A Christian Response to News, Politics, and Current Events

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paperboyIncreasingly, I believe too many Christians do not have a Christian response to most aspects of life. Instead of a true New Testament Kingdom of God mentality, we have firmly ensconced ourselves in an Old Testament judge mentality, despite the Old Covenant’s obsolescence and replacement and the demise of the national Israel of the Old Testament.

Compounding this error, American Christians have a desperate need to be seen as right on everything, regardless of who or what this tramples. To our amazement, we are now eating the fruit of that error and yet remain incredulous and oblivious to how this reversal of fortune came to be.

To sum it up, we’ve been doing it wrong and just can’t admit that we’re the ones who screwed up.

Of course, this does not excuse the world, as the world has screwed up just as badly or worse. But we Christians simply can no longer pretend that we are innocent bystanders to our own undoing.

I write all this because I continue to see rotten and ill-advised behavior by Christians in the public square. We can’t seem to learn our lessons.

This post is about getting ourselves back on course. Take it for what it is, a 50-something Christian attempting to inject some wisdom into the conversation.

How Christians Must Think and Act about the News & Current Events

The most important thing to understand about all news and about all conversations that spring from current events: Most likely, you and I were not there. For this reason, anything we hear in response is hearsay.

The Bible says this:

“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
—Matthew 5:33-37 NIV

Jesus is talking about oaths and vows here, but His point is that we not go in our speech where we cannot promise or understand. When we go beyond our understanding, we invite Satan into our words.

I believe this is critical for how we speak in the days ahead.

When we comment on news stories and current events, we rely on hearsay, information we cannot corroborate. Most of are old enough and wise enough to know that unbiased reporting is a myth and probably always has been. Human beings always bring their own perspectives and biases into all communications. Period.

If you and I were not there to witness and personally experience an event, commenting on motivations of individuals/groups/governments and speculations beyond what was personally seen with eyes and heard with ears are out of bounds for us. We simply cannot know.

The proper Christian response in that case is not to speculate, but to say instead, “What a tragic event!” or “How sad for those people.”

That is letting your yes be yes and your no no.

The Bible makes the truth of this even more clear:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
—Jeremiah 17:9 KJV

You cannot know another’s motivations. Heck, you cannot even know your own motivations, so how can you speculate on what people involved in crimes or tragic events were thinking or why they acted the way they did? Do you know that person personally? Do you know his or her story? Were you there with them when they did what they did?

No, you do not know and you likely were not there. So don’t speak as if you do know or were there.

In short, don’t add fuel to any fire about which you know nothing. And the fact is, you and I know nothing about most everything.

The only Christian response is to say as little as possible and to leave the speculation to speculators, of which you are not to be.

Instead be as still as possible. Yes yes, and no no.

How Christians Must Think and Act about Politics (I)

The only allegiance the Christian is to have is to the King, Jesus, and to his Kingdom. Jesus Himself said this. He takes precedence even over our families. He is #1, and everyone and everything else is a far distant #2. This is God’s wisdom for our own spiritual health.

When it comes to the Kingdom of God, we are to pursue it first and foremost. In all we do, we do it for the King and the Kingdom.

To this end, when we engage in politics, we are to engage it with a Kingdom perspective and as citizens of the Kingdom of God before considering any earthly Kingdoms:

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
—Matthew 6:33 NLT

Therefore, when we consider candidates for political office, we should keep this in mind:

1. The candidates we endorse should pursue and promote the Kingdom of God as much as humanly possible within a system of government, as directed and empowered by God.
2. Candidates for political office who receive our vote must reflect the evidences of the Kingdom of God and its fruit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control.
3. We should in no way endorse, promote, or vote for a candidate who does not reflect the two conditions above.

No excuses, Christian. Do not vote for or endorse candidates who cannot or will not reflect the purposes of the Kingdom of God. Vote for someone else. Write in a vote. But do not cast your vote for people who oppose the Kingdom of God and its evidences and fruit.

How Christians Must Think and Act about Politics (II)

If we want to talk about governments and the Bible and attempt to pry verses out of the Bible to endorse the American system of government, we will fail. I’ve looked, and I see no evidence for a democratic system of government in the Scriptures. Likewise, if we want to find a federalist system of government, we might find something similar, but that would be Rome—not the most positive example in most of Scripture. Read Revelation if you don’t believe me.

We Christians in America have it difficult, because in America, the system of government is by the people and for the people. Finding direct Bible verses that speak to how such a form of government would operate and how Christians within it should operate it is like finding a needle in a haystack—except there is no haystack.Monarchies rule in Scripture. Even the Kingdom of God is a monarchy.

This poses a problem for Christians who attempt to pry verses out of the Bible to endorse how our American government is to act.

Christians are given direction on how they are supposed to function as members of the Church, but not so much on how they are to govern on immigration issues, for instance. We are to be kind to all aliens, but would closing down immigration into our country for a set number of years become an unkindness? We don’t have a Bible verse for that.

The problem is, we err sometimes when we attempt to force a verse to say something about government immigration policy when it’s not meant to be used that way.

Part of the problem for the American Christian is that we will NOT find verses that tell us how we should handle gun control, or immigration, or welfare, or any of a number of other topics intended at a governmental level. We are sometimes told what we should do in our churches, but the government is not the Church, nor vice versa, and too many Christians try to meld the two, resulting in an unholy abomination that works neither as a Church nor as a responsible government.

Again, we must go back to the Kingdom of God.

What does the American government look like when American Christians act out their responsibilities as citizens within a representative government of the people and for the people WHILE also promoting their primary responsibility, the advancement of the Kingdom of God?

I find this question is not asked by most Christians, nor even most Christian politicians. Instead, we make futile attempts to make the Bible say things about governance in a federal republic that aren’t there in the Book.

What this means is that Christians in America need to rely on the source of wisdom we perpetually think we can do without: the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the mouthpiece and “town cryer” of the Kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit is the distinguishing mark of the Church.

Keep in place the underlying Scriptures that speak to Christian character and practice on a 1:1 level , but govern in such a way that we Christians listen to and operate from the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which we then carry over into our government.

Sadly, most Christians today have no idea how to make that happen, because too many of us are plugged into our gadgets and distractions and not plugged into hearing the voice of God through the Spirit.

Want a godly government? Christian, put the Kingdom first and listen to the voice of the King. We may not have a verse to cover a particular issue, but we will be covered by the voice of the Spirit, who can speak to any situation we face.

Jesus Killed My Church–My Meditation on Guidance, Destiny, and The Big Lebowski

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Jesus Killed My Church by Randy BohlenderSteve Bremner at The Fire on Your Head podcast pointed out that Randy Bohlender‘s book Jesus Killed My Church was free for Kindle on Amazon, so I bit. Hey, provocative title–and I’d met Randy years before when our paths crossed at Vineyard Community Church in the Springdale area of Cincinnati.

The gist of Randy’s book: God leads. Put yourself in a place to hear His Spirit and then go with the flow.

Autobiographical and an apologetic for why you need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, Jesus Killed My Church documents Randy’s and his wife’s first encounter with the Holy Spirit, learning to listen and trust the hearing, and following God along unexpected pathways. They end up at a home for wayward teens in the hinterlands of North Dakota, an old-fashioned Tennessee church, the Brownsville Revival, Burning Man, The Call, and the defunct College Football Hall of Fame in Mason, Ohio, all the while keeping their spiritual eyes and ears attuned to what God had next. In between stops, the Bohlenders get input from folks I’ve broken bread with, Steve Sjogren and Rusty Geverdt namely, and they reject some voices that attempt to steer them away from their God-directed courses. I mean, who hasn’t received a phone call out of the blue from some “prophetic” caller pronouncing words that clash with someone else’s prophetic leading? Been there, done that.

All the words, dreams, infillings, and circumstances that seem too good to be circumstance land the Bohlenders at Kansas City’s International House of Prayer and their eventual founding of a Christian adoption organization.

Oh, and the church they planted back in Cincinnati withered and died, hence the title.

Now, I’m going to tie this story with The Big Lebowski. Because it’s obvious, right?

Probably the most beloved film in the Coen Brothers’ Oscar-filled arsenal is The Big Lebowski. Aging stoner and White Russian-quaffer Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski finds two thugs in his home who, in the aftermath of a shakedown for cash, promptly take a leak on his rug, a favorite household item that “really ties the room together.” Seems the thugs confused this Lebowski for another Jeffrey Lebowski, a wealthy one, who has a pornstar wife gone missing, presumably kidnapped.

While trying unsuccessfully to get recompense for his ruined rug, The Dude encounters a panoply of weirdos consisting of anarchists, pretentious artists, criminals, and denizens of a bowling alley, that sport serving as a metaphor for life. The slacker Dude stumbles from one bizarre scene to another, hoping against hope that something positive might go his way regarding his rug. In between, he sires a child, buries a friend, and tries to make sense of this nonsense as he’s swept from one odd happening to the next. Helping him to cope is a cowboy who drops in now and then to comment on the proceedings, because, hey, every mythic story needs its oracle.

I know it may seem strange, but I see Bohlender’s story and The Dude’s as linked.

Recently, I had lunch with a friend, and as we discussed the vicissitudes of life as 50-something white guys in America, he stated that the world we live in now may be God’s best possible outcome. I wondered then if it was best for the whole of the world at the expense of being the best for any one of us in it, and I still wonder that.

God may very well sovereignly make the best that can be made of this sin-sick world, but what does that mean in the lives of you and me? To fill the gaps and to make that “best world” happen, does it come at the expense (as God may require) of individuals who may or may not live their “best life now”–as Joel Osteen calls it?

We have this tendency to think that God is always working His best in our lives, but are we the focus? Or is the world the focus?

When we attempt to look at another’s life and draw conclusions from it, what can we really know? And does being a Spirit-filled Christian mean that we can make any greater sense of the direction of our lives compared with someone who isn’t Spirit-filled?

As a Christian, I believe God leads. But what happens when He leads and the outcome is not only unexpected but downright bad–or at least bad on the surface? And what if it’s not just bad on the surface but terrible no matter which layer you examine?

Bohlender paints a picture of guidance by the Spirit that seems wonderful and freeing in close-up, but when you stand back and look at the big picture, it seems no better than the random vicissitudes of life.

Is that how God works? Is this His “mysterious ways” we always hear about?

And how is this any different than the story of The Dude, who somehow ends up okay in the end, if not exactly in the outcome he expects? What separates the drifting pothead seeking nothing more than to get through another day from the ardent Christian seeking guidance to change the world?

Now true, one is fictional and the other not, but when we survey the lives of people, Christian or heathen, fact and fiction converge.

I believe my friend is right about this world being the best possible world God can make given mankind’s fallenness. What that means for what you and I experience of it individually–well, that’s much harder to grok. Some seem destined for greatness, while others get ground up in the gears, and it’s not always clear which camp they belong to.

All I know is a Christian knows that somehow it’s all in preparation for when this life is done, and sometimes the when, how, and why won’t make any sense this side of heaven.

3 Major Ways a Church Misses the Mark with Insufficient Theology

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The Bible, old school style...Cerulean Sanctum deals largely with how the American Church lives out what it believes. Where I only occasionally stray is into the theology that undergirds that belief.

In crisscrossing the Christian blogosphere, visiting local churches, and viewing Christians posting in social media, I’ve witnessed repeated thought patterns based on “insufficient” theology. Too many statements made by supposed believers lack something essential to well-rounded Christian belief.

While the whole of Christian theology and apologetics encompasses a staggering breadth of topics and issues, I want to stick to three areas of deficiency that continually cripple solid understanding of what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century.

That said, an obvious one must be discussed, too, as well as one that is a “major minor.” But I’ll get to those two later.

First, a declaration. To do this subject justice requires a ton of footnotes and a plethora of Bible quoting. If I put all that in this post, it would end up in the TL;DR pile. So, we’re all adults here: I will leave the study to you. Please do look up these issues in your Bible and confirm them for yourself. I will be writing from the 30,000-foot view. I want to put these ideas out there. You can follow up as you see fit.

The Obvious

The Trinity.

Now you know why I’m keeping this high level. A study of The Trinity could fill 20 posts and still not touch on everything.

By Trinity, I mean God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Three unique, co-existing persons enveloped in one Godhood.

I say with no hesitation that if a church gets The Trinity wrong, everything else is wrong. Stop right there. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.

While the word cult raises hackles in a politically correct age, you can separate a genuine, orthodox Christian church from a pseudo-Christian cult 99.999% of the time by how it portrays the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That criterium alone. Seriously.

What does your church believe about The Trinity? How does that square with small-“o” orthodox Christian belief? Find out. Really.

The Three Majors

How a church thinks and how that thinking informs its practice is not something most people ponder. They show up on Sunday, sing a few hymns, listen to someone talk about God, share an awkward handshake or two with some folks they don’t know as well as they should, and they go home.

You don’t want to be that person. You want something more.

I think that more you want hinges on how your church deals with the following three issues:

  1. Sin
  2. The Journey of Christ
  3. The Kingdom of God

These three rise to the top because most people, even Christian leaders, don’t think much about them once they’ve convinced themselves of the basics, especially how teaching and understanding them manifests itself in practice.

Sin

We need to look at sin as two component parts:

  1. Estrangement from God
  2. Bad behaviors we do (because of estrangement from God)

Many Christians spend their entire lives managing bad behavior because that’s what their churches teach. The Christian life becomes an endless wrestling against those couple rotten behaviors we can’t seem to overcome.

That’s picking nits, though, and it’s doomed to failure. Constantly monitoring oneself for sin slipping in here or there leads only to despair. And that’s where many Christians are regarding their sin.

In reality, the core problem isn’t sinful behaviors but estrangement from God. The first thing God said to Adam and Eve after the Fall was not “What have you done?” but “Where are you?”

Whenever we talk about sin, the word repentance follows close behind.

Want an interesting exercise? If you have a King James Bible, do a word search in the Old Testament for the word repent.

Not many uses, are there? And usually only related to God changing His mind about something.

Yet the history of God and His People in the Old Testament was a history of God doing what? Asking those people to repent. But if God didn’t use that word, how did He ask? By holding open His arms and longing for His beloved people to walk away from their idols and return to Him. To come Home.

What does biblical repentance that ends estrangement from God look like? Read Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son (see Luke 15).

God wants a relationship with us. He wants us to turn from whatever it is that distracts us and come back home to Him. At its core, that’s what repentance truly is.

A funny side effect occurs when that happens. You find it in this classic hymn:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

When it comes to the second half of that sin theology, first dealing with our estrangement from God tends also to diminish greatly our sinful behaviors. The closer we draw to Him after we’ve come home, the less those sins bedevil us. Drawing close to God matters most.

The Bible says this:

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
—John 17:3 ESV

The problem many churches have with their theology of sin is a focus on managing sinful behaviors rather than a focus on coming home to God and deepening intimacy with Him. Knowing God deep in our very core makes all the difference. THAT is eternal life. If a church does not spend the majority of its time helping us deepen our intimacy with God, then we may forever struggle to manage sinful behaviors.

The Journey of Christ

Ministry –> The Cross –> The Resurrection –> The Ascension/Pentecost

Please note the four component parts of The Journey of Christ. Now realize it is highly likely that a church will not fully teach and minister from an understanding and practice of all four parts equally.

That’s a huge theological deficiency.

The worst part: Most churches and denominations insist they teach and practice it all equally. They don’t, though. Most cherry-pick a place or two in that journey and throw those select few all their time and effort. This diminishes how they frame the Christian life, teach it to others, and practice it.

For instance, it’s easy to see many charismatic churches skip right to the end and spend most of their time living their faith out of The Ascension/Pentecost. Sure, there’s a little talk of the other three parts, but they remain forever secondary. That diminishment skews the way charismatics look at everything. A lack of teaching on The Cross as a means to end the willfulness of the Christian almost never gets discussed. It’s one reason why so little humility exists in some sectors of the charismatic movement.

Many mainline churches jump right to The Resurrection. They talk a lot about new life and clearly perk up around Easter time, but they don’t do as well dealing with the old life and its troubles or with the charismata. The Cross and The Ascension/Pentecost get short shrift.

Likewise, stopping at The Cross with one foot into The Resurrection explains why some of the loudest Reformed voices on the Web get hung-up on sin, talk less about what a new life looks like in full, and rarely venture into The Ascension/Pentecost and what that means for the Church. As a result, you hear a whole lot of sinner and not much saint. Oddly, as much as Reformed and Holiness churches clash in the rest of their theology, they both share this affinity.

It is highly probable that your church and mine do not deal equally with the four parts of The Journey of Christ. Again, leaders will protest this like crazy, but it’s true. Something in that journey is being overemphasized and something under-. It’s a very human failing.

To be a balanced Christian in our theology, we must identify the dearth in our church in regard to The Journey of Christ and supplement from other sources that highlight the underserved part(s) of the path. Those sources will likely fall outside the ghetto of our church or denomination. Because, hey, blinders. Don’t be afraid to step outside your familiar church neighborhood. You will be a more well-rounded Christian if you do.

The Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God consists of both The Kingdom Now and The Kingdom Not Yet. Jesus brought The Kingdom of God with Him in His incarnation and it persists in the Church (Now) until He comes again and restores everything (Not Yet). Almost every church will insist it believes The Kingdom of God is both Now and Not Yet, but too many of them don’t act as if they do. The Church in America struggles with its teaching and practice of The Kingdom more than almost any issue.

When a church is heavy in Kingdom Now, we see a strong emphasis on ministry to others and on the power to do so. Nothing wrong with believing that The Kingdom manifests in power through the living, dynamic Church. Charismatic churches tend to dwell in Kingdom Now theology.

However, that’s not all The Kingdom is. And this explains why so many charismatics become disillusioned when they assume Kingdom Now, but God is directing them toward Not Yet. We simply will not see every tear dried until Christ returns. We have the Lord’s Supper now, but the Marriage Supper of the Lamb will far, far outstrip it in glory. Kingdom Now folks need to bear this in mind and recall that our ultimate destination is not here and now.

When a church is heavy in Kingdom Not Yet, everything feels delayed until we die and go to heaven. This thinking reminds us of the temporality of this life and the eternity of the life to come, where we will see the fulfillment of everything we hoped for here and now. That’s a good thing.

However, too much Kingdom Not Yet can ignore the present. The Cult of Suffering I see in some Reformed and mainline churches today is a result of thinking only Kingdom Not Yet. That leads to a church that is powerless in the face of current problems, always preaching muddling through rather than any kind of triumph over the vicissitudes of life. Everything positive feels delayed until we see the Pearly Gates. Obviously, that’s a deficient way of looking at The Kingdom and what Christ empowered the Church to be and do this side of heaven.

The Kingdom is both Now and Not Yet. We must live and believe both parts fully to have a fully realized faith.

The Major Minor

How Christians view The Atonement of Christ, while a major aspect of our theology, runs under our radar and is therefore often assumed rather than understood. Pastors know which type of atonement theory they teach and preach, but most people in the seats can’t distinguish Penal Substitution from Christ Victor, much less define them.

By The Atonement, we mean what Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the cross. Many theories exist for what happened in Christ’s sacrificial act. Theologians will defend their particular favorite theory almost to the death and to the point of calling anyone who doesn’t share their singular belief a heretic.

I find that ludicrous. I look at the many Atonement theories and each has something interesting to say about the breadth of Christ’s finished work that I can see the Bible validating. Excluding all other theories to the acceptance of one alone is unwise, in my opinion. While YMMV, I believe we should familiarize ourselves with the many theories and use them as a means to widen our understanding of the enormity of Christ’s Atonement. This can only lead to a greater appreciation for all Jesus did for us.

Like the three Majors listed above, what we think about The Atonement will flavor what we believe about the Christian faith and how we manifest it…

…BUT…

…so will many other aspects of Christian theology. Our eschatology, how we view the End, factors into how we live now. As does our soteriology, what we believe about how Jesus saves. And many other -ologies within our theology. All have importance. All will lead us to the expression of the Faith we believe and show to the world.

Still, each of us must ask how our churches and denominations bend our beliefs and practices in one direction or another. Because the direction we do not go is likely valid, too, and when we skip it, we may just find ourselves believing and living a less-than-optimal Christian life.