EXPOSING THE GOLDEN CALF

Posted on November 2, 2010 by stanwiedeman

A friend told me that he is planning a party for Tuesday night. When I asked him why, he said, “Because there will be no more political ads on TV.” I could not agree more.

The current political process caters to the principle of voting for the lesser of two evils. Attack ads disparage the opposing candidate for every possible transgression. Candidates no longer appeal to voters on the basis of being the best possible candidate to represent the constituency. This would require a clear assertion of goals and strategies that capture the voters’ imagination, a tactic blatantly absent from today’s campaigning.

What has captured the imagination of followers of Christ is politics. James Davison Hunter asserts, “the dominant public witness of the Christian churches in America since the early 1980’s has been a political witness.” Hunter quotes a prominent evangelical, “The side that wins gains the right to teach what it believes to its children. And if you can do that, you write the curricula, you tell them what to believe and you model what you want them to understand and in one generation, you change the whole culture.” (To Change The World)

In his book, Foolishness to the Greeks, Lesslie Newbigin exposes the fault lines with this strategy. Politics offers a golden calf to Christians in an alien world. Newbigin explains, “The Enlightenment gave birth to a new conception of politics, namely that happiness can be provided by a political system and that the goal of politics is happiness.” Many Christians have confused this ideology with the mission of Christ.

Two economic systems dominate political thinking. Capitalism emphasizes freedom, the freedom of the autonomous individual to pursue personal achievement, success and fulfillment. Socialism emphasizes equality, the eradication through government intervention of those inequalities caused by the selfish pursuits of capitalism.

Newbigin argues, “I believe that the Christian view of God’s purpose for the human family is different from both of these and arises from a distinct belief about what human nature is. From its first page to its last, the Bible is informed by a vision of human nature for which neither freedom nor equality is fundamental; what is fundamental is relatedness. Man – male and female – is made for God in such a way that being in the image of God involves being bound together in this most profound of all mutual relationships.”

Convictions about the nature, purpose and destiny of humans determine the vision for what constitutes human flourishing and the means for achieving it. The revered words of America’s sacred document claim that certain truths are self-evident, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Followers of Jesus can embrace these “truths” only when their definitions conform to the teaching of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples, “whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it” (Mark 8:35). Life is found only in a relationship with Jesus, the author of life.

The framers of the Declaration fled countries where oppressive governments had restricted them from expressing their consciences. The Bill of Rights reflects the nature of this liberty from government intrusion, and the first amendment establishes freedom of worship, speech and the flow of information.

According to Jesus, a man may be free politically but remain a slave. He achieves true freedom only when the truth unshackles his mind. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). This truth is embodied in the person of Jesus (John 14:6).

Regardless of who acquires the seats of power tomorrow, nothing can restrain any human from discovering life, liberty and happiness in Jesus Christ through the gospel. We are sadly misguided when we begin to place our hopes for our future in a political system, or worse, in a single party or ideology. The enemy of our souls has beguiled us when we believe that we can advance the kingdom of God through the power of earthly kingdoms. Newbigin warns, “The project of bringing heaven down to the earth always results in bringing hell up from below.”

I am not advocating the abandonment of participation in the political process. Jesus mandated his followers to bring the light into every arena of human activity. We desperately need followers of Christ in the political arena who will interject a well-formed vision of truth into the corridors of power, not an ideology prostituted by human reasoning divorced from biblical truth.

Even if we do not win those seats in government, all is not lost. For every human authority acquires his power from the sovereign will of the King who “rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will,” and “removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 4:17; 2:21). We need not be anxious nor fearful, for “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to [Jesus]” (Matt. 28:18). Our power does not reside in the polls, but in prayer, interceding for those who possess earthly authority, “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2).

Participate. Vote. Pray. And put your trust not in men nor the systems of men, but in the One who rules over all heaven and earth.

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ONE OF US

Posted on October 28, 2010 by stanwiedeman

“Glee” has done it again. The FOX series uses comedy to explore the adolescent world of high school. The school’s small show choir has a diverse representation of jocks, cheerleaders, misfits, African-Americans, Asians, Jews, handicapped and gays. The show tackles social issues with tongue-in-cheek.

Several weeks ago, Finn, the male lead singer and football quarterback, made a grilled cheese sandwich. When he took it off the grill he saw “the face of God;” thus, the show’s title, “Grilled Cheesus.” He preserves the sandwich and embarks on a spiritual experiment by praying to the image in the sandwich.

He asks that they would win their first football game with the newest member of their team. The paraplegic and fellow glee-clubber, Artie, has joined the team. After handing the ball to him, Finn pushes him down the field in his wheelchair. They somehow win the game.

Finn announces to the choir that he wants to devote the week’s music to songs about Jesus. This creates a divide between the members who share divergent religious opinions. Will Schuester, the director, suggests they sing about spirituality.

The conflict of beliefs intensifies when Kurt’s father suffers a heart attack. Kurt, a homosexual, has a strong emotional bond with his widowed father. While his father lies in a coma, the other students circle around Kurt in compassionate support. Those with a religious background try to offer Kurt the strength and hope of their beliefs.

Kurt rejects their offer, saying that “God is kind of a jerk.” He has arrived at his unbelief because it is illogical for a God to make him gay and then “have his followers go around telling me it’s something that I chose, as if someone would choose to be mocked every single day of their life.”

The cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, protests Will’s probe into spiritual issues on the basis of the constitutional separation of church and state. Sue grew up with an older sister whom she worshipped. As she grew older, she noticed that something was wrong with her that invited the mistreatment of others (she has Down Syndrome). She prayed for her to get better, but when nothing changed, she concluded that God must not exist. She thinks it is a cruel joke to tell people to believe in something they cannot believe in, no matter how much they try, and then be told they are going to hell because they don’t believe.

The show arrives at common ground when Mercedes, an African-American glee-clubber, persuades Kurt to attend her church on the Sunday they dedicate the service to his father. She tells him that everyone needs to believe in something because life is too hard to go through alone.

In a surprising twist, Sue confesses to her sister why she doesn’t believe in God. Jean says that she believes God doesn’t make mistakes and then asks Sue if she can pray for her. With deep sadness, Sue says, “That would be nice.” When she catches the choir singing “If God Was One Of Us,” Will asks if she is going to turn him in and she simply says, “No.”

The show leaves the question of spirituality ambiguous. Dogmatism and arrogance are disarmed by the perplexing questions of life. One thing is certain: life is hard and humans do not have the strength to survive it alone.

“What if God was one of us / just a slob like one of us / just a stranger on the bus / trying to make his way home?” Joan Osborne’s lyrics ask. What if God did become a man? What would it mean?

It would mean that God did not sit outside the human struggle in detached judgment. It would mean God is humble, divesting himself of his glory and power so that he could live among his creatures as one of them. It would mean that God loves his broken creation beyond description.

The New Testament authors believed without doubt that God had visited his creation as a man. Their faith was steeled when that man died, but rose from the grave. The Bible presents the resurrection of Jesus as a fact – not a religious construct, not a myth, but history. Paul said the entire Christian system of belief hinges on reality of the resurrection. The first followers of Jesus were willingly martyred because they were certain they had seen Jesus risen from the dead. They had talked with him, touched him, heard him.

“Glee” did a respectable job of retaining balance and not discounting belief in a spiritual facet to life. It encouraged people to continue to explore spiritual questions. It did not kneel before Enlightenment rationalism or scientific materialism. It reserved space for mystery.

But those who follow Jesus do not do so because they need something or someone to help them endure a painful existence. They have had an encounter with the living Son of God that forever changed them. They believe, not in faith itself, but in the reality of a God who became one of us.

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THE GOOD NEWS BRUTALIZED

Posted on October 19, 2010 by stanwiedeman

An adorable little girl with blonde hair, two or three years old, sings a song she learned at her church into the camera. No, it’s not “Jesus Loves Me.” The lyrics teach a different message. “God hates the world, and all her people.”

The little girl attends Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas with her family. Westboro gained notoriety when its members began picketing at the funerals of military personnel who had been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Protestors carry signs that read, “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “You’re going to hell” and “God hates fags.”

In 2006 they protested at the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder in Maryland. Snyder’s father, Albert, sued Westboro’s pastor, Fred Phelps, and won a jury trial, which awarded Snyder $5 million. A federal judge upheld the verdict, but it was reversed by a federal appeals court. Snyder took the case to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments October 6.

The case increased the media coverage of the church. Church members make no apologies for their caustic message of hate. In an interview with Hannity and Colmes, Shirley Phelps-Roper defiantly claimed that she feels good about “warning this nation that the wrath of God is pouring out on their heads. The Lord your God is punishing this nation and He’s doing it, one of His weapons of choice is sending your children home dead from the battle.”

Phelps’ daughter, Margie, has served as the defense attorney. She asserted in an interview for the PBS News Hour, “It is irrelevant whether that soldier, or any of these soldiers, is homosexual. Primary point can be recapped like this: When you don the doomed American military uniform today, that stands for one thing in this world, same-sex marriage.”

Homosexuals are not the only target of their hate language. Singing to the tune of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” adults and children chant with glee, “Hey evil reprobate Jews, God hates you and you know it.” In fact, anyone who does not believe like they do are on a fast train to hell.

We cannot deny that wrath belongs to the character of God. By His nature, God must be opposed to everything that opposes His goodness. It is certainly true that God hates sin.

When we arrive in the New Testament, God demonstrates His love and grace through the death and resurrection of His Son so powerfully that God’s wrath plays only a supporting role in the gospel message. The wrath of God in the punishment of sin still occupies the message. In fact, through the death of His Son, God shows that He cannot compromise His wrath and that it obligates Him to punish all sin. Jesus was sinless, but he willingly took the sins of men upon Himself and entered the heavenly courtroom for judgment and execution.

This display of grace draws the spotlight to the love of God. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,” John 3:16. While the message declares God’s just wrath against sin, the New Testament repeatedly affirms God’s love for the sinner.

Although God’s wrath and love operate in perfect harmony, hatred should never characterize Christ’s followers. Paul reminded Titus of their former condition apart from the grace of God, “we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another,” Titus 3:3.

What saved them? Was it the relentless message of God’s hatred of sinners, of which they were foremost? No. “But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us … according to his own mercy,” Titus. 3:4-5.

Even if God’s judgment of sin is still necessary to the message of God’s grace and love in Christ, how should Jesus’ followers present that message? Paul instructs Titus, “Remind them [Christ’s followers] … to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy to all people,” Titus 3:1-2.

You have to wonder if Pastor Phelps ever preaches passages like these to his congregation. How does he interpret them in the context of his church’s hostile and acerbic protests? Do these professing followers of Christ present a balanced picture of God’s activity in the world?

We then must ask ourselves how well we are doing in presenting a balanced picture of the holy God who must judge all sin. His nature requires His wrath to purify His kingdom of anything that would violate His righteous and holy glory. In His marvelous love, we see this wrath satisfied forever through the death and resurrection of His Son, Jesus.

The gospel is not a message of hatred. It is a message of love, a love that surpasses our understanding and escapes our comprehension. This is the good news of the gospel.

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SUBVERTING THE CHRISTIAN MIND

Posted on October 6, 2010 by stanwiedeman

It happened to me again. As much as I try to steel myself against it, I still succumb. My emotions fell victim to the manipulation of another television plot. If I were less alert to the cunning process, my emotions would subtly influence my mind, leading me down the path of secular reasoning.

The first time occurred last year while watching the popular new series that parodies high school life, “Glee.” Teacher Will Schuester has resurrected his high school glee club, which played a vital role in his own student career. He is devoted, understanding and inspiring as its sponsor, holding together a highly diverse group of students who would be mutual enemies if they did not share a love for musical performance.

Will’s wife, Terri, epitomizes the self-absorbed, spoiled and aging beauty queen who senses that her former glory as a popular cheerleader is fading as she assumes the responsibilities of an adult housewife. She resists it with a detachment from reality that would qualify most people as psychotic. She is demanding, nagging and conniving. Will, however, patiently and faithfully loves her.

Emma, a school guidance counselor, becomes Will’s primary supporter and confidant at school. She tries to restrain her romantic feelings for him, but they occasionally slip out. Her respect and faith in Will creates an emotional tension for him. His wife never notices, or selfishly ignores, his disappointments and discouragement, while Emma not only notices, but gently applies salve to his wounds.

The show deftly manipulates the audience’s affections. We begin to scoff at Will’s loyalty to his wife, thinking him foolish or naively dense. There is virtual applause when Will discovers Terri’s pretense of pregnancy, which drains all warm feelings for her, leaving him with wounds that appear irreparable.  As his students sing Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” to Will, his emotional dam breaks and he rushes to find Emma, who is leaving the school after resigning. In a dramatic scene, with music blaring, Will kisses Emma, to the delight of the audience.

Wait a minute! What just happened? The Christian mind was absorbed by the insidious secular frame of reference. This illustrates the how the Christian mind can be absorbed by crafty secular thinking.

Harry Blamires has written in The Christian Mind, “To think secularly is to think within a frame of reference bounded by the limits of our life on earth; it is to keep one’s calculations rooted in this-worldly criteria. To think Christianly is to accept all things with the mind as related, directly or indirectly, to man’s eternal destiny as the redeemed and chosen child of God.”

According to Blamires, “There is no longer a Christian mind. … as a thinking being, the modern Christian has succumbed to secularization. … he rejects the religious view of life, the view which sets all earthly issues within the context of the eternal, the view which relates all human problems – social, political, cultural – to the doctrinal foundations of the Christian Faith, the view which sees all things here below in terms of God’s supremacy and earth’s transitoriness, in terms of Heaven and Hell.”

The secularist believes truth must be constructed. In our society truth resides in the opinionated self. The individual manufactures the truth that will best serve his needs at the time.

Will constructed a truth about marriage that ultimately grounds itself in the individual’s felt needs and emotions. When love dies for one’s spouse and blossoms for someone else, then marriage is reduced to legal procedures that dissolve one union and create a new one. This strategy is not only acceptable, it is rational.

This same contrivance dominates another hot series, “The Good Wife.” Alicia had discontinued her career as a promising lawyer after marrying Peter to raise two children and support her husband’s career as a Chicago state’s attorney. Peter is indicted on corruption charges and exposed in a sex scandal, forcing Alicia to seek employment as a litigator at a prestigious law firm.

One of the firm’s partners, Will, apparently enjoyed more than a close friendship with Alicia at Georgetown law school. Romantic tension builds in their renewed relationship, until Will declares his love for her. Peter still loves his wife and children and is trying to rebuild his life after being acquitted on the corruption charges.

Alicia quietly wrestles with her emotional ambivalence, while the show steers the audience to root for Will. Although Peter appears repentant at times, Alicia holds him at arm’s length. And he seems more intent on recovering his political career than restoring his marriage. Why shouldn’t Alicia dump him.

How should the Christian think about these scenarios? Jesus made this statement about marriage: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matt. 19:4-6)

And what about divorce? Malachi 2:16 says, “’For I hate divorce,’ says the Lord.” When the Pharisees challenged Jesus about His position on marriage, pointing out that Moses legislated divorce, He replied, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matt. 19:8)

“From the beginning,” as it was revealed to us in Scriptures (“Have you not read”), God established marriage as a mysterious one-flesh union, which unites a man and woman with a powerful bond. Human sin can complicate this union, but God did not design it with escape clauses. It grieves the Designer when the union is legally dissolved.

There is a clear dichotomy between the secular and religious views of marriage. Have we as Christians trained our minds to identify the distinction? Or are we fair game to the subtle manipulations of the secular framework?

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ROOM ONLY FOR LOVE

Posted on September 28, 2010 by stanwiedeman

International Burn A Koran Day has come and gone with little impact. A few locations carried out the unofficial protest against Islam instigated by Terry Jones, pastor of a nondenominational church in Florida. At the last minute Jones reneged after meeting with a Muslim cleric, believing that the cleric would halt the controversial plans to construct a mosque near the Ground Zero site in Manhattan. The cleric denied any such promise.

Credit would have to go to the news outlets for whatever backlash the event spawned. Like a Keystone Cops chase scene, the media fell all over itself scrambling to Florida to give Jones national headline attention. Thousands of articles and hundreds of television reports focused the international spotlight on this Christian fundamental extremist.

Oddly overlooked, another pastor was offering an entirely different attitude towards our Muslim neighbors. Steve Stone of Heartsong Church in Memphis read in the newspaper a year and a half ago that a group was building an Islamic Center across the street from the church. Stone had a banner made that announced, “Heartsong Church welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood.”

Stone’s warm outreach did not end with the banner. When he learned this past August that the Center would not be completed before Ramadan, Stone offered the use of their church building to his Muslim neighbors. Over 100 Muslims spread out their prayer mats in the church every night after sundown for the month-long sacred holiday.

Where was the media coverage for Heartsong Church? Except for a few local affiliates and small articles, national media virtually ignored this non-random act of kindness. The approval for Stone’s actions among Christians vastly outnumbered the puny support Jones received, mainly from Christians with similar radical ideology.

The Muslims in America provide a modern application of a parable Jesus told to a Jewish legalist. This religious lawyer wanted to interpret the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” in a way that still permitted him to hate and shun people of his choosing. In defining the neighbor, Jesus used a bitter religious enemy as the protagonist of the story.

A band of thieves attacked a man on a notorious stretch of road, leaving him for dead. Both a priest and a Levite saw the man bleeding alongside the road, but chose not to get involved. Then a Samaritan found the man still alive. He bandaged his wounds and placed him on his animal, transporting him to a nearby inn. He paid the innkeeper to nurse the man during his recuperation, promising to pay additional money upon his return to cover the duration of his stay at the inn. (Luke 10:25-37)

The parable shrewdly revealed the wicked heart of the lawyer. The victim was a neighbor to all three men who encountered him, but only the despised Samaritan proved himself “neighborly” in attending to the man’s needs. Jews hated the Samaritans, viewing them as a heretical schism of Judaism. Jesus made it clear that no one should be excluded from the classification of our neighbors.

The Muslims are our neighbors, worthy of the love that Jesus advocated to all neighbors. For some of us, they literally live next door to us, attend school with our children, eat next to us at the same restaurants, use the local parks and stand next to us in line at the theater. This is why Stone said, “We’re loving our neighbors. That’s what we’re called to do.”

Michael Craven has made this observation in his weekly article for the Center for Christ and Culture. “It is here that the love of neighbor either remains theoretical, or we act in obedience by faith and the love of Christ becomes real. … In Jesus’ life and teaching, he intentionally destroyed any sort of conditional response to his command to ‘love your neighbor.’”

Tension between Christians and Muslims has produced bloodshed for a thousand years. Do Muslims hate Christians? Yes, some do. But it is a tiny minority. Even that minority cannot be barred from the category of neighbors, whom Jesus commands his followers to love. He demonstrated this same kind of unconditional love as he looked down upon the men who had driven spikes through his hands into a cross and asked God the Father, “forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34)

The teaching and example of Jesus allows no room for his followers to hate anyone, even to return hatred for hatred. Regardless of how one interprets the Koran and Islamic theology, Christians should love and care for their Muslim neighbors like anyone from any other cultural, political, ethnic or religious group. This kind of love distinguishes Jesus and his followers from all other religious adherents.

As Pastor Stone and other Heartsong members welcomed their Muslim neighbors each night during Ramadan, they received deep gratitude with tears of appreciation. In that block of Memphis there is no room for hatred and violence, room only for love and peace.

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