Simplicity

Fear, Fights, Flameouts, and a Few Weeks Without a Post

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Regular readers will know that I haven’t posted in a few weeks.

The simplest explanation comes down to my increasing bewilderment at the state of the American Church. I’ve been gobsmacked (or should it be Godsmacked ?) by the increasing  insanity within our ranks. It truly feels like people are losing their grip on reality.

I’ve watched a few fights among believers online over piddling differences. I’m sick to death of the all-important need by some to be correct, even at the expense of love, fellowship, and unity. I’ve watched one battle in which neither side can come up with a solid biblical platform to justify their position,  and neither side will acknowledge that perhaps their side could learn something from the other. No, the need to be right trumps everything else, and the conversation descends into so much name-calling and noise. Sickening.

I’ve watched frightened believers, who resemble Chicken Littles, call for filling the bunker and fleeing to gold reserves (despite what Larry Norman sang about gold and bread). It’s the end of the world as we know it, and these self-appointed stokers of fear are on the front lines sounding the trumpet. “The _______________ {Insert bogeyman group or individual of the week} is going to wreck everything we’ve built for ourselves” is their clarion call. Faith that God is still in charge and that whether we live or die we are still the Lord’s don’t seem to enter into the equation. As I see it, When the Lord comes again, will He find faith on earth? indeed seems to be the question of the hour. A positive answer appears doubtful given how riddled with fear American Christians are. A big difference exists between being sober and being fearful;  it’s past time for us to know the difference.

I’ve watched a few more ministry flameouts, big ones. That’s all I’ll say. You probably know who.  No need to bury more of our wounded, though some seem eager and ready for the task.

All in all, it makes you wonder if the people behind all this mania realize how damaging they have become to the cause of Christ. The fighters, the fearmongers, the detractors of the flameouts—which of them is bettering the case for the Gospel?

People of God, don’t get involved in this garbage. Go about your commission. Don’t veer off the path. Don’t listen to the siren calls. A lot of people out there are using the guise of Christianity to sow discord, anxiety, and rebellion. Ignore them and go about your godly business.

Lost people look to the Church for answers. It’s time for us to grow up and start offering them.

Joy Inexpressible–Expressed

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JoyI write about a lot of deep subjects here at Cerulean Sanctum. Many Godbloggers delve into hard topics and tackle weighty matters, giving difficult answers and solutions to intractable problems.

And more and more, I wonder if that’s a waste of time.

Why? Because the simplest truths and practices still escape us.

When I think of the finest Christians I have known, they have all exhibited a winsomeness that makes them attractive. I’ve written about winsomeness before. It’s one of our great lacks in the modern American Church.

Too often, we Christians in this country are viewed as sour, judgmental, curmudgeonly pains-in-the-ass. That image needs to go away—now—if we are ever going to make inroads into winning people to Jesus Christ. It’s one thing to be hated for our message. It’s another to be hated because we’re jerks.

Winsomeness starts simply: smile.

People who smile a lot draw my attention. Not those people who smile out of smug self-satisfaction (and boy, there are plenty of those in the American Church), but those who radiate the inexpressible joy of knowing Jesus.

You see, that joy inexpressible doesn’t needs words. It can show in your smile.

A bright countenance draws people. Others will share with a person who smiles. When you smile, it can raise the warmth in a room, provide a safe signal for others to open up to you, and generally make life more pleasant.

Want to know the predominant mood of people in this country? Steal a glance at drivers and passengers in the cars next to you. The number of sullen looks is astonishing. People fall into their baseline emotional state in a car because they view it as a place of privacy. But it’s not. We can see.

You be different. Be salt and light. And for heaven’s sake, smile!

 

Godly Humor & Knowing When to Laugh

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In the heyday of The Late Great Planet Earth, an impressionable young man was accosted by an itinerant street corner preacher of the apocalypse. “Son, you better get right—or get left,” the preacher shouted into his face. Unnerved by the encounter, the young man decided to do something about his predicament. So he joined the John Birch Society.

That’s a Dan Edelen original, folks. It’s also about as close as I come to poking fun at the events of this last weekend’s Rapture bust.

The impression most people get about me from this blog is that I’m a super-serious, modern day counterpart to that street corner preacher of the joke. Laughter humor funPeople who meet me in person are often struck by the fact that I’m funnier than they thought and not so deadly serious. In fact, some people don’t understand why I’m laughing all the time.

Fact is, I love to laugh. People who can’t laugh at themselves when they should or who can’t lighten up at all bother me more than just about any kind of person. Something IS wrong with a stick in the mud.

Which is why I want to point out what bothers me about how we Christians joke around.

I read a ton of barbed yucks at the expense of Harold Camping and his followers over the last month. I can expect that from people who aren’t Christians, as the whole Rapture thing—even when viewed biblically and with solid theology—sounds weird to unbelievers. No surprise. It was the sarcasm from Christians that took me aback, though.

I was 25 in September 1988 when 88 reasons were given by some Rapture aficionado for the removal of the Church that month. I recall the stories of the euthanizing of pets, the homes sold, the bunker mentality, and so on. I also remember the subsequent suicides, the financial ruination, and the falling away by those who pinned their hopes on getting out of here on the predicted date, which obviously came and went.

In short, none of that aftermath was funny then. That stuck with me for this latest go-round of Rapture predictions. It’s why I wasn’t laughing over the Camping fiasco. Likewise, false teachings and false prophecy are not funny because they take a human toll.

The Bible says this:

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
—1 Peter 5:5b

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
—Philippians 2:3-4

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.
—Galatians 5:14-15

My experience in life is that cutting humor used against others has a surefire way of backfiring. When we’re making fun of someone else, it almost always has a way of getting out of hand.

It’s an issue of humility on our part, too. Sure, someone may be woefully deceived, but our role is not to  stand apart from that person but to help in any humble way we can to restore them to truth. Mocking others never accomplishes this goal.

Those Christians I have known who have had the most effective lives for Christ and for reaching out to others are universally NOT known for their jibes. Quite the contrary, they have a winsomeness that attracts people and lets those hurting or misled people know that they are dealing with someone who is safe and can be trusted. In such an adversarial age, when mocking is considered a high art by some, and people go at each other’s throats over the littlest things, shouldn’t the Christian response run counter to the way of the world?

At my core, I am an arrogant person. Of all the sins that afflict me, pride is the worst. I thank God daily that He continues to weed out this toxic root in my life. I truly believe that I am a more humble person today than I once was.

More than once in my younger days, I was confronted by fellow believers who told me I used humor to hurt other people. And they were right. It was a way of making myself look superior. But it was stupid on my part, and I know that now.

I share that because many Christians are still in that place of thinking more of themselves than they ought. It’s why their ministry is less effective than it could be. It’s why other people don’t seek them out when they need help. It’s why no one wants to listen to them when they try to witness. It’s why those Christians give up witnessing at all.

But this is a post about humor, and I don’t want to be all dour lest I perpetuate that false view that I’m some deadly serious killjoy.

I can’t point to any Scriptural mandate here, but I think humor works best within the shared human experience. Rather than poking fun at one person or at a group of people who have a serious problem, when we laugh at the silly things that afflict us all we find a way to cope with the world. God gave us laughter, and I think humor—when used rightly—has a way of defusing tension and making life more manageable. When we use humor to create tension, especially tension in or toward a person or group of people who are “not us,” we stray from God’s best.

Many years ago, I was at a large Christian retreat center. My group had plans, but I had others, so I stayed behind in the lodge and talked with an elderly man. We sat around and enjoyed the glorious day, relaxing and telling jokes. He was a stitch and had me in tears at several points. Just a really funny guy. When I asked him his name, he said, “J. Oswald Sanders.” I was stunned. This was the great biographer of the apostle Paul and one of the foremost theologians of the age.

So yes, Christians can be funny. Even the heavyweights.

And they should be.

Truthfully, too many Christians need to learn to lighten up. We all need to learn to laugh at ourselves a bit more, but not in a way that hurts others. I think that only comes with a willingness to be humble and to recognize that life is hard. Even if it isn’t hard for us, it may be for someone else, and we need to consider the state of another person’s life before we assault them with joking. We do need to consider what is funny for us may not be funny for someone else. Better that we find something mutually funny, something in the shared human condition, that makes it less about our superiority and more about the positive attitude that faith in Christ brings to help us overcome the vagaries of life.