PublicChristian

Here’s the article I wrote for our church’s monthy newsletter for January. We need, want, and should want lots of good things. But I was looking for a list specific to a local church’s situation. This is derived from the first of the two letters we have from Paul to the church of the Thessalonians.

While it is local-church specific, it seems to me to have profound applications and implications far beyond that scope.

What Does God Want To Do Here in 2009?

That question – What does God want to do here in 2009? – no doubt has some answers we cannot figure out here in January.

But I think God has made a lot of it pretty apparent. Here’s a short Bible study from I Thessalonians – looking for what had been seen, or would be seen, as desirable developments in the believers in Thessalonica.

God wants to see more people doing / experiencing these things, and these things being done better and more consistently. What do you think of this list? Does any part of it particularly stand out to you?

1. PEOPLE WITH FAITH AND LOVE.

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“I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people.” Luke 2:10

Is God Sending Joy for ALL People?

Yes! Joy to those feeling terrible because they’ve been inattentive to God:

All the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. Nehemiah said, This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
Nehemiah 8:9-10

Yes! Joy to those for whom God has already done great things:

The LORD has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.
Psalm 126:3

Yes! Joy to those weeping, who desperately need God to do great things:

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Here are two very important words of advice we are not allowed to follow:
1. Pick your parents very carefully.
2. Pick the century and year of your birth carefully.

Jeremiah, often called “the Weeping Prophet,” perhaps did ok in picking his parents, but he picked a horrible time-frame in which to work!

Below is a list I found of short descriptions of this prophet.*

1. He was at once gentle and tenacious, affectionate and inflexible.

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Daily Bible Readings, with Questions
(These are handed out in the bulletin on Sunday mornings; I select the readings to follow up on the sermon. The questions are just to help us get into each selection.

This is the list from Aug 24 when I was not here and did not know what the sermon would be. There are more of these at fbchastings.org)

MONDAY:  
Psalm 27:4-5

     1. This man (King David) is very much a political and military activist. What does he say is the “one thing” he asks for?

     2. What good will that do when he is under attack?

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Jesus did NOT tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. That would have been absurd. His entire ministry is utterly at odds with such a preposterous idea.
- Walter Wink

I. THE PROBLEM:

Jesus said to “turn the other cheek”: » Continue Reading »

It might be a good project for each of us – to try to summarize the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 – 7) in 209 words.

Brian McLaren has done so, in his The Secret Message of Jesus (chapter 15, “Kingdom Ethics”, p 136). » Continue Reading »

I saw somewhere the other day, for the first time, the acronymn FWO’s – for “Formerly Well Off” persons.

The economic state of the USA is changing and people know it, and already there are increasing numbers of FWO’s. And maybe we – “we” as a nation that is, as a culture – deserve it, or at least asked for it.

The Bible has warned us for millenia of the deadliness of greed and the transitoriness of wealth. But we have made it the one inescapable determiner of what a person, a corporation, or national policy should do. It seems we are moving into a time » Continue Reading »

The moral issues Jesus actually paid a lot of attention to do not have a prominent place in many churches today, or in the work of many prominent religious agitators. I wonder why.

To see my short, nine-”chapter” article discussing how the Gospels present the moral concerns Jesus emhpasized, click here.

Some of us spent some time discussing John 15 Sunday morning. In the blockquote are some excerpts from the chapter, to refresh our memories.

Then there are six “simple” principles that stand out to me from the chapter. I say “simple” because they are simple to state. That does not mean they are particularly easy to understand, verbalize, or learn to practice.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener …

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first … As it is, you do not belong to the world …

‘They hated me without reason.’

1.      Source

We cannot bring much righteousness, justice, or goodness – “fruit” – into this world from within ourselves. It has to be Sourced through us.

2.      Jesus

That Primary Source is Jesus (or the Spirit of Christ).

3.      Connection

The connection, or the means of the transfer of this goodness, is not physical, but personal. That is, not material or even worldly, but relational, spiritual, moral.

4.      Purpose

This is the source or means of real joy in human life – because it is what we are made for.

5.      Priority

The priority obligation laid upon us by Jesus, explicitly and twice in this short selection, is “love each other.”

6.      Difficulty

This style of life is probably not a route to acclaim in this world.

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is unusual – for it’s length and for its “flavor.”

It is relatively long. Actually, it’s short by the standards of some preachers, but it’s long by New Testament standards, and there aren’t many prayers in the whole Bible that are longer.

To some – certainly often in the past to me – it feels rambly and incoherent.

But now on more careful familiarity it resonates for me with alertness and order. In fact it is almost stunning in its deliberate priorities, its insightfulness into the real world and its orderly approach to the great issues.

In this chapter we become eavesdroppers on a private conversation at a moment of great emotional weight and long-term significance for Jesus.

It’s between Jesus and the Father, but is a monologue (as prayer usually is). It’s very personal, but done aloud in the presence of a number of his friends (as prayer sometimes is).

I’m not here to write a sentence-by-sentence commentary on this prayer – that would take weeks of meditation and work – but just to commend it to our attention. I have read it several times over the past week or so, and highly recommend that.

Go to BibleGateway.com and copy it off. Remove the verse numbers and footnotes. Then just read it once or twice a day for two or three days – no annotations permitted. On the third or fourth day start making some notes on your printout.

Treat it with respect. Make the assumption that you are reading the output of a real person, a person of extraordinary insight, making a real prayer which has come down to us in close to its original form. That is an assumption that I believe will in this case pay valuable dividends.

What do you find? I’d like to know.

My wife heard on the radio the other day that resistance to Bush is clearly “Satanic.” “Christian” radio is promoting some strange ideas, but this is one in particular to be very wary of.

We do need to judge spirits, but according to Jesus backwards judging of the spirits is very dangerous. He says there is an unpardonable sin, and it has to do with mis-judging spirits – calling movements of the Good Spirit satanic.

Remember this story? 1) Jesus cast out a demon. 2) The powers that be in the religious world said he was a servant of the devil. 3) Jesus said,

“I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”

(Matthew 12:31,32)

They may have had problems with the history of Jesus, or with some of his teaching. But if they could not acknowledge that he really was going around doing good, then something was deeply wrong.

When you attribute to satan what is obviously good, well-intentioned and truthful, you are lining up with those Pharisees and hypocrites. And that is a place you don’t want to be.

And that’s what’s happening here.

I. Some Things that Clearly are NOT Satanic.

To speak out of a heart of integrity heavily burdened by the deceitfulness of this President and his regime (and it’s servants in the media) is NOT “Satanic.” It is just being honest.

To speak against contempt for the poor and catering to the wealthiest of the wealthy is not satanic. It is just caring what happens to your neighbor.

To speak for peacemaking and against dishonest, incompetent, and corrupt warmaking is not satanic. It is just trying to be a truth-teller and a peacemaker.

To speak against the manipulation of the churches into arrogant hatred of other Americans (and even of other Christians), as the radical right has done so much lately, is not satanic. To speak against false prophecy is just a way of trying to defend the truly prophetic.

II. When You Call the Activities of the Good Spirit “Satanic”, That is Blasphemy.

Jesus acknowledges that you could be wrong about him per se, and still be not a lost cause.

“Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven …” (Matthew 12:31,32)

But He seems to think you cannot be aggressively wrong about what is blatantly good and what is clearly bad in the realm of the spirit and still be reachable. You have lost a sense of the distinctions between what is holy and what is evil. You make yourself an outspoken servant of evil, and the good no longer exerts an attraction on you. You are really in trouble.

This is not always easy for a third party to judge. But the principle seems clear, and Jesus obviously thought himself competent to judge it.

When you see the good being done in a good manner by a good man – as they saw in Jesus – if you have any spiritual health or integrity you can at least recognize that good. You may have problems with the history of the person you are dealing with, or with some of their specific teachings. But if you cannot see and acknowledge those who are doing crucial good out of deep concern and at real risk to themselves, then you are negligent and need to start being more responsible, OR you have been very deeply corrupted.

III. Living in Fear is Not the Way Jesus Lived; It is Not the Way He Taught; It is Not the Effect of the Holy Spirit.

The American Christian right today peddles fear. It cultivates bogeyman jumpiness in the churches. And the fear becomes hate rather than hospitality (xenophobia rather than philoxenia – Titus 1:8, I Pet 4:9) There is also a refusal to practice listening to the truth as the antidote to fear. Without the antidote (truth and love) the condition just gets worse.

Conclusion

Judge the spirits. The spirit of fear, falsehood and hate is NOT the spirit of Christ. That, at least, we know for sure.

If we cannot see that many or most of those complaining about Bush and his ways are doing so JUSTLY, and on a basis of fact and truth, out of a deep concern for traditional American and ancient Christian values, then somehow or another we have become very deeply corrupt.

It is not a good sign. Obviously I am not The Judge. But I say we should be very careful about condemning those who are speaking the truth – it’s a very dangerous spiritual pattern to get into. It corrupts the judgment. So we find people who listen to voices like Rush because “he tells it like it is.” Wrong. He is a criminal, an inveterate liar, an abuser, a colossal hypocrite. If we cannot acknowledge where the liars really are we have a big spiritual problem.

“… out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him.”

(Matthew 12:34,35)

I wonder how this strikes you.

The Old Testament philosophy of history assumes that man grows and unfolds in history and eventually becomes what he potentially is.

It assumes that he develops his powers of reason and love fully, and thus is enabled to grasp the world, being one with his fellow man and nature, at the same time preserving his individuality and his integrity.

Universal peace and justice are the goals of man, and the prophets have faith that in spite of all errors and sins, eventually this “end of days” will arrive, symbolized by the figure of the Messiah.

The question is not whether it fits what we commonly hear as New Testament theology. But does it fit what you can actually remember – or reference – of the behavior standards of the Old Testament, of the hopes of the Old Testament?

I personally would say that, though it is very brief, it does capture a big part of the spirit of Old Testament hope and instruction quite well.

[The quote is from an Afterword in a copy of Orwell's 1984 that we bought during Chelsea's hospitalization in Omaha; it is by Erich Fromm, c. 1961.]

Isaiah 58 (like much of Isaiah) is awesome. For example, here’s verse 2.

2 For day after day they seek me out;

  they seem eager to know my ways,

  as if they were a nation that does what is right

  and has not forsaken the commands of its God.

  They ask me for just decisions

  and seem eager for God to come near them.

That needs no interpretation.

At least (I’d say) if we think it needs interpretation, that may be because we are unwilling to let it just say what it says. I suspect it means what it says, which is, at any rate, that the “nation” in his day looked pretty “spiritual”; still it sounds like he’s setting them up for some blunt criticism.

The implications merit drawing out – it is possible to appear to be what we are not, even in such weighty matters as seeking God, or being a nation that “does what is right.” And Isaiah is willing to be somewhat insulting to his hearers by wording it not as a direct accusation, but an assumption, saying “as if they were a nation that does what is right,” rather than “you pretend but are not”.

Then he give us one of those fairly common prophetic rejections of contemporary culture-religion. In this case, their formal days of self-humbling, or of fasting before the LORD, are not cutting it.

5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,

  only a day for a man to humble himself?

  Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed

  and for lying on sackcloth and ashes?

  Is that what you call a fast,

  a day acceptable to the LORD?

Sounds like they’re pretty committed to their faith.

But when Isaiah gets explicit about their offenses, he tosses their religious observences aside as less than worthless, and focuses instead on economic issues. Imagine that.

You know, if you collect all the Bible passages that focus on homosexuality they would take up less space than this one chapter. And this is only one chapter out of the many that focus on economic and political-power (justice) issues.

Why, then, does the American Christian-Republican (dominionist) movement (and power-bloc) talk so very little about injustice in economic and political-power matters? I’m serious. What’s the answer? Why do they not talk about it?

Anyway, Isaiah does get specific. The trouble with this kind of specificity is that it’s somewhat less than specific. It requires a careful awareness of one’s own society, and of one’s own actions AND their extended consequences, in order to discern the next possible steps to take in response to Isaiah’s criticism.

It seems clear to me that he expects his hearers to already know just what he’s talking about, since they apparently have positions of relative power and influence in their society. That is, they are in position to know the details he’s complaining about, and Isaiah seems to assume that they DO know.

I can imagine an internal conversation in one of his hearers:

“Well, maybe he has interesting, or at least emotionally appealing points there. But we do have good reasons for what we do. After all, these patterns have taken generations to develop.

But hmm, what about xxxx. He no doubt wants to complain about that. Well, THAT’s not going to change. That’s part of our way of life. It’s not really as terrible as he makes out. No, Isaiah. Just shut up. You are way out of line.

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

  to loose the chains of injustice

  and untie the cords of the yoke,

  to set the oppressed free

  and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry

  and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter —

  when you see the naked, to clothe him,

  and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

But what always hits me hardest in this chapter is the enormity of the promised blessings.

8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

  and your healing will quickly appear;

  then your righteousness will go before you,

  and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

Do we ever need healings – of many kinds – in this country!

This sounds like a moral “trickle-up” strategy for renewed national health. If we as a nation will attend to the issues God is “fussing about” we will find amazing and wonderful things following in consequence. Unfortunately what God is fussing about and what religious leaders are fussing about are often unrelated theings. But blessings like those in these next verses are clearly desirable whatever the precise meaning of the symbols is.

9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

  you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

  ”If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

  with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

  and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

  then your light will rise in the darkness,

  and your night will become like the noonday.

11 The LORD will guide you always;

  he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

  and will strengthen your frame.

  You will be like a well-watered garden,

  like a spring whose waters never fail.

Here are four potent r-words of blessing.

12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

  and will raise up the age-old foundations;

  you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

  Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

It’s strange to realize, but the people who listened to Isaiah could see archeological ruins in their country that went back hundreds of years, some that were even as old to them as ruins from Isaiah’s day are to us. They were signs of ancient prosperity and freedom – prosperities and freedoms long since lost and forgotten.

Isaiah is offering a way to recover lost prosperities and freedoms. That is a very big thing. And the core of his requirement – so that we might hope for such renewals – is in matters of economics and of political power.

Then there is a short reference to religious law, regarding keeping a weekly holy day.

13 “If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath

  and from doing as you please on my holy day,

  if you call the Sabbath a delight

  and the LORD’s holy day honorable,

  and if you honor it by not going your own way

  and not doing as you please or speaking idle words …

We know that, by the way he behaved on the Sabbath in the synagogues and outside them, Jesus repeatedly offended the religious establishment. And remember, as a Rabbi and a frequent leader in synagogue service, he was a part of that same religious establishment.

He also had high regard for the book of Isaiah, from which he quoted fairly often. In the light of the way Jesus (and later Paul) talked about holy days and special religious observances – and in light of how Isaiah himself talked about such things earlier in this chapter and elsewhere throughout the book – I think we have to regard this injunction about Sabbath-honoring in a way that is not just about formal religious law-keeping.

Anyway, I apply verse 13 to myself something like this:

Your whole life is a gift from God, and finds meaning in your enjoying that fact, and in continuously giving it all back to God. Do not just drift; do not just waste time, energy, money, etc. doing whatever comes along or whatever “everyone else” is doing. Attend with respect and love to the presence and gifts of God in and around your life on a daily basis. Let there be meaning – recognize and enjoy the meaning – in all you say and do. Then you will find yourself becoming a participant in the awesome blessings promised in this context.

I believe that.

Egalitarian: adj. affirming political, economic, and social equality for all
[< Fr. egalite]

Defined that way, I’d have some problems with the idea, unless we’re pretty careful how we define “equality”.

But the Bible certainly touches related issues. I have found a couple of lines in the Old Testament recently that shed some light on the question of the relative value of people of different social or economic classes.

Job 31:13-15

If I have denied justice to my menservants and maidservants when they had a grievance against me, what will I do when God confronts me?

What will I answer when called to account?

Did not he who made me in the womb make them?
Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?

Nehemiah 5:1-6

Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.”

Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.”

Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”

When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.

And guess what. Nehemiah was not angry at the outcry nor at those making the charges. He did not have that vigorous self-insulation from reality that some in high positions have today.

And this clearly has serious implications for public (and private) social policy – for how we treat each other and how we talk about each other in our society.

I promised to share some responses I got in church when I read two lists of questions from the pulpit a couple of weeks ago. (The two lists are at the bottom of this post.) I had asked the congregation to watch for differences between the two lists. Their initial responses focused on the following issues. [The "first" list is one being promoted by Dobson and others as representing a "Christian worldview." ]

Both lists are at the bottom of this post.

• There is no love in the first list.
• The first list requires only yes or no answers. The second list requires a lot more.

» Continue Reading »

Sermon Title: What Should We Emphasize In Order to Promote True Christianity in This Country?

I “preached” Sunday. (Some say what I do is not really “preaching”, but that’s another question.) We began with these two lists of questions, and me asking what differences they could detect between the lists as I read them. The congregation had them on a handout so they could follow along.

Here’s list #1 – Eight questions to solve (or create?) the “9% problem.” These are questions that George Barna (the pollster) used so he could discover how many church attenders actually have a truly Biblical worldview. He concluded that only 9% of professing American Christians do.

1. Do absolute moral truths exist?

2. Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?

3. Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?

4. Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?

5. Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?

6. Is Satan real?

7. Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?

8. Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?

Here’s list #2: – more questions, also difficult, but from the New Testament – from Jesus and the Apostles. The above list piqued my curiosity – I wondered what questions Jesus would be asking if he were circulating among the churches today. (”If he were”??!!) So I went browsing in my Bible. Here are some questions I found in the New Testament.

1. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? (Lk 6:46)

2. What shall I do, Lord? (Acts 22:10)

3. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (I Jn 3:17)

4. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? (Mt 16:2)

5. How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? (Jn 5:44)

6. If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? (Lk 6:33)

7. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Lk 6:41)

8. Who is wise and understanding among you? (Jas 3:13)

9. Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? (James 2:5)

10. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? (Gal 3:2)

What differences do you detect between these two lists? We’re not being fussy here – just want some feedback / observations. (I learn a lot that way!) I’ll comment further in a couple of days or so, and will include 2 or 3 of the responses we got to that query on Sunday morning.

The Bible fairly often makes a direct connection between the desolation of a land (and its people – and, obviously, its economic life) and moral corruption in the people’s prior social, legal, and economic patterns.

Here’s an example from Zechariah 7. The residents are a small fraction of the numbers present 80 years prior. They live among ruins and in largely unsettled country, though they are making serious efforts to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple and surrounding towns. They see the ruins and the surrounding emptiness every day.

The prophet refers them back to messages brought by prophets to their ancestors – people who lived in these very towns not all that long prior. Here is Zechariah’s summary of those earlier warning messages.

This is what the LORD Almighty says:

1. Administer true justice;
2. show mercy and compassion to one another.
3. Do not oppress
• the widow
• or the fatherless,
• the alien
• or the poor.
4. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.

What a list. Get a load of #4! For THOSE things they were willing to see their enitire nation, economy, people made a desolation. THOSE are the things God really cares about. Wow. What a surprise.

Those messages of the past were ignored, and the desolation that came, in which Zechariah and his countrymen were living, is blamed on that prior rejection of God’s priorities.

But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.

Wow again. That is energetic stubborness, vigorous stupidity! I think the same pattern – of stubborn stupidity followed by desolation – can be expected to repeat itself even in our “modern” and “advanced” cultures and economies. In fact I think the pattern IS on track to repeat itself.

See how simple and logical – and unpleasant – is the LORD’s comment.

When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.

It’s called giving credit where credit is due.

There are some parts of the Bible, even the “Old Testament,� that need very little adjustment in order to have clear and direct meaning to today. What do you think of this from Habakkuk, ch 1?

2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

God has some input for Habakkuk in response to these concerns.

6 I am raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people,
who sweep across the whole earth to seize dwelling places not their own.
7 They are a feared and dreaded people;
they are a law to themselves and promote their own honor.

8 Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk.
Their cavalry gallops headlong; their horsemen come from afar.
They fly like a vulture swooping to devour;
9 they all come bent on violence …
10 … They laugh at all fortified cities … they … capture them.
11 Then they sweep past like the wind and go on —
guilty men, whose own strength is their god.”

Afghanistan, Iraq, next Iran, maybe Hamas … “they capture them. Then they sweep past like the wind and go on.â€?

14 You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
15 … he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet;
and so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet,
for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?

James L. Evans, pastor of Auburn First Baptist Church in Auburn, Alabama, recently wrote about the sins that cities (and nations) might be judged for in the light of Biblical complaints about Sodom.

He points out that Sodom, or “Sodom and Gomorrah” are commonly used as shorthand for homosexual licentiousness pervading a culture, and that

“Nearly everyone agrees that what the men of Sodom had in mind was homosexual rape … Many Bible interpreters believe that what really got God going was the homosexual element in the story. After all homosexual practices are called an “abomination,” in the book of Leviticus. But then, so is eating shrimp, so we have to wonder how far does an abomination go?”

“One way to answer that question is to observe how large the homosexual issue seems to be in the rest of the Bible. For instance, Jesus doesn’t say anything about homosexual practices at all.”

» Continue Reading »

I recently put an article up over at BibleWeek about faith, discussing the first few verses in the book of James. What is the faith the Bible requires? You may not agree with my conclusions, but in a Christian context it is surely an important question. It’s kinda long so here are some excerpts:

the easy assumption is that “believe and not doubt” means either

1. “have strong feelings of confidence or certainty”, or
2. “be intellectually certain of something, know the truth of some particular statement.”

1. If “believe” means “have strong feelings of hope or confidence” then the vast majority of us do not believe all the time …

2. If “believe” means to be intellectually certain about, then there are many areas in all our lives about which we want to pray but we do not “believe” in this way …

But the primary meaning of “believe” (”faith” “trust” etc.) in the Bible is NOT either of those above two meanings.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BELIEVE?

3. … In fact, the Biblical idea of faith in God or believing in God is about one’s heart. It is not about assent to a creed, or feeling good about things, but a matter of the commitment of one’s heart.

The setting of one’s heart does involve emotions, certainly, but does not depend on emotion. It respects and uses intellect and reason, but it can go beyond what intellect can evaluate or approve. I think having one’s heart set on God – God’s good will, God’s being smarter than we are, God’s excellent moral insight – is what James is talking about here.

If you expect God to give you the wisdom you need – if you expect God to help you discern when and how you must persevere – then you need to have bought, down in your own heart, into God’s character and God’s competence in the long run to manage things very well.

What it’s not:
* That doesn’t mean you fully understand it.
* It doesn’t mean you always feel “up” about it.
* It doesn’t mean that you pretend everything is going to be easy or even marginally pleasant.
* It doesn’t mean you know how to go about progressing in God’s plans for you or for the human race.
* You don’t have to know how it all comes together.
* You don’t have to be succeeding wonderfully in living Christ’s life in this world.
* And you sure don’t have to be trying to shove it down anybody else’s throat!

But you do need to be committed to the idea that God’s take on things is worth your own total involvement, that God’s values are worth pursuing, God’s power is worth trusting, God’s insights into human life are worth trying to understand and live by. …

This is profoundly painful. I’ve never been to New Orleans and have no connections there that I know of, but that is marvelously irrelevant. This could very well be the death of a major American city. This is not a portion of a floodplain; this is virtually a whole major city, under a LOT of water, probably for quite some time to come, and many with inside knowledge are not at all optimistic about the future.

“Weep with those who weep; mourn with those who mourn.”

And they are us. This is happening to us.

And New Orleans is only the worst. All along the coast there the devastation is terrible. At least there was warning and much evacuation, unlike recent experiences elsewhere in the world. But it’s a real taste of what “nature” can do to human plans and projects. And we’re still in hurricane season.

So are there lessons?

The flooding of New Orleans is quite possibly one of those situations we call “a disaster waiting to happen.” When you build a city in a bowl, on subsiding land, on a delta that is being destroyed – a city surrounded by lake and river levels significantly higher than the city – someday that bowl is going to seriously leak. From what I’ve been reading, it looks like it could have been postponed – but the Bush administration diverted funds because it wanted to continue pouring zillions into Iraq, cutting taxes, and underfunding all kinds of programs that would really protect the people of the US. That cutting bit most of us and may yet bite us much more severely; it seems it has already badly bitten the people of New Orleans.

Postponement of “disasters waiting to happen” CAN be done, when people behave responsibly. It is smart and ethical to try to do so. We CAN commit ourselves to realistic assesments, and to adjustments and preparations so the disaster never does really happen. We can take actions to remove ourselves from harm’s way, and to reduce the impact of the harmful events themselves. But we didn’t take those routes.

So maybe the biggest lesson is just that our own irresponsibility as a nation (as a state, a city, etc.) is our greatest coming judgment. There are after all other “disasters waiting to happen” that could make New Orleans look pretty minor, and our continuing refusal to face facts and act on them will guarantee that at least some of these huge disasters come to fruition.

• huge quantities of nuclear weapons material left inadequately guarded in, for example, the former USSR, because we won’t spend the money to secure them,
• unprotected US ports where nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons or components can be brought in with great ease
• massive rampant US government debt destabilizing the entire world economy (this is not an overstatement)
• galloping fuel price rises that will very soon start dropping a whole lot of us into practical poverty and will severly disrupt the national and world economies
• a corruption-ridden US government that makes anything that has gone before look real clean and holy by comparison
• continuing global warming producing continuing climatic and weather abnormalities and excesses
• the US government making enemies and undermining friendships all around the world
• etc.
• etc.

So if it’s a judgment of God on America, the principles by which God judges apply to far more places than the Gulf Coast.

Some are saying that photos of the hurricane looked like a fetus, so this must all be taken as God’s judgment on America’s abortion habit. Well, maybe. That is certainly a morally and culturally destructive habit, a “justice issue” of the type that the Bible often complains about.

But if we want to go by what it “looks like”

• It also looks like one of those Dairy Queen “Blizzard” ice-cream dishes. (I’m serious here, so hang on.) So it may be a judgment on American diet, health, obesity (and over-thinness) problems. And those problems kill more people and cause more distress in lives on all our streets than abortion does.
• It also looks like a great deal of water. Maybe it’s judgment on our contempt for our water sources (surface and groundwater) and our pollution of the water we do use.
• It also looks a lot like a storm. Maybe it’s a judgment for the storm we have unleased on Iraq, without real provocation, and without good planning or realistic objectives. That’s also a kind of abuse the Bible often complains about.

Here’s a quote from Isaiah 1:15-26, written when there was much terror around and great danger to every city of Isaiah’s nation, including Jerusalem itself. In fact, all those cities except Jerusalem went up in flames (smoke that could in many cases be seen from the walls of Jerusalem). And Jerusalem itself escaped the destruction only by an incredible last-minute miracle.

When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.

Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!

Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.

Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool …

Your rulers are rebels, companions of thieves; they all love bribes and chase after gifts. They do not defend the cause of the fatherless; the widow’s case does not come before them.

The section ends with some hope, but only after judgment. Isaiah 58 is similar, with very powerful and profound hope, including “you will be called repairer of the breach … restorer of streets with dwellings”! But there has to be serious repentance, which means acceptance of reality, acceptance of responsibility, determination to avoid oppressions (deliberate or unwitting), and genuine and effective love of our neighbors (who are, after all, just part of us). Those things are the moral issues and family values for which we will be held accountable.

Here are some thoughts I derived from spending time with Luke 12: 1-15. As you will see, I’m just pulling some general principles here, not applying them to specific situations around us. I think some of the applications are obvious, others need to be more tailored.

This passage starts with a very large crowd gathering. It’s an exciting time, and maybe even a somewhat dangerous time. So what does Jesus do? He pulls the 12 disciples apart for a warning. Under those circumstances, this warning would carry some special weight. Everybody is a bit “up� for the occasion. So a pause for a warning here would be significant and would be remembered.

The warning? “Be on your guard against … hypocrisy.â€?

My paraphrase: “The Pharisees usually get the bulk of people’s attention in matters of God and religion. Now you guys are getting a great deal of that kind of attention. Be careful. We cannot imitate or fall into the trap of deceit and fraud that they fall into. Watch out; guard yourselves!�

Given that context, this selection’s five paragraphs became a series of five guidelines for how to stay morally and spiritually healthy even when you are attracting more attention than you are used to.
 

TITLE: Comfort and Straight Talk from Jesus on How To Stay On Track When You Are Attracting Attention

1. INTEGRITY

You have to be what you are, and your presentation of yourself in words must correspond to what you really are. Be on your guard about this.

2. FEARLESSNESS

How do you handle threats, explicit or implied? You remember who really can hurt you and who can only seem to hurt you. And you remember that to God “you are worth more�! It reminds me of that strange remark of Socrates, AFTER he had been sentenced to death. “I know that no harm can befall a good man.� Sounds like he knew something, as Jesus obviously did, about what is ultimately dangerous and what only seems dangerous.

3. LOYALTY TO GOD

The only explanation for “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit� that I find which fits what I know from the rest of Scripture goes something like this. Jesus is a concrete, physical, local manifestation of the good God. It’s possible for limited, finite humans like we are to see a concrete instance of Ultimate Goodness and misunderstand it. Even John the Baptist had his doubts. Many people today are attracted to or interested in God, but for one reason or another cannot stand going into the institutions that claim to represent Jesus in this world. So Jesus says, “everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.�

But there is a more profound choice facing every human. Will I pursue Goodness, or will I turn aside? And what IS Goodness, but the Holy Spirit? God is Spirit. God is Holy. God is Good – and God is not Good because God measures up! God is Good because that IS what God IS. If you choose in your life (and thus probably also in your words) to reject, discount, revile, walk away from Goodness, then you ARE blaspheming against the Holy Spirit. As long as you are doing that, there is no way for healing or forgiveness to come.

SO the lesson from this for when you are attracting attention: stay carefully and deep-in-your-heart loyal to that ultimate Goodness. Stay loyal to God. If you’ve been learning from Jesus, then that will mean maintaining your loyalty to Jesus and His word to you.

4. CONFIDENCE

Fearlessness (above) has to do with how you handle threats. Confidence is a part of that, of course, and threat is implied in this situation, but confidence is also an issue. It focuses more on the responsibilities and opportunities that present themselves than on the threats involved.

How do you handle the increased responsibility or opportunity that comes with increased attention? Keep trusting God. Keep practicing the other 4 of these guidelines. Don’t freak out and imagine that you can – or need to – control every aspect of what’s coming down. You can’t.

I am very sure Jesus is NOT promoting disconnection, irresponsibility, or refusal to think ahead. That would contradict how he lived and much of the rest of his teaching. He’s counseling calm and confidence in the care of God for you in this new situation. Which, by the way, frees the inner channels for the Spirit to guide us much more effectively than would otherwise be the case. As “the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God�, so also “the freaking-out of men does not achieve the righteousness of God.�

5. VALUES

Jesus makes a very strong statement – as he does a number of times in his career – that money is not the ultimate value, and greed is NOT a virtue. Be on your guard against that just as much as against hypocrisy.

[Here's part of a recent comment, dealing with American economic oppression around the world and the Biblical implications of that.]

“One thing that some of us who are concerned about the collapse of the global economy can say, which supporters of the war in Iraq probably can’t say, is that we hope we are all wrong. We hope we are misled, we hope we are off-track. We wish years of peace for us all, rather than logic kicking in, whereby this nation-state will reap what it has sown. A nation can’t go around splintering everyone else’s economy worldwide without eventually getting it all back in spades.“

Then the commenter references the following passage from Habakkuk as proof of that assertion.
Habakkuk 2:5-14

Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man, so that he does not stay at home. He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, and he is like death, never satisfied. He also gathers to himself all nations And collects to himself all peoples.

Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him, even mockery {and} insinuations against him and say, ‘ Woe to him who increases what is not his– for how long– and makes himself rich with loans?’

Will not your creditors rise up suddenly, and those who collect from you awaken? Indeed, you will become plunder for them. Because you have looted many nations, all the remainder of the peoples will loot you– because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land, to the town and all its inhabitants.

Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to put his nest on high, to be delivered from the hand of calamity! You have devised a shameful thing for your house by cutting off many peoples; so you are sinning against yourself. Surely the stone will cry out from the wall, and the rafter will answer it from the framework. Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and founds a town with violence!

Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts that peoples toil for fire, and nations grow weary for nothing?

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy;
No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure.
My eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me;
He who walks in a blameless way is the one who will minister to me.
He who practices deceit shall not dwell within my house;
he who speaks falsehood shall not maintain his position before me.
            - Psalm 101, verses 4-7 (NASB)

In Psalm 101, King David asks for the Lord’s blessing because he maintains a court (administration) of integrity.

The Karl Rove – Lewis Libby story is the latest in a line of stories that demonstrate that the Bush Administration does not walk within the (white) house in the integrity of their hearts (Psalm 101, v2). From Karl Rove to the Swift Boat Veterans group, they have slandered John McCain, John Kerry, Joseph Wilson and countless others in between. These tactics are not new to the President. One on-line news article detailed the history of Karl Rove’s political dirty tricks. In one of these incidents in Texas, he pretended to volunteer for the opposing candidate in order to steal letterhead on which he sent letters promising a good time in return for support in order to falsely slander that candidate. The Swift Boat veterans falsely slandered McCain when he ran against Bush in the 2000 primaries, and John Kerry when he ran against Bush in 2004.

As the CIA leak story has unfolded in the media, the president is pushing Congress to renew the Patriot Act. The day after the second transit bombing, police in London shot and killed a suspect, only to find out that he was a completely innocent person on his way to work. In a similar overreaction to Thursday’s London attack, the House of Representatives has passed the renewal of the Patriot Act and it is on its way to the Senate.

Within the past week, it was also revealed that the FBI has amassed 3,500 pages of documents on groups who disagree with the president’s policies. The administration appears to be as determined to silence dissenting groups as they were to attack Joseph Wilson through his wife. The same administration withholds information that it might be criticized with, first by refusing to grant the Senate’s request for documents on John Bolton, and now again with documents related to John Roberts.

In a perversion of the theological principles in Psalm 101 Bush’s eye [favor] shall be upon those faithful to him rather than to God, and he will continue to allow those who are not blameless to minister to him.
 

• By reneging on his promise to dismiss anyone involved in the CIA leak,
• by gathering information on those with a right to free speech,
• and by withholding information on his nominees,

the president has continued to allow those who practice deceit to dwell within his house and to maintain their positions before him. Despite the veil of Christian piety, this is an administration that cannot be trusted with the powers granted by the Patriot Act as long as it practices deceit and retaliation against anyone who disagrees with them.

It is as understandable that we may want the security we think is provided by the Patriot Act as it is understandable that the London police might overreact when they killed an innocent worker last Friday. However, the rights provided by the Constitution were designed to prevent exactly the abuses of power that have become status quo in recent stories. We should not give these rights up out of fear.

We should instead remember that fear is an instrument used by Satan to lead us away from God.

One incident often comes up in discussions of Jesus and the generally non-violent flavor of his teaching – the time (or two) when he overthrew money-changer’s tables in the temple compound in Jerusalem. [Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15, John 2:8]

I am assuming that the reports are accurate. I would like to point out a few things – to help us avoid the idea that Jesus here promoted the kinds of violence we tend to indulge in.

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