Why We Should All Be Concerned With Social Justice

            More on the politics of the Kingdom of God

To my friends in the Church, both of the left and the right,

We all must concern ourselves with the justice of the Kingdom, the justice that seeks restoration in the midst of brokenness, and we should be concerned for such restoration in the world, not least for the sake of our own hearts.

In the height of the political season, there exists much conversation on the condition of social justice and human rights within our nation. Both sides hurl insults at each other, each assuming that their policies are more considerate than the policies of the opposing side. The right often suggests that too much giving causes an entitlement mentality, and the left often suggests that the government has a blind responsibility for redistributing wealth, no matter the cost. One side (right) runs the risk of villainizing the poor by suggesting that they simply live in squalor because of their own choices, which is often more of a reaction to the left than to real experiences with the poor, while the other side (left) runs the risk of self-righteously redistributing their own moral responsibility by legislating that people who they see as “rich” take on the responsibility of seeing justice done. At their worst, both sides run the risk of blinding themselves to the plight of the poor.

The issue is much bigger than I will be able to address in this post; so, I know that what I am about to say might seem idealistic and naive, but I am not claiming that what I want to suggests is the great answer to social injustice. I simply want to say something very specific and practical. First of all, we should all recognize that there are marginalized people in this world (and even in our United States) that suffer by no fault of their own. We have an obligation to help. Second, once we see the plight for what it is, we cannot simply legislate a solution to a slow and inefficient government that can only provide by taking from others as it sees fit. In other words, we all must act.

There is a learning opportunity that will be available to us when we loosen on our narrow solutions. For the people to the right, avoiding the extreme means dropping the ancient prejudice that all suffer due to their own sins (John 9:2). Such recognition will make people a more active and caring community who uses our great privileges to benefit others. For the people to the left, avoiding the extreme means dropping the modern prejudice that big government is the great hope for human progress (Matt 6:33). Such recognition will make our efforts more affective by being direct answers to the issues of poverty.

As I get to my main point, I must say this. I am not suggesting that the person of the right or the left are inherently guilty of the extremes, but it seems that we are in a season of extremes, of reactionary motives. In the end, this is a call for persons of the right and the left to avoid blinding themselves to the poor, whether by denial or delegation of personal responsibility to the government.

I say all of this to say the thing I have wanted to talk about this whole time. What will happen when we take personal (and communal/Church) responsibility so that we are directly in contact with the poor: We will learn a hard lesson. What is this lesson we will learn? We will learn we have turned a blind eye to the poor for so long because the poor are often very difficult to serve. Just as the affluent has the tendency to move to extremes, so too do the poor.

When you actually reach out to the poor with what you see as a great and restorative hand, a solution that might just get them back on their feet, you will find many do not want it. Many will take your grace and mercy and abuse them. Many will exploit you, just as they exploit the government right now.

So, why help? While there are certainly many levels to this answer, I want to talk of a practically spiritual answer. First, we learn something of what it means to be merciful as God is merciful. Just as He offers a helping and restorative hand to the lost (and therefore, spiritually poor) world and is rejected time and time again, so too will we find that some perversely choose their poverty, as we might have always assumed, but that has not stopped God and shouldn’t stop us. We learn the personal worth of love as we feel the sting of having that love thrown back in our face. Second, the reward is great when finally we are able, by God’s grace, to help a person find restoration. After rejection after rejection, when grace is finally accepted, our hearts will rejoice more than they would if everyone we met simply took what we have to offer.

Therefore, serving the poor becomes an experience of sanctification, becoming more like God through experiencing something of what He experiences as He reaches out to all of us in love. Through loving the often unlovable, we come to better appreciate God’s relentless pursuit of each of us in our own rebellion, and through actually being a part of the restoration of a few, we begin to understand the joy God has in restoring each of us.

To those of the right, I know today is a day of disappointment, but it is not time to give up. Even while the government has taken a different path, people still should move to see their convictions being actualized in the world around them. Your duty does not end when you are out voted. You still have personal strength and means to see great things happen.

To those of the left, I know today is a day of victory, but the battle has not been won. Even while the government has taken your desired path, people still should move to see their convictions being actualized in the world around them. Your duty does not end with your convictions being legislated to the government. You are not off the hook. You still have personal responsibility to restore. You cannot simply make it someone else’s problem.

To us all: Be the Church.

Bright blessings,

Rev. Tab M. Miller

Hey, Church, Let’s Talk Politics

A few weeks ago I noted on that great social media outlet, facebook, that I was not one to broadcast my political opinions via the impersonal Internet. Today, I am going to retreat from that position a bit, but I won’t be uplifting the Republican or the Democratic parties, which is the real debate I want to avoid right now. Instead, I will be highlighting the political and social nature of the church.

Let me say this, the democracy that we enjoy in the United States of America is probably the best human system that we have, but it is a human system and will pass. The thought that our democracy will create utopia is misleading, that if only we vote the “right” way, we will see the world put right. Only when the Kingdom of God is consummated will we see a great restorative political system, namely the governance of God. Until then, imperfect people, including you and me, will operate all worldly systems, even our best of systems like democracy.

When someone mentions the social nature of the church, others often gasp, and often for the right reasons. Many issues of social justice that have been taken on by various segments of the church (mainly the left side) have done so in the wrong spirit and by the wrong means, a topic I will return to presently. However, before speaking of the proper and improper social engagement of the church, I must say this. Those who gasp at the idea of social justice, or better yet, social holiness (mainly the right side), have often gone in the opposite direction, making faith all about the private and individual life, ignoring our social responsibilities altogether.

That position is so confusing to me, especially since the religious right is often so bold in the proclamation of faith. Consider this: As Christians, there should be no area of life in which we do not act as Christians. Whether it is eating, sleeping, laughing, voting, worshiping, whether it is mundane or extraordinary, we should be Christian. Anything less is falling short. Do not compromise your life by compartmentalizing your life. What we do in the public sphere should be guided by our identity in Christ, bottom line.

The Christian church in America has allowed the world to squelch its power in the subtlest of ways. The democratic process that so many a Christian American is proud of is the very system that snuffs out the light we are to allow to shine forth. It is the bushel basket of “civilized” Christian people, both of the right and the left. How is this so?

We make our social agenda all about voting. We expend all our efforts during this political season on telling people why we as Christians should, for goodness sakes, vote democratic or republican. We, in turn, hide behind our vote.  We say things like, “Well, if my party does not win, then it’s the end. There is no more hope.” Let me politely say: How dare you! Neither the republican nor the democratic parties are our hope. If there is a community that is to make a difference in the world, it is the church. Do not turn your back on her. Political parties come and go, but His church endures as His very public presence to the world.

The sort of dependency that the church places on secular political parties cripples us from acting. If we expend all our efforts trying to promote our morality through our vote, then we are left saying, “Well, at least I tried. Don’t blame me,” when our party loses the race.  But, is that it? Are we off the hook if the world around us, which always opposes us, wins out in the political arena of voting?

We need to ask ourselves, what is our primary identity as Christians, is it our Republican or Democratic allegiance, our Americanism, or is it our citizenship as members of the Kingdom of God. If the church has a conviction on a particular political topic, then we should not outsource our agenda to some other community. We should promote our beliefs primarily from within, taking on issues ourselves.

As James 2:14-17 points out, those things we see as injustices become our problem. If we see suffering, we not only bless the needy, but offer assistance. If we see someone involved in a situation we think is wrong, we not only point our finger; we take on the issue ourselves. We not only proclaim the truth by saying, “You are wrong.” We put hands and feet to our beliefs by saying, “Now let me carry this burden with you.” Is that not the way of Christ? What if He had come to the Earth and said, “Be better,” but did not take our injustices upon Himself? We would still be lost.

So, we speak to the would-be-mother who is considering abortion. We should not simply point our fingers and say, “You screwed up, now live with it.” No, we, as the church, are called to be God’s means of healing. We are to offer assistance for whatever is needed to bring blessing from a bad situation. We proclaim truth, “God is for life,” and then we too act as if we believe what we say. We promote life by offering the mother counseling, shelter, legal representation in an adoption process, whatever it might take; we are there until the end. Until we as the church begin to act primarily out of our community (the church), we need to keep quite on moral issues. For we are proving that we do not believe in them enough when we do not act on them as the church and instead yell at the worldly government until we are red in the face.

Should we ignore our voting privileges? No, vote away, but do not allow your vote to be your primary means of bringing justice to the world. Challenge the church both universal and local to be the hands and feet of Christ, not just His mouthpiece.

Instead, be salt and light to a lost and hurting world by being a city (a community) that lives out His good works, not through secular parties, but as the church (Matthew 5:13-16). I, for one, am glad that God’s plan is not up for a vote: We are commanded to go and to live as His people!

Now go and live as His people.

Creation Restored

In order to understand our place in history, we must have a sense of identity. This sort of understanding is under much threat in the emerging postmodern world, but is of utmost importance. We are living in a culture that is beginning to tell us that life is meaningless, that we have no real identity. How dangerous! Do you recall the first movie of the Bourne franchise, “The Bourne Identity?” The franchise started with a trilogy about Jason Bourne, a special agent found adrift with amnesia. Some fishermen pick him up, and he begins to ask the questions, “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” Can you imagine what would have happened to him if he had not asked those questions?

If you have not seen the movie, I won’t spoil too much, but I need to catch you up a little. The reason Jason has amnesia is because of a special operation that has gone wrong. He is injured and is left floating in the ocean. The agency that sent him is acting without approval from the government and wishes to cover up the botched mission. Thus, they are out to kill Jason. If Jason would have gotten on the boat and never worried to ask who he was, he would not have found out he was in trouble, and the powers that be would have found him unaware and unready to defend his self.

Each human finds his or her self in a very similar situation. We are born into the world lost, and unaware of our situation. If we allow the world to tell us that we have no real story, no real reason we are adrift, besides perhaps chance, we will unwittingly allow sin to consume us. We need to know where we come from.

So, what is our identity? What has been lost, and what is at stake?

The Genesis account of our creation and time in the garden does not simply tell us about the “good old days,” about the way things were, but have been forever lost. In fact, the Genesis account is very much about the future, what we will one day have. As such, we must look to it with warm tears in our eyes, the sort of tears that warm our eyes when we remember a loved one who has passed, a mixture of grief and joy. In this, we grieve, but we hope for the day in which what has been lost will be restored. Each time we lose a loved one to death, each time we see a hungry child, each time we see disease ravaging a friend’s body, we must long for the garden. Yet, it is not a longing for a home to which you cannot return. Our longing must be accompanied by hope.

The account of our time in Eden is a story of home meant to elicit more than an argument about “how God created us.” Relocating Eden merely to the past has severely damaged our view of our story by limiting our imaginations. Christians, I urge you, please don’t allow the naysayers to control your reading of Creation. Do not always and forever read it as a textbook of mere facts, as a science that must be always defended. The Bible will do just fine without your constant guard. The greatest proof for Eden is living in hope of seeing it again one day. Take a break from the constant apologetics and the worry of how you are going to defend this or that portion of the text. Apologetics have their place, but don’t just read the text for and against others, but for and against your self. The creation account and the retelling of our time in the garden is meant to elicit emotions of lament, to break your heart in that home sick sort of way. Allow your heart to bleed. Be vulnerable and cry out to your Father in your exile, because we get to go back.

Many readers of the Genesis account seem to peer into the garden and think to themselves, “Well, that would have been nice, but we gave that up and will never see Eden again.” Perhaps such lament should be our initial reaction: We need to feel a real sense of loss. We should certainly regret that we, as a race, have given up such a home, but the ability to lament is a revelation to the deepest reality. Lament gives us opportunity to realize and regret that the way we have done things are the wrong ways of doing things. Lamenting leads to repentance, an unlearning of the habits that have put us in our present, negative situation, and repentance, the turning away from bad habits and the adopting of new, healthy habits puts us on a path to recovery, to redemption, to reconciliation, to resurrection.

For some reason many Christian thinkers look at the beginning and the end of human history as two very separate realities. God’s original intent for humanity was to live happily in the garden, and there is this assumption that after the fall, God’s plan shifted. Now, according to this new way of thinking, the children of God are supposedly meant to inhabit another realm altogether, an ethereal place called heaven that is far removed from our present home. On earth we are physical beings. In heaven, apparently, we are spirits floating about. In the garden, we were to work the soil. In heaven, apparently, we simply and literally bow in worship forever and ever.

Is this the picture the Bible really paints, or are we confused by our Western idea of heaven as a place separate from our present reality? Yes, heaven is now separate from Earth, but not naturally so. Heaven represents the presence of God. Earth used to be a place where man fully experienced His presence. Sin tore the two apart and made a gulf between His presence and our reality. But Christ makes all things new.

Yes we lament the loss of Eden, but life goes on precisely because God wishes for us to repent and turn from our ways, the ways of sin and death. Just as Israel repentance always led backwards, back home, so too does our repentance take us back. Eden is not simply at the beginning of the Bible because it is the chronological starting point. Instead, the Eden account is reporting to us what is at stake in the complex drama of human history. If Eden, which represents life and peace with God, is what we lost, for their to be a happy ending to the story, Eden is what must be restored, and Christ serves as the champion of this story of reconciliation.  When we repent and turn around, we are facing Eden, our home, our promise land.

In order to understand the story God has given us, we must understand its scope. Often persons tell the story of the Bible beginning at the fall and ending at the resurrection. It is as if the binding has fallen off our Bibles and has taken a few pages from the beginning and the end along with it. The story starts and ends with, “We have died, but, in Christ, we have risen.” But died to what, and risen to what? Unwittingly, many jump into the part all about our problems and our solution. But that focus is to center upon humanity, and we do not see God’s big picture. The drama of Scripture runs from creation to new creation. To borrow from the title of Sandra Richter’s book, the whole story we are given in the Bible is “The Epic of Eden.” Eden has certainly been lost, but not forever. We are going back. We stand in exile, but Eden is our ultimate promised land.

The idea of being lost is quite vague until we understand what was lost. To say of humanity that we are lost does not begin to bring about the sort of anguish that should be brought about in light of our fall and depravity. The real question is this: What are we lost from? For it is not just life that we lost, but a sort of life, a way of being that is difficult if not impossible to grasp by the sinful heart, but, if only glimpsed at, will create a deep and devastating longing that can last a life time. That our God is a God that would will our happiness forever is a concept that has been lost on humanity and even some Christians. But that is why we were created, and that is exactly what we threw back into God’s face when our own selfishness led to a desire for what was not ours to take.

The tree and its fruit represents more than mere disobedience; they represent a whole shift in being, a gaining of a perspective, the knowledge of good and evil, which was not really a gain at all, but a loss. We try and make the story of the tree a Sunday School, color book story, that simply suggests we did bad when we disobeyed and ate an apple that we were told not to eat. But, that is a child’s version of the true horror story. The tree represents knowledge of right and wrong. Man’s eating of the fruit is his declaration to God, “I do not trust you with guiding me into what is best for me.” I want control over my destiny. I want to decide for myself. Give me my life, Father. I won’t to live it my way.” Does that ring a bell? Does that not remind you of the prodigal? We will return to this thought momentarily.

This tree represents division between man and God. It represents a division within man himself, man who was created to desire God now, through disobedience, has taken on a new desire, a desire that leads to death, a desire for self, because God is the source of life. So, to turn from God is to turn from life. The tree represents the desire of self over God. But who is capable of lifting himself up? Strong as one may be, no one can pull himself up by his own bootstraps. We were made to be carried by God, but we chose the fruit of selfishness, which created and revealed in man a division between good, outward focused reality and evil, inward focused reality.

If the fall of man, demonstrated in the selfish act of choosing from the one tree that man was to ignore, created a division, a break in the human nature, what is the nature that we lost? We lost our inherent reflective nature of God, being made fully in His image, and this being demonstrated in the separation of man from God. And what is the nature of God, the image, which we lost? God is love. We lost love. To make our fall anything less than the loss of love is to downplay the sheer horror of what was truly given up by our transgression. This is not to say that God stopped loving us, but something even worse.

While God continues to love, we chose to set up a barrier so that His love cannot reach us and fulfill us as it once did. If God would have just given up, it might not sting so badly, but in His persistence we see the horrible reality of what sort of love we transgressed. We have tried various theologies to numb and downplay the issue. In anguish, some have suggested we really did not lose much. Some say we are merely pawns in God’s game. We shift the blame or make it trivial. But, we must face reality. We threw love back in Love’s face. How retched? But, hear the good news. We are called to return. We all are called. While love was lost, while love was stripped from Love, Love never stopped searching for the objects of His desire. While we did not want to have anything to do with Love, Love never changed. He still desires us.

In order to turn from the sin that we fell into, we must turn from self, and this is done by the grace of Love. Our own broken nature longs for redemption, a move back to Love, but we cannot tear down the barrier we set in place. All we now have is a plea to Love. Thank Love that it is the nature of love to return to the lost, to even those who have betrayed Love for spite. There is no other motive for Love, but love.

Try as we might to shift the story, we will eventually have to accept the truth that what we lost was God, what we have lost is Love. Love is at stake, not mere life, but life abundant with Love. What is at stake is God, the God of our fulfillment. He seeks us all in Love, for Love does not discriminate or show favoritism. Oh how lost we would be if Love was not loving. Praise Him.

And because God is love, He does not change His love for us. Many theologians have the faith of a servant. They are as the prodigal, perhaps my favorite retelling of the story of human history. They assume our life once back home will be different than the life we had before, just as the prodigal assumed. These people assume we no longer inherit the garden. The prodigal imagined in his mind that the father would not take him back into the home, but would give him a lesser life of service, but what did the father do, he fully restored the child. We did not forever lose Eden. Our Father calls us home, to full restoration.

Let’s look at the end of the story:

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him: And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God gives them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

Do you recognize this place at the center of New Jerusalem, our future home? There is the river. There is the Tree of Life. And God is once again with His people in the midst of a physical reality. This is the garden. Our home. God’s plan never changed. We were to live in the garden and work with God in creation. We gave that up, but look! God continued to develop Eden. Now the garden is a city, and when all is said and done, after Earth is resurrected. What is now in heaven, the home God is preparing for us, will be brought down to Earth once more. Our home. 

Playing Catch Up With Unbelievers…

            Or simply playing the wrong game altogether…

There is a growing opinion within some scholarly Christian circles concerning the phenomenon of persons leaving the faith, and I tend to agree with the assessment. Considering the “why” of American Church decline, most sociologically minded, Christian scholars would suggest:

[V]ery few [persons who have abandoned the Christian faith] stopped believing in Christ because of intellectual problems with the Bible or because they were seduced by some other worldview or belief system. Rather, they tend to abandon Christian faith because of the irrelevance, judgmentalism, internal dissension, and lack of compassion they experience within the Christian community. Rather than finding the church to be the community that most deeply encouraged them in their struggles, they lost heart in their discouragement and lost their faith in the process. (Walsh and Keesmaat)*

To expound upon this assessment, I would caution against a misunderstanding. Many agnostic, ignostic, and atheistic thinkers that were once Christian might suggest that “intellectual problems” certainly were great factors in their decision to exit the church community. In fact, they might suggest that it was most certainly the intellectual issues that gave them the courage to step out. There is no question that this is certainly the case. However, the above evaluation concerns the catalyst. The question perhaps is not what was the straw that broke the camel's back, but what initiated and perpetuated the doubt that resulted in an intellectual questioning of the faith. People begin their descent into apostasy not when they begin to evaluate intellectual claims, but when they realize that they see no real power in what their community espouses.

Why would a person that sees real results from the practices of the community wish to doubt? As it is, however, the Christian community’s espoused beliefs do not align with their actions. The question then becomes, “Why would a person that sees no real results from the practices of the community wish to believe?” Now, the apostate might not even readily recall the spark of doubt. Instead, they might speak of the multitude of considerations afterward that led to doubt becoming unbelief. These considerations are more often than not intellectual in nature. While many of these persons would argue that they argue from a more unbiased stance than religious communities, could it be that their search that led them to unbelief, even while being a Christian, albeit a doubting Christian, was marked by confirmation bias. Is it not natural to wish to find an out of a community that inflicts pain and exhibits “irrelevance, judgmentalism, internal dissension and lack of compassion”?

So, the church ends up playing a game we, for the most part, should have avoided playing altogether. Our highest witness is embodiment; however, since we have not done this well, we instead spend an overly exorbitant amount of time in intellectual apologetics with those acquaintances we wish to bring back from unbelief. We are trying to treat a symptom of the real issue, which is distrust in the church. I am a philosopher at heart, and I love apologetics, but we need balance in witness, and we often are fighting the wrong battle.

-TM

*Brian Walsh and Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2004), 130.

The Farmer’s Children

“I'm looking forward to a generation that does not think it is a unique generation... but says ‘Hey, I just believe the faith of the centuries, grounded in scripture, clarified by reason, articulated over the generations, vital and alive, unified, holy, catholic, apostolic…’” ~Dr. Lawson Stone (Facebook status, March 31, 2012)

There once was a farmer with a beautiful, lush, and productive crop. The farmer and his wife were not always so successful, but with age came wisdom. In their dotage the farmer and his wife enjoyed a self-sustaining life. Everything they needed they had. There was no need to leave the farm for any necessities. Years of gathering knowledge and much practice had given them all the tools they needed to grow and produce all the physical necessities they needed for the rest of their lives. Even better, they were able to provide for their children and cherished the moments that they had to pass their knowledge of successful, self-sustaining life to their progeny. However, they often felt their joy being dampened by the lack of trust the children had in their lifestyle. For some reason, the children simply could not see that the parents had invested much into making their lives what it was. Getting to the point of having it altogether, as it were, was not a matter of luck, but a matter of thoughtful and often painful discipline. Instead, the children simply assumed the parents way was just one of many and was too restrictive for them.

While the children enjoyed health and much prosperity from the life their parents had given them, they resented their parents very much and both swore that when they grew up and left the farm, they would each live life their own way. Try as they might, the parents could not convince the children that they were not simply trying to impose a tradition, but trying to keep them from having to make the same mistakes they had made when they, in their younger years, were not willing to learn from their elders. The children could not see that what they were offered was offered in love and wisdom. Instead, the children only repeatedly and in their own ways rebelled against the parents’ wisdom, continually throwing it back in the parents' faces. The first child was grown and out of the house before the parents had ever pulled their lives together. Early on, they too wished to do life their own way, and had not heeded their parents’ advice. Thus, the eldest child never enjoyed the stable home of his parents. By the time the parents had found the path to success, the eldest wanted nothing to do with it. Too many times had he seen them fail, and now he was edging out his own living. But his story is not the more tragic of the two.

The younger child was born much later than the elder sibling and enjoyed a full life of comfort under successful parents, but he grew up in a generation of general distrust and the parents’ way fell into disfavor with the youngest, as was common for his generation. He was known to say, “Well, that is all well and good for you, but I need to find my own path.” Yet, the parents persisted with both children, passing on their knowledge even where it was unwanted. In the time and place that this family found their selves, living other ways of life was not an option. To live, one had to grow and raise his or her food sources. So, the parents continued in love to try and persuade the children.

While the younger child did not have the option to live a completely different life, he was determined to live a life of farming that was his own. He had seen his farming parents plant seeds for years. He noticed three key rituals they would perform, and wondered if any or all of them had not simply been a silly tradition they had adopted from an ancient myth. First, they would till the earth and add their compost. Second, they would dig a whole and plant the seeds, each kind at various levels and at various distances from each other. Finally they would continually water and tend to the crop.

The child’s first approach was to test and see exactly what parts of his parents’ beliefs were false and which were true. Instead of tilling the earth and adding the compost, he simply began at step two, carefully planting seeds in holes he dug in the hard earth. He also watered and tended to the crop. His harvest produced very little, but it did produce, and he blindly thought to himself, “See my parents were wrong about tilling and composting, that is so unnecessary.” The next season, he decided to skip step two as well. Instead of digging a hole, he simply cast his seed over the hard ground. He did continue to water and tend. This time the harvest produced even less, yet there was some harvest to be had, and, once again, he claimed to him self, “My parents were wrong.” The third season, the young man decided to skip step three. He simply cast seed, never tilling, never planting, and never tending or watering. The harvest was pitiful, but it did produce. The boy continued to suffer for his rejection, but the further he went his own path, the more he resented his parents; until one day, he decided that maybe even the seeds are part of the myth. There was no harvest that year, and he proclaimed to himself, and to all who would listen: “Farming is a myth. I have tried it, and it does not produce.”

What is the point? Humans are not meant to reinvent life with each generation. We progress precisely because we learn from our elders. Imagine if every generation had to rediscover how to build a fire, we would never civilize as a race. We would more than likely be extinct. Too often Christian offspring say, “I do not want to believe because it is what my parents believed. I want a worldview of my own,” and they set out to discover reality from scratch. The question should not be, “Do I have to accent to truths simply because my parents did?” The question should be, “Does what my parents believe work? Is it real, and can I build from that foundation?” We do this in all other areas of life. Why can we not do this with faith? This is a call first to parents: We must embody the faith. We cannot simply tell our children it works, we must show them it works. Second this is a call to the younger generation: “Do not be so naïve to think you can do life all on your own. You rely on people every day. If you buy groceries, use roadways, or have any item in your possession that someone else made, you have not made it this far on your own, and discovering a basis for reality is too big a task to go alone.  You never do anything completely on your own. So, it is with discovering truth. We do not have an eternity to figure it out. Be rational and look for that which produces real life and yields a true sustaining crop.

Weightlifting For The Soul

 If you have been following me on Facebook or Twitter, you might be aware that I have been really focused in on physical discipline. I think the Christian life can be so blessed and even improved if we simply listen to what God says to us about our own bodies. Moreover, over the last year or so, I have found that allowing God to mold me physically has taught me much about how to grow spiritually. As we all know, exercise is a huge part of healthy living for the body, but, for a moment, I do not want to talk about exercise as a physical discipline, but as a spiritual discipline. Spiritual exercise looks a bit different than lifting heavy weights, but often times it is just as difficult. The exercise of restraint, not allowing ourselves to give into temptation is, in my mind, the spiritual equivalency to picking up those dumbbells. It is truly resistance training, is it not?  

Before we talk too much about exercise, I want to speak briefly to exercise’s wonderful counterpart, diet. Proper exercise is really not all that great without proper diet. Now, I am not talking about fad diets; I am talking about lifestyle diet, what we choose to eat, day-in and day-out. We are all on a diet of some sort. Some are simply better than others, and some are just flat out weird. Just as our bodies need sustenance, our spirit requires a type of food as well. Once again, some spiritual diets are better for our souls than others, and some are just plain weird.

The Word of God has proved to be a great diet for the soul, but just as with physical food, if we do not exercise, the food we consume is of little use, and it ends up burdening us instead of fueling us. If we eat of the Word, but we do not allow it to energize our spirit’s activity, its exercises, then we are wasting the knowledge God has given. It will begin to pile up and fester as our souls are burdened with knowing what we ought to do, but are not doing. Just as physical sloth can produce guilt, so too can spiritual sloth produce guilt. I mention all this about diet to show the intricate relationship that it shares with exercise. We will return to the need to exercise momentarily, but the real reason I bring up spiritual food is this: If we do not fuel our souls, we should not think we can exercise them properly. The two go hand in hand. If you are not eating properly from the Bread of Life and The Word of God, don’t expect to have a joyful soul, even if you try to exercise it often through spiritual disciplines such as prayer, worship, liturgy, study, contemplation, sharing, and taking care of the needy. Besides the disciplines, and as I mentioned upfront, resisting temptation is also exercise and true training for our spirit. No matter what the activity is for the spirit, the truth of the matter is that spiritual practice requires spiritual food.

Now, back to exercising our spirit. When we think of our sanctification, that is our becoming more and more Christ-like, we often think of our role in very passive terms, and certainly we should. God is the one who sanctifies for sure, but that is not an excuse to not involve ourselves in the strengthening of our souls. The fact is, no matter how odd it seems, God calls us to work with Him, even though we are faulty and often disappointing. We have a role in our own sanctification. Paul tells us: “Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12,13). Paul demonstrates this peculiar relationship. As Mr. Wesley put it: “God works, therefore you must work.” This is not works righteousness. It is a grace-fueled offer to walk with God and to be apart of His work.

Why must I work? With little effort we can discover that our wills are weak, even the Christian’s will. This is seen every time we do those things we know we ought not to do. Weakness of Will presents itself in such mundane ways that we often do not see the insidious problem until it is too late. For example, we know that we should not eat too much, but we do it anyway. We know we should get enough sleep, but we stay up on the computer anyway. We know we should read the Bible, but we watch TV instead. We know those things we should do produce life, and those things we shouldn’t do produce illness and death, but we are weak and often do those things we know good and well are detrimental to our being, even when we want to do what is good.

When we set our minds on a disciplined life, and we pray for the grace to pursue the good, we are praying for God to orient our hearts on His will. God then tells us that His word is life (John 6:63). Just as simply wanting to be physically fit is worthless unless we eat properly, so too must we discipline ourselves to eat of His Words, lest we never obtain the spiritual health we seek.  Furthermore, He tells us that those that want good spiritual health must live it out, to discipline ourselves. Just as our muscles grow stronger and stronger as we exercise the body, so too does our spirit transform as we live a disciplined life. 

Do We Need to Preach the Gospel All the Time? Maybe Not...

From time to time, the church, or a subculture within the church, to be more precise, will pick up a new buzzword, usually associated with a movement or ideology that has recently hit the scene and promises to be the next great “thing” that will revolutionize or revive the church from its slumber if it can be properly disseminated, resulting in the next spiritual revival. First, let me say that I am not immune to such musings. I often allow idealism to creep in, leading me to not so well thought out conclusions. Second, let me also suggest that I do believe that revival is possible, and it is often attached to, simply not merely dependent upon, a new cultural focus or movement. As a Wesleyan thinker, I place a high regard upon God’s prevenient grace in such situations. In short, what I mean is that I believe that God’s Spirit going out preparing the way is what must happen primarily for revival to take place. These cultural movements are merely vehicles for God’s overarching work.

What I mean to say by this is that the idea, buzzword, or new school of thought, in its self, cannot ever produce revival. We should never assume that if we disseminate this or that renewed doctrine or system of thought, spiritual revival must necessarily follow. This is to ignore the utter need of the Spirit for any Spiritual good to take place. So, when a word, a group of words, or a system of thought is touted about as being the next great thing, I am wary. This is not to say that I believe that revival will never come about largely because of a movement, but it has to be a movement God initiates. Simply because it is biblical does not mean it is going to catch the world ablaze. Biblical theology is preached everyday and it still falls on deaf ears. Being attentive to and seeking God’s prior movements and callings alone brings about revival. It is then that the message preached makes headway.

Take for example the Gospel itself. The Gospel, the Bible tells us, happened in the fullness of time, in God’s timing, so that it might have the greatest affect. Therefore, as powerful a message as the Gospel was and still is, it is itself dependent upon the work of God to make its effectiveness sure. Without the prior workings of God, as we see in the Old Testament, the Gospel would have been of much less affect. Instead, as the opening of Mark points out, there was a preparing of a way before the Gospel hit the scene of human history. I use this example mainly because it is the word “Gospel” that I have seen become the newest buzzword, and for reasons enumerated above, I am skeptical of it existence in this new form. That is to say, I see it being used as the new “cure-all” and I am concerned about what persons using the term really mean by what they say and how they think its use will be effective. (If you are a friend of mine that happens to use this word a lot, please be assured that I have no one particular person in mind, but a group. And I write this as one side of a dialogue, with the benefit of my friends in mind. In other words, I offer this in love.)

I first began to notice the trend a few years ago. A few peers of mine began, almost simultaneously, to use the word “Gospel” in just about every dialogue they had upon all things Christian. At first I was simply a bit curious, wondering if I had missed out on something. As I began to listen more, I realized that the rhetoric surrounding the new buzzword was also quite uniform between the adherents to this new way of speaking. That is when I became quite sure that this was a movement of some sort, although I have not yet myself found the genesis for this new thought (if you have any ideas let me know. I am assuming it started in Reformed circles, as I am not always aware of their dialogue). Recently, the use of this new term, and the ideas imported with it, has proven to me to be an overemphasis of one theological idea over several others. This was concluded when I heard it said that biblical messages are fine, but the Gospel is really our only real concern. While I think that there is a hierarchy of ideas within Scripture, method of baptism being of less import than views on say justification and all of soteriology for that matter, I also think that one doctrine should not be used to the exclusion of others, which I worry is happening in this case.

Many would say we need but preach the Gospel. What the sinner needs to hear is the Gospel. Evangelism begins, and in some of the most extreme minds, ends with the Gospel. And so they say, "We need to preach the Gospel!" By this many come to mean, in all our varied ways, the point of all we say needs to be about the Gospel. In the end, this philosophy of evangelism suggests that the primary concern of all messages we give should be the Gospel message. I have even heard it said that Sunday morning-meaning church services-should always be about the Gospel, and by this the person means to suggest it should be explicitly so. Some leeway might be given in suggesting that all biblical principles might be taught, as long as they then point back to the Gospel message in a clear and even explicit manner, as if for any biblical sermon to be affective a formulaic expression of the Gospel must be tagged to the end, thus ending every message with, “…and this is made possible by the Gospel.” I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing to say, but I assume that if we are doing our jobs as disciple makers, this should be implied and implicitly understood often times. Nevertheless, there are those who say, we need but preach the Gospel.

I would protest and say that while the statement, “We need to preach the Gospel” is indeed a proper thing to say, it is incomplete, and if it becomes one’s mantra, then it can lead to an over generalizing of our call to discipleship.  Instead, I would simply say that all that we say and do as disciples should be about, leading to, pointing to, or dependent upon the Gospel. Certainly, without the Gospel, no other biblical principle would really matter, for without resurrection, we are without hope. But the Gospel message alone will not suffice for Christian evangelism, unless by "Gospel" one simply means whatever is contained in Scripture. I suspect this is not what many mean when they say such for why would they not simply say we need to preach biblically. The Gospel should remain within our minds as a distinct part, albeit the climatically crucial part, of the larger Scriptural text.

To say we need to preach the Gospel is to say something very true, but incomplete. Think of it this way: We need to breathe, without this action, we cannot sustain life, but we also need to eat to be sustained. We should not say, “We need to breathe,” only to then conclude, “Breathing is so primary that all else can fall to the wayside.” Likewise we need to preach the Gospel to maintain a sustained ministry, but we also need to preach other Scriptural truths, complementary to the Gospel message. The reality that much needs to be said before and after the Gospel message is, as I pointed out earlier, indicative of why Messiah did not come immediately after the fall. Yes the Gospel is the good news of God's great solution to our problem, but he had to do much to prepare the way.  

Just as humanity had to learn over time, thus the redemptive story happens throughout real history, so too does the individual learn of the truth over time. First he gave the law to convict. The Gospel largely is not meant to convict, that is it assumes we know the problem. The problem of our perversion, as pointed out by the law, was already established in the OT. Likewise, before we tell persons about the good news, we often must present the problem before they are ever ready to hear the solution. As it needs a foundation, we are not warranted in suggesting that all we need to do is present the Gospel. The Old Testament provides such a basis for the Gospel message, that the Gospel would be nonsensical without it. Moreover, the Gospel is not the end of the story. The Gospels, properly speaking, end after the ascension, but the story goes on. Pentecost is really the result of the Gospel. We need to not only present the Gospel, but what the Gospel makes possible as well.

The Gospel, in the life of a Christian is merely the beginning of the journey. If all one hears Sunday in and Sunday out is the Gospel, then he or she might think that after justification, that is, after acceptance, he or she is through. What else could be determined from church service if the Gospel is all we ever give. Some might rebut by suggesting that we have to present this message in church, for there might be some there that particular Sunday that only have this one opportunity left. This places the responsibility of salvation squarely on our own shoulders and out of the much more trusting hands of God., and it effectively disables us to preach the full revelation of God. Is the Gospel to be so stifling a thing? Not by any means. If this was one’s philosophy, then he or she should never waist a breath with anyone at any time unless it concerns the Gospel in an explicit way. Sunday should be no special occasion for such.

The whole of Scripture is to be taught, and not the ever part of it is the Gospel message in an explicit sense. This is my bottom line. We need to stop belittling the messages of others, revealed to their heart by God, by saying, he or she did not present the Gospel! If it is biblical, I bet God wants it to be heard at some point or another, and we need not conclude every reading of Scripture by turning then to Matthew, Mark, Luke or John for the “real” story.

But, do I think these people, or better yet, this school of thought, has something to offer. Of course I do. We can take from this that the Gospel should be of primary concern. It should be considered in all we say and do. We are dependent upon it for our very existence, and sermons day in and day out that simply use the bible to instruct us on moral matters, never mentioning the Gospel, are of little use, sense without the Gospel, we are without hope. We should preach the Gospel and preach it often, but we also must take time, assuming the Gospel has been heard by the majority of our congregation, to preach the fuller message. We must remind persons of God’s will for our lives by presenting messages like those derived from the law, which is an explicit representation of God’s good will and perfect way for humanity. The law can convict a person and lead them to the Gospel. Moreover, the law can teach us, as Christians, what we should expect from the Christian walk if we follow the Spirit to lead. If we are living a life antithetical to the moral law of God, we are probably not walking in the Spirit, and this points to the need for God’s Gospel, for on our own, we cannot walk in righteousness. We must also preach messages that speak to what the Gospel provides for us, like messages of Sanctification-that is the message of God’s Spirit living in us and actually changing us from the inside out.

Let me not discourage any one that reads this from robustly proclaiming our need to study and preach the Gospel. Let me not temper your words. But, if you will, allow me to have you consider a fuller thought upon the matter. Do not reduce God’s Word to one part. Allow it to operate in its fullness. Preach with the Gospel at the heart of all you say and do. That is, preach with the intention of leading persons to Christ, but allow all portions of the Bible to teach us about God, never assuming that they are weak left to themselves. They will still accomplish much, even if the Gospel is only assumed to be foundational and not the center of the particular message at hand.

To conclude, allow me to return to the doctrine of Prevenient Grace: It is not this or that message that will cause revival. If He prepares the way, makes soft the hearts of those who need Him, then He knows the message that needs to be given. Therefore, we need not make any absolute statement (ex: We can only present the gospel) about what needs to be said, except this: We need to preach what God lays upon our heart to preach. That alone is the answer. Once again, there is much more to the Bible than the Gospel proper. The Gospel then should not be a constraining message that eclipses God's fuller revelation. 

Think on these things.