The Magnificent Ability Christians Have of Munging Things

As both church treasurer and the office admin for a non-profit (soon to be a private foundation, which I don't think can be called a non-profit anymore, can it?), I end up with the occasional oddball letter in my mailbox. One that I received recently is, in my opinion, a classic example of how Christians munge things together without, apparently realizing that they're doing it (or that doing so lacks integrity). Here's a copy of the letter (with all formatting as shown in the original):

SOLDIERS OF CHRIST ARISE

This is a wake up call to God's people! In America, God and His son, Jesus, are cursed in the media, in the public arena and in the market place, all with little overt negative reaction or correction by believers in His Son.  Muslims on the other hand, are willing to die for Allah and Mohammed.  They will not permit criticism of their religion in any way, even using violence if necessary. Muslims stress morals, daily prayers and clean living.
What happened to our morals in this land once established on faith? What happened to the faith of our fathers? What happened to morality throughout this land? We sit back and hope things will change for the better while they deteriorate. Regardless of what the "Word" demands on homosexuality, many large businesses support same sex marriage with funds and personnel. Lobbyists have been able to push their agenda in the schools whereas the Bible is deemphasized or forbidden.
The Word urges Believers to unify to build up the body of Christ to maturity. In every church or religion, there is a lack of will to work in concert to reach a common goal.  Our different interpretations of God's Word keep us from focusing together for Biblical morality. Emphasis on teaching morals is a major need in our pulpits. Scripture teaches that the body will grow to maturity in unity, and only then will there be positive outcomes.  Each denomination is individually ruled, yet all can work as ONE for the morality of this nation. We are losing the battle in families, especially with our young people who are drawn to the dark side of computer technology, television, movies, drugs and a downward lifestyle all because WE failed early on to monitor and express our outrage as worldliness crept in. It is not too late to be assertive.
God generously sent His only Son Jesus because He saw man incapable of directing his steps.  However, with this gift comes the responsibility for our ministries to be proactive in counteracting errant behavior.  You may feel you, and others, have done this.  God is the judge.  If moral standards are emphasized throughout the nation, there will be positive improvement and a reduction in sinful practices.  Why aren't we standing and being counted to bring this nation to the morality about which the apostle Paul spoke? Ponder this message and pass it on to every one you meet.  One person can make a difference.  YOU can make a difference! Will you stand up?

A Pilgrim

What interests me is the confusion about who "we" are. Granted, there are several other interesting pieces to this letter like thinking that terrorists have a lot to teach the church, that the goal of church unity should be for the "morality of this nation", and the strongly stated but completely unsourced statement that emphasizing moral standards will reduce sinful practices. But I think most of those oddball things can be chalked up to the mad ravings of an eccentric outlier.  That confusion about "us" though, that's something that I hear in Bible studies, Sunday school and other Christian gatherings, and it's from some pretty un-eccentric people.

The very first sentence of the letter states that it's to "God's people." Granted, that doesn't necessarily mean Christians, but I think it's safe to assume that that's who the "Pilgrim" had in mind. The second sentence makes clear that an outside group (the media, the public and businesses) is cursing God. After a short digression in which terrorist Muslims are praised before being munged together with non-terrorist Muslims) there's suddenly a switch to a concern about "our morals in this land." Who's morals? The Christians? The Muslims? The general populous of the nation? The media, the public and businesses? The munging has begun.

Throughout the letter it's difficult to tell whether "Pilgrim" is upset about the lack of morality in the church, or in the nation as a whole. It appears to be the latter, but the premise that's made is that the church's morals should be the nation's morals because "this land [was] established on faith." (I could swear that this nation (the U.S.A) was founded upon the declaration of Independence, which is a political document, not a religious one.) In other words, "Pilgrim" seems to be tying the church and the nation so tightly together, that they appear to be one entity with the same regulations, responsibilities, etc.

At what point did the church receive instructions from God to rule the nation (and is it just for one nation, or should the church be ruling all nations)? At what point did those in the nation, who are not Christians, come under the jurisdiction of the church? Jesus was not sent to make us all moral. Nor did he come to make disciples whose chief goal would be to make others moral. Jesus came to bring life, something that had been lost to us specifically because we couldn't keep the laws (morals) that had been given.

To expect those who have not chosen to be one of "God's people" to follow God's laws is inappropriate and a severe misunderstanding of the gospel. The good news is not that we need to be moral people. The good news is that even though we can't be truly moral people, no matter how hard we try, God has provided a means of forgiveness and acceptance anyway.

Eccentrics happen (not just in Christian circles but within every subset of the populous). You generally can't convince them of anything accept that you don't agree with them. But munging is a wider problem and one that I believe is inappropriate and leads to confusion and hurt. Yes, Christians should be exhorted to be loving and kind and gentle and pure and all the other things that are directed in the Bible. But our attitude toward non-Christians should not be one of forcing our morals upon them.  Rather Jesus tells those he sends out to "proclaim the good news," to "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." (Mt 10:7,8)

Jesus tells his followers to "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye." Claiming that someone else's eye is your own, and then attacking the other eye with a vengeance is a serious misinterpretation of that directive. As Christians, as "God's people," it behooves us to be clear about who we are talking to, who we are talking about, and what we have been directed to say to those individuals. Munging just muddies God's name.  

Alcoholics Anonymous vs. the Church

http://stevieg.typepad.com/trudging_the_road_of_happ/addiction/
This is a series of posts in which Steve (a fella I met waaay back in college) goes through the 12 steps of AA (he's gotten through 8 so far) and first explains how they work within AA and then what the church might look like if it took the same rule/step to heart. I think his posts have been provocative so far and would recommend them as a means of thinking through the nature and purpose of the church.

The link takes you to the series of posts specifically on this topic and works just like viewing a tag here works -- which means the posts are going to show up in reverse chronological order when you click through. So scroll to the bottom of the page to start reading.

(For those of you viewing this post via Facebook, you might need to click through to Multiply in order to grab the link to Steve's page. To be honest, I don't remember how Multiply links render when they're cross-posted to FB.)

The fruit of the Spirit - with a place to practice

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." -- Galatians 5:22-23

New Year's resolutions can probably all be boiled down to: "In the upcoming year, I want to be a better person."  That might mean eating differently, exercising more, spending more time with family, or not kicking the cat. But the end goal is to somehow improve your life in some way. Often times it's hard to stick to those goals. Without outside encouragement or accountability, it's easy to let things slide.

This is certainly true for Christians, and not just at the New Year.  Exhorted by the Bible to love our neighbor as ourselves, to be loving, patient, gentle, self-controlled, etc. we are constantly encouraged to better ourselves (not so that we might achieve our salvation since that was the whole point of Jesus' coming after all, but so that we might be people of integrity who mirror the characteristics of our messiah.) But just because I read that I should be loving doesn't make me loving.  And just because I'm told that I should be gentle doesn't make me gentle. It takes practice. And that's where church should come in.

Church should be a safe place where I can practice forgiving, or asking for forgiveness, or being loving when someone annoys or upsets me, or being patient. And I should be safer there because the people are of the same body. It's to their benefit for me to improve myself, just as it's to my benefit as they improve themselves. So when I "try" to be patient and end up screwing up royally, it's the church (meaning members of that same body) that should come alongside me, help me to calm down, encourage me to continue trying to be patient and perhaps even step in if my impatience is harming another. And this should all be done, not in judgment, but in brotherly love.

Of course, I keep saying the church "should" do this because it is, by definition, made up of a bunch of screwed up individuals who aren't always going to be patient and loving and kind with each other. But as our savior has forgiven us, he has enabled us to forgive others. Yes, we'll keep messing up, but we also need to keep forgiving, keep moving forward, keep encouraging, keep loving. Church should be like family -- a group of people who accept us even when we've messed up and who encourage us to do better next time.

So why don't you leave?

A few weeks back a friend of mine asked how our church was doing. She knew we had a new pastor (Well, he's been around for over a year now.) and so she thought she'd check in and see how that was going. I replied that though things were OK, I didn't feel like I was really being challenged and we were still struggling to grow in size.  (Not that I think numerical growth is a big issue in general, but our little congregation is so small, that we really do need to grow a bit just to get back to a respectable size.)  She looked at me in consternation and asked, "So why don't you just leave?"

To be honest, I was kinda floored by that. I know that other people wander from church to church looking for... I don't even know what. But I see church as a body (or a family). Romans 12:5 says, "we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others." Leaving would feel like chopping off my arm and casting it aside. (Only, in this analogy, I'm the arm, not the body. They'd be injured, but whole enough to carry on. I'd just be an arm lying on the ground unable to do a whole lot.) 

This (and a subsequent discussion on "church" with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law) got me to thinking more on the topic of leaving a church/what is church/how do we "do" church. It's something I've thought a lot about in the past, so this is nothing new. But I thought it would be worthwhile to articulate my thoughts this time around. 

1) Church is not about what you get out of it. It's about who we are. To leave is akin to dismemberment, or perhaps some form of elective surgery. (There are times when we have to move, such as for work or school. But if you were actually part of a body, then you'll feel the tear when you leave.)  

The chief exception to this, I think, is when there are "churches" that behave more like a social club than the living organism that they should be (according to my reading of the Bible, at least). I've attended a social-club-esque church where the chief goals seemed to be finding a mate or a business partner, playing church, and talking a whole lot about community but then blaming the not-actually-doing-it on living in a transient society. Churches like this are very easy to join as well as to leave, in my opinion. They don't function like a body, therefore there's no (or little) pain when someone walks away. 

2) I've been a member of our current church since we moved to the area 8 years ago and from the get-go, I had the impression that the people in this congregation understand what I just said back in #1, even if they've never studied a single book on it, heard a single sermon on it, or ever bothered to articulate it. After having attended several churches in a row that talked a whole lot about community, it was almost stunning to end up in one that never once talked about it, but that seemed to understand and live it at a foundational level. Not only that, but we arrived just after several members had left and though some churches would blithely carry on after something like that, this church bled. Social clubs don't bleed. Bodies do. 

So, yeah, I'm not totally excited about where our body is right now.  I had high hopes as the new pastor was coming in that we'd really start growing. I suppose it's like the excitement you have at the beginning of the new year when you've made a resolution to work out every day. You're excited about what the all-new-you is going to be like. But then mid-January rolls around and you start to realize that though you might have done a little extra exercise the first week, you rolled right back into business as usual by the second. But just because I'm disappointed doesn't mean I'm going to chuck it all. You don't start cutting yourself just because you didn't exercise.  Instead, I think it's time to step back and recheck goals, rethink strategies, find partners who can help you to keep that New Years resolution, and continue to aim in the right direction even though you now realize it's not going to be as easy as you had once hoped. I'm still wrestling with what that means in terms of our relationship to our church. But it's worth wrestling with.  When you have a good thing, it's worth taking time to think out how it could be better, rather than chucking it in the trash. 

Christmas Quiz

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/quiz?id=PQBQS
This is from the Christian History Magazine folks. I only got 6 out of 10 right. (And most of the ones I got right I had guessed on.)

Whew! Does this mean I should expect a lump of coal in my stocking? (Or is Santa handing out Carbon Offset Credits this year instead of coal?)

How December 25 Became Christmas - Biblical Archaeology Review

http://www.bib-arch.org/e-features/christmas.asp
Here's an interesting take on how December 25th was chosen as the date to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Rather than attributing the date selection to a holiday makeover of pagan holidays, the author argues that it might rather be based upon the time of Jesus' conception.

Still sounds kinda odd to me, but it might be worth giving a "hmmm" to.

Thanks to Don for the link.

Planting a tree when you're 70 years old...

Sojourners' email newsletter today included the following quote:

You must take living so seriously that even at seventy, for example, you'll plant olive trees -- and not for your children, either, but because although you fear death you don't believe it, because living, I mean, weighs heavier.- Nazim Hikmet, Turkish poet, persecuted during the Cold War for his communist views (1901-1963)

I have two questions:
1) What do you think of his reason for planting a tree.  Do you think that living weighs heavier than death? and
2) Would you plant a tree when you're 70?