The Mystery of Why American Politics and American Churches Resist Change

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 fangs Is 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.

The Word for 2012: Community

Without fail, the Lord provides a burden for me each year that I have typically shared here. Over the last few months, the one aspect of our walk with Christ that has been most apparent and problematic has been the way we American Christians practice community—or fail to practice it, as the case more often is.

A few questions regarding community that never seem to be far from my thoughts:

Do we meet together and practice community in the same manner as the Spirit-directed early Church did?

Do we value community in such a way that we ensure that the spiritual gifts of individuals in the church community are allowed to operate when we assemble together?

Do we lay down our selfish selves so that we are always thinking of what is best for the church community?

Do we maintain a belief that corporate sins are just as heinous as individual sins and live in such a way as to address and correct them?

Do we ensure that each person in our church community has his or her needs met, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?

Do church leaders identify and stoke the gifts of people in the church community?

Do we maintain a “flat hierarchy” leadership style that ensures that leaders are considered equals in the church and not an elite class within it?

Sadly, in most churches today in America, the answer to most (if not all) of those simple questions is no.

Changing those answers to yes will be the major theme of Cerulean Sanctum in days to come.

Stay tuned.

More Cowbell VII!

Cerulean Sanctum’s More Cowbell Award, given to the most ridiculous aspects of “Christian” practice, has not been handed out since October 2007, and since “time may be running out,” I better bestow another while I still can.

I start this seventh award by asking, Has there ever been a more bloodthirsty, demon-driven culture than the Maya?

The Maya of Mesoamerica practiced ritualized slayings of enemies and willing victims as part of a large number of religious festivals. These sacrificial victims often had their hearts carved out of their chests while still alive. The Mayan gods were animistic demons to whom the Maya offered perverted blood sacrifices, a complete corruption of the one genuine blood sacrifice that truly mattered, that of Jesus.

Oh, and then there’s that wacky Mayan calendar. You know, the one famously set to run out of time at the end of 2012.

So how is this a Cerulean Sanctum post, you ask.

Well, if you’re like me, you’ve received spam from supposedly Christian sources attempting to link the lack of a 2013 in the Mayan calendar with the Second Coming of Christ. Yes, indeed, June 2009 marks 3½ years before the end of that calendar. And we all know how the numbers 3½ and 7 figure into speculation about Christ’s return.

Jesus, however, said this:

“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. ”
—Mark 13:32-33

You know, I take that as pretty authoritative, as it comes from the mouth of Jesus. Yet there are “Christians” out there who are willing to state that the heart-extracting, demon-worshipping Mayans have got one up on the Lord of All. With all apologies to the original lyricist of the classic children’s song, those folks seem to be singing, “Jesus may not truly know, but the Maya tell us so.”

Good grief.

But before we set to stoning the New Age syncretists behind this “Mayan Calendar Predicts Jesus’ Return” garbage, need I remind anyone of a couple sets of dates:

7/7/07

Rosh Hashanah, September 1988

The first was the “magic number” trotted out by a bunch of charismaniacs. We all know from the Bible that 7 is a blessed number, so let’s all go crazy and predict that Jesus will come back on a day filled with that number. All I can say in response is that the Rapture must’ve been really, really small, and not too many of us passed muster, apparently.

Now I’m generally a contrarian, but even I was struck by how many sane Christians decided to spend the entire day of July 7, 2007, praying. A fine endeavor on its own, yes, but let’s get real about why they were doing it. And if they were doing it for that reason, they were doing it wrong.

As to the second date, I was working in a Christian bookstore when the infamous 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 came out. I urged the owners of the store to send the book back to the distributor. They didn’t listen. I didn’t last too long at that store afterwards.

That summer of 1988, I worked at a Christian camp. Everyone was talking about the book. A lot of the young, Evangelical staff wondered if they would be raptured as virgins, thus missing out on the be all and end all of life. Evidently, the senior class of Cedarville Bible College (not too far away from where I live) thought the same thing, but they remedied their fear the old fashioned way: by marrying in droves before that second week in September. (I’ve always wondered how many of those couples are still together.)

I know people may not remember this, but earnest believers, especially in the Bible Belt, sold their houses, stock, and all manner of goods just so they could be unencumbered when that decisive week in September 1988 rolled around. Some went so far as to euthanize their pets so that Muffin and Bowser—who, being soulless beasts, would not be raptured—didn’t wind up as animal sacrifices atop the altars of millions of Satanists who would be left behind.

You may laugh, but I’m not joking. I have no doubts that a few folks reading this are saying to themselves, Yeah, I was one of those fruitcakes.

I’d blame the false prophets behind this kind of stuff ordinarily, but they only pander to the crowd.

So this More Cowbell Award instead goes to

People who listen to lying prophets about the date for the Rapture.

I mean, this is a no brainer, folks. This doesn’t require any major spiritual discernment when Mark 13:32-33 exists in every Bible I’ve ever read.

Why not try this instead: Live every day as if Jesus was coming back tomorrow.

Sound good?

Word of warning: If no posts show up here after today, you’ll know I was done in by a shadowy cabal of book publishers who make a bazillion dollars off Christians by marketing according to the old adage There’s a sucker born every minute.

Or I was raptured.

😉