Sin

Evangelicals, Elections, and Blindness to Sin

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Casting a voteMy church keeps a watchful eye on the political scene. Maybe yours does too. If your church considers itself Evangelical, then there’s a good chance it believes the Republicans to be the party of righteousness.

It’s a culture wars thing mostly. Abortion and same-sex marriage stick in Evangelicals’ craws more than anything else. And since the GOP is generally against those two hot button issues, a lot of churches rush to the brink of illegality, dancing at the edge of the “you cannot endorse candidates” precipice in order to fawn over GOP candidates who promise to stem the tide of unrighteousness in America.

Enough of that and you start to believe that only Democrats sin. Ha, ha, right?

I gave up on the Republican Party years ago. I stopped believing the hype. The fact is that Republicans held majority power several times since Roe v. Wade and yet did nothing to overturn abortion.

But beyond that, the reason the political rhetoric I hear from Evangelicals doesn’t move me anymore is our selectivity on sin.

Bible verses fly when abortion and same-sex marriage come up in Evangelical discussions, but you almost never hear any verses bandied about in support of the poor, the alien, the widow, and the environment. Yet the Bible has much more to say collectively about sins related to those issues than it does abortion or same-sex marriage.

Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m soft on abortion or same-sex marriage. I believe strongly that advocates of abortion and same-sex marriage are under a powerful spiritual delusion. (That’s all I need to say. You’ve read my posts on these topics before.)

While many Evangelicals may nod their heads in assent, few will think beyond those two powderkeg issues.

But what of the politician who supports the big company lobbying to invoke eminent domain against a neighborhood filled mostly with the elderly? Doesn’t God hate the powerful ursurping the property of the weak? Doesn’t He detest those who break the backs of the poor? Do I need to quote a couple hundred verses on those issues?

Why is it that when I read about eminent domain, a GOP politician is usually involved? How is it that Republicans fight tooth and nail against living wage legislation for the poor? God’s first command in the Garden is for Man to steward the earth, yet how is it that Republicans seem so eager to despoil that earth instead? Why is it that when the little guy is fighting for his life against some monolithic oppressor with a warchest filled with millions of dollars, the GOP is often on the side of the oppressor?

The list of practices and beliefs that God hates is long. Sooner or later, our political candidates will run afoul of that list. Some much more than others.

Which is why advocating certain political parties will only lead Christians into a deep abyss. What we should be advocating when we talk of the greatness of America is a commitment to avoiding EVERYTHING on that list of what God hates, not just those select sins that plague the “other” party.

Sadly, once we start looking at reality that way, many candidates fail—even the ones Evangelicals endorse.

While I understand that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, I simply cannot cast my vote for candidates who ally themselves with unjust or wicked causes. I’m sticking with God’s list of dont’s and not Evangelicalism’s “hammer some sins and ignore others” list.

Beyond that, even if a candidate holds to certain beliefs that resonate with a righteous position, what if that candidate is simply a terrible politician? In the case of employment, it doesn’t matter what a résumé may say, if a candidate for the job ends up proving unable to do the job well, is continued employment deserved? Beliefs don’t always translate into competence. Should we Evangelicals elect candidates who say all the right things but who ultimately can’t do their job well?

If all this means that I reject all the candidates in a race, then I will. If it means I vote for a third-party candidate, I will—even if Evangelicalism’s “anointed” candidate will lose because I did not hold my nose and cast my vote his or her way. I’m not going to be forced to endorse someone who hates abortion but who also hates the poor.

Frankly, I think we should throw all the bums out. Clean house. Both parties are filled with compromisers and gladhanders. And I’m just not going to compromise my vote anymore. I guess you could say I’m asking, How would Jesus vote?

Stuff I Don’t Get: Creation, Sin, Death, and Design

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The Creation Museum is pretty much in my backyard. Aussie transplant Ken Ham enjoys plenty of supporters around here. I think everyone in my church has been to the museum at least once.

The genesis of writing this “Stuff I Don’t Get” series came after contemplating the barn swallow and creation. I’m a lifelong birder, so I’ve always found pleasure in identifying and watching birds.

A pair of barn swallows, they of the forked tails and elegant aerial acrobatics, nested on a floodlight on my garage. Barn SwallowI’m partial to swallows. Watching them skim the earth as they gorge on bugs I stir up while mowing is one of my favorite tractor-top activities.

But here’s the stuff I don’t get:

Many Christians believe that death only came into existence after Adam sinned.

They would say that sin damages and ruins things, never making them better than they were.

They would likely insist that the first animals ate only plants (and I would guess not enough of one plant to kill it entirely) so as to avoid the death issue before Adam sinned.

But what then explains the barn swallow?

It’s a perfect bug-eating machine, consuming—and thus killing—hundreds of insects a day. The swallow has an oversized mouth that stretches into a gaping maw. Its dexterity in flight is unequaled, perfectly paired to catching flying bugs. Almost entirely a bird of the air, its tiny feet are wholly inappropriate to clinging to reeds and plant stems, making the consumption of seeds, nuts, and berries difficult, more of a desperation food than its normal diet.

Here is an animal unfit for primarily eating plants, and totally suited in every way for consuming one kind of food: small, flying creatures.

So how can it be that the swallow EVER ate plants alone? Nothing of its physiology is geared for that sole task.

And if the swallow’s current form is the result of the degrading transformational effects of sin, how did sin ever create such a beautiful and elegant result?

If you—or Ken Ham—have a good explanation, I’m all ears.

Elusive Wisdom

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Before we get to the second part of my posting on being a Church family, I want to add some thoughts on wisdom in a modern age. I couldn’t stop thinking about the issue this weekend, and as I was out on my tractor for several hours Sunday, I had plenty of time to think.

I was interviewed for a radio show called “Wise People” this last Saturday and will be again this Saturday. But the fact is, despite the title of the show, I find wisdom elusive.

I’m 47 years old, and if I were asked to comment on the pat answer about getting older and gaining wisdom, I’d have to say that the conventional wisdom on wisdom and age just doesn’t work. Or at least it doesn’t work in the conventional sense.

At the age of 21, I didn’t have a lot of room for “wisdom” that didn’t meet my preconceptions. I was pretty much the standard angry, young know-it-all. Sadly, that was a state that persisted for far too long.

But as I’ve gotten older, I seem to have fewer prepackaged answers and a whole lot more questions. The list of “Stuff I Don’t Get” gets added to daily.

When you get down to it, all practical wisdom concerns making sense of people and God. In 47 years, what I have come to understand of people is that I don’t understand them at all. And while I can definitely see God  moving in certain situations, it’s those situations in which I don’t see Him that I come to realize that my understanding of God could fill a thimble—one made for Barbie.

The supposedly wise person makes sense of people in light of sin. Understand the nature of sin and you understand why people do what they do.

But honestly, the older I get, the less satisfying that response becomes. And it is less satisfying because no one can know the future, and it’s our relationship to the past, present, and future that makes understanding humanity so difficult. How sin informs the past and present is hard enough to comprehend, but add the future and I don’t see how any nonprognosticator can make predictions.

Now put God into that mix. The result, at least to me, is too big to get one’s head around.

Which is why Romans 8:28 is so hard for me to understand:

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
—Romans 8:28

The first part is hard enough to grasp, but it’s the phrase after the comma that makes my head spin.

If you’re couple who spent years trying to conceive, and finally that blessed bundle comes, what is to be said when the little baby dies unexpectedly? Did that babe get in the way of your purpose in life? Is it a good thing then that the baby died? And what can be said when no more children come?

Or you’re a missionary couple with kids, and after 25 years of marriage the whole couple thing crumbles. One day you were sharing the Lord with lost tribes of people in the backwaters of India, and the next day you’re in divorce court. PotholeHow did it all go so wrong? If the calling to marriage and mission were there, why did it end up like this?

Or you’re part of a leadership team at your church, and one by one every person on that team gets hit with calamity: cancer, divorce, depression, suicide, and so on. Do all those calamities really work together for good? Is it enough to say, “I survived,” and call that outcome good?

I talked about Christian maturity in the radio interview, but defining maturity is hard. We tend to think of it as some kind of Ph.D. in theology, but if my own experiences are any indicator, perhaps it’s something else entirely. And perhaps there’s some other meaning behind Romans  8:28 that eludes us.

Karl Barth, when asked to summarize the contents of his massive book Church Dogmatics, responded, “Jesus loves me/This I know/For the Bible tells me so.”

A children’s song.

In response to Barth’s answer, I’m sure some “wise” people snickered. Yet when faced with all the craziness, the nonsensical happens, the head-shaking personal calamities in the lives of ordinary people, the godly decisions that went south, the hopes that fell to pieces, and the general nastiness of human existence 2010, perhaps Barth’s answer is the wisest of all.

God knows that I don’t understand life—or Him—any better than that.

{Update: I had originally thought J.I. Packer was behind the “Jesus Loves Me” quote, but it was Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth.}