One Helluva Story

“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day.  At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores” (Luke 16: 19-21).

Preachers and evangelists have used this parable of Lazarus and Dives (rich man) as a story about heaven and hell. Allusions to the story are often intended to frighten people into avoiding hell at all costs and preferring heaven instead. 

But is this really what Jesus meant by telling this story? Is it a story warning us against hell and encouraging us to seek heaven? Actually I don’t think it is so allow me to explain.

It’s a parable. Jesus used parables as a means to convey deeper truths in less than obvious ways. In other words, one is wise not to read parables in a strict literal way. As a Rabbi Jesus often used hyperbole (an exaggeration not meant to be taken literally) as a means to convey how serious he was about any given issue or topic.

For Jesus it appears economic justice was a serious issue for him. Now please notice that I did not say economic equality. I think it would be rather naive to think that economic equality (everyone has the same income or accumulated wealth) is attainable in this life. I don’t believe it is. Remember Jesus once told us that we would always have poor people with us in this life.

So the story begins with Jesus describing the Rich Man, traditionally named Dives, who lived in the lap of luxury. His affluent lifestyle is contrasted with Lazarus, a beggar lying at his doorstep. 

Dives lived as if Lazarus did not exist (hint).

The economic disparity is pronounced as a means to point out how dead serious Jesus was concerning economic injustice. The gap between Dives and Lazarus is incredibly wide, just as the gap will be in the next life between the two men. This is the point of the parable and if we miss this we miss the real meaning of the story.

As a Jew Jesus believed that life was divided into two realms, one present (“this Age’) and the other future (“the Age to Come”).  

In other words, Jesus did not think of the afterlife in the same way that modern folks think about it: Heaven is up above and hell is down below. Such a view was foreign to Jesus and the rest of the New Testament authors, especially Paul (Check out Ephesians 1:9-10).

As I have pointed out in previous posts, the idea of heaven existing for departed disembodied spirits originates more with the Greek philosopher Plato than it does Jesus.

Also, Jesus tells us that Dives went to Hades not hell. Hades in the New Testament and Sheol in the Old Testament represented very similar concepts: A shadowy existence, the grave or where the dead exist prior to resurrection. 

So the featured point of this parable is not about folks dying and going to either heaven or hell (especially hell). This is not what the story teaches. In fact it teaches that when economic justice is not practiced in this Age there will be consequences in the Age to come, such as a radical role reversal described in the parable between Dives and Lazarus.

This parable is not intended to warn folks of an eternal hell in which one would be in eternal torment. This is the way it is often read and taught but quite frankly it is reading too much into the story.

Yes Jesus indeed warned of retribution in the Age to Come. All things will be “put right” as New Testament scholar Tom Wright reminds us. God is going to renew the creation and resurrection life will be the mode of existence in this New Age, this New Order as it were. Life itself will be reordered to favor all of creation (Isaiah 11).

In the meantime, the parable was intended to warn against stark economic injustice in the present Age in which we live. 

But we can strive towards economic justice for everyone to have enough to live on and be sustained in life. For there to be such a wide gap in wealth between the haves and the have nots is not the way God intended life to be ordered in this Age. 

Some years ago I was travelling on a bus from Santiago to the coastal town of Vina del Mar, Chile. For miles outside of Santiago I witnessed people, entire families living in houses made of cardboard  lined along the roadside and cooking on open fires. They were the poorest of the poor. This was not a parable but real people in real time. It was shocking to see.

As I looked out that bus window and saw cardboard box after cardboard box lined along the road I could not help but wonder if anyone of means in this country even cared about these people or that they even existed? I will never forget those heart-breaking images of what real poverty looked like up close. This was the parable of Dives and Lazarus in real life.

I thought to myself: “What in the world can be done?” 

I still struggle with this question when I witness the widening gap between the rich and the poor in our own country. What can we do? What should we do?

I believe the real point of Jesus’ parable is this: 

For those of real means who ignore the plight of the poor, as if they don’t exist, there will be an accounting, a reckoning, in the Age to Come. 

It's a harsh warning, but a warning nonetheless. 

To read this parable as if it was al about eternal hell in the afterlife relieves us of the responsibility to deal with the economic injustice in this life.

When Silence is Not Golden!

“Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.”

Those were the  concluding words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his now famous Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963). Dr. King’s letter was in response to eight white clergymen who denounced his nonviolent demonstrations against racial segregation in the South, encouraging him to allow the courts to settle the segregation issue in America.

I remember those days of racial unrest like it was yesterday. I remember as a teenager believing (mainly because that is what the adults in my town told me) that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a rabble-rouser who needed to be silenced.

I remember seeing the riots and the demonstrations by angry black protestors on television, as the Civil Rights Movement ripped our nation apart during the 1960s. I remember those televised images of fire hoses being turned on protesters and police dogs unmercifully biting them, and also seeing police brutally beating the protestors with nightsticks (It’s all part of a video history available for those who care to see for themselves).

I remember the infamous “white” and “colored” signs located in front of our town’s municipal building. I remember witnessing a black family being told to leave a restaurant on a Sunday afternoon and feeling a twinge of guilt but accepted it as “just the way things are.” 

I also remember the day Dr. King was assassinated and witnessing many of my fellow whites appearing gleeful over his death. I didn’t realize it back then what a huge turn my nation was about to make towards justice for all people, regardless of race, gender, or orientation. I also didn’t realize the huge turn that was taking place within my own heart at the time (that’s a story for another time).

The struggle for equal rights continued long past the death of Dr. King in 1968 and only recently have LGBT people been give the Constitutional right to marry one another. Racial, gender, and sexual orientation equality has been a long and bitter struggle for those who fall into those social categories. 

This past weekend I read Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail and was shocked by its contemporary relevancy for our own time. In fact I would suggest that every school child in America be required to read this compelling letter by a man who believed in and practiced non-violent resistance. His letter has become an important piece of the American Civil Rights history.

I suppose the most shocking thing about the Letter from Birmingham Jail was Dr. King’s disappointment over the silence of so many of the White churches and their pastors and elders during their struggle for racial justice. Writes Dr. king:

In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion, which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

Let’s be clear, there are troubling signs today indicating that the waters of injustice are being stirred once again, thus putting certain Americans at risk. 

The most powerful voice that would stand against this trending reversal towards injustice is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Church possesses the most liberating message afforded to any other social institution of our time. At the heart of the Gospel itself is liberation (freedom). In other words the Gospel and social action work quite well together.

Clergy in particular, especially white clergy, have a God given platform to speak out against any and all government policies that infringe upon the rights of all Americans, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Now would not be the time for silence. It would not be the time for white Christians to hide behind the stained glass windows of their sanctuaries as they wait for their eventual trip to heaven. The signs of what might be coming are clear enough for those who claim to stand for justice for all. Silence for fear of repercussions may be a good survival technique but it is not in accordance with the Gospel. 

In the words of Dr. King: 

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

I am convinced that our white churches are filled today with good people, good-hearted and well- meaning folks; folks who would never imagine we could turn the clock back to a more unjust time. My words are not meant to be a judgment upon them but are meant to be a challenge to consider the role we all could play in the future.

Jesus came to liberate us all from the things that imprison us and make us slaves. The theme of liberation is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is central to who we are as his followers to be sure.

Silence is not golden. 

In the words of Dr. King himself:

 “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Justice for everyone matters. It really matters!

Christ the King . . . A Matter of Authority!

Sunday is Christ the King Sunday and it can’t come soon enough. 

The Christian calendar revolves around the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ and for those Christians who worship in churches that observe the Christian calendar Christ the King Sunday appears just before the beginning of Advent. 

Hence there are church holidays such as Pentecost, Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and so on as opposed to national holidays like Independence Day, Veterans Day, Mother’s and Father’s Day, and so on. There is nothing wrong with these national holidays but for Christian worshiping communities the Christian calendar should take priority over the secular calendar. 

Christ the King Sunday is strategically placed just before Advent, the four Sundays prior to Christmas, which anticipate the birth of Jesus. And given the shape of our world today we definitely need a reminder of who the supreme authority of this world really is.

You see our world can be an astonishingly frightening place for many people, what with economic and political unrest shaping our global landscape, resulting in terrorism, wars, global climate challenges, disturbing signs of what appear to be an unhinging of Western culture and Democracy as we have known it, not to mention political, social and racial unrest right on our own doorstep. 

Let’s be clear, the world has always been a dangerous place but with accelerated population growth and the number of conflicting ideologies tensions seem to be increasing at a rapid pace.  All this unrest seems to be exasperated by a social media that provides a contributing platform for anyone who chooses to use it to his or her own assumed advantage.

This past 2016 presidential election reminds us of just how unstable our own society can be and the threats to its stability are not figments of our imagination. But we have been here before historically and it should not surprise us too much. Let us not forget how our own Civil War (1861-65) ripped the fabric of our young nation in two and how the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s divided America along ideological lines. Let’s also not forget the frightening days of the McCarthy era and the fear it inspired in the 1950s. 

Yet it just may do us some good to be reminded of who our Sovereign Lord is rather than placing too much confidence in the political ideologies competing for our support today.

Christians today find themselves divided over political allegiances when in fact our true allegiance ought to be to Christ the King.  He is and should be our ultimate authority. He is the One whose teachings are meant to provide guiding reference points for how we conduct our lives and to live faithfully as resident aliens in this world.

A lot has been written these past several months about how Evangelical Christians have sold their birthright in order to support their preferred presidential candidate. Some of the criticism has been scathing and unnecessarily unkind to be sure. 

We should never be critical of those fellow Christians who vote their convictions no matter how much we disagree with them or how much we believe their support of a given candidate harms their testimony as Jesus followers.

But . . . with that said I think it is important for all Christians to be reminded who the real King is in our lives and whose authority we owe our unconditional allegiance. 

Christ the King is our default authority in life.

Back in the late 1930s and during World War II many of the Christians in Germany supported their Nazi government and attended churches (Lutheran and Roman Catholic) that offered (if not by their complicit silence) its endorsement of Nazi polices, which as a political philosophy was based on racism and Arian (white) supremacy. 

But there were those Christians led by two courageous leaders, Martin Niemoller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer who gathered Lutheran congregations together that opposed the Nazi regime and its imperialistic policies. Those congregations became known as the “Confessing Churches” in Germany. They stood in opposition to what they perceived were antichrist policies of their government and they paid a stiff price for noncompliance.

Many of its leaders, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer were imprisoned and/or executed. Bonhoeffer was hanged just days before the Allies entered Berlin to end the war. His crime? His refusal to bend a knee to his own government authority and unfortunately it cost him his life.

His refusal to comply with Nazi policies was clear indication to all who his King was and it wasn’t Hitler or the Nazis regime.

The members of the Confessing Church were living and acting as resident aliens; they embraced the fact that they lived in this world but were not of it. Many lost their lives as a result of their courageous stand against those government policies that had come to be normalized in German society.

Perhaps American Christians might consider what their stance ought to be as part of their witness to their King. Quite frankly it is a stance we should have already decided to embrace long before now: Christ is King and Lord and under his authority alone shall we live. 

We need a Confessing Church in America; a church that does not support imperialistic tendencies within our own government; a church that stands publicly against all forms of racism, personal and systemic. A Church that stands upon the inclusivity of the Gospel, an inclusivity that values all people as born in the image of God; a Church that is the voice of all the powerless ones who live among us. 

To celebrate Christ the King Sunday is to acknowledge that we will live under the sole authority of the only King that matters in our lives—a King that loves all people, who has a place in his heart for every living soul should they be willing to accept him as the sovereign King whose authority they are willing to embrace.

Plato's Heaven or Jesus's Kingdom?

I think it goes without saying that the idea of going to heaven when we die is one of the most common beliefs among Christians today. The belief in heaven has comforted so many Christians over time. It offers hope that when a loved one dies that person will be with God in heaven forever. The idea certainly has provided preachers with adequate fodder for funeral sermons for sure.

The belief in a heaven, a place detached from earth awaiting those who are saved, is so engrained in our Protestant belief system that to question its Biblical validity would be considered heretical because it has become our Christian hope. 

For most of my Christian life I never thought it necessary to question the existence of such a heavenly place reserved for Christians only once they die. I never thought to ask whether such a place was Biblical or whether Jesus himself believed in such a place.

Well I finally learned that the belief in a heaven detached from earth is more a pagan idea than it is Biblical. Allow me to explain:

First, the idea that there is some such heavenly dwelling place for departed spirits was inspired more by Plato than Jesus. It was the brilliant Greek Philosopher Plato who lived about four hundred years before Jesus who taught that human souls once released from their physical bodies (prisons) floated off to heaven as it were, a place that was separate from all earthly and bodily reality.

Later a younger contemporary of St. Paul, the philosopher and biographer Plutarch, was influenced by Plato and helped inspire Plato’s ideas about this disembodied heavenly place into early Christian thought. St. Augustine for example, the brilliant 4th century theologian who was also influenced by Platonic ideas helped spread this notion of a spiritualized (disembodied) version of heaven. A version of heaven we have come to believe as soundly Biblical.

Second, but when we read the Gospels and the New Testament letters, especially those written by St. Paul, we get an entirely different version of heaven, one that is organically connected to earth by virtue of resurrection. In other words, according to much of the New Testament witness and Old Testament hope, heaven is not where we go when we die, but what has already been revealed in principle as God’s reign among us (kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven).

So the point I am making is that Jesus never talked about “going to heaven” when we die but he did talk quite a lot about God’s kingdom coming to us in the here and now. For Jesus heaven is the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven in our midst. 

I realize that this is a big pill for some to swallow but before you declare me a heretic please keep reading. The real Biblical version of heaven is much more than we could ever imagine and more to hope for than we would have ever thought. 

Growing up and well into my adult life as a Christian heaven was this place where the disembodied me would go when I die. It was a place populated with departed spirits (souls) from human bodies. I would be floating around up there somewhere among my family and friends who departed before me. 

Unfortunately this was Plato’s heaven rather than Jesus’s kingdom.

The Bible is fairly clear and once you see it, that heaven is what comes to us and not where we go when we die, it is impossible to unsee it. It was the belief of the New Testament writers, such as Paul, that Jesus inaugurated God’s kingdom (heaven) with his life, death, and resurrection. In other words, Jesus actually brought heaven to us and continues to be a reality we already experience, though not in all its completeness or fullness.

In his letter to the Ephesians St. Paul writes: 

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (also check out Romans 8:18-25).

For the Apostle Paul the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus set in motion God’s plan to untie and transform all things in heaven and on earth. Resurrection would be his method of choice. In other words, our hope is not in Plato’s heaven but in Jesus’s resurrection.

Our hope is in the "Age to Come" which is how the Biblical writers referred to heaven. Someday God is going to unite this Age with the Age to Come, a vision captured in Isaiah 11 and other Old Testament prophets. 

Finally in John’s Revelation it all comes to fruition: 

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.”

Plato envisioned humans drifting off in disembodied forms to some heavenly location far removed from earth and human life, as we know it today. Jesus and Paul and other Biblical writers envisioned heaven as the place where God unites all things in what the Bible refers to as the "kingdom of God or heaven" or the "Age to Come."

Our hope is not to go to heaven when we die, rather our hope is resurrection, which includes the transformation of all of God’s creation. So what happens when we die? Paul says we will be "absent from the body and present with the Lord." Which is to say that God will care for us in the meantime between death and resurrection, but not in Plato's heaven. 

Now we can sing the old hymn with a better understanding: 

“Heaven came down and glory filled my soul . . . ”

How Did Christianity Become So Bland, So Safe, So Risk Free?

There once was this unconventional Rabbi who showed up in a Middle Eastern postage stamp size country living under oppressive foreign occupation. He was born in a time of great social unrest and under the rule of the Big Dog (Rome) whose tolerance for native protest was absolutely zero. The landscape was littered with dying and dead corpses hanging on crosses for the crime of rebellion and sedition.

This unconventional Rabbi was not your every day religious leader. He opposed both the religious and political establishments of his day: unlike those smooth talking celebrity prosperity-minded preachers today whose own affluence would have disgusted the Rabbi or those who sided up with the ruling secular authorities and thus compromised their true allegiance to God.

This unconventional Rabbi focused on those at the bottom of the food chain, on the outcasts and the disenfranchised: Those whom we might call ”homeless” today; on the strangers we would call immigrants, on the poor we refer to as welfare moochers, and on women whose voices were muted and the racially mixed half-breed Jews (Samaritans) who represented the minorities of his day.

This unconventional Rabbi even called a crooked and deeply flawed government agent to repentance and then went home with him for lunch (Zacchaeus). I am certain the church lady was mortified over his “unspiritual” conduct.

For the sick and the infirmed he brought compassion, healing, and hope into their miserable lives, especially to those who had been banished to the outskirts of their own village or city because of their disease. 

This unconventional Rabbi shook up the power systems of his day. There were those within his own tribe who were calling for armed revolt against the Big Dog but the Rabbi shook them off by saying that if they aspired to be called “children of God” then they would be “peacemakers.” 

This unconventional Rabbi drew a sharp distinction between a faithful allegiance towards the Empire and a faithful allegiance towards God. One of his later followers summed up this allegiance in what became known as the earliest Christian confession on record: “Jesus is Lord”, implying that Cesar was not (or any other future Head of State).

This unconventional Rabbi demonstrated that the greatest power the world would ever know would not come about by splitting an atom or by Shock & Awe battlefield tactics or by building a huge military industrial complex, but rather by self-giving love. He showed the world that the most cleansing and powerful act available to us is the power of forgiveness: “Father forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” In so doing he repudiated all forms of revenge seeking violence. He turned the ancient eye-for-an-eye ethic completely on its head. He disavowed retribution as a legitimate response to being wronged.

This unconventional Rabbi amassed a small band of followers who extended his method and message beyond the borders of his native country. Except for the one who betrayed him all his original followers gave their lives (literally) because of their allegiance to this unconventional Rabbi.

Many of the early followers of this unconventional Rabbi rejected the unscrupulous ways of the Empire and rather chose to embrace the principle of self-giving love as the guiding directive for their lives. They rejected violence and they refused to participate in the war making policies of the Empire in which they lived. In fact it was illegal for these early Jesus followers to serve in Rome’s army.

But something happened along the way: The Way (what these early Jesus followers were called) were co-opted by the dominant Roman Empire of the 4th century and the once peace loving movement inspired by an unconventional Rabbi came to be the dominant institutional religion of the Empire. 

The Cross became the symbol of a tragic collusion between the State and the Church. The two became indistinguishable. Synergism had raised its ugly head for all to see. We've yet to recover from this tragic collision between Christianity and Empire.

The term “Christian Patriot” had yet to be born but the seeds for such an idea were firmly planted.

War and violence finally received ecclesial blessings so long as the proper justification could be made—and it was. Out of this unfortunate collusion was born the Just War theory that many American Christians hold so dear today.

Then we did something else to the unconventional Rabbi’s message: We turned it into an escape mechanism whereby those who believe the right things about Jesus and say a little magical sinner’s prayer get to escape from this world when they die. Life in this world was devalued and deemphasized for the sake of the afterlife promised to all who believe in Jesus. 

The promise of heaven (Plato’s disembodied heaven no less) then became understood as Jesus’s primary mission rather than the God inspired transformation of life on earth. In other words, heaven became the reason why Jesus died in the first place.

So the method and mission of the unconventional Rabbi was domesticated and tamed in order to minimize the risks of becoming vulnerable because of one’s faith. In other words, it became fashionably safe to be a Christian rather than being at risk for following the upside down teachings of an unconventional Rabbi. 

The unconventional Rabbi must be thinking today: “What has happened to the movement I inspired?” 

That’s a question I believe many of us are going to be forced to ask in the coming days. For me I think it is high time for a fresh reading of the Gospels and the letters of the New Testament that helped inspire a movement that turned the first century world of the Way upside down. 

It’s time for another such Christ-inspired upheaval.

Liberals & Conservatives: You are not the problem with America!

Liberals and conservatives: You are not the problem with America! 

You are not the enemy. You never have been. In fact we need both of you. Yet I often hear folks say the words “liberal” or “conservative” as if they represent a threatening contagion. Some actually believe if we could totally rid one or the other of you America would be great again. 

May I repeat myself: “Liberals and conservatives, you are not our nation’s problem.”

We are our problem, collectively speaking. If this election showed us anything it revealed a sickness unto death that exists within the collective hearts of our nation. Blaming those who hold a conservative view or a liberal view is not the answer to why we are so sick as a nation.

Author Gill Bailie provides us with a fitting description of an America that should be shocking to all Americans. Writes Bailie:

“Our cities are collapsing, our political processes are frayed and fragmented, our sense of historical responsibility has virtually disappeared, and most seriously of all, our social and psychological stability now seems imperiled . . . Our world is now convulsing with disorder and violence, vivid scenes of which are beamed into our living rooms and burned into our sensibilities every day . . . Essential social institutions are reeling in the face of a cultural meltdown the real nature of which remains a mystery” (Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads).

Bailie could have written those words on November 9, 2016 but he didn’t. He wrote those alarming words over twenty years ago (1995) and I am guessing he would say that the liberals and the conservatives were not the ones to blame for the troubling times in which he lived.

The crisis America faces today is the result of a much deeper problem that hides out in the darkest recesses of life. It is a problem that has been around for a very, very long time. There are times when it goes really deep in order to commit some of its most destructive and hideous work.

The crisis I allude to has nothing to do with the binary liberal or conservative ideologies that have come to define us these days. The crisis is the result of a deep dark spiritual sickness that manifests itself in the harmful ways we treat one another in both word and deed. 

Never have I witnessed so much verbal venom, say on social media, as I have during this past election cycle. The toxicity of this venom has reached near lethal levels. 

During this past election cycle I made it a practice to read the comments section on editorial posts as well as political posts on Facebook and I was stunned by the toxic levels on display in those comments sections. In many cases the anger was incredibly toxic.

I often thought to myself: “What in the world is happening to us? All this anger, all this disdain towards those who hold opposing views, all this blame casting and scapegoating, all this name calling as if we were middle school children, all the character assassinations that ultimately led to lost friendships and damaged family relationships.”

I am sure there are going to be quite a few strained family Thanksgiving meals this year and for some the Thanksgiving tradition will be postponed at least for a year.

Quite frankly, what in the hell has gotten into us all?

Well the sort answer is: 

We are a spiritually sick people.

We have sold our birthright for a bowl of pottage. We have abandoned the great Judeo-Christian Tradition that has played such an important role in shaping our Western culture, not to mention American culture and nation. We’ve given up on the tenants of a Tradition that provided us with accurate compass points orienting us towards a healthy and joyful life together.

So why are we shocked to learn that this Judeo-Christian inspired Western culture is coming apart at the seams? Why should this cause us alarm?

Well allow me be more specific: 

We have abandoned our responsibility to witness to and bear the image of God in the world for the sake of creating God in our own imperfect image. We have forfeited sacrificial love for the sake of a deeply flawed political ideology we believe will save us. We have turned our back on the Prince of Peace to follow voices promoting violence in the world, with nuclear destruction as the culminating outcome. We have turned our backs on the great spiritual fathers and mothers of the past and have begun listening to voices steeped in postmodern narcissism, consumerism, secularism, warfare, and nationalism--all voices of ultimate doom.

We have become a spiritually sick nation and we are now paying the price for our foolish abandonment of the Judeo-Christian Tradition.  Western Europe has been trending on this same path much longer than we have and are already feeling the destabilizing effects of its own spiritual sickness (e.g., Brexit). We have sold our souls to the devil and the reckoning is forthcoming. 

Bailie once again offers an alarming critique of our times: “The European Enlightenment has been a cat with nine lives, but it is now a spent force and the optimism it fostered is sputtering out.” 

So I say to all liberals and all conservatives: You are not America’s problem! 

The real problem is us and our own spiritual sickness. When we cast blame towards the liberals or the conservatives we are actually pointing a finger right back at ourselves. We are the problem. Both Christianity and America need a cleansing and a healing that only our faith Tradition will provide.

So before we start pointing fingers of blame and searching for scapegoats perhaps the best thing we Americans can do is take a spiritual inventory of our lives. Perhaps we can begin using the Gospel compass to chart our reference points that will guide us into a more hopeful and generative future.

I promise I will take that spiritual inventory of my own life. 

Will you?

Reflecting on Post-Election Confusion

I didn’t think this day would ever come: November 9. But it has and we should all should take a deep breath and start posting pictures of fun stuff on our Facebook pages. Please no more political memes for a while. Give it up. We need a break.

But I still am trying to get my head around my one confusion of what just happened in this Presidential election. So I am going to seek some clarity by doing what I do best: Think out loud on this laptop. 

Please know that my words are not intended to incite anger and they are not sour grapes. These are my personal reflections this morning of where I hope we all can go from here as Christian first and Americans second (important distinction).

My candidate did not win. I did my part. I voted. 48% of the American people elected Donald J. Trump to be the 45th President of the United States; he won by a margin of 51 electoral votes but also lost the overall popular vote. This was a stunning but not a landslide victory. It was not an overwhelming mandate from the American people. Sadly the results of this election still indicate that we are a deeply divided nation. We have work to do.

This is why Mr. Trump’s task in the days ahead is going to be challenging at best for him. Like his predecessor nearly half the country woke up November 9, 2015 an angry and disappointed electorate. So the next four years are going to be tough for Mr. Trump—and for all of us. 

But do not fear. There is hope.

A good friend of mine reminded me this morning that sometimes the “job makes the man.” We all can hope that this will be the case and for this reason I am offering my initial and conditional support to the new President elect (as I did for Mr. Obama and was proud to do so).  

Just as I prayed for Mr. Obama I will pray for Mr. Trump. I will pray for the wisdom he is going to need for him to unite this country and to assuage a lot of the anger many are feeling today; and those who are feeling that anger need a kind hand of outreach from those who are basking in Mr. Trump’s victory. So please spare us the “jail Hillary” suggestions and be humble in victory. That would be a good start.

Now with all that said I would like to make some concluding comments:

First, I do hope that those who did not vote for Mr. Trump (myself included) will be kinder towards him than many have been towards Mr. Obama these past eight years. I remember a friend telling me shortly after Mr. Obama was elected to his second term:  “He is not my President!” Let's give Mr. Trump the opportunity that he is indeed the President for all America before we pass such quick judgment. 

Second, respect the office of the President. As a former military officer I have never publicly disrespected a sitting President (not even in social media). As a retired military officer I will continue to uphold that tradition that was instilled in me many years ago upon entering the military. I will more than likely disagree with many things Mr. trump will do, but he is going to be President of the United States of America and as such deserves my conditional respect. 

Third and this is perhaps this is the most important thing I can say: I must from time to time remind myself that I live under the ultimate authority of the One in Whom I place all my trust, including my full unconditional allegiance.

With that said do I believe God had an actual preference in this election? I hardly feel comfortable making such a claim.

If you believe that God actually does manipulate elections in order to elect anyone to the office of President then yes the system is indeed rigged.

For all those on the losing side this morning: God did not rig the system against us. We humans did this to ourselves without any of his help. So please, be careful whom you blame for the results of this election, it is not God.

Yes there may be a part in our nation’s politics for religion but I contend that it should be minimal at best. Let’s not pollute our faith with the nastiness of our political campaigns; faith is too precious and valuable to do such a thing.

Look, how does anyone know with certainty what God wanted us to do in the voting booth. Well, we don’t know! So let’s not rub salt into the wound of those who are on the losing side this morning by suggesting God was not on their side.

To make the claim that God preferred one candidate to another, with the certainty some already have, borders on idolatry and reflects an Old Testament concept of God (a concept that Jesus transformed into a new reality):  

"My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place." 

Take comfort in knowing that all things pass in due time, that the world is not collapsing around us this morning (although the stock market isn’t looking good), and that our true citizenship is in another kingdom whose origin is not of human political design.

Peace be with you all! 

Pardon me, but I'm confused

Pardon me, but I am confused. 

A pastor friend of mine told me recently that Donald Trump’s admission about groping women was just locker room talk that did not concern him whatsoever. What concerned him the most was the possibility of Hillary Clinton appointing “Supreme Court Justices who might not reflect his own Christian values.” 

Pardon me, but I’m confused. What Christian values?

A man who has been married three times and running for President of the Untied States admits groping women and hitting on them, because he can, because he’s rich and powerful, is of less concern to my friend than who is appointed to the United States Supreme Court?

Pardon me, but I’m confused. 

By his own admission my friend is more concerned that newly appointed Supreme Court Justices be more in line with his own so-called “conservative Christian values” than one’s self-admitted predatory attitude towards women.

Am I missing something here? Am I just being too prudish?

Later over lunch I asked my friend what exactly he wanted from a majority of conservative justices? He replied: “There is really nothing specific other than I’m against same sex marriage.” I asked him if he thought appointing conservative justices would change anything regarding that issue. He said he didn’t think it would. 

So why am I confused?

I’m confused over the lack of ethical and moral sensitivity among many American Christians during this 2016 election cycle and just to be clear, I include myself in that number. It’s as if we Christians have become so desensitized to the ethical and moral failures of our would-be-leaders that we have lost our capacity for being offended by the inappropriate behaviors of those who aspire to lead our nation. 

This concerns me.

But let me be clear about this post: I am not condemning either candidate. They each have their issues to be sure. I am not critiquing either Trump or Hillary. I am critiquing the Christian witness that seems to be so weak in this election. So please spare me the comparisons between the two candidates. Each one is flawed and imperfect. I get it. 

I am just confused over how Christians are so willing to sweep aside what should be deeply disturbing violations of Christian sexual ethics and moral standards for the sake of political expediency, regardless of our motives (such as who might be picked as Justices on the Supreme Court). Even more troubling is when we Christians make excuses for such noted behaviors thus lending what might be assumed our implicit approval. 

I tell you old man Jerry Falwell must be rolling over in his Moral Majority grave right about now.

Look, we all fail in our personal lives. No one is exempt. Not one of us is above ethical or moral failures. But this does not give us permission, as Christians, to sweep aside the historic Judeo-Christian values that have given shape to our American culture since it’s inception, not to mention given shape to a robust Evangelical faith in America.

There is something deeply disturbing with the mental dissonance of my friend’s argument (or anyone who makes such an argument and there are plenty who do). Who he votes for is his business. I get that and regardless of which lever he pulls he will remain my friend. I am sure we will continue playing golf together.

But dismissing Trump’s predatory sexual comments as being nothing more than “locker room talk” is baffling to me. What if that woman Trump bragged about groping was your wife, or your daughter or your granddaughter? Would that make a difference in how you feel about such behavior?

Look, I understand that politicians are human, just like ordinary citizens—just like me. They are fallible and flawed human beings. There is no perfect political candidate anymore than there are perfect pastors or priests; he or she simply does not exist in either vocation. I think we somehow know this, don’t we?

So here’s the big question: 

When this election is all over, when the next President of the United States is elected on November 8, where is that going to leave us American Christians on November 9? 

What kind of ethical and moral platform will we have to stand upon then?

In which direction will our moral compass be pointing?

How are we going to explain our dismissive attitudes towards clear violations of Christian ethics and morals to our children and to our grandchildren? How are we going to explain how we have compromised many of the teachings of Jesus on moral and sexual ethics? How are we going to claim resonance with the so-called “family values” Evangelicals have defended for so long now?

The election is but a few days away and then the clean up begins in earnest. There will be a reckoning, believe me. Christianity for the most part has taken a serious hit over the past year and a half by its willingness to be co-opted into a very divisive and ugly political campaign. 

We Christians will have some explaining to do—I will have some explaining to do—if we ever hope to be relevant again in our own nation. I am worried that our credibility and integrity as ethical and moral agents of Jesus Christ have been seriously compromised. We may never recover in this generation. Yes it is that bad.

I am worried that our ethical and moral values that previously shaped us will be dismissed just as easily as some of us dismissed the unethical and immoral behaviors of our favored political candidate. Lord, forgive us.

America needs an ethical and moral compass to be sure. But what she really needs is someone to hold that compass in order to get a true ethical and moral fix. She needs voices trained in the very best the Judeo-Christian tradition has to offer. We are those compass bearers and we are those voices—or we should be.

But who is going to listen to us now?

I wonder!