Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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On the Church and politics

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politics 2I am not a political junkie, nor is this a political blog. I have tried to avoid any hint of partisan politics in my posts. It is my intent to continue on this path. While keeping this intent, I want to make a few observations about the recent election for the benefit of my brothers and sisters in the Church.

The Church is not a political institution

History shows that every time the church has gotten political power, it has turned out badly for the church and the culture at large. While the statistics may show that people who identify themselves as Bible believing Christians tended to prefer one candidate, they also show that this preference was not universal within the Church. Therefore we must be careful to not alienate our brothers and sisters whose political preference does not agree with our own.

God has neither a D nor an R behind his name. You may feel that you can make a case that the policies of your preferred party are more closely aligned with your understanding of Scripture. But I would remind you that the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of Scripture transcend party platforms and political strategy.

Government is not the answer

No matter whether you are depressed, elated or ambivalent about the election result, I want to remind you that the government cannot fix the problems that we face. The fiscal and social problems are not the disease, they are merely the symptoms of a larger moral and spiritual problem. The root cause goes much deeper.

The trajectory of our government is determined by the moral and spiritual climate of the country. In short, we get the government that we deserve because we (collectively) select our leaders. The leaders therefore are reflective of the desires of the people they lead.

For example, we continue to spend more than we have. We do not have the moral discipline to tackle the difficult fiscal problems that face us. We reject the Judeo-Christian ethic of self control and responsibility and have nothing with which to replace it. Consequently, our government does not have the mandate to make the hard decisions which will cause discomfort in the short run but will provide stability moving forward. We are living off of next year’s seed and will have nothing to plant in the spring.

Government cannot hinder God’s plan

Galatians 4:4 tells us that Jesus came “in the fullness of time” which happened to be during the reign of Caesar Augustus. Augustus was followed by a string of emperors that were at best neutral to the propagation of the Gospel. Many of them were hostile to it and persecuted the Church. They had nearly absolute political power but were unable to thwart God’s plan for His Church.

Conclusion

If you are elated about the election results, I would caution you to temper that elation with the understanding that Government, big or small, cannot cure what ails the world. The only cure for the moral and spiritual problems of America is a Holy Spirit led revival and return to a commitment to the moral code that God revealed to us in Scripture.

If you are depressed about the election results, I would offer you the hope that government cannot thwart God’s plan for you or His Church.

For all of us in the Church, I would offer Paul’s words of encouragement found in Romans 8:38-39:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NASB)

Electricity, Hurricane Sandy and the Feast of Sukkot – Four lessons

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Hurricane SandyHurricane Sandy made herself known in a big way in my area. In all the years that I lived in Southeastern Pennsylvania, I never experienced winds like we had earlier this week.

My family and I were blessed in that there was no damage to our home. Other than the minor inconvenience of being without electricity for a little over 24 hours, we came through the event quite well. Others have not fared so well and have endured major losses, my heart and my prayer is with them right now.

As the hurricane raged, it was difficult to think; it was quite enough just to take it all in. But once the storm began to wane, some thoughts came to me about life and hurricanes. Here are some thoughts in no particular order:

  1. Hurricane Sandy reinforced the idea that all we really need for physical existence is food, water and shelter. So many of the things we think of as indispensible are not. In reality, that iPad that you think you need is a nice-to-have, not a necessity.
  2. A major weather event such as Sandy demonstrates that man is not really the master of his own destiny, Jack Welshnot withstanding. The best we can do in response to such force is to find a shelter with sufficient strength to provide protection. Altering or controlling the storm is impossible. We may want to continue the illusion of control, but Sandy should be a clue to how little control we really have.
  3. The hurricane also demonstrated that we overestimate the importance of many of the things we do. When survival is on the line, it does not matter if the lawn is well manicured. When there is little water for cooking, it does not matter if the spice rack is alphabetized. The point is not that neat cupboards and attractive lawns are not good. The point is that when we take good things and make them ultimate things, we get our priorities out of whack.
  4. When something like Sandy comes along, it reinforces the need we have for community. When bad stuff starts to happen around us, we learn that we cannot live in a vacuum. We need, and are needed by, the people around us. We are called to live in community.

As I started to write these observations, the Feast of Sukkot in the Old Testament (Leviticus 23:34-44) came to mind. This is a Jewish feast also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Booths. During this feast the Israelites would build temporary shelters and live in them. It was the original family camp.

Ostensibly the feast was to commemorate the Exodus of Israel from the nation of Egypt. The booths provided a physical reminder of how their forebears lived as they wandered through the desert. Yet I wonder if a side benefit of this feast was to demonstrate to the Israelites the four points listed above. Like us, Israel struggled to keep their priorities straight and to understand who was in control of their destiny. This feast could provide a yearly reorientation to a better perspective.

I do not want to downplay the hardship that some have had to endure in the aftermath of Sandy. But for those of us who were merely inconvenienced, I suggest that we think of it as a forced entrance into Sukkot. We have been given the chance to reflect on what is really important and to redirect our thoughts and resources to better uses.

We only need to stop long enough to reflect.

When labels are (mis)applied in the church

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Name LabelWe like to categorize other people by applying labels to them. Liberal versus conservative, rich versus poor, informed versus ignorant, interesting versus boring, popular versus nerdy, the list of possible categories is inexhaustible. Politicians use this tendency to categorize to their benefit by trying to portray themselves in a popular category while casting their opponent as the opposite.

There is  danger in carrying this drive to categorize people into the church. In the church there are to be no such categories; we are all equal when we come to the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Yet in some churches, people are categorized and labeled. People can be labeled as troublemakers, critics, backsliders, emotionally unstable, emotionally repressed, etc. Positive labels such as leader, teacher and supporter can also be applied.

Applying labels to people becomes a problem when it prevents them from growing into their God-given ministry potential. This is especially true when the labels are applied based on erroneous or incomplete information. Stephen Covey relates the story of the boys on the subway to illustrate how easy it is to misunderstand another person’s situation and actions.

One day on the subway, while quietly reading a book, Stephen was interrupted by two wild children that got on with their father at a subway stop.

The children were out of control, jumping up and down, running loudly through the subway car.

The father seemed not to notice or care that his children were misbehaving and disturbing commuters…

Stephen approached the father and wanted to scold him for not controlling his children and teaching them respect for others…

The father agreed, and sighed sullenly, saying “yeah, I just don’t know what to do or say to them. We just came from the hospital where their mother died from a random assault….”

I have seen people who have made suggestions get labeled as troublemakers. I have seen people who identify problems get accused of being divisive. On the flip side, I have seen those who are successful in business get tagged as church leaders despite their spiritual immaturity.

Church leaders must resist the temptation to label and categorize people in their congregations. Remember Paul’s words in Galatians 3:28:

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (NASB)

Look at the Disciples that Jesus picked. Among them was a terrorist, a traitor, two brothers with anger issues, a fisherman with a tendency to say the wrong thing and a thief. The man that wrote much of the New Testament was a murderer. Jesus trusted this rag tag bunch to found his Church, people we would likely write off as being of little help.

The point is that if someone is causing a problem in the church, that problem should be addressed without labeling the person. God deals with our sin without labeling us, who are we to refuse to do this for others?

How Chick-fil-A baffled the PR pundits

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Chick-fil-AIn a USAToday article entitled Surprise: PR nightmare didn’t damage Chick-fil-A, Bruce Horowitz expresses surprise that Chick-fil-A was not negatively impacted by the firestorm sent against it by the homosexual community and its supporters. I offer some thoughts on why this “controversy” did not damage Chick-fil-A.

  • Dan Cathy was accused of “hate speech” against homosexuals by his comments in support of marriage. In all of the articles I have read on his interview, I heard nothing hateful toward anyone coming from Dan Cathy’s mouth. He made statements in support of traditional marriage. He did not say that homosexuals are inferior people, nor did he say that homosexuals should be targeted for discrimination. He merely said that by his understanding, marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman.
  • I think that people grow tired of the verbal engineering that the homosexual community uses to label as “homophobic” anyone who disagrees with their agenda. Most rational people understand that a person can disagree with his neighbor without hating or fearing him. It is possible to have strong support for traditional marriage and treat homosexuals with respect and dignity.
  • The math doesn’t support the idea that this firestorm should have a large impact on Chick-fil-A. A Gallup.com article concludes that most Americans overestimate the homosexual population to be around 20% when the actual numbers are in the single digits. Some estimate the homosexual population to be as low as 2% and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force estimate as high as 8% of the population. If you assume that Chick-fil-A had a normal market share in the homosexual community, a boycott could potentially create only an 8% reduction in sales.
  • Consider the fact that because of the firestorm, Chick-fil-A name recognition went up. For a few weeks, Chick-fil-A’s name was often on TV, computer screens and in print. It was essentially free advertising for the brand. Spontaneous sales would naturally increase because of the name promotion.
  • The increased name recognition coupled with the fatigue induced by the verbal engineering of the radical homosexual community induced many to eat at Chick-fil-A that might not have done so before the controversy. Some began visiting Chick-fil-A stores just to support Dan Cathy in light of the unfair accusations against him.

Some who have claimed to be Christian have said hateful things against homosexuals; those who do are rightly condemned. I must confess that the Church has a history of handling the issue of homosexuality poorly. There have been times when homosexuality has been treated as the unforgivable sin, which it is not.

According to the Bible, every human has dignity because humanity bears the image of God. We have all marred that image through sin, none of us stands with an unblemished record. This is the point of the “do not judge” command that Jesus gives us in Matthew 7:1. We are not to look down on others because they are sinners because we ourselves are also sinners.

While the Church should treat homosexuals with the respect that is due those who bear the image of God, we also must stand firm on the definition of marriage that God gave us in Scripture. This is exactly what Dan Cathy did. Mr. Cathy allowed his belief to inform his policy.

Apparently America agrees with his right to do so.

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