tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63347446379685681062024-02-08T08:36:32.784-08:00Uncommon Sense CommentaryA discussion of political, social and cultural issues from an evangelical Christian -- but non-ideological -- perspective.BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.comBlogger492125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-76939789541131491922024-02-02T08:42:00.000-08:002024-02-02T08:42:25.285-08:00An inside job<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Recently I’ve noticed a meme on Facebook noting that
evangelical Christians had been warning about an “Antichrist” for decades that but
when one actually appeared on the scene they ended up voting <i>for</i> him.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I am of course referring to the narcissistic, arrogant
Donald Trump, whom exit polls reported in 2016 as receiving an astonishing 81
percent of the votes of white evangelicals for President of the United States
despite his lengthy history of corrupt business practices, racism, abuse and
denigration of women — and that’s just for starters. Another meme gave specific
Bible verses as to the Antichrist’s conduct and how they lined up with Trump’s
words and actions. (For what it’s worth, I don’t believe that the Bible teaches
about a personal Antichrist, just a spirit of such.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The obvious question is: How could so many believers be so
blind?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I have an answer to that, and it isn’t pretty: These folks
never considered that it might be an inside job.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">For decades, certainly with the advent of the “religious
right” in the 1970s, the focus of many parachurch ministries fighting the
so-called culture war became rallying the troops to fight outsiders — most notably
but not limited to the “gay lobby,” abortion-rights activists, “globalists” and
diversity advocates — to preserve a form of Christian hegemony. (Which is why
you have the heretical “seven mountains of culture” doctrine, which started
around then.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And on top of that, many of your conservative church bodies doubled
down on their commitment to “orthodoxy,” the American Protestant Episcopal and
Presbyterian churches splitting and the Southern Baptist Convention purging its
ranks of “moderates” for the sake of what we might consider doctrinal purity.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The trouble with all that remains that the witness of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, the heart of which has always been reconciliation,
ended up being pushed aside — and that’s the one thing that the devil cannot imitate
because the kind of forgiveness required to do that was never on his radar
screen. And when you also consider that many Christians beginning in the 1980s
ingested a steady diet of right-wing talk radio laced with bitterness and
resentment toward certain targets, a couple of hours of Bible study and church
attendance couldn’t compete with the hours of daily spiritual poison to which
they subjected themselves.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">All this led to the spirit of Antichrist mentioned in
Revelation but which has slipped the consciousness of much of the church to a
point to where the very words of Jesus, mentioned in especially the Sermon on
the Mount in Matthew chapter 5 through 7, are regarded as “liberal talking
points.” (And although I don’t have any empirical evidence of this, I suspect that
it’s also behind much of the “deconstruction” going on today, with folks who
grew up in conservative churches questioning the veracity of the Scriptures.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Which is why, if we really want revival in this country, we
Christians need to reject Trump openly — because, as things stand now, he’s in
God’s way. But more importantly, we need to look inward and recognize how we got
off-track because Satan almost never attacks openly, engineering small compromises
so that eventually God’s intent is papered over for the sake of power.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">And <i>that</i> is the spirit of Antichrist. </p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-15151469979768285532022-05-25T20:11:00.000-07:002022-05-25T20:11:44.965-07:00‘Clean up your own back yard’<p style="text-align: justify;"> When I was a child my parents had the album “O.C. Smith at
Home,” which was released in 1969. One of the songs on that album was “Clean Up
Your Own Back Yard,” two of its three verses referencing a so-called religious
prophet “telling everybody how things oughta be” but still in bed on Sunday
morning hung over from a night of drinking and a businessman who prided himself
on integrity having an affair.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It was the first time I ever heard that phrase, and I was
the kind of kid who in those days took things quite literally. And yet I knew
the point of the song.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Last week the Southern Baptist Convention released a report
that noted that it had kept a secret list of leaders who had engaged in sexual
misconduct. I won’t get into the details, but one of the concerns that top
leadership had was that, had that list become known, the reputation of the
association would have been damaged, compromising its evangelism efforts.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The sad part is that such leadership missed the point of
evangelism in the first place — not merely to get people “saved” but to encourage
them to live holy lives different from the world. And part of that is
recognizing one’s own shortcomings, sins and struggles thanks to the “unholy
trinity” of the world, the flesh and the devil.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Put another way, it didn’t appreciate the comprehensive
nature of sin. Many of these churches were leading the “culture war” against
abortion and gay rights, which generally take place <i>outside</i> the church, but
likely never about the things that went on <i>within</i> it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Of course, this is hardly news. Most of us got a glimpse of
it in 1987-88 thanks to the TV evangelist scandals and it’s since been repeated
in the Roman Catholic Church and with some “old order” Amish groups, so when it
happened again in the SBC, it took virtually no one by surprise.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What’s the root of all this? I would say pride — a desire to
appear respectable but on the inside, as Jesus said in Matthew 23:27, “full of
the bones of the dead.” Let’s remember that God sees all and knows all — and, when
things got out of hand, will tell all.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One thing that I appreciate about the Scripture is its
honesty. A few years ago it dawned on me that virtually every major biblical
character (except Jesus, of course) is recorded as falling into gross sin. That goes for Abraham, Noah, Moses,
Joshua, David, Solomon, Peter, Paul and a few others.
And that should give us pause as to what we think we can accomplish — that is to
say, if all <i>these</i> characters fell short in some major way, what makes us think
that <i>we’re</i> more “spiritual” or “enlightened?”</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I think some humility might be in order. Instead of shaking
our finger at “sinners,” I say we should look at ourselves soberly and admit, “There
but for the grace of God go I.” And not only that, but the Scripture tells us
to confess our sins to each other because in doing so “we will be healed.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In no way am I trying to minimize the emotional damage
perpetrated on victims of sexual abuse in churches; if anything, I don’t think
it can be emphasized enough. Nor am I trying to ignore the mercy of God through
Jesus Christ. That being said, however, God is a God of justice Who in the end
always gets His. That should fill us with holy dread but for some reason doesn’t
always.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">We can laicize or expel offending clergy all we want and
certainly should do so. But doing so won’t address the real issue — that, even
after conversion, we still have this bent away from God; as the hymn goes, “Prone
to wander — LORD, I feel it / Prone to leave the God I love.” And that means that
we have work to do in our own hearts, because if we can’t get that right our “evangelism”
will have no effect.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-32571299887040742202022-02-18T08:55:00.000-08:002022-02-18T08:55:28.137-08:00And if Trump dies ... what then?<p style="text-align: justify;">Over the past year, since Donald Trump was dethroned as
president but has since expressed interest in returning to the White House, one
of the questions on the lips of a lot of people, whether supporters or
detractors, is “What are his chances of doing so, and what would happen if he
succeeds or fails?” Should a run fail, some have suggested that a failed run
would result in an incident that would make the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection look
like — pardon the pun — a tea party.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But I think we need to consider another possibility: Suppose
Trump doesn’t live that long. That isn’t beyond such a realm, since he isn’t a
young man, in great physical shape and even, as we saw two years ago, wasn’t even
immune to COVID-19, with reports that he was sicker than he let on. (For a
while he defiantly refused to wear a mask, insisting that doing so made him
look weak.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And even if these weren’t the case, he’s a mortal like
everyone else and his time on this earth is limited. What bothers me about
Christians’ worship of Trump is that they almost assume that he is indeed
immortal and thus not subject to the normal parameters of life. As I’ve written
before, he’s seen quite ominously as a messianic figure who will remove power
from the people they hate — that is, “liberals” — and restore things to the way
they, shall we say, “used to be.” (Recall that was the misunderstanding of the
original prophecy of the Messiah.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That was the case with the two travelers on the road to
Emmaus, recorded in Luke 24, who didn’t recognize Jesus, who by this time was
resurrected, as He walked among them, but He opened the Scriptures to them — and
then vanished. The travelers understood that they had completely missed the
point — that he had come to redeem mankind, not just Israel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">We would be foolish to expect something similar from Trump
despite the prayers and singing of Christian songs before the riot of last Jan.
6. After all, we can be sure of this: When he dies, he will <i>not</i> be coming back.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p> </o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-20395046988253486062022-01-08T21:11:00.001-08:002022-01-08T21:11:45.867-08:00Overturning Roe v. Wade — be careful what you wish for<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">American anti-abortionists are likely giddy over the Supreme
Court’s tacit approval of Texas’ recently-passed draconian abortion law, one
that banned it when a heartbeat could be detected and that contains the power
of citizens’ arrest for anyone who assisted in procuring an abortion. They may
be especially excited because of their commemoration later this month of Roe v.
Wade, which removed most restrictions on abortion in 1973.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">If they’re Christians and thus believe that abortion will simply
end because they laid down the law so to speak, they will get a rude awakening.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This is for several reasons.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">One, the linchpin of the entire modern conservative movement,
especially the “religious right,” will have been eliminated. Republican
candidates in states that have outlawed abortion will no longer be able to run
against abortion, especially in “swing” states, and as a result, I suspect, a
barrage of urban-based liberal political action in a way we’ve never seen
before will result.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Because the “sanctity of human life,” despite what they might say,
has never been the issue. It’s always been a pretext for bullying.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">What most people don’t realize is that the “religious
right” didn’t even start because of abortion — it added it only as moral cover
for, in essence, segregation. In 1978 the Carter Administration removed tax exemptions
for private Christian schools in the South founded to circumvent court-ordered
public school desegregation — angering the likes of Jerry Falwell Sr., who
founded Moral Majority with the help of secular conservatives. That should give
you pause right there, because secular conservatives have never given a rip
about God, faith or religion — except, as both Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater
suggested, to manipulate religious people for the sake of power.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Another issue is that such secular conservatives
subscribe to an anti-biblical worldview in that the second of Jesus’ two Great
Commandments — “love your neighbor as yourself” — is at best abridged and at
worst totally ignored or trashed. Sometimes doing what’s right means political
action, the last thing secular conservatives want because it threatens their
power. Oh, sure, they make allowances for a purely anti-abortion stance but
only to sell a pro-industry and anti-poor agenda. That’s why they won’t support
truly diaconal support for those women who really need help — they just don’t
want the money to be spent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Moreover, evangelicalism
has placed an overemphasis on the “spiritual” aspect of abortion, which is never
directly mentioned in the Bible. That is to say, many people and organizations
have insisted, with no evidence, that once outlawed revival would result. (I
do oppose it but did so before becoming a Christian as part of an overall “social
justice” ideology.) On top of that, fighting abortion has built many an
organization — and thus, what will happen when the money dries up, as it will?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">This might be a case
where Christians may be isolating themselves — not just from the greater
society but even from the very movement that gave them power in the first place.
Put another way, we may be winning this battle but ultimately losing the war
for hearts and minds — and have nothing to show for it.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-14058901544428706722022-01-03T09:44:00.000-08:002022-01-03T09:44:17.524-08:00‘Let’s [not] go, Brandon!’<p style="text-align: justify;">The raging bitterness and over last year’s presidential
election is continuing to overflow and shows no signs of stopping. And now
an apolitical NASCAR driver has become part of that campaign of anger.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">You may have heard the chant “Let’s Go, Brandon” in certain
inappropriate situations as code for “F___ Joe Biden” — even, at times, in
churches.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">For what it’s worth, Brandon Brown is a NASCAR driver who
won his first race a few months ago, and while a sportscaster was interviewing
him a group of fans was chanting that vulgar anti-Biden diatribe behind them.
Perhaps in a diplomatic way, she said they were saying, “Let’s go, Brandon!”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Wrong.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Clearly, we have a situation where folks can’t accept defeat
graciously and work with opponents to make this country a better place. And since
the epithet is “clean,” that will make it acceptable for Biden-hating Christians
to express their unwillingness to bow to the inevitable.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But you best believe that God sees the heart, and if the
heart is wrong so will the resultant actions be.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And for that matter, Brown, while he did vote for Donald Trump, said in a recent op-ed that he had no intention of being a focal point of the anti-Biden campaign. He said that he was interested only in winning his next race.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">So “let’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> go,
Brandon.”<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-38339385779605863332021-11-30T10:21:00.000-08:002021-11-30T10:21:40.591-08:00Trump: Dividing the church<p style="text-align: justify;">I’ve been privileged to attend a church for over 20 years
that is nationally-renowned for maintaining unity in the midst of diversity,
whether racial, cultural or generational. But, perhaps in my naïveté, I
didn’t foresee just how much Donald Trump would affect even it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">During our missions emphasis month in 2016, which coincided with
the end of the presidential campaign that year, the missions committee adopted
the slogan “Welcome the Stranger” — an Old Testament command — and hundreds of
white members left the church in protest, believing that the slogan was a shot
at then-candidate Donald Trump’s stance on illegal immigration. What’s worse, I
later learned, that some of the folks who left were spouting racial slurs on
the way out, which tells me that they never fully embraced God’s Gospel of
reconciliation.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And this is perhaps why the Christian faith, at least in this
country, has been compromised. Frankly, part of me wants to give into despair.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Some months ago I wrote a letter to a church in my immediate area
that, I learned through an email, was sponsoring a talk at a school board
meeting from a black pastor in opposition of “critical race theory” being
taught in district schools. The problem is that the district is racially and
culturally diverse, with numerous black students and parents as part of it and
likely aware of that history that I see the church as trying to suppress. In my letter I wrote that the church was in
danger of causing further division by focusing upon such items but not the
injustice that spawned the legal doctrine. (I never got a response.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The bigger issue, however, is that a lot of “Christians” don’t
want or intend to make room for those who don’t agree with the right-wing
worldview, which is — indeed, always has been and, frankly, intended to be — offensive
to many believers “of color.” You see, because of our unique history, we read
the Scripture differently and even look to those books and passages, most
notably in the Prophets, that most white evangelicals skip over. And it’s that
refusal to understand things from another perspective that has kept believers
divided over the decades.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Despite the loss of members and the money that they contributed
over the years, my church has embarked on a building campaign to unify all the
areas — children’s ministry, adult ministry, sanctuary — on its campus. (Culturally,
we have generally refrained from building edifices on our two-acre campus,
preferring to put any increase into ministry.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I see this nation now more than ever as trying to keep “different”
people out. I hope to God that the church doesn’t succumb to that temptation.</p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-87274568106803101452021-10-28T11:05:00.002-07:002021-11-02T15:44:20.923-07:00Someday …<p style="text-align: justify;">Over the past few decades those studying eschatology — the study
of things to come — have focused on the phrase “in the last days” and trying to
determine what will happen and when.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I think those folks have missed something significant. One thing
not often understood about Middle Eastern society and culture is that those who
live there don’t have the same relationship to time that we Westerners do;
thus, “in the last days” isn’t referring to some kind of specific timeline.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rather, it’s probably better understood as “Someday…” and
refers to more of a wish, although one with the caveat “By God” (and I mean
that literally), “this will happen.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And if you understand that, you might understand God’s intent.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Remember at the beginning at the Book of the Acts of the
Apostles, when one of the disciples asked Jesus, “Are you now going to
establish Israel again?” His response, in effect, “None of your business.” Most
of Israel, still wanting to be free from Roman rule (because the church at the
time was primarily Jewish, its members also had that hope), had misinterpreted
the prophecy of the Messiah to mean that he would destroy Rome.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There’s also the Revelation of Jesus Christ, a vision given
to the Apostle John, in exile on the Greek island of Patmos and by this time
the only Apostle left (the rest, including Paul, had met violent premature
deaths). Its purpose was to encourage other Jewish believers undergoing
persecution, and his audience would have understood the symbolism chock full of
it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And indeed, the very intent of “prophecy” is only
secondarily about telling the future and primarily about declaring the heart,
mind and will of God. That’s why we see false prophets get some things right but
not others — in their desire to gain an audience, they missed God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That’s why it’s important that the Word says, when it comes
to Jesus’ bodily return, just to keep an eye peeled. (When He was asked straight-out
when that would be He responded, “Only the Father knows” — which meant that He
Himself didn’t know.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">For this reason, trying to determine the identity of the
Antichrist, the “beast” and the “false prophet” are a fool’s errand distracting
from His commands, to, using a football analogy, “play until the whistle blows.”
Middle Eastern culture understands that the future will take care of itself — and,
as a result, so should we in the West.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-64357804408344181032021-09-30T13:00:00.001-07:002021-10-19T15:34:53.899-07:00‘Get over yourselves’ — the REAL meaning of Romans 13<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><i><span style="background: white; font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Let everyone be subject to the governing
authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has
established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. <b><sup> </sup></b>Consequently,
whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has
instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Over
the past few years numerous Christians have tried to discern the meaning of the
passage in Romans 13, depending on the party in power. Can we rebel against the
powers that be or do we simply accept their authority without question?</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well,
one thing to consider is that, at the dawn of the church, the Jewish people
(and by extension, the early Christians) harbored a deep resentment toward
Rome, which had begun occupying Israel about two centuries earlier. Indeed, the
prophecy of the Messiah held, wrongly as things turned out, that he would kick
out the Romans; when Jesus, who confessed that He was the true Messiah but only
after being prodded, didn’t do so that created some
disillusionment. Even after His resurrection some folks still
harbored that hope.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s
also in that context that Paul wrote Romans 12:2, the passage about “renewing
your mind.” Basically, he’s telling people to trust in the LORD regardless of
who’s in power.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And
I’m not simply saying this to folks who despised Presidents Clinton and Obama —
I took the very same tack with more liberal Christian friends after George W.
Bush was reelected in 2004, saying to them, in effect, “God’s still in
control.”</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This
is not to say that we can’t say that our government is doing wrong, even though
it might be, and in Western democracies we have the power to change our
leadership and Christians can be a part of that process. The ultimate point is
that God is still on the throne and leaders are raised up and brought down only
according to His permissive will. And that should keep our faith in Him, not in
political leaders.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></p><br /><p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-41939390615772186692021-08-15T19:00:00.001-07:002021-08-16T16:01:35.144-07:00The big lie that led to the Big Lie<p style="text-align: justify;">It’s no secret that supporters of now-former president Donald Trump are subscribing to the nonsensical notion that he lost the 2020 race for president on the grounds that the Democratic Party committed fraud. Given that no solid proof has ever been offered — his campaign filed some 60 lawsuits, all but one dismissed and that one here in Pennsylvania allowed to stand only on a technicality — it may seem like a mystery.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Well, it isn’t a mystery if you go back several decades. You see, this didn’t start with Trump.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It actually goes back to Newt Gingrich’s arrival in Washington in 1978. Gingrich, a congressman from suburban Atlanta, decided not only to promote his Republican Party as fundamentally good but also the Democratic Party as irredeemably evil. The nascent conservative movement that dominated the GOP followed, as did the “religious right” in its Machiavellianism. That means in practice that, no matter what <i>we </i>do, <i>they’re</i> inherently worse.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I suspect that’s the reason that the political right went after Bill Clinton so hard. After all, there was far less on Clinton than on now-Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was credibly accused of sexual harassment during his hearings in 1990. (Clinton escaped his impeachment, of course, in part because much of the nation knew what was up.) It couldn’t ensnare Barack Obama in any kind of scandal, so beginning in 2011, hopefully in time for his reelection campaign, it decided to institute voter-ID laws to keep minority voters out of the voting booth and thus turn him out of office; fortunately, that failed.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And then you had Trump.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Basically, as I have mentioned earlier, you have an ideology where anything connected to “liberals” is inherently evil; by contrast, any opposition to them has to be inherently good. The trouble is that such a mentality cannot be justified using the Scripture — no, not even with abortion, which in fact is nowhere directly mentioned there. (My opposition to abortion has never had any connection to my faith.) Underhanded tactics simply have no place in the Christian toolbox regardless of the reason; remember that God sees all, including people’s hearts.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And that’s the real big lie that led to the other “big lie” about the election being stolen.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">That’s why Christian support of Trump has led to a major braking of spiritual commitment, with younger evangelicals leaving churches in droves — the trust of their elders always has been in the political process, not in an omnipotent, almighty God Who is willing to move mountains to prove His sovereignty.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">We just saw hearings during which police officers endangered by Trump supporters on Jan. 6 offered testimony. What should be insulting, but for some reason isn’t, is that many of the rioters claimed Christ as Savior and LORD, that they were doing, shall we say, “His work.” Thing is, He would never authorize anything like that for any reason.</p><div style="text-align: justify;">What we have here is people unfaithful to Jesus Christ, willing to sell Him out for the porridge of power and not looking to Him for spiritual sustenance. It is actually a practical form of atheism that focuses much more on receiving than giving His blessings — and thus making Him, as well as them, look bad.</div>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-83072880378834118212021-07-07T20:42:00.002-07:002021-08-18T16:01:21.090-07:00Having allies<p style="text-align: justify;">Last month my wife, who is white, and I attended a
performance of a local blues band, the lead singer of which I had met about two
years ago at a jam session. I had originally hoped to get some work out of it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That hope ended during the break, when he came to talk to us — and,
according to her (I didn’t hear much of the conversation), he made some racist
remarks, including using the archaic term “colored” for black musicians. She
became so angry and shaken that she told me that we would have nothing to do
with him from here on out and soon afterwards made a post on social media announcing her
displeasure.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Two people who reacted to her rant especially heartened me.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">One of them was a singer and bandleader I’d worked with 20
years ago who asked his identity so that “we can shame him.” “Musicians police
their own,” he said.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The other was a woman with whom I’ve attended social dances
over the past few years, and she told a story I hadn’t previously known. At one dance I had
just finished dancing with her when she was approached by an older white man
who after their dance said afterwards, “I dance better than that colored, don’t I?” (I have never
claimed to be a great dancer, though I do it a lot.) She said that she was
initially taken aback and later said to him, “His name is Rick, and he’s my
friend!” before really letting him have it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Those two other folks who also expressed outrage on my
behalf and whom we later thanked proved to be “allies” willing to stand up and fight for me — letting people
know in no uncertain terms that what my offenders said was out of bounds. What’s
more, they didn’t do anything they considered out of the ordinary; in their
view, it was simply what decent people do.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I’m also reminded of the Freedom Riders of the early 1960s.
The late evangelist Billy Graham, who demanded his crusades even in his native
South be integrated back in the 1950s. The late Jim Reeb, the Boston minister
and seminary classmate of the former pastor of my former church martyred in
Selma, Ala. More recently, the millions of whites who joined Black Lives Matter
marches last summer in light of the death of George Floyd at the hands of
now-former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Lately I’ve heard a number of evangelicals say, “Why do we
have to focus so much on race? Can’t we just love each other?” But the reason
why we need to is because racism is still very much a thing, especially with
attempted suppression of black voting power and distortions of “critical race
theory”— folks must be willing to say, “This will not stand.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And <i>that</i> would be true love — in the Greek, <i>agape.</i><o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-88781265658208156862021-07-01T20:33:00.001-07:002021-07-01T20:33:40.281-07:00Some thoughts on systemic racism, critical race theory and social justice<p style="text-align: justify;">Back in March my wife and I closed on a four-bedroom,
three-bathroom house on a cul-de-sac in a nice suburban neighborhood. It’s
close to pretty much everything — shopping; the main expressway to get to work,
church and gigs; the whole nine yards. (The schools are pretty good as well,
but since we won’t be having children that’s not a factor.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And yet I’m occasionally reminded that I couldn’t have grown
up in this home, which dates back to the late-1950s.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">You see, because my parents were African-Americans, banks
would have denied them the low-interest loans prevalent back then to build new
houses in what we call suburbia. And over time the value of those houses would
appreciate in value. Indeed, most major cities eventually not only emptied out
of its growing white middle-class but took its financial and social clout with
it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And that has led to, among other things, the racial wealth
gap we see today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And that is an example of the systemic racism that critical
race theory, which was formulated in law schools in the 1970s but is now being
vilified by the political right as “divisive,” attempts to address. “Systemic
racism” is real, folks, and black folks understand that; the situation with
housing is just one example of that.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As such, I believe that it would be a Kingdom of God value
not simply to repent of racist attitudes but also to dismantle the systems that
crept up as a result of such. His justice says, “We got ours, and we will help
you get yours.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That’s why my racially- and economically-diverse church has
from time to time has held home-buying workshops, not simply for the permanence
and stability that owning a home offers but also for the financial benefit.
(Perhaps other churches hold them, but I’m not aware of those.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Thankfully, most of the specific situations that caused such
systemic racism in the first place have been addressed, but the fallout still
lingers. How we address that issue we can discuss—but we must, hopefully
without rancor.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Because it’s not enough to open the doors without providing
the means for people to succeed. In that way we can build what Martin Luther
King Jr. called “the beloved community.”<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-35700229540699402632021-06-16T10:19:00.001-07:002021-06-16T10:19:56.211-07:00Bitterness over Biden<div style="text-align: justify;">It still amazes me just how many evangelical Christians are
still angry that their preferred candidate, Donald Trump, lost the 2020 general
election to Joe Biden. And we’re talking seven months down the road.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Folks are still railing about Biden’s alleged senility and
dementia. They’re insisting that Vice-President Kamala Harris is the real power
behind the president. They’re still complaining about alleged wholesale election
fraud.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">None of these have been or will be proven — because they
have no basis in fact.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Folks, we need to get over ourselves because these
accusations are the result of sheer bitterness that was always there but is now
coming to the surface. Trump himself was a bitter person in his own right, which
is likely why much of the equally bitter “religious right” supported him. And
we know, because of numerous Biblical teachings, the result of unaddressed bitterness
(as I have personally experienced and since dealt with).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wonder how many Christian Trump supporters have sat down
with God since then and asked Him, “What are You trying to tell us?” To this
day I’m convinced that Trump’s defeat was sanctioned by God, especially after he
arrogantly held up that Bible in front of that church last year, perhaps trying
to indicate that “God is on my side.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Well, He doesn’t work like that — He’s God in His own right
and thus endorses no one. For that matter, He’s not a tribal deity deigned to
confer political power on certain folks, nor is the Christian faith reducible
to a set of political positions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But because the above question isn’t being asked and its
ramifications aren’t being addressed, what we’re seeing today is a massive sabotage
of Christian witness. We’re seeing the result of placing our trust in fallible
political leaders rather than God, which is straight-up idol worship. We’re not
seeing hearts and minds transformed, and we’re not seeing unity of the Spirit
under the bond of peace.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The beginning of Reinhold Niebuhr’s “Serenity Prayer,”
recited at 12-step recovery meetings, goes as follows: “God grant me the
serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things
I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I understand that defeat hurts, but God is far more
interested in how we handle it — because in this life no one gets everything he
or she wants. Moreover, whatever we receive here we must understand to come
from God, Who alone understands all the ramifications.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And that’s why it does us no good to remain bitter over
Trump’s loss. It’s a sign that we still have some growing up to do.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-48643973536080621402021-05-04T20:56:00.002-07:002021-05-10T12:08:46.540-07:00A demonic delusion<p style="text-align: justify;">You’ve no doubt heard about the criticism leveled recently
at Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney from members of the Republican Party — their own — for
not only refusing to believe the baseless accusation that the 2020 presidential election was
“stolen” from Donald Trump but for even stating publicly that it’s false.
Romney, speaking at a meeting of the Utah party, was actually booed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The trouble, of course, is that over two-thirds of party
adherents believe that nonsense. And since evangelical Christians represent a
large bloc of the GOP, it becomes not just a political issue but a spiritual one
as well — and one on which they look absolutely silly.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What we’re seeing is the result of a deliberate longstanding
campaign by the Enemy to deceive Christians. And by longstanding, I’m talking
about over 40 years.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The first and foremost problem is Christians’ focus on
political and social power and, in the process, jettisoning the power of the Holy
Spirit to cause the change that they say they want. Basically, they failed to
trust in God and were moving “in the flesh’ — and I don’t think it’s any
coincidence that little, if anything, has changed. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But rather than admit that they were barking up the wrong
tree, they continued to pursue the goal of power for its own sake regardless of
the means.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Which leads to their endorsement of a man without any moral
compass but who told Christians that “Christians will have power.” (Given Jesus’
wilderness temptation, the parallels should be obvious, Jesus telling Satan, in
effect, “Go back to hell where you belong.”) The reality is that Trump became
quite literally a messianic figure, and in his arrogance he accepted the
accolade; that pride led him to hold up that Bible in front of that church, and
you can’t convince me that that action didn’t cause God Himself to pull the
plug on him.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The delusion has become so strong, however, that, in light
of the last election, which they still can’t admit that he lost, a number of
people have dreamed up ways in which he would be returned to power. And they
would run roughshod over the political process to encourage that — indeed, they
did, participating in the riot outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I’m sorry, but this campaign, including the QAnon conspiracy
garbage, is coming straight from the pit, and as a result the witness of the
Gospel is being sabotaged. I do believe that God will put a stop to
it but won’t pretend to understand just how or when; when He does, a lot of
people will be embarrassed — or worse.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-75566495484308311752021-05-03T15:19:00.003-07:002021-05-03T15:19:44.233-07:00‘Haters gon’ hate’ — dangerous times ahead<p style="text-align: justify;">Now that Joe Biden has become president and his
comprehensive “infrastructure” package will put our nation’s money where former
president Donald Trump’s mouth was, benefiting probably most people, including
his die-hard supporters, it would be nice if we had tranquility in Washington
and elsewhere.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It would be nice, but it won’t happen because, as the saying
goes, “Haters gon’ hate.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">We need to keep in mind that many of your Trump supporters
never cared about policy as such — they were, and are, angry, bitter, resentful
people attracted to his snarl. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the
last 30 years or so politics has clearly been far less about which philosophy governs
than about side is defeated — no, destroyed, out of sheer hate. Trump tapped
into that contempt for anyone or anything that leaned left, not because he or
anyone else was proposing any alternative. (The opposition to the Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010 by Barack Obama,
must be placed in that context.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But Trump’s worshipers are still trying to promote him
as a messiah. One outlandish scenario has him running for Congress from Florida
and, assuming that he gets elected, becoming Speaker of the House and engineering
an impeachment of Joe Biden.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">(It’s outlandish for two reasons: 1) Trump’s ego is way too
big for him to be a “team player’ on any level; and 2) More importantly, it was
God Himself who took Trump down because he tried to usurp His throne.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That being said, let’s not be fooled. Despite his being
banned from social media for his incendiary comments that violated their terms
of service, he’s still a force to be reckoned with and we forget that at our
peril. Moreover, his followers don’t believe at all in accommodating other views;
as we saw on Jan. 6, they see compromise as surrender.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">As the phrase coming from urban America goes, haters gon’
hate. And because of that, I see trouble on the horizon.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-19887807822867862222021-04-27T13:18:00.003-07:002021-04-27T13:18:56.362-07:00The imminent revival, part 17 — an imminent split<p style="text-align: justify;">Especially in America, being involved in a religious
community and engaging in rituals to display religiosity have not only always
been popular but are often even encouraged, especially in evangelical culture.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The problem is, however, that truly following Jesus isn’t
and never has been. That’s why He said that the gate was “narrow.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">With a recent Gallup poll indicating that, for the first
time, a minority of Americans aren’t involved in a church (or perhaps mosque or
synagogue as well — I don’t know the breakdown by affiliation), I think it’s
time that we looked at some hard truths about where the Church is today.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Since the late 1970s perhaps a majority of American
evangelicals have focused on political and cultural power to maintain social
power. The trouble is that in the process they’ve continually ignored the power
of the Holy Spirit, which is why their efforts produce only resentment toward
them and anger and bitterness among them.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That’s the backdrop of not only people leaving the Church
but a growing number of self-identifying evangelicals criticizing it — out of
love and humility, not resentment, mind you. The response has been,
unsurprisingly, anger — against the likes of Russell Moore of the Southern
Baptist Convention; Beth Moore (no relation), the Bible teacher who left the SBC;
and blogger and pastor John Pavlovitz.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">This is why we’re headed for a split — between those who
really want to follow Jesus and those who simply want to play church. The
numbers might continue to drop — but He’d be OK with that, because then we’d
know for sure just who’s serious about depending on Him.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-39896688092987711672021-03-20T12:43:00.000-07:002021-03-20T12:43:12.721-07:00It may have not been ‘racism’ after all<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of you have seen the memes “Stop Asian
Hate” in reaction to the shooting deaths this week of a number of women, a
majority of them of Asian descent, who worked at massage parlors in the Atlanta
area by a Robert Aaron Long. A clear case of racism, given that the South has
always grappled with this subject and especially since former president Donald
Trump referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus?”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m not so sure. It seems to me that his crimes were more “religious”
in nature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It turns out that Long had been very active in a Southern
Baptist church, that denomination at the forefront of the evangelical movement
that has helped to define American Protestantism over the last half-century. And that
movement has always had an emphasis, perhaps an overemphasis, on sexual sin,
an issue because Long has admitted to what he called a sexual addiction and,
according to a story in <i>The New York Times</i>, had actually visited two of the
spas he shot up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Those of us who are steeped in evangelical culture have
consistently had the potential destruction by sexual sin drummed into our heads
as something to be avoided at all costs. Part of the problem with such a mentality is
that it actually, and wrongly, makes women responsible for men’s behavior, specifically
their inability or unwillingness to change it.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While I understand that idea of “capturing
every thought” under the aegis of Jesus is optimum, it’s not a guarantee that
things will happen right away and the struggle may continue. Ironically — and here’s
why I referred to the <i>overemphasis</i> on sexual sin — the more you focus on such
sin the less you focus on Him.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And that may have been Long’s initial problem. (He may have
found himself consistently attracted to Asian women, the only connection to race I see
here.)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But there’s something else that’s often left out of the
discussion: Love, <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">αγαπή </span>in the Greek, for the other person, which would
clearly be an outgrowth of love for God.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For me, it’s been less about avoiding temptation than “How
could I as a Christian be so selfish as to want to ‘do that’ to her?” You see,
one thing I’ve been privileged to learn over the years but rarely addressed in
such circles is that women and girls also have sexual desires, though they
manifest themselves differently (and for that reason it’s never been a big
deal) — one woman I had dated about two decades ago joked about “cold showers”
for herself.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, over the past 10 to 15 years I’ve been blessed to learn how to relate to women in a safe, healthy, God-honoring manner but still as women,
often through partner-dancing. Since evangelical culture promotes male
leadership in cross-gender relationships, I’ve found it more comfortable to do
it that way and still grow as a man, my sexuality becoming more integrated into
my total persona as opposed to an alien force working against me.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let me state without reservation that Long, in shooting
those women, violated not only the Word of God but also the laws of the state
of Georgia and ought to pay for what he did. And as such, his failure was
connected to failing to loving others as he would want to be loved, the second
of Jesus’ two great commandments.</span></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-61638872691778181392021-03-09T19:02:00.001-08:002021-03-09T19:13:01.112-08:00Some thoughts on the Ravi Zacharias scandal<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As many of
you may know, Martin Luther King Jr., originally a Baptist pastor who eventually
became the spiritual leader of the civil-rights movement, became my gateway to
the Christian faith. His attitude of nonviolence combined with direct action
showed me in retrospect the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and upon first
reading “Strength to Love,” a collection of his sermons first published in 1963, I found myself praising
and worshiping God.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the 1980s, perhaps after his birthday was made into a
Federal holiday, I learned about his dark side. I had heard once around that
time that he had stepped out on his wife Coretta and ignored it, but when
another person came forward and said that he indeed slept with other women I
cried. Later on, it was disclosed that he had plagiarized part of his doctoral
dissertation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I bring this up in light of the scandal surrounding the late
Ravi Zacharias, who ran a highly influential eponymous Christian apologetics ministry.
Just a few months after his death last spring, an investigation into the
ministry revealed that he apparently used his chronic back condition to abuse
women who were massage therapists, asking some to send nude photos of them and
even raping at least one.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Such sinful behavior creates a conundrum for the folks who
not only believed what he taught but also supported the ministry financially (I
heard him only once to my recollection, so I can’t say that I was one of his
followers). So what do we do with fallen leaders who are no longer on the scene
— and do we discount whatever they said?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While I won’t say I have the last word on this issue, I want
to remind you of Hebrews 11, regarded as the “hall of fame” of faith and in
which such people as Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Samson and Moses are mentioned. All
these people, and many more major biblical figures besides, at some point fell
into gross sin.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, had we known about Zacharias’ transgression while
he was still active he likely would have been forced out of his role, and
properly so, but his own failure to live up to God’s standards means only that
there actually is a standard to which especially leaders need to live up to. It
also doesn’t mean that God hasn’t forgiven him, but his influence certainly has
been sabotaged.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps the best example of that was disgraced evangelist
Jimmy Swaggart, whose mailing list I was on in the 1980s and whose “A Study in
the Word” was actually pretty good despite my theological differences with him. Remember that in 1988 he was caught with a prostitute — the Monday after that a
spirit of heaviness permeated a prayer meeting I attended then because we knew
that the Body had taken a hit — and soon after that he cried out to the LORD
and his congregation for forgiveness.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Assemblies of God, on the other hand, which licensed
him, recognized that he needed to be disciplined, so the presbytery announced a
three-month suspension of preaching. Fearing that the ministry would collapse without him at the helm, Swaggart decided to leave the denomination
— and was subsequently caught with another prostitute. Just like that, his national ministry
was gone.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because both King and Zacharias have gone to their
respective rewards we’ll never know if God could have used their transgressions
for good. And granted, there’s always the temptation to believe that “men of
God” with such international stature will eventually turn their back on moral
standards, at least privately.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I can tell you that my faith in God wasn’t at all shaken
just because my hero of the faith was shown to be an adulterer — you see, my
faith was never in King, who was only a vessel, and a flawed one at that, that God used.
May the same be said for followers of Zacharias.</span><o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-80197232329595986992021-03-03T19:23:00.001-08:002021-03-03T19:24:48.673-08:00The imminent revival, part 16 — an attitude of humility<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">About two
years ago my church began a building campaign to recast the campus into
something friendlier to young families coming into the church. The endeavor
will by pricey but, because of the church’s commitment to not only the Gospel
but also foreign missions and serving the immediate community, it would be
money well spent because, I believe, it will play a major part in the revival
that I’ve been prophesying for some time. I shared that with an executive
pastor.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He waved that off, saying, “We’re seeking only to be
faithful.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just now, I realized that he’s proving me right.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I think a lot of people have the idea that the kind of
spiritual awakening comprises a lot of overt religious activity, with folks
simply being swept into churches and society being transformed as a result — into
something that would make them feel comfortable. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It could be, however, that preparations would have to be
made ahead of time — not just with building issues but preparing the hearts of
congregations to be able not only to accept but also disciple new believers.
And not only that, but that the people already there have a solid grasp of
theology and the ramifications for Christ’s Kingdom.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s why I believe that the awakening won’t be on
Christian TV. Oh, there might be some dramatics involved, but it’s more likely
that those hearts “on fire” won’t simply focus on “signs and wonders” — they alone
cannot sustain faith, as ancient Israel demonstrates to us — but a continual
seeking after God and not being satisfied with head knowledge of Him. In fact, I
would go so far to say that churches so consumed with Jesus won’t even know, or
care, about any revival, thus bringing it about.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">You see, people who truly love Jesus know that certain
behaviors and attitudes that don’t bring Him glory should be eliminated and
will be with the help of the Holy Spirit. They know that God acts only in
certain ways and rejects sin (although He can, and if need be will, work around
it). Most importantly, they also understand the need for a sense of justice not
only for themselves but also the folks with whom they come into contact and
will thus willingly serve them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And for that reason I also believe that the Spirit will work
more powerfully not in the independent “charismatic” churches but in those
connected to a denomination — with oversight and connectedness to groups
outside the walls of a particular assembly to hold everyone accountable.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, I understand that hierarchy and theology can go only so
far, but over the last few decades we’ve seen our share of renegade pastors and
churches more concerned with their standing in the world than their standing
before God. They’ve often allowed destructive heresies into their churches and
which often are reflected in the preaching, taking things as truth that God Himself
never authorized — which is why many of them are hollowing out, especially of
people younger than 40.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I do believe that my church will be a part of any major
awakening, but if I know it well it will be focused not on that for its own
sake but on Jesus, allowing Him to transform people’s lives. Bottom line, any
awakening will be the result of obedience.</span><o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-19372001977360406632021-02-18T12:30:00.001-08:002021-02-18T12:36:53.610-08:00The defeat of an idol — and its ramifications<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Many Christian supporters of now-former President Donald
Trump were doing so because they believed that he was going to spark a
religious revival. That was always false on its face because God doesn’t work
the way they want, primarily by reestablishing laws, most notably restrictions
on legal abortion.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What has surprised — and dismayed — me is the amount of
bitterness many are spewing these days in the aftermath of the election, what
with complaints about the election being “stolen,” even though it wasn’t; their
willingness to insult political opponents such as Nancy Pelosi and Kamala Harris; and even their participation in the
Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And that says something pretty telling: Their faith was always
in the political process, never truly in God. And that’s why they are in fact
sabotaging the revival they say they want.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">For “Christianity” has for many become little more than a set
of political positions independent of following Jesus — imitating His character,
rejecting worldly ways and seeking reconciliation.<span style="background-color: white;"> Nor
is there any emphasis on cultivating<span class="text"> the “fruit of the [Holy]
Spirit,” mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23 — “love, joy, peace, forbearance,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,</span><sup> </sup>gentleness and
self-control.”</span></p><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span class="text">As a result, following
Ezekiel 36:20, “</span></span><span class="votes-4">But when [Israelites] came to
the nations, wherever they came, they profaned [My] holy name, in that people
said of them, ‘These are the people of the </span><span class="sc">LORD</span><span class="votes-4">, and yet they had to go out of [His] land.’ ”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="votes-4">That is what Trump represented — <i>profanation
of God’s holy name. </i>It would be one thing if they voted for him but held him
accountable for his racism and divisiveness and threatened to withhold their
votes if he didn’t shape up, but they didn’t.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In other words, Trump became an idol in his own right, and
we know how God feels about idolatry. The fact that so many Christians are
enraged with by his defeat shows that they haven’t gotten the message — and will
suffer more defeats in the near future.</p>
BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-41264673613538449162021-02-17T12:34:00.002-08:002021-02-17T15:10:56.478-08:00Why Christians shouldn’t celebrate Rush Limbaugh<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Rush Limbaugh often joked that his talent was “on loan from God.”
That’s about the only true thing, at least in a theological sense, that he
ever said.</p>
<p class="line1" style="text-align: justify;">Today the longtime radio host passed away from lung cancer, and
it’s not hard to see that he misused that talent, using distortions and
ridicule from 1987 to last year to lampoon those of a more progressive ideological
stripe and in the process causing a major divide in this country that exists to
this day. I for one refused to listen to him because, according to Psalm 1:1, “Blessed
is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that
sinners take or sit in the company of mockers” — and there’s no getting around
the fact that Limbaugh, considered the voice of the “angry white male,” was a
mocker.</p>
<p class="line1" style="text-align: justify;">And yet millions upon millions of Christians hung on his every
word for the latest broadside against his targets, playing into their
bitterness and resentment. Eventually other right-wing talkmeisters hit the
airwaves, and to this day they’re still spouting their bile, most making a mint
in the process. And we often wonder why much of the church is in such bad shape
— three hours of spiritual poison poured daily into one’s brain doesn’t lend
itself to meditating on the things of God.</p>
<p class="line1" style="text-align: justify;">I know what you might be saying: “Aren’t ‘liberals’ just as bad?”
No, and that’s not even relevant. You don’t even consistently have left-wing
talk-radio, for openers; most of the time such shows don’t last because they
don’t get the ratings (you have some late-night TV hosts, but they don’t have
the reach). Besides, people of religious faith don’t watch them anyway, which
is the point.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Since Donald Trump was defeated in November and is no longer
president, some have said that this nation needs to take “time to heal.” But
part of the healing process involves identifying and excising lingering
attitudes, and it’s clear that Limbaugh fostered those — that is to say, they came
from somewhere and didn’t just start in 2016.</p>
BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-75348080652674655032021-02-12T12:38:00.008-08:002021-02-12T16:46:00.480-08:00The end of a political career<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The current impeachment trial of now-former President Donald
J. Trump, based on his alleged incitement of the rioters that took place on
Jan. 6, is intended by Democrats as the end of Trump’s political career. The
intent, of course, is to keep him from seeking federal office ever again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Whether that happens or not and if he’s acquitted of that
charge, which at this point appears likely, his political career is over
anyway. Because — make no mistake about this — God Himself took him down. And that
happened not because of the Capitol riot that his supporters took part in.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What really doomed Trump was that stunt during which he held
up that Bible in front of an Episcopal church, which took place June 1 of last
year. God ran out of patience with him because, like a lot of the so-called
religious right, he intended to use it to promote his own authority rather than
submit himself to the only real Authority that mattered.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And the dominoes began falling as a result.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">While forces on the political left, including but not
limited to voter-registration drives, were already marshaled against the Trump
campaign, it turned out that the business community was growing tired of the
political instability that he had always fostered, even though it agreed with
most of his actual policies. After Jan. 6 its lobbying groups announced that it
would no longer donate to Republican candidates that supported the
insurrection.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But before that, some evangelical groups and individuals
decided to throw their support behind then-candidate Joe Biden, bucking the trend
of Trump-supporting Christians. Then you have his failure to lead on COVID-19,
costing hundreds of thousands of lives. And did you notice at the Republican
National Convention just how few Republicans were willing to put in a good word
for him, a requirement to speak?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The result was the kind of broad-based organizing coalition
that would have been required to beat Trump at the ballot box — and, of course, did.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">By the time he tried to strongarm GOP-dominated legislatures and secretaries of states in swing states into changing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>election results amid baseless accusations of
voter fraud, it was clear that he was finished.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It wasn’t simply the voters who had spoken at that point,
you see. Ultimately, God had as well, in the process putting to shame those
so-called prophets who tried to convince people that Trump was a shoo-in and
then doubled down after Nov. 7. The riot failed to change the result because,
really, Trump and his supporters were fighting against God, Who refuses to be
mocked.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And while Trump still has his base, which is as strong as
ever, he’s already finished as an electoral force because he’s alienated
virtually everyone else — including the people at the hands of the mechanisms
required to get people elected in the first place. And let’s not forget his
other legal issues — charges of financial fraud in New York state and election
tampering in Georgia, either of which could put him away for a while.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">In that context, the impeachment might prove anticlimactic because even if Trump gets off he may end up going from the proverbial frying pan into
the fire. He tried, and was still trying, to play God, and the True and Living God doesn’t appreciate <i>anyone</i> trying to knock Him off His rightful throne.<br /></p>
BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-63792448916473240412021-02-01T16:56:00.003-08:002021-02-01T20:39:27.714-08:00Finally being ‘owned’<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the past four years the modern “conservative” movement
has fallen to new depths as for what it really stands for. Or perhaps more accurately,
what it stands <i>against.</i><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Because, as much as it
tried to put a positive spin on what it believed, such as “less government,” it
really wasn’t at all descriptive of not just its agenda but also its intent — which,
as things turned out, is capsulized in just one phrase that became popular
since Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That phrase? “Owning
the libs.” That sounds like an effective rallying cry, and it has been over the
years, but it also epitomizes what its focus has always been.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Modern conservatism has always been at bottom a reactionary
movement, enviously pushing back against the progressivism that first reared
its head in the 1960s. In other words, it’s based almost exclusively on bitterness and resentment
toward what it sees as the “left,” though that side of the political fence is
far more diverse that it believes (e.g., “liberals,” the hard left and the
powers that be in the Democratic Party are not the same people) and tends to
equate anyone not on its team as an existential threat. Not for nothing does it
target those agitating for social change — it takes personally any challenge to
its own desire for power and refuses to listen to anyone else. This is why, for
example, it tried to besmirch the Black Lives Matter movement that dominated many
news cycles over the summer, saying falsely that it was inherently violent and
fostering riots.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And then we see government in general and the “deep state” —
that is, bureaucrats who actually run things professionally — in particular and
the mainstream media as two more groups that in such a mindset need to be
denigrated. (The reality, however, is that you simply can’t run a functional society
without those two institutions.)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Conservatism is especially poisonous when combined with
religion, the dominant faith in the United States being Christianity. That’s
because the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is reconciliation
through Him, is necessarily excised for the sake of dominating others — in other
words, the faith itself becomes liberal.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Yes, <i>liberal,</i> in that certain “liberties” are taken with the
Word of God and reinterpreted to mean things that He never said or authorized.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Such as the riot that took place at the U.S. Capitol
Building on Jan. 6, as electoral votes were about to be counted that would
confirm Joe Biden’s legitimate election as president. It broke my heart to
learn that Christians were not only involved in it but even trying to justify
it, with the singing of Christian songs and the offering of prayers that the
vote would be stopped to allow now-former-President Donald Trump another term
in office. And make no mistake — that attitude is how he got to be president in
the first place.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">It’s also why he lost last year, however, as when you focus
on power for its own sake you lose the reason why you seek office in the first
place — to serve, not to dominate, everyone else. We saw that with COVID-19,
which Trump tried to ignore because the idea of responsibility was always
foreign to him. (This is a place where the Bible’s commands were in fact tossed
out.) Basically, he wanted to rule, not govern, which is why he ended up being<i> </i>“owned” by those same “liberals” that he denounced.<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Oh, sure, you did have a school of intellectualism in
conservatism, which I did respect despite my disagreements with it, in such
publications as <i>National Review</i> and the late <i>Weekly Standard, </i>the latter of
which went under because of its opposition to Trump. But as Pat Buchanan said
in 2008 in <i>The New Yorker, </i>“You can write columns and all that, but they don’t
engage the heart.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And in this case, the “heart” represents denying others the
same status as what folks want for themselves. In essence, the conservative movement
in practice wanted to turn those that didn’t agree with it into second- or
third-class citizens not even worthy of an ear. As such, I can’t see why we can
have any sense of unity and reconciliation in a post-Trump country — when the
opposition is labeled as “socialist,” as it has been, there’s nothing more to
say. <br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">To wit, “owning the libs” has been a good rallying slogan but one
that actually helped to make this country virtually ungovernable. To our
eternal shame.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"></p></div>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-8378072861245624692021-01-24T21:36:00.002-08:002021-01-25T19:08:14.188-08:00Life without Trump<p style="text-align: justify;">Has anyone noticed just how quiet things have been in Washington,
D.C. since now-former President Donald Trump has left office? It’s simultaneously
boring and comforting not to have to notice the new regime in not only the
White House but also in Congress.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And it’s not simply Trump and his political sycophants and
enablers in the Republican Party that have gone virtually silent. We also have
heard barely a peep out of evangelical leaders who not only supported him
through these last four years but predicted — falsely, as things turned out —
that he’d be in the White House for eight. I don’t know what they’re doing, but
a part of me hopes that they’re now afraid to show their faces.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What’s even more gratifying to me personally is the collapse
of the QAnon cult that held that Trump was going to bust members of the media
and Democratic politicians that were engaging in a child-sex-trafficking ring,
an accusation with no basis in fact. Many were hoping that the storming of the
Capitol Building on Jan. 6 would spark those mass arrests; instead, some of his
erstwhile followers have now dismissed him out of hand, calling him “weak.”
(Which most of us already knew.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And on top of that, social media outlets, citing violations
of terms of service, not only banned Trump in light of the riot but some months previously also began
shutting down QAnon-related accounts, prophetically citing
the potential for real-world violence.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Here’s hope that the calm we may feel now produces some
healing from the abuse that this nation has suffered over the past four years.
But more than that: Similar to the Truth & Reconciliation efforts in
post-apartheid South Africa, we need a full accounting of what actually
happened and why so that it’s never repeated.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Some are saying that the second
impeachment trial of Trump, tentatively scheduled for next month and which I
believe to be just, isn’t necessary because it would “divide the country.” Nonsense,
since the country already has been divided for four decades; he simply
exploited that. We also know that he’s completely unrepentant so, although I
don’t see him as returning to the White House, it’s up to us to make sure that
he’s never in power again.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Above all, we Christians who did support him — of
course, I’m not in that number — ought to take a look at ourselves to consider
how we went wrong. Perhaps we focused too much on political and cultural power to
allow the light of Christ to shine through. Perhaps we saw Trump as a messiah
to rid the world of the “ungodly,” never mind his lack of commitment to any, let
alone Christian, principles. There’s no question that our support of Trump has
hurt the witness of the Gospel.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">If we turn back to God with our
whole hearts in humility, know what will result? The revival that people say
that they want.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-18829375724595026942021-01-19T10:58:00.002-08:002021-01-19T11:17:09.765-08:00The result of ‘cheap grace’<p style="text-align: justify;">Two weekends ago I was explaining to someone that the basic
problem with the presidency of Donald Trump, thankfully coming to an end tomorrow, wasn’t merely political or ideological — it was <i>theological </i>in nature.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">I didn’t appreciate just how true that was until I learned
that the riot at the U.S. Capitol building two weeks ago featured “Christian patriots” in
full force, believers invoking God and Christian music being played and sung.
(And, I might add, alleged Christians using foul language in the process.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">At that, I was <i>horrified.</i><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Numerous Jews who survived the Holocaust have noted that
Trump’s racist rhetoric was reminiscent of Hitler, not to mention the large
number of supporters that he had. The reason I bring up Nazi Germany is that I’m
reminded of the real problem with the church there was with what martyred German theologian
Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">That failure of American evangelicalism, most notably in its
“charismatic” wing, which dominates Christian media, is what really drives people away from a true knowledge of the
Savior and the reconciliation that He represents. The thinking is, really, in practice that once personal sins are forgiven you can pretty much live the way you want. Sin, of course, runs much deeper than personal sins or those
connected to sex, stealing or lying.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Back in January 1984, at the lowest point of my life, I attended a
church retreat. During that retreat we held a communion service, and after I
took the wine I burst into tears, saying, <i>I killed Jesus, I killed Jesus.</i> You
see, as bad as things were, in that moment I was owning my own sin for the
first time, not blaming anyone else for my predicament. More to the point, in
that moment I recognized just what my internal condition cost God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">If you’re not mourning your sin in that or a similar fashion
or at least have never done so, you need to check your heart. Because what that
should and will produce is humility, a sense of “there but for the grace of God
go I — how did<i> I</i> escape God’s judgment?”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Get that? “Grace” — which Bonhoeffer called “costly grace,”
not making light of the things that people did, said or even thought that
proved evil in the long run. Of course, Bonhoeffer was specifically referring to the
church in Nazi Germany, most of which for the sake of preserving itself allied
itself with Hitler. (The church failed in that mission, which is why it has so
little authority today.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">The “media” wing of the American evangelical church is in
similar danger today — and, indeed, has been for decades because it preaches “salvation”
but not a separation, and thus transformation, from the world’s way of thinking.
There is simply no way that it could whole-heartedly
support such a corrupt, cruel, morally compromised, bullying person if it truly
understood the grace of God.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">And that is why I would never believe that Trump is a true
Christian. He said in an interview some years ago that he couldn’t remember
anything he had to repent for. He grew up in a church pastored by Norman Vincent
Peale — remember the heretical “The Power of Positive Thinking”? — and applied
that concept to his entire life, including some big-time denial specifically
about COVID-19. Reports have come out that he actually relished the riot that
took place two weeks ago rather than fall to his face and say, “What have I
done?”<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">What I hope happens in light of the wreckage that supporting Trump has
caused — leading much of the church to sabotage its own witness — that it would
repent of the “cheap grace” that Bonhoeffer talked about. That’s the only way
it will not only survive but thrive in what many folks see, falsely in my view,
as an inherent hostility to religious faith during a Biden administration.<o:p></o:p></p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6334744637968568106.post-50667723804811321242021-01-08T12:32:00.007-08:002021-01-08T20:40:43.243-08:00‘You just damned your cause’<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In light of the riot Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol Building by supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, I was reminded of a rant that Leonard Pitts Jr. of the <i>Miami Herald </i>wrote in response to the terrorist attacks that took place on Sept. 11, 2001. Reading it again today, I noticed just how similar Pitts’ reactions were to how we should perhaps react to Wednesday’s actions.<br /></div><p style="text-align: justify;">They were those of, not to put too fine a point on it, terrorists inflamed by the president himself, who for the last two months complained, with no evidence, that the election, which he lost, was “stolen.”</p><p style="text-align: justify;">And this isn’t new by any stretch. Trump has always been a violent man, threatening physical violence numerous times during his 2016 campaign. Nor should this come as any surprise, since probably the majority of his supporters are absolutely intolerant of anyone who disagrees — and have been for decades. It thus didn’t surprise me that they tried to hang President-elect Joe Biden with the pejorative “socialist.” That is, at best, an exaggeration — they simply want to exert power and control.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Not wanting to take responsibility for their role in Wednesday’s riot, following their infamous and fearful leader, they’ve taken to blaming it on left-wing “antifa” forces that supposedly infiltrated their ranks — again, without proof.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">It will thus be interesting to see just how pro-Trump Christian leadership reacts to this. Many were ready to condemn Black Lives Matter for its alleged Marxist leanings, which they were likely convinced led to the riots — which, to be fair, took place in only a handful of cities and were fed by pro-Trump groups itching to fight.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">But as I heard <i>New York Times </i>columnist Thomas Friedman say some years back, “Terrorists always overplay their hand.” That is to say, they’re so focused on the righteousness of their goals that to their mindset the means to achieve them was irrelevant. Numerous folks as disparate as Martin Luther King Jr. and the late <i>Chicago Sun-Times</i> columnist Sydney Harris have written that not only do the ends not justify the means but that the means can corrupt the ends, and I think they’ve done so in this case.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">As Pitts wrote then, “Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.” We’re seeing that today, as GOP leadership that had previously supported Trump is now deserting him, numerous Cabinet secretaries are turning in their resignations and Democratic members of the House have asked Vice-President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment to have Trump removed or, barring that, have drawn up more articles of impeachment.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I do believe that the healing has already begun, though it will take at least a generation to be fully reconciled because Trump supporters will continue to nurse their grievance and thus allow their bitterness full flower. But their cause has now been shown to the world as unjust — which is why, in describing 9/11, Pitts referred to it as “damned.”</p>BlueDeaconhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05641178784714584337noreply@blogger.com0