Discernment

Holy Man, Earthy Man

Standard

'Wellies are stripey for a reason' by Dan FoyReaders of this blog know that I write about down-to-earth subject matter. More than just about anything, I hope to see the Kingdom of God increasingly oust the kingdom of this world (and its chthonic ruler).

But it strikes me as odd that so many of us American Christians, as much as we assimilate the world’s methods of operation and thinking, still erect sacred/secular divides. Many of us think nothing of spending an entire weekend browsing for yet more stuff at the local mall, but should anyone talk of helping the world’s poor find economic justice, that poor soul gets branded as a minister of the “social gospel” or part of some sect of Christianity somehow gone to theological seed.

I guess I don’t understand the hypocrisy of the typical heavenly-minded suburban Christian loading up her shopping cart with pre-Black-Friday deals that only tie her to the world, then having her say, “You’re taking your eyes off Jesus if you talk about fighting for people’s jobs.” Talking about earthy truths somehow can’t be viewed as having any relevance to the Church’s ultimate mission.

Yet I can’t read the Bible as some kind of gnostic document that imagines the physical world doesn’t exist. Most of the Law consists of bringing truth into the everyday earth-bound problems people faced. I can’t read the compelling tales of the early Church in action and not see that right away they’re addressing the down-to-earth problems of simple people. So the Hellenists complain that their widows aren’t getting the same attention as the rest. Do the apostles blow them off as social gospel advocates or worldly advocates of taking one’s eyes off Jesus to stare at the mundane? No, they do something about the problem.

Hey, I can pray for hours on end if need be, but come Wednesday night, I still must take a garbage can down to the curb. I can’t pretend while in some spiritual swoon that I can just forget about paying my taxes. As much as Jesus might love me, I’d still wind up in jail for tax evasion. And I’m sure that instead of being immaterial, those cold, steel bars would feel plenty solid in my hands.

Jesus didn’t think it was too smart to build one’s house on sand, and I’m sure His hearers agreed, even if they didn’t initially get the deeper spiritual point being made. That parable of the heavenly world makes sense only because Jesus tied it to the earthbound world. In fact, Jesus perpetually ties the spiritual and secular together. He Himself embodies the dissolving of the sacred/secular divide. He is the God Man.

I’m sorry, but when I hear people superspiritualizing Christianity, disconnecting it from its dust-laden incarnation, it makes me want to scream. I don’t get how people can spend all weekend in church, pray and read the Bible for hours on end, drop Jesus into every conversation they have with the lost, yet somehow think it’s too worldly to consider helping the down-and-out neighbor family get their car fixed.

I’m making no apologies: I’ll expose that kind of hypocrisy every opportunity I get.

It’s not enough to think we’ve got our vertical relationship (with God) down pat. We’ve got to get the horizontal one (with people) fixed, too. And being horizontal means that we graciously fix the problems here on this skubalon-encrusted world—and we do that fixing in Jesus’ name armed with Holy Spirit power.

As we go into the week of Thanksgiving, just what are we thankful for? God knows that I am thankful for Jesus and all He did for me and for you. I’m thankful as all get-out for every spiritual truth God surrendered His Son to live and die for. I’m thankful that Christ embodies all that I can every want or need. But I’m also thankful for the wooden roof over my head and the clothes in my drawer. I thank God for the flesh-and-blood woman He saw fit to give me and the little package of snips, snails, and puppy-dog tails that is my son. I thank Him for the land outside the four walls of this house, land that provides us food, and reminds me in its tree-pounding woodpeckers, slimy-cool salamanders, and sky-tickling walnut trees that God is Creator and King of All.

And I thank God that He saw fit not to take me up to heaven in a fiery chariot the second I placed my faith in Jesus. He has a mission for me here. Sometimes that mission will include helping a lost person find his way to salvation in Christ. Sometimes that mission will find me pounding a nail in the frame of a house destined for someone who couldn’t afford a home unless Christians like me stepped in and made it possible. It means I get to pray on behalf of a brother. And it means that the prayer I pray may be that this brother and his wife find more opportunities to get away from the kids so they can get wild in the sack without interruption. It may even mean my wife and I watch those kids to make that possible.

I can be a holy man of God by being an earthy man of God. There is no distinction:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
—2 Corinthians 4:7-10

Church, this week, manifest Jesus to someone else. And do so any way that seems right by the Holy Spirit’s leading.

I’ll be taking the rest of the week off from blogging. See you all here on Monday the 26th. May our Lord bless you abundantly this Thanksgiving.

What the Other Guys Taught Me

Standard

I talk a lot about intrachurch community here at Cerulean Sanctum, but not as much about the kind of community that spans denominations. Today’s post rectifies that lack.

Leonard Ravenhill, the great British revivalist (and one of the patron saints of this blog) was fond of wordplay. One of his favorite tricks follows:

“…that’s not the kind of message you’ll hear today in our religious abominations…er, denominations.”

As much as I love Ravenhill for his wit and spiritual depth, I’m not to the point of calling our denominations abominations. Fact is, I’ve learned a considerable amount from the denominations I’ve interacted with since coming to Christ.

  • From the Lutherans, I learned about Jesus (for the first time), grace, and the priesthood of all believers.
  • From the Assemblies of God, I learned about the power of the Holy Spirit for service.
  • From the Presbyterians, I learned about the authority of the Scriptures.
  • From the Disciples of Christ, I learned about holiness.
  • From the Methodists, I learned about fellowship.
  • From the Evangelical Free Church, I learned about the necessity of a Christian worldview.
  • From the Vineyard, I learned about evangelism through service and how to listen to the Holy Spirit.
  • From the Pentecostals, I am learning the depth and breadth of what Christ did for me through the cross and what that means for how I view myself and others.

If this makes me a “mongrel in the Faith,” then I’m a mongrel. In defense of mongrels, I’ll say this much: we aren’t prone to genetic diseases that afflict the purebreds, and we’re certainly not inbred to the point of weakness.

I learned all those different aspects of the faith from those different denominations largely because each denomination has found a handful of specific truths in the Scriptures that they latched onto and defended with tooth and nail. Even a black sheep gives woolSuch is the specialist aspect of Christianity today, but still. Someone defended truth and held it up as an example, even if it was just a small piece of a larger whole.
In truth, how can we not fall into these little groups? I’m not sure that such a division was inevitable when the Christian Church sprang to life, but I suppose the über-sovereigntist would argue that God planned it that way all along. We wouldn’t agree. I can see Ravenhill’s point. A fractured Body is a fractured Body.

Still, considering the tribal nature of human beings, I’m not surprised that we continue to fall into tribes of people who believe, look, and act like each other. That this also marks our churches should come as no surprise. We feel most comfortable in a community that looks like us. As for me, I’m thankful that I’ve been a part of enough Christian groups that don’t look exactly like me that I’m comfortable with a wide-variety of Christian experience. Even then, I’ll say that not every one is my exact cup of tea.

We need the proper perspective: heaven isn’t going to be tribal. I highly suspect that it won’t reflect our own idiosyncratic groups, but reflect the entirety of every tongue and every nation. The divisions won’t mean anything anymore.

All this brings me back to the great philosopher Rodney King who once said:

“People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”

Well, can we?

As someone coming from a charismatic perspective, it always hurts to see fellow believers absolutely foam at the mouth and lash out with every verbal weapon they possess when it comes to the whole issue of the charismata working today. The worst part of that is the anger and accusations get leveled at people as opposed to ideas.

In any theological battle royale, people lurk behind every idea. So even if an idea is wrong, there’s still a person who holds it. For us Christians, that should matter more than it seems to.

When I discuss things with people who have ideas different than mine, I do keep up a mental fence to screen out ideas that violate Scripture. The difference is I still try to listen. Too many Christians out there stick their fingers in their ears and start screaming, “Nah, nah, nah, I’m not listening.” And that’s a darned shame.

So the Nazarene guy and I are not going to agree on the charismata. It doesn’t mean I treat him like crap. It also means he may have insights into a portion of theology and the practice of the Faith that I lack. But if we start gouging out each other’s eyes because our theology doesn’t align perfectly in every minute detail, then we’ve lost the real battle and let Satan win. And Satan gets too many wins nowadays.

I can’t imagine what my faith would be like today if I never experienced those other denominations. I wish true Christianity wasn’t as fractured as we’ve made it, but what it is, it is this side of heaven. I don’t see a reversal of that trend until the Lord returns.

This isn’t a call to ecumenism. I don’t support the current incarnation of the ecumenical movement because it gives away the farm in order to get the cow. That’s not wisdom and right fellowship. Some things about our Faith are givens (like the divinity of Christ and His salvific uniqueness), but I’m willing to listen on some of the smaller points.

Most of all, I’m willing to love my neighbor. Love overcomes a great deal, even mistaken ideals.

The “other guys” in that Christian church across the street have something to teach us. Are we listening?

Plain Old Stuff

Standard

It’s been a tough week for the Danster here at Cerulean Sanctum. Nearly every day has brought one bit of bad news after another. I’m having trouble concentrating as a result, and my typing has suffered considerably this week. I was typing notes from a transcription I was making and I think every other word was mistyped. 🙁

Sometime around 3:00 PM today I just cashed it in and took a nap. That didn’t seem to help much, so I walked around my property and prayed. That prayer consisted mostly of one word, Help! Such is the nature of my spiritual profundity right now.

With that in mind, I’ll instead resort to a few observations…

***

This deal in the Southern Baptist Convention, especially the Missouri faction, reasserting their position that drinking alcohol is akin to sin, kind of riles me up—for a couple of reasons:

  1. Great Commission anyone? Feeding the poor? Healing the sick? You know, the stuff Jesus was primarily concerned with? Hello, SBC, aren’t those the real concern here?
  2. When Jesus turned water into wine, I find it hard to believe that the wedding master would question why the “good stuff” was held in reserve till the end if it wasn’t “real wine.” Honestly, Welch’s vs. Latour. Yeah, right, SBC. Check Psalm 104, too.

Of course, the Boar’s Head Tavern weighed in on this one and added the right amount of snark.

***

After my impassioned plea for proper understanding of who’s responsible for kids as dumb as dirt, Julie Neidlinger at Lone Prairie Blog came to the defense of the smarts of rural kids, especially when questioned by West Coast city-slicker reporters who talk about “fly-over states.” Julie gives a nice defense.

Now I wish I could say that my county proved the point from my post the other day, but then they went and voted down a public library levy that would’ve added the crushing load of about $30 a year to the taxes of the average household in this county. And they killed it by a pretty fair margin, 56 percent to 44.

Heck, our libraries can barely buy books as it is considering the big state cuts. Used to be that having a library was an enormous source of civic pride for small, rural towns. Today, it seems asking some folks to go without smokes for a month to pay for books is tantamount to murder.

So much for learnin’.

Heck, bring on that Wal-Mart and casino! We deserve ’em both.

***

In what it also a clear victory for the two ginormous Baptist megachurches in town, the ballot issue to allow the local sports bar to sell alcohol on Sundays failed by four votes.

I don’t know about you, but if Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest mandated by God, what better day to enjoy an adult beverage? Honestly.

***

In the aforementioned Wal-Mart news, I spent most of the week trying to gather info from local government sources only to wind up with two lines of minutes from the village meeting discussing the project, and a zoning document that claims the property is zoned for a business of a certain size. Otherwise, I’ve been pointed in a hundred different directions for everything else I requested.

I smell a conspiracy of silence! 😉

***

Juxtaposition: Considering what just happened to the library levy, perhaps Wal-Mart will just forgo having a book section in the store, seeing as only a handful of brainiacs read them in this county.

***

Did I mention it was a tough week?

***

Prayer request: I have some friends in Missouri (there’s THAT state again) who are facing a serious threat to their business and means of making a living. Could you take some time to pray for them? Just ask God to bless Dan’s old friends and protect them and their business from harm.

Thanks.

***

Been trying to live on a low-glycemic diet, but finding an adequate sugar substitute is tough. We use only pure honey here. Hey, if it was good enough for “The Land of Milk & Honey” it should be good enough for consumption. But no, say the low-glycemic gurus. They claim it’s worse than sugar at spiking one’s blood sugar levels.

Hmm.

Now the gurus also recommend artificial sweeteners which I believe are as close to being “the devil’s sugar” as is possible, so I spent a lot of time looking up healthy alternatives, and I’ve found some.

Sweet & Slender features the sweet extract of the Luo Han Guo fruit from China. It’s cool with the FDA (unlike another natural sweetener, Stevia) and, while not completely at zero on the glycemic index, is still a low-glycemic foodstuff with zero calories. Plus, the fruit has many positive bodily benefits. That scores with me and I’m going to buy some of this stuff and let you all know.

Xylitol is a natural birch bark derivative found most often in chewing gum. Erythritol, another sugar alcohol, is similar and may be even more effective. The cost on both of these is low. They also have some powerful anti-bacterial properties and may even reverse tooth decay. Both also pass with the FDA.

I’ve known about xylitol and most of the other “-itol” sugar alcohols for a long time, but erythritol and Luo Han Guo are new to me.

***

And it’s now midnight, so my work is done. Have a great weekend.