Oddities

The $1,551,466 Christian

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The Christian Church spends $1,551,466 to make one convert.

That figure comes from the World Christian Encyclopedia published by Oxford University Press in 2001. Accurate or not, even if the number were a tenth that, it’s still staggering. Remember also that it’s 2012, and money doesn’t go as far today, so the figure would be even higher now.

Only Apple has the warchest to spend that kind of money to get a customer. Even then, at that rate, its half-trillion dollars wouldn’t last long enough to generate a sustainable client base.

Simply put, if the Church were a business, it would be bankrupt. Marketing and sales would get the blame.

But the Church isn’t a business; it’s a collection of people joined by Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and tasked with a mission to make disciples. Given that $1,551,466 figure, the inescapable conclusion is that someone is not doing his part of the mission. Or is at least doing a mind-bogglingly ineffective job of it.

So, what is the fix?

The Christian Response to Disaster

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TornadoThe foamboard in my front yard spoke to me. The yellow fiberglass insulation told a story.

I don’t know whose damaged or destroyed home those leftover bits and pieces came from, but they are a reminder of suffering and death in the wake of the tornadoes that went through several states last Friday.

In Batavia, a town just west of here, someone found storm debris that contained papers labeled with the name of the town of Nabb, Indiana. Nabb is part of the Henryville/Marysville area that was utterly devastated by the storms. Nabb is also just over a 100 miles west of Batavia. That’s 100 miles.

I’m glad that Pat Robertson does not live in our area. I’m sure he’d have something to say about these storms that I’d later have to apologize for on behalf of other Christians.

I hate it when the news media find some blowhard believer who can’t wait to have his or her opinion heard by the masses. How the media routinely uncover the worst representative of the Christian faith to comment on disasters is a gift, though one of the worst giftings I can think of.

When the “media” of Jesus’ day stuck a figurative microphone under His nose in an attempt to get a pithy comment from Him on recent disasters, this is what He said:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
—Luke 13:1-5

People are always trying to make sense of disasters. Truth is, disaster is part and parcel of a world steeped in human sin. If anything, our perspective should instead be one of gratefulness to God that anything good can come out of the mess we have made. Into that mess came Jesus, who offered Himself as a living sacrifice for sin and showed us by His actions how to show mercy to others.

So here is what I wish we would say and do when confronted with disaster: Show mercy to the survivors and remind everyone that disaster can come upon anyone at any time, and unless we repent, we will all likewise perish.

That’s all. Don’t add to that. Show mercy and remind of repentance. End of comment.

God will see fit to fill in everything else.

The Mystery of Why American Politics and American Churches Resist Change

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Nothing baffles me more than the intersection of politics and conservative American Christianity.

The election of 2012 promises to pit more of the same old, same old against itself, as Republicrats and Democans battle to see who will preserve the status quo for the ruling powers that be. Into this fray comes the handwringing, conservative, evangelical Christians who will go on and on about “the soul of our nation” and “if my people will humble themselves and pray….”

I’m about as truly conservative as it gets, both in politics and theology, but anymore, I can’t identify with any of my supposed Christian brethren when it comes to governing the nation or running a church.

I don’t understand how supporting a pro-life GOP candidate makes one iota of difference in overturning the demonic Roe v. Wade. Pro-life politicians have had decades to work, even having insurmountable majorities at times, yet nothing has budged Roe even the slightest.

In addition, we keep electing politicians who campaign on platforms of reducing government, only to show their true big government colors once in office. They get in power, put out the nepotism shingle, and the next thing you know, a pack of Ivy League School frat brothers are running the country (club) again. Democrat or Republican? Who cares? It’s just a different set of frat rowdies subjecting the country to the same hazing.

Worse, we Christians are running our churches the same way. The same failed programs get repackaged year after year and voted on by church councils as the “new direction for our ministry”—only to wind up abandoned on the dustheap a year later, their ashes choking us, even as we ignore the coughing.

Something in the conservative Christian mindset has congealed around a set of unchanging parameters that has us locked into being neither all that conservative nor Christian. We’ve become unable to challenge the status quo and ask hard questions about why we keep failing to meet the goals we set for our nation or for our churches.

Honestly, I can’t think of a battle we are winning on a macro level, either for America or for Jesus. And if we want to be truly depressed, try finding a winning battle that is both for America and Jesus at the same time.

The problem as I see it is an inability to take every assumption we make as Americans and as Christians and put holy fire to it. When even our brightest minds are unable to ever ask the question “Why are we doing things this way?” then how is it that we can ever expect a different outcome? Unless we start challenging every practice we have forged within American politics and the American Church, we will be lost. The amount of bovine methane production from the sheer number of our sacred cows will keep reducing the amount of oxygen to our brains, and then what hope will we have?

Anyone familiar with computer software understands the concept of “skins.” The menu bar in your Web browser may look different from your neighbor’s, but it’s still Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox underneath. You just chose different art to “skin” your personal copy.

I look at Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama and I see the same underlying person, albeit with a different skin over the top. The same goes for our churches.

The problem is what lies underneath the skin. And we are failing to address those problems, instead swapping in different skins with the hope that our experience will be different.

But as the old Southerner opined, “Ain’t no sense putting lipstick on a pig.”

I can’t sit idly by and not question what’s underneath the skin. I won’t put lipstick on a pig and tell myself she’s a beauty.

We Christians have got to stop supporting systems that are based on a foundation of repeated failure. We must question not only the silliness in modern politics but also the identical silliness in our church praxis.

This is not about assaulting the core truths of the Gospel or of our Constitution, but it’s a hope that we will get back to what is truly important, while questioning everything else.

Why do we do what we do in our church meetings on Sunday? Why are we supporting Church systems that perpetually fail to produce disciples? Why do we run our churches like businesses, with hierarchies that are not only not biblical but actually rob average people of their God-given birthright to serve the brethren and not be just a passive lump deigned to absorb another Sunday message that won’t stick beyond Sunday lunch?

Why do we continue to elect cold, calculating political animals who are only in it for themselves and their Ivy League frat brothers? Why do we prattle on about change while electing the same old type of yahoo?

Why?

Snake baring fangsIs ANYONE asking that question?

Folks, it’s time for the sheep to wake up and heed these words of Jesus:

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
—Matthew 10:16

We’ve been solely innocent doves for too long, and it has not served well either our nation or our churches.