I want to take advantage of my massive presence here on the world wide web to tell everyone about two people I met tonight at Starbucks. Starbucks lends itself to deep spiritual conversations (well, kinda) between me and my friend Stephen and God used our conversation tonight to introduce us to Will and his friend, who we were told to affectionately refer to as "Muscle Man"--if you saw him, you'd know why. Muscle man can do 30 push-ups with one hand, then switch over to the other for 30 more. Will is kind of lean and has curly hair and is a huge Elvis fan, and has side burns to prove it. Muscle Man is one of those guys that you never see without a hat on, to the point that you realize you have no idea what color or length of hair he has, and quite frankly, it would look weird to you no matter what it was if he ever took off his hat, which he won't. You probably know the kind. They are both from the great state of South Carolina, and Muscle Man has traveled all over the country (or the east part of it at least) doing who knows what. Both of them love God and love people, and Will actually spends his spare time selling and giving away roses to people in Columbia. Will's parents grew up and raised him in the church, his father was a deacon. Muscle Man comes from a not-so-religious family, but now talks to God every day.
By this time you're probably wondering what the point of all this is. "What makes these people so fascinating that you thought I might want to know about them, especially this much about them??" Well, nothing is extraordinary about them--they are basically no more interesting then most of the people we hang out with normally, with one difference. Neither one of them knew where they were going to sleep tonight. They are homeless.
There. Now I have ever-so-theatrically revealed the two main characters to you, let me show you how they connect to what Stephen and I were discussing the moment they walked up. We were basically talking about control. The question we were discussing was, at what point do you just let go of any goals, purposes, and agendas for Christ and just give it to God. The answer, for us at least, was "right now." Neither Will nor Muscle Man had had anything to eat in several days, so we took a trip to Church's, and acquired a massive helping of one of God's greatest gifts to earth (at least to the South)--fried chicken. After holding up traffic in the Church's drive through because Will suggested that we pray for the food before we got it, we laughed our freakin' heads off with these guys. I guess there's something about sleeping outside for several years that lends itself to having some pretty incredible/hilarious stories.
Then came the painful part, at least for Stephen and I. They took us to a place where they told us they could stay the night for $25 bucks a piece, and when we arrived there, it wasn't much. And by saying "it wasn't much," I mean it was nothing. Personally, I might have rather have slept outside than in this place. There was no power, I didn't really feel any heat, and there were boards on all the windows. Stephen and I suggested that they stay at one of our places or at a local shelter, but Will and M.M. both told us they had had enough of that, simply pointing out that when they stayed at other "Christian's" houses or at shelters, the people who let them stay always wanted them to do something--either pray, or accept Christ, or promise they would find a job. So Stephen and I coughed up fifty bucks for them to stay at a place that someone couldn't have PAID ME enough to stay at, wondering to ourselves if that money would eventually just be used for drugs or booze. As we started to talk about that ruin the high we had from laughing with these guys, Stephen got silent for a second and asked me this: "At what point do you just not care what they do with the money?"
And that's the question. Maybe the will take the money, go get coked up, and spend the night outside after all. We have all heard the advice about how to take a homeless guy to a restaurant, carefully pull money out instead of our wallet so they don't steal anything, take them to a homeless shelter ran by a local church so maybe they will hear about Jesus, and make sure not to give them any money because they will probably blow it on drugs. Maybe they will just take the money, go get coked up, and spend the night outside after all. But at some point you have to just say I'm out of control now. I think that sometimes we try to control and direct our generosity to the point that we are taking that control away from God. At what point do you just quit caring so much about controling what happens to them with your money and just give the situation to God? At what point do you cough up money that you could just tithe with and say "God I just want to give them this in hopes that they will see Christ in me, instead of a can of month old food served out a spoon?" At what point do you give them something you know they don't deserve and know they probably will abuse, not because you think they need it, and not because you want to feel good about yourself, but simply because God gave us something we never deserved and we abuse it every day?
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
thanksgiving...well, kinda
so I'm trusting that everyone had a great thanksgiving. mine was great, as I have so many things to give thanks for. a few specific things I became thankful for just today, though:
1) Corvettes. my uncle has a '67-68ish (sorry I forgot) Corvette. after we ate and were all just sitting around (I think I was asleep/watching the Green Bay/Detroit game, he goes "Kent, you wanna take the 'vette for a drive?" wow--what a question, so I took it for a drive with my cousin Lesley, then got back and realized I didn't wanna stop yet, so I talked my mom into getting in so I could do it all over again. awesomeness.
2) Weiner dogs. these little guys are truly the joys of life. I know a lot of people who will swear against weiner dogs, and I just don't know how. maggie, my cousin's new pet, simply lit up my world. and that, my friends, is probably the most masculine thing I will ever say on this blog.
I am especially thankful for my family this thanksgiving. I know that sounds weird, but it is because yesterday I attended a receiving friends for a friend of mine, Kenny Plumley, who took his own life on Monday. I can't imagine the pain his family must be going through. I do want to say that all of our prayers and thoughts go out to Kenny's family. I know a lot of them are searching for answers right now, and I don't have them, but I know Someone does. God bless you guys.
all the traveling today also lent itself to a lot of podcast-listening. on the way to Charlotte today I listened to donald miller speak on Paul and the "incarnational gospel." this led me to realizing how thankful I am for Paul. Paul is often considered, other than Jesus, one of the most passionate missionaries in history. and reading his stuff helps me out a lot when I'm trying to figure out how in the world to go about sharing Christ with people. not only did he not give a rip about being persecuted for something he believed in, but insisted on being very Christlike in the way he presented the gospel. one example is the way he approached the church in Athens in Acts 17.
for those of you not familiar with this particular story, Paul basically is encouraged to travel to Athens in the hope that he will tone down his act a little bit and quit being arrested and stuff so much. now just judging from what you've heard about Paul, do you think it worked? exactly. it took Paul about an hour before he was bursting at the seems to tell somebody else about Christ. while he was in the synagogue, he saw the many false idols that the Athenians were worshipping. this bothered Paul, but not in the way that it would bother a lot of Christians today. in this type of situation today, many believers would probably feel the urge to confront these people confrontationally and ensure that we told them just exactly how wrong they were for worshipping false gods. Paul sees something different. he sees the many different gods, and then sees one altar dedicated to "an unknown god." so instead of telling these people how dumb they are for worshipping all these statues (which is probably what we would do), Paul says:
"Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. I even found an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD'. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you"
Paul then proceeds to tell them about who this 'unknown God' is! imagine that! in a situation where we would lean into these people to tell them how ridiculous their religion is (I am specifically thinking of the way I have heard many Christians respond to Buddhism), Paul compliments them! He thinks it is on many levels beautiful that these Athenians long for something spiritual, so he tells them about Christ!
there are a few reasons, I think, that this idea strikes a lot of Christians as crazy. one is the idea of a Christian culture that we have created. miller uses the example of the Scopes monkey trial in the 1920s. in a lot of ways, after that trial, a lot of Christians were offended. the idea that America would take Christianity to court was pretty blasphemous (sp?) to a lot of people. and from that day on, you begin to see a lot of this idea of separating Christian culture from the world's culture. it wasn't always like that. it was in the five or ten years following this case that you saw a ton of Christian schools popping up all over the place. you began to see this attitude of "well, if they aren't going to do things the way WE say, we'll start our own thing. then eventually, when we get big enough and strong enough, they'll be starved out and come crawling back to us for help." this "survival of the fittest" attitude, miller points out, is kind of hilarious considering that the Scopes monkey trial was, in many ways, Christians vs. Darwin.
but as much as we would like to say that we don't do this as Christians, it is pretty obvious that we do. for example, how many ministries in the church to you see targeting single parents? common sense would tell you that these type of ministries would be important, since over half of U.S. households are those of single parents, right? I would argue that many churches don't though, simply because someone being a single parent would imply that they might have either had a child out of wedlock, or are divorced--both things that are simply frowned upon by the church. this idea of simply not reaching out to these people is very Western in origin, and more importantly, unbiblical. something tells me that if Jesus had no problem hanging out with a woman who had had five husbands and was currently living with a guy who wasn't her husband, he would also have no problem hanging out with a single mom.
anyway, I realized through listening to this podcasts that I am just as guilty as anyone of doing this, and that there is no excuse for it. it's so easy for some reason for me to help out a homeless guy who is on drugs, and then turn around and refuse to connect with a guy who seems like he might be gay because I don't agree with it, and that is stupid. if I am telling people about the Great Physician, I should present him as just that. in a lot of ways, us trying to starve out people who are in the margins of life is a lot a nurse who runs tests on a patient who thinks he might have cancer, and coming back into the room saying, "well the tests came back positive for cancer. you're in pretty bad shape. and here's the thing--the doctor here really hates cancer. so if you don't mind we'd rather you just go ahead and leave now, and don't come back. good luck with your cancer, but the doctor here only wants to help you once you have helped yourself first. thanks. bye." as ridiculous as that sounds, that's what so many churches do to people who are lost. the lost come to a church, in hopes that that church can help them find what they're longing for and the church says, "okay that's great, but we really don't help [insert adjective of choice] people here until they've straightened that up. come back when you're not [adjective of choice] anymore." let's show people Christ's love, and then partner with him to do the healing. all of us are broken. it makes no sense for one broken person to say to another "you need to get to my level of brokenness first before God can help you."
let us be the remedy...
1) Corvettes. my uncle has a '67-68ish (sorry I forgot) Corvette. after we ate and were all just sitting around (I think I was asleep/watching the Green Bay/Detroit game, he goes "Kent, you wanna take the 'vette for a drive?" wow--what a question, so I took it for a drive with my cousin Lesley, then got back and realized I didn't wanna stop yet, so I talked my mom into getting in so I could do it all over again. awesomeness.
2) Weiner dogs. these little guys are truly the joys of life. I know a lot of people who will swear against weiner dogs, and I just don't know how. maggie, my cousin's new pet, simply lit up my world. and that, my friends, is probably the most masculine thing I will ever say on this blog.
I am especially thankful for my family this thanksgiving. I know that sounds weird, but it is because yesterday I attended a receiving friends for a friend of mine, Kenny Plumley, who took his own life on Monday. I can't imagine the pain his family must be going through. I do want to say that all of our prayers and thoughts go out to Kenny's family. I know a lot of them are searching for answers right now, and I don't have them, but I know Someone does. God bless you guys.
all the traveling today also lent itself to a lot of podcast-listening. on the way to Charlotte today I listened to donald miller speak on Paul and the "incarnational gospel." this led me to realizing how thankful I am for Paul. Paul is often considered, other than Jesus, one of the most passionate missionaries in history. and reading his stuff helps me out a lot when I'm trying to figure out how in the world to go about sharing Christ with people. not only did he not give a rip about being persecuted for something he believed in, but insisted on being very Christlike in the way he presented the gospel. one example is the way he approached the church in Athens in Acts 17.
for those of you not familiar with this particular story, Paul basically is encouraged to travel to Athens in the hope that he will tone down his act a little bit and quit being arrested and stuff so much. now just judging from what you've heard about Paul, do you think it worked? exactly. it took Paul about an hour before he was bursting at the seems to tell somebody else about Christ. while he was in the synagogue, he saw the many false idols that the Athenians were worshipping. this bothered Paul, but not in the way that it would bother a lot of Christians today. in this type of situation today, many believers would probably feel the urge to confront these people confrontationally and ensure that we told them just exactly how wrong they were for worshipping false gods. Paul sees something different. he sees the many different gods, and then sees one altar dedicated to "an unknown god." so instead of telling these people how dumb they are for worshipping all these statues (which is probably what we would do), Paul says:
"Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. I even found an altar with this inscription: 'TO AN UNKOWN GOD'. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you"
Paul then proceeds to tell them about who this 'unknown God' is! imagine that! in a situation where we would lean into these people to tell them how ridiculous their religion is (I am specifically thinking of the way I have heard many Christians respond to Buddhism), Paul compliments them! He thinks it is on many levels beautiful that these Athenians long for something spiritual, so he tells them about Christ!
there are a few reasons, I think, that this idea strikes a lot of Christians as crazy. one is the idea of a Christian culture that we have created. miller uses the example of the Scopes monkey trial in the 1920s. in a lot of ways, after that trial, a lot of Christians were offended. the idea that America would take Christianity to court was pretty blasphemous (sp?) to a lot of people. and from that day on, you begin to see a lot of this idea of separating Christian culture from the world's culture. it wasn't always like that. it was in the five or ten years following this case that you saw a ton of Christian schools popping up all over the place. you began to see this attitude of "well, if they aren't going to do things the way WE say, we'll start our own thing. then eventually, when we get big enough and strong enough, they'll be starved out and come crawling back to us for help." this "survival of the fittest" attitude, miller points out, is kind of hilarious considering that the Scopes monkey trial was, in many ways, Christians vs. Darwin.
but as much as we would like to say that we don't do this as Christians, it is pretty obvious that we do. for example, how many ministries in the church to you see targeting single parents? common sense would tell you that these type of ministries would be important, since over half of U.S. households are those of single parents, right? I would argue that many churches don't though, simply because someone being a single parent would imply that they might have either had a child out of wedlock, or are divorced--both things that are simply frowned upon by the church. this idea of simply not reaching out to these people is very Western in origin, and more importantly, unbiblical. something tells me that if Jesus had no problem hanging out with a woman who had had five husbands and was currently living with a guy who wasn't her husband, he would also have no problem hanging out with a single mom.
anyway, I realized through listening to this podcasts that I am just as guilty as anyone of doing this, and that there is no excuse for it. it's so easy for some reason for me to help out a homeless guy who is on drugs, and then turn around and refuse to connect with a guy who seems like he might be gay because I don't agree with it, and that is stupid. if I am telling people about the Great Physician, I should present him as just that. in a lot of ways, us trying to starve out people who are in the margins of life is a lot a nurse who runs tests on a patient who thinks he might have cancer, and coming back into the room saying, "well the tests came back positive for cancer. you're in pretty bad shape. and here's the thing--the doctor here really hates cancer. so if you don't mind we'd rather you just go ahead and leave now, and don't come back. good luck with your cancer, but the doctor here only wants to help you once you have helped yourself first. thanks. bye." as ridiculous as that sounds, that's what so many churches do to people who are lost. the lost come to a church, in hopes that that church can help them find what they're longing for and the church says, "okay that's great, but we really don't help [insert adjective of choice] people here until they've straightened that up. come back when you're not [adjective of choice] anymore." let's show people Christ's love, and then partner with him to do the healing. all of us are broken. it makes no sense for one broken person to say to another "you need to get to my level of brokenness first before God can help you."
let us be the remedy...
Monday, November 19, 2007
you will be blessed
in my head I keep singing that addicting Maroon 5 tune "she will be loved, she will be loved..."--not real sure why. anyway, I really wanted to blog to elaborate on a really cool conversation my mom and I had this past weekend (it's amazing having Christian parents to discuss these things with!) I was telling her about how I've been reading and studying the book of Job lately, and we started discussing the concept of being blessed by God. Now lately, when I say that, my mind immediately goes to the whole idea of the prosperity gospel. for those not familiar with it, the prosperity gospel basically teaches that God wants you to be financially wealthy, and that you being wealthy is evidence of you having God's favor. examples of proponents of this theology are people like Kenneth Copeland, and perhaps most well konwn, Joel Osteen.
to my surprise, this movement does actually have a biblical "origin." they cite as a reference Deuteronomy 8:18, which says "But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today." now I don't want to spend this entire blog refuting this whole branch of theology, but I think there are a couple of things that appear to have been ignored when using this verse as fuel to fire a movement which is not exactly biblical in several other ways. one is simply that it seems the verse has been taken out of context, as many verses of the bible are, to support what someone wants it to support. the verse is actually a very minute part of a long list of laws Moses laid out for the nation of Israel. Moses is on the mountain, and comes back with the ten commandments, and then a few other laws that follow. the verse, to me, appears to convey a much different message than "riches=God's favor." it actually simply reminds the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, not to forget their God. warning the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, they shouldn't thank their own hands for it, is a little different than saying "you have found wealth, so you are in God's favor." Moses simply said this as a warning, not an indication of God's favor. a warning, by the way, that was entirely justified, since 1 Corinthians tells us that "God was not pleased" with most of these very people. the second part of the verse simply means that IN THIS SITUATION, God chose wealth AS A TOOL to bless people of this PARTICULAR LINEAGE. I feel like if God wanted to say that being wealthy was ALWAYS an indication of his favor, he probably would have said that. So there you have i:, we've taken a passage of scripture meant to warn against becoming people who God is not pleased with, and turned it into justification for gaining wealth.
anyway, this post is not about that. it's about being blessed by God, and that concept goes way beyond financial prosperity. there are three points I want to make about being blessed, so here we go:
God wants to bless us when we don't deserve to be blessed. this is a hard one for us to accept. our society is one that isn't exactly always a living example of the whole "unconditional love" idea. we have been firmly rooted in the idea that when you perform well, you are rewarded. if you work efficiently, you get a raise. if you play a sport well, you get a trophy. so for many of us, it's easy to carry this over to our relationship with God. if we perform well religiously, then God will bless us. the more Christian music we listen to, the more people we pray for, the more church events we go to--okay, now I'm just poking fun at people. I digress (spelling??) my point is, when we give into our sinful tendencies as humans, we feel like there is no reason for God to bless us. the painful/relieving reality to this though, is that if that were true, we would never be blessed.
God wants to bless us when we don't feel like being blessed. this one may not apply to you, but I struggle with this a lot. I get in my moods where I just want to sulk. it's like I tell God, "I really appreciate what you're trying to do right now, but I would really like to just feel sorry for myself for a while. my life sucks, I know it sucks, just let me sit here and think about how bad it sucks. then I'll be fine." in retrospect I really feel like God says in response sometimes, "seriously kent? I don't mean to hate on my own creation, but that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." okay, so maybe he doesn't say that exactly, but that's what I would say to me if I was Him. anyway, the point is I think God wants to bless us to show us hope when we don't necessarily want it at the time.
When God blesses us, sometimes it's not gonna feel like a blessing. this, I think, is where I was trying to go with the whole prosperity gospel thing earlier. I think sometimes when we think of God blessing us, we think of money. I mean be honest, when you hear of God blessing someone, do you not automatically think of either falling headfirst into money, or getting a new awesome job, or in general just something awesome happening to you? I know I do, even though I know that's not the point. that's why so many people eat this prosperity gospel thing up! people absolutely love going to a church where the pastor tells them God wants to make them rich. well, it's either that or the fact that there's a spinning 20 foot tall golden replica of the earth in the background (ooo, ahhh). the fact is, God wants to bless us in many more ways than giving us money. you know the whole "blessing in disguise" idea? as cheesy as that phrase has become, it's true! looking back on my life (that makes me sound old), some of the most awesome blessings have been things that sucked entirely and completely at the time they happened to me. this is why I think the bible tells us that God wants to bless us. if He wanted to, he could have just said "I want to give you money and make awesome stuff happen to you." (of course he would probably put it a little more eloquently than that, but you get the point). I mean if you buy into that thinking, any time something bad happens to you, it's because of Satan. that's kind of ridiculous. anyway, this is starting to sound like the god vs. psychology blog, so I'm gonna stop.
but seriously, if any of you gets to go visit Lakewood Church, can you see if you can bring me back a piece of the golden earth? I really think God wants to bless me with part of it. thanks.
to my surprise, this movement does actually have a biblical "origin." they cite as a reference Deuteronomy 8:18, which says "But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today." now I don't want to spend this entire blog refuting this whole branch of theology, but I think there are a couple of things that appear to have been ignored when using this verse as fuel to fire a movement which is not exactly biblical in several other ways. one is simply that it seems the verse has been taken out of context, as many verses of the bible are, to support what someone wants it to support. the verse is actually a very minute part of a long list of laws Moses laid out for the nation of Israel. Moses is on the mountain, and comes back with the ten commandments, and then a few other laws that follow. the verse, to me, appears to convey a much different message than "riches=God's favor." it actually simply reminds the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, not to forget their God. warning the Israelites that WHEN THEY FIND wealth, they shouldn't thank their own hands for it, is a little different than saying "you have found wealth, so you are in God's favor." Moses simply said this as a warning, not an indication of God's favor. a warning, by the way, that was entirely justified, since 1 Corinthians tells us that "God was not pleased" with most of these very people. the second part of the verse simply means that IN THIS SITUATION, God chose wealth AS A TOOL to bless people of this PARTICULAR LINEAGE. I feel like if God wanted to say that being wealthy was ALWAYS an indication of his favor, he probably would have said that. So there you have i:, we've taken a passage of scripture meant to warn against becoming people who God is not pleased with, and turned it into justification for gaining wealth.
anyway, this post is not about that. it's about being blessed by God, and that concept goes way beyond financial prosperity. there are three points I want to make about being blessed, so here we go:
God wants to bless us when we don't deserve to be blessed. this is a hard one for us to accept. our society is one that isn't exactly always a living example of the whole "unconditional love" idea. we have been firmly rooted in the idea that when you perform well, you are rewarded. if you work efficiently, you get a raise. if you play a sport well, you get a trophy. so for many of us, it's easy to carry this over to our relationship with God. if we perform well religiously, then God will bless us. the more Christian music we listen to, the more people we pray for, the more church events we go to--okay, now I'm just poking fun at people. I digress (spelling??) my point is, when we give into our sinful tendencies as humans, we feel like there is no reason for God to bless us. the painful/relieving reality to this though, is that if that were true, we would never be blessed.
God wants to bless us when we don't feel like being blessed. this one may not apply to you, but I struggle with this a lot. I get in my moods where I just want to sulk. it's like I tell God, "I really appreciate what you're trying to do right now, but I would really like to just feel sorry for myself for a while. my life sucks, I know it sucks, just let me sit here and think about how bad it sucks. then I'll be fine." in retrospect I really feel like God says in response sometimes, "seriously kent? I don't mean to hate on my own creation, but that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard you say." okay, so maybe he doesn't say that exactly, but that's what I would say to me if I was Him. anyway, the point is I think God wants to bless us to show us hope when we don't necessarily want it at the time.
When God blesses us, sometimes it's not gonna feel like a blessing. this, I think, is where I was trying to go with the whole prosperity gospel thing earlier. I think sometimes when we think of God blessing us, we think of money. I mean be honest, when you hear of God blessing someone, do you not automatically think of either falling headfirst into money, or getting a new awesome job, or in general just something awesome happening to you? I know I do, even though I know that's not the point. that's why so many people eat this prosperity gospel thing up! people absolutely love going to a church where the pastor tells them God wants to make them rich. well, it's either that or the fact that there's a spinning 20 foot tall golden replica of the earth in the background (ooo, ahhh). the fact is, God wants to bless us in many more ways than giving us money. you know the whole "blessing in disguise" idea? as cheesy as that phrase has become, it's true! looking back on my life (that makes me sound old), some of the most awesome blessings have been things that sucked entirely and completely at the time they happened to me. this is why I think the bible tells us that God wants to bless us. if He wanted to, he could have just said "I want to give you money and make awesome stuff happen to you." (of course he would probably put it a little more eloquently than that, but you get the point). I mean if you buy into that thinking, any time something bad happens to you, it's because of Satan. that's kind of ridiculous. anyway, this is starting to sound like the god vs. psychology blog, so I'm gonna stop.
but seriously, if any of you gets to go visit Lakewood Church, can you see if you can bring me back a piece of the golden earth? I really think God wants to bless me with part of it. thanks.
Monday, November 12, 2007
I'm still alive (or, if you prefer: politics, politics, and politics)
So I know I haven't blogged in ages, so my vast reader audience has probably dwindled down even lower at this point (if that was even possible). Anyway, for those of you that are still listening, I have a solid topic for today. It's something I've kinda hinted at in several posts now, but not really gone any deeper than surface level. So here it is--Christianity and politics.
I realize this is a touchy subject, so if you are 100% convinced that the only candidate a Christian should vote for is a southern Republican from a Baptist background, and you get upset when someone tells you otherwise, you should probably stop reading now. Anyway, with the race for presidential nomination going full force (probably stronger than it should be at this point, one year before the election), I felt now would be a good time to throw my political thoughts out there for whoever cares enough to read them. Growing up, in a pretty decent sized Baptist church, I was constantly told (or otherwise encouraged) that the Republican way was the only way, as far as being a Christian goes. I even remember hearing the following DURING A SERMON one Sunday: "If you are a Christian, George W. Bush should be your candidate." Period. Not "I think Bush embodies many Christian ideals," or "Bush is the strongest candidate faith-wise," but more or less, "vote for him, or you're voting against God."
While I realize this might be an extreme, it's hard to ignore the die-hard positions a lot of Christians take when it comes to politics. Whether it's in presidential elections or matters such as abortion, gay marriage, or things of the like, there is very little "lukewarm" when it comes to Christian (especially Baptist) ideas on what and who to vote for. Now if there's one thing I want you as a reader to take away from reading this blog, it is NOT that we as Christians should be wishy-washy when it comes to politics. Not at all. I think we as voters should research ideas, find the things that align with our faith the most, and vote for them. Hear me out on that. That is important. What isn't important, though, is picking our choices, and then throwing them on other believers and non-believers while saying "I don't see why you wouldn't vote this way if you are really a Christian." That is ridiculous, unbiblical, and, well, ridiculous.
When talking to Christians about voting and politics, you hear something like this a lot: "This is a broken world, and it's not gonna get any better unless we have a person of faith and good morals in office." I have two major problems with this thinking. They are as follows:
1) This IS a broken world. It was broken from the very beginning, as a result of the Fall. From the first bite taken of that fruit, this was a broken world. True statement. The viewpoint that it is more broken now than it was centuries and centuries ago, though, is hard for me to believe. When we speak of this "broken world," we are most likely referring to a decrease in general morality of people, a general shift towards un-Christian living--stuff like no more prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments being taken down, to name a few. This stuff is all unfortunate, and in no way do I support it being done, but we have to look at history for a second. When Jesus came to earth, it was a pretty "broken world" as well. I might even go so far to say that it was a little worse then than now. I mean after all, at least here in America, we complain that we have to pray silently in school, forgetting that during Jesus' time, praying to God in a public setting may have very well led to your death. To play it on the safe side, the political situation of Jesus' day was JUST AS BAD as ours today, even if you don't want to say that it was worse. In spite of this, though, did we ever hear Jesus say to anyone, "This is a broken world. And I'm telling you, if we could just get this guy in office instead of Caesar, we could fix everything"? To my knowledge, he never said anything close to that. Instead, he went from village to village telling of a new kingdom, a different kind of kingdom, that would always be possible, no matter what the political situation was. Which brings me to my next point...
2) I mainly don't believe in this "voting for someone so the world can improve" thing because of what it implies. If I believe that we as Christians must vote for a certain political candidate so the world can see a change in the direction of the kingdom of God, I must also believe that Christ is unable of changing the world under a different political candidate. And that, my friend, is simply a load of crap. I firmly believe that when God decides there is going to be a massive movement that will reach the entire world for Him, it will not make a bit of difference if Rudy Guliani is president, or if Billy Graham is in office.
Lastly, and bear with me as this may be my most "liberal" idea of the day, is this: Let's just say that we get the perfect Christian candidate in office for President. And why stop there? Let's say we also have elected a 95% Christian Congress too. Meanwhile, we have gotten every piece of legislation passed that we, as Christians, considered Biblical. Prayer is back in schools, and the Ten Commandments are now posted on every street corner. What have we really accomplished? By that I mean this. Is the ultimate goal for us as followers of Christ to get the world's laws to align with our beliefs? Or is the ultimate goal to reach people for Christ, no matter what the situation? I personally can't imagine one more person being saved these last four years because we have George Bush in office rather than John Kerry (a lot of people may even argue that the opposite is true).
I guess, to summarize, it's not that I don't think Christians or churches should be involved in politics. They should, to a certain degree. But I have to believe there are probably better ways to spend our time.
I realize this is a touchy subject, so if you are 100% convinced that the only candidate a Christian should vote for is a southern Republican from a Baptist background, and you get upset when someone tells you otherwise, you should probably stop reading now. Anyway, with the race for presidential nomination going full force (probably stronger than it should be at this point, one year before the election), I felt now would be a good time to throw my political thoughts out there for whoever cares enough to read them. Growing up, in a pretty decent sized Baptist church, I was constantly told (or otherwise encouraged) that the Republican way was the only way, as far as being a Christian goes. I even remember hearing the following DURING A SERMON one Sunday: "If you are a Christian, George W. Bush should be your candidate." Period. Not "I think Bush embodies many Christian ideals," or "Bush is the strongest candidate faith-wise," but more or less, "vote for him, or you're voting against God."
While I realize this might be an extreme, it's hard to ignore the die-hard positions a lot of Christians take when it comes to politics. Whether it's in presidential elections or matters such as abortion, gay marriage, or things of the like, there is very little "lukewarm" when it comes to Christian (especially Baptist) ideas on what and who to vote for. Now if there's one thing I want you as a reader to take away from reading this blog, it is NOT that we as Christians should be wishy-washy when it comes to politics. Not at all. I think we as voters should research ideas, find the things that align with our faith the most, and vote for them. Hear me out on that. That is important. What isn't important, though, is picking our choices, and then throwing them on other believers and non-believers while saying "I don't see why you wouldn't vote this way if you are really a Christian." That is ridiculous, unbiblical, and, well, ridiculous.
When talking to Christians about voting and politics, you hear something like this a lot: "This is a broken world, and it's not gonna get any better unless we have a person of faith and good morals in office." I have two major problems with this thinking. They are as follows:
1) This IS a broken world. It was broken from the very beginning, as a result of the Fall. From the first bite taken of that fruit, this was a broken world. True statement. The viewpoint that it is more broken now than it was centuries and centuries ago, though, is hard for me to believe. When we speak of this "broken world," we are most likely referring to a decrease in general morality of people, a general shift towards un-Christian living--stuff like no more prayer in schools and the Ten Commandments being taken down, to name a few. This stuff is all unfortunate, and in no way do I support it being done, but we have to look at history for a second. When Jesus came to earth, it was a pretty "broken world" as well. I might even go so far to say that it was a little worse then than now. I mean after all, at least here in America, we complain that we have to pray silently in school, forgetting that during Jesus' time, praying to God in a public setting may have very well led to your death. To play it on the safe side, the political situation of Jesus' day was JUST AS BAD as ours today, even if you don't want to say that it was worse. In spite of this, though, did we ever hear Jesus say to anyone, "This is a broken world. And I'm telling you, if we could just get this guy in office instead of Caesar, we could fix everything"? To my knowledge, he never said anything close to that. Instead, he went from village to village telling of a new kingdom, a different kind of kingdom, that would always be possible, no matter what the political situation was. Which brings me to my next point...
2) I mainly don't believe in this "voting for someone so the world can improve" thing because of what it implies. If I believe that we as Christians must vote for a certain political candidate so the world can see a change in the direction of the kingdom of God, I must also believe that Christ is unable of changing the world under a different political candidate. And that, my friend, is simply a load of crap. I firmly believe that when God decides there is going to be a massive movement that will reach the entire world for Him, it will not make a bit of difference if Rudy Guliani is president, or if Billy Graham is in office.
Lastly, and bear with me as this may be my most "liberal" idea of the day, is this: Let's just say that we get the perfect Christian candidate in office for President. And why stop there? Let's say we also have elected a 95% Christian Congress too. Meanwhile, we have gotten every piece of legislation passed that we, as Christians, considered Biblical. Prayer is back in schools, and the Ten Commandments are now posted on every street corner. What have we really accomplished? By that I mean this. Is the ultimate goal for us as followers of Christ to get the world's laws to align with our beliefs? Or is the ultimate goal to reach people for Christ, no matter what the situation? I personally can't imagine one more person being saved these last four years because we have George Bush in office rather than John Kerry (a lot of people may even argue that the opposite is true).
I guess, to summarize, it's not that I don't think Christians or churches should be involved in politics. They should, to a certain degree. But I have to believe there are probably better ways to spend our time.
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