
The question hung over our barbeque waiting a response.
Now the front door of that question requires me to talk about homosexuality and marriage. Basic issue - definition of marriage and who defines it – the state or the church?
Or – both.
Is it wrong for the state to define marriage one way and the church define it another way?
Can marriage only be a religious institution or can it be a secular institution.
Who are the guardians of marriage – and what marriage?
Are we always talking about the same thing.
The single issue driven political culture of the US is a difficult place to engage in a balanced debate. Single issues tend to lead to singular answers …and singular answers though maybe right are not always the only answers.
So take the common response of Christians – gay marriage is wrong. Of course it is in the eyes of God and the eyes of His followers. God’s sacrament of marriage is between one man and a one woman. As a Christian that’s how the Bible says it and that’s how the Christian should see it.
But what about marriage as seen through the eyes of humanists or secularists or even plain deists – what definition of marriage do they need to hold – the Christian definition or the state definition. Or to ask this another way – what definition of marriage does the state need to hold – only the Christian definition, or could it hold multiple definitions due to the pluralistic and multiplicity of our culture.
Should the church, should Christians, expect their view to be the only view.
So the front door question maybe isn’t the front door question. Maybe the real front door question is – what is the relationship of Christians in America to America?
Enter the theology of the Kingdom of God.
You do not define Christianity through American history or American policy – you define Christianity through the scripture and scripture majors on a ‘kingdom theology’.
Is this not all about why Jesus came …. “Repent for the Kingdom of God has come.”
It’s the template theology of Christianity.
The Christian prayer is a demand prayer “your Kingdom come!”
The Kingdom of God defines how Christians living in America relate to America.
The Bottom line …….the Kingdom of God is an alternative kingdom and Christians leave one kingdom (the Kingdom of this World – America) to enter the Kingdom of God – on earth but marching to the beat of another drummer. Jesus himself told Pilate (the representative of the Empire), “My Kingdom is not of this world”
Early Christians never tried to overthrow or even reform the empire, but they also weren’t going along with it. Never were the early Christians reformists offering the world a better Rome. They offered people another world altogether.
So ….bring this back to our gay marriage issue …….yes, the Christian holds to the biblical teaching on marriage –between one man and one woman - but, the Christian does not expect America to be Christian. Christians expect America to live out its own values and its own believes. And they are not Christian because America, or Britain, or anywhere is not the Kingdom of God …the Kingdom of God is always subversive, always counter cultural, always working within and away from the kingdom of the world……..the Christian holds to what the Bible says – but in holding to the same Bible the Christian does not expect the kingdom of this world to hold to such. The Christian is not trying to reform America to offer a better America – the Christian is offering something completely different, revolutionary, another kingdom – God’s.
Tony Campolo once wrote “we may live in the best Babylon in the world …but it is still Babylon, and we are called to come out of her.” This is the right outworking of a true Kingdom of God theology. This is John’s revelation being practiced, this is the Book of Revelation done today not waited for some future dispensation.
This guides how I handle the gay marriage debate.
Of course you might recognize this is another form, a cousin of this position – the separation of church of state.
Its funny how many church people strongly endorse this philosophy but on something like gay marriage that philosophy is thrown out! Wise Christians support separation of church and state for the church’s sake – not the country’s. Remember Constantine …the disaster that befell the church when it gained power in the State …never again – God forbid.
A strong kingdom theology upholds this essential separation.
But of course our barbeque engagement with this question didn’t stay at a kingdom theology level. It is my strongest argument to let the state be the State and the Church even stronger be the Church – the primary agent of the Kingdom of God.
But there are other paths to explore.
The cry of a moral argument is often used. Maybe rightly so. But watch how you outwork that cry.
Sometimes the loudest voices condemning gay marriage are Christian voices driven by a Christian morality. But where are those voices condemning the bombing of innocent lives in the multiple wars we are engaged in. Where are those voices condemning the inequality in our own nation’s health care provisions – the rich enjoy it the poor can’t get it, or our own nations education divisions. Where are those moral voices engaging with the our immigration crisis …the moral voices that see all men as created equal and equally valued. So the list could go on.
If people, Christian people want to engage with the gay marriage debate from a Christian moral position at least make sure that your moral position is not one-sided based upon some condemnatory preaching you’ve sat under. Make sure the morality is a godly morality …..a godly morality that is enraged with the injustice, the inequality, the oppression of innocents, the rejection of basic human dignity and value on the poorest, the innocents, the most vulnerable.
We could take this one a lot further – but I’m guessing you’re catching my drift.
It appears that too often our view of truth is biased.
Biased to our subjective experiences and conditioning.
That’s our reality.
Not wrong, but not always good.
We are subjective people.
We read and view life through the lens of our lives conditioning.
Today, as at all times in the advancement of the church and the Kingdom of God, Christians need to strive to surrender their conditioning to the text rather then submit the text to their conditioning. That surrendering will see Christians move from a moralist stance to a revolutionarist stance. It’s not that our morals are wrong – far from it - but it does mean our morals are not the whole story.
There is something bigger.
So the barbeque evening rolled on, the kids got restless, all the food was gone and the cool breeze guided us towards home and rest.
As for the question ……you can tell it moved. It moved from being a question on “gay marriage”, to a question on truth…and how Christians live it, preach it, share it.
One word from the early church begins to surface – μαρτυρε – martyr. It means witness. Literally, ‘one who bears witness by their death’. In the early church Christians didn’t only want to live like Christ, they wanted to die like Christ. That living and that dying didn’t revolve around reforming Rome or defending morality – it revolved around the bigger thing ….the witnessing and confessing of allegiance to a new kingdom – God’s Kingdom.
For that they didn’t gain political office nor seek to get their issues on the ballot – for that they got burned alive, eaten by the beasts, crucified upside down ….martyred.
So let’s return to the question ……….. are you martyring or willing to be a martyr?
For those who read this blog across the pond and have no idea what this is all about let me explain. In May California Supreme Court past a ruling giving the right to marry to same-sex couples, making CA the second state, after Massachusetts to legalize marriage for same-sex couple.
In light of the Supreme Courts action some Christians have started talk of a renewed drive for a U./S. constitutional amendment. Other Christians have spoken of how ‘this decision puts marriage at risk all across the nation”, others suggest churches should ‘work to overturn it.’
The question hung over our barbeque waiting a response.
Now the front door of that question requires me to talk about homosexuality and marriage. Basic issue - definition of marriage and who defines it – the state or the church?
Or – both.
Is it wrong for the state to define marriage one way and the church define it another way?
Can marriage only be a religious institution or can it be a secular institution.
Who are the guardians of marriage – and what marriage?
Are we always talking about the same thing.
The single issue driven political culture of the US is a difficult place to engage in a balanced debate. Single issues tend to lead to singular answers …and singular answers though maybe right are not always the only answers.
So take the common response of Christians – gay marriage is wrong. Of course it is in the eyes of God and the eyes of His followers. God’s sacrament of marriage is between one man and a one woman. As a Christian that’s how the Bible says it and that’s how the Christian should see it.
But what about marriage as seen through the eyes of humanists or secularists or even plain deists – what definition of marriage do they need to hold – the Christian definition or the state definition. Or to ask this another way – what definition of marriage does the state need to hold – only the Christian definition, or could it hold multiple definitions due to the pluralistic and multiplicity of our culture.
Should the church, should Christians, expect their view to be the only view.
So the front door question maybe isn’t the front door question. Maybe the real front door question is – what is the relationship of Christians in America to America?
Enter the theology of the Kingdom of God.
You do not define Christianity through American history or American policy – you define Christianity through the scripture and scripture majors on a ‘kingdom theology’.
Is this not all about why Jesus came …. “Repent for the Kingdom of God has come.”
It’s the template theology of Christianity.
The Christian prayer is a demand prayer “your Kingdom come!”
The Kingdom of God defines how Christians living in America relate to America.
The Bottom line …….the Kingdom of God is an alternative kingdom and Christians leave one kingdom (the Kingdom of this World – America) to enter the Kingdom of God – on earth but marching to the beat of another drummer. Jesus himself told Pilate (the representative of the Empire), “My Kingdom is not of this world”
Early Christians never tried to overthrow or even reform the empire, but they also weren’t going along with it. Never were the early Christians reformists offering the world a better Rome. They offered people another world altogether.
So ….bring this back to our gay marriage issue …….yes, the Christian holds to the biblical teaching on marriage –between one man and one woman - but, the Christian does not expect America to be Christian. Christians expect America to live out its own values and its own believes. And they are not Christian because America, or Britain, or anywhere is not the Kingdom of God …the Kingdom of God is always subversive, always counter cultural, always working within and away from the kingdom of the world……..the Christian holds to what the Bible says – but in holding to the same Bible the Christian does not expect the kingdom of this world to hold to such. The Christian is not trying to reform America to offer a better America – the Christian is offering something completely different, revolutionary, another kingdom – God’s.
Tony Campolo once wrote “we may live in the best Babylon in the world …but it is still Babylon, and we are called to come out of her.” This is the right outworking of a true Kingdom of God theology. This is John’s revelation being practiced, this is the Book of Revelation done today not waited for some future dispensation.
This guides how I handle the gay marriage debate.
Of course you might recognize this is another form, a cousin of this position – the separation of church of state.
Its funny how many church people strongly endorse this philosophy but on something like gay marriage that philosophy is thrown out! Wise Christians support separation of church and state for the church’s sake – not the country’s. Remember Constantine …the disaster that befell the church when it gained power in the State …never again – God forbid.
A strong kingdom theology upholds this essential separation.
But of course our barbeque engagement with this question didn’t stay at a kingdom theology level. It is my strongest argument to let the state be the State and the Church even stronger be the Church – the primary agent of the Kingdom of God.
But there are other paths to explore.
The cry of a moral argument is often used. Maybe rightly so. But watch how you outwork that cry.
Sometimes the loudest voices condemning gay marriage are Christian voices driven by a Christian morality. But where are those voices condemning the bombing of innocent lives in the multiple wars we are engaged in. Where are those voices condemning the inequality in our own nation’s health care provisions – the rich enjoy it the poor can’t get it, or our own nations education divisions. Where are those moral voices engaging with the our immigration crisis …the moral voices that see all men as created equal and equally valued. So the list could go on.
If people, Christian people want to engage with the gay marriage debate from a Christian moral position at least make sure that your moral position is not one-sided based upon some condemnatory preaching you’ve sat under. Make sure the morality is a godly morality …..a godly morality that is enraged with the injustice, the inequality, the oppression of innocents, the rejection of basic human dignity and value on the poorest, the innocents, the most vulnerable.
We could take this one a lot further – but I’m guessing you’re catching my drift.
It appears that too often our view of truth is biased.
Biased to our subjective experiences and conditioning.
That’s our reality.
Not wrong, but not always good.
We are subjective people.
We read and view life through the lens of our lives conditioning.
Today, as at all times in the advancement of the church and the Kingdom of God, Christians need to strive to surrender their conditioning to the text rather then submit the text to their conditioning. That surrendering will see Christians move from a moralist stance to a revolutionarist stance. It’s not that our morals are wrong – far from it - but it does mean our morals are not the whole story.
There is something bigger.
So the barbeque evening rolled on, the kids got restless, all the food was gone and the cool breeze guided us towards home and rest.
As for the question ……you can tell it moved. It moved from being a question on “gay marriage”, to a question on truth…and how Christians live it, preach it, share it.
One word from the early church begins to surface – μαρτυρε – martyr. It means witness. Literally, ‘one who bears witness by their death’. In the early church Christians didn’t only want to live like Christ, they wanted to die like Christ. That living and that dying didn’t revolve around reforming Rome or defending morality – it revolved around the bigger thing ….the witnessing and confessing of allegiance to a new kingdom – God’s Kingdom.
For that they didn’t gain political office nor seek to get their issues on the ballot – for that they got burned alive, eaten by the beasts, crucified upside down ….martyred.
So let’s return to the question ……….. are you martyring or willing to be a martyr?
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