For all of you who've been "Left Behind"

I encourage you to pop over to my friend Kurt Willems' blog and read his post If You're Reading This Post, You've Been "Left Behind."  Kurt does a beautiful job of casting what our role must be in the current "Tribulation" of this world.  Borrowing nearly every catchphrase of an eschatology neither one of us can stand, he's got a masterful call to live as the Kingdom-of-God subversives we must be.

Every Christian ought to be a muslim (but not the way you think)!

OK, take a deep breath.  Trust me when I say I'm not asking anybody to throw away their Bible and start planning their pilgrimage to Mecca.  I am, however, going to attack some truly damaging language that I hear from many of my fellow Christians on the subject of Islam...language that I maintain is neither edifying nor honoring to God, and actually flat-out wrong.  There are many issues that need to be addressed in Christian attitudes toward Muslims (and, I'm sure, vice-versa), but one of the first we need to face is our sloppy language.

So I repeat my title statement:  Every Christian ought to be a muslim.  Note, first of all, that I used a lower-case "m" in the word "muslim."  I am not suggesting that any follower of Jesus should change faiths.  In fact, I hope it's clear to any reader of my blog that I wish for more, not fewer, people to follow Jesus.  But while capital M "Muslim" is the name for a follower of the organized religion of Islam, lower-case m "muslim" means simply "one who submits;"  by implication, one who submits to God.

I don't speak Arabic.  I do, however, speak Swahili, which has significant Arabic roots, and while I'm going to explain in terms of the language I actually know, friends of mine who do speak Arabic have confirmed the truth of what I'm about to say.  In Swahili and in Arabic, if you take a verb and put either an "m" or "mu" prefix onto the front of it, the resulting word is a noun that means "a person or creature who does that verb."  So for example, the Swahili word "kuzunguka" means "to spin or turn around," so "mzungu"  means "one who spins around" (which hilariously is the term Africans coined to describe white Europeans and Americans).  In Arabic, the word "islam" simply means "submission."  A "muslim" is just a person who does "islam," that is, a person who submits.

Islam is, of course, not the only faith that calls its followers to submit to God.  In the Jewish and Christian scriptures, the original temptation and sin of Adam was not the fact of eating the forbidden fruit, it was the desire to "...be like God, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:5)  In deliberate contrast to the human desire to usurp God's position in Genesis, followers of Jesus are exhorted to "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (Phil. 2:5-6).  Jesus' example is further illuminated in Phil. 2:8 to be his humility and obedience even "unto death on a cross."  Jesus is our ultimate example of submission, "islam," to God.

Of course, the objection many Christians will immediately raise leads me to my second point of language:  submission to WHICH God?  While this may be a hard truth for some to grasp, the answer is "the God of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammad." 

Time for another deep breath, folks.  Please note that I have not said that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all equal, identical, one religion, or anything of the sort.  There are plenty of places where Jews, Christians, and Muslims disagree, and some of them are highly significant.  But Christians have got to get off their pigheaded high horse (dare I mix animal metaphors?) and face the reality that, whatever other important differences exist, the God of Islam is NOT a different God than that of Christians and Jews.  He is the God of Abraham; among his names are Elohim, YHWH, Father, and Allah.  Do you notice that "Elohim" (a plural of "El") and "Allah" actually have a similar sound?  There is a reason for that...both Hebrew and Arabic are Semitic languages; that is, they come from a common ancient root.  The names "El" and "Allah" are the same.  Furthermore, Arabic-speaking Christians (at least those who haven't been corrupted by fundamentalist American ideologues) have been using the name "Allah" to refer to the Father for many centuries.  When Christians in America make the claim (and I heard this in a church as recently as a month ago) that "Allah is an idol and a false God," they are at best displaying breathtaking ignorance, and at worst blaspheming the very God they claim to worship.

Many Christians will raise the objection at this point "well, Muslims say Allah is not the Father of Jesus, so he must be a false god."  Funny thing about that claim, it doesn't seem to apply to Jews, who also do not believe that God is Jesus' father (unless they're what we call "Messianic Jews").  If that criterion renders Islam a false religion, it must do the same for Judaism.  You can't have it both ways...and yet the most conservative Christians do not doubt that Israel in particular and Jews in general are still God's special, chosen people.  That's another discussion, and not for this time, but for now, accepting the deity of Christ cannot be a criterion for otherwise worshiping the "right" God unless the same criterion is applied equally to both of the other Abrahamic faiths.

There is much more to say with regard to Muslim-Christian relations, and I expect some day to take on more of it.  But at the very least, let us please acknowledge that Allah is the God we Christians also worship, and may we all strive to be small-m "muslims" to Him.

Peace/Shalom/Salaam!

An Open Letter to Christopher Hitchens

 Note:  I don't actually know any way to get this letter to Mr. Hitchens, and I have no idea how he'd respond if he read it. But I think some of the following needs to be said...and maybe someone who needs to will read it.

Dear Mr. Hitchens,

I'm a Christian, and I'd like to apologize to you.

I heard the NPR interview with you and your brother Peter yesterday, and I understand that Christians are coming out of the woodwork to let you know they're praying for you, and to make a last-ditch effort to save your soul before the cancer gets you.  I wonder if you must be feeling like the vultures are circling, waiting to take a bite out of your carcass--although in your case the disquieting reality is that those buzzards want their bite of you BEFORE you die.  I wouldn't be too pleased with that either.  I regret the harrassment you're getting in the name of my God.

I'm sorry.

You have expressed before, and expressed again in the interview, some pretty harsh objections to Christianity.  Strange as it may seem, I think your criticisms have at times been spot-on.  You said that you found the notion of a human sacrifice vicariously atoning for your sin to be morally offensive, and I agree completely.  The funny thing is, if I'm reading my Bible at all correctly, God would agree too.  The penal-substitution so loudly proclaimed by most Christians is a complex theory that does not hold up to serious scrutiny of the source from which they claim to derive it--that is the Bible--and I regret you've been sold such a bill of goods, that you believe that teaching to be integral to faith in God.

I'm sorry.

You also have pointed out on repeated occasions, the horrors that have been done throughout history in the name of religion in general, and Christianity in particular.  Again I agree with you, and the way I read my Bible, I believe God would agree with you too.  The Inquisition and the Crusades, and right up to the wars of Bush, have at least partial roots in Christian institutions, and they were wrong and evil. 

Of course I do think you're making a category mistake by concluding those acts are the necessary outgrowth of religion.  Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao Tse Tung also commited horrible atrocities--right up there in awfulness with the Christian ones--and they did it in the name of Communism.  I would submit that a careful comparison of these guys with the writing of Karl Marx makes it patently obvious that what they did had nothing to do with Marxism, and that an equally-careful comparison of the medieval popes' and crusaders' and Bush's actions with the Bible would lead to the identical conclusion:  in fact public Christianity has just about as much in common with the Jesus of the Bible, as the Soviet Union, the Khmer Rouge, and Communist China have with Marx and his Manifesto.  So I would submit to you that applying your journalistic chops to a comparison/contrast of the sacred texts of either group would be in order.  Nevertheless, you have been sold a bill of goods by a violent, hateful mob claiming the mantle of Christ, and I regret the mischaracterization of Jesus has left you so repulsed by him.

I'm sorry.

I'm not trying to convert you, Mr. Hitchens.  I know my powers of reasoning aren't that stunning, and furthermore, though reason can inform faith, I don't believe it can compel it.  Frankly, I do not know, were you to confront the reality of Jesus instead of the bad counterfeit that's been shoved in your face all these years, whether you'd like the real thing any better.  I only dare you to have a serious look at the Jesus the Gospels actually portray, without all the baggage Christians have loaded onto him--baggage which I say again, you have rightly rejected.

I hope you will indulge me if I say that I do pray you'll find peace--not only in an eternal sense (to the extent you may or may not feel you need it), but in the very earthly sense that the vultures will let you spend your last days, or months, or years unassaulted.  In this, perhaps, the real Jesus might intervene...for what it's worth, I'll ask him.

Sincerely,

Dan Martin

The Gospel According to Heinlein, or Why Christians are sometimes God's worst enemies...

Over the past few days I read Robert A. Heinlein's 1984 book Job: A Comedy of Justice.  For those who enjoy mind-bending adventures with an eternal twist, I recommend it as a fun story.  Be forewarned: if you only enjoy fiction that comports with your theology and cosmology,  and you consider yourself an orthodox Christian, this book is probably not for you.  But if you can stomach a book in which the character of Satan describes his brother Yahweh as a jerk (and given the narrative context, the reader will find himself agreeing with Satan), and if sexuality that is R-rated in content though only PG in description doesn't put you off, then you may well find Job a fun read.

But what I wanted to highlight with this post was the way in which Heinlein's book illustrates the damage that Christians have done--and, I'm sorry to say, continue to do--to the cause of Christ.  I don't know anything about Heinlein's own faith or philosophy, but I can tell you that he did his homework for this book.  The main character, Alexander Hergensheimer, starts out as a conservative, fundamentalist preacher who's head of an organization called Churches United for Decency (CUD), in an alternative-universe America with only 46 states and the kind of laws fundamentalist Americans in our universe would appreciate.  During a firewalking experience while on vacation in Papua New Guinea, our friend Alec finds himself in an parallel universe--the first of many--where his own morals and faith run headlong into those of cultures and Americas with decidedly different outlooks.

But although Heinlein could have resorted to the usual caricature of conservative Christians by those who are neither conservative nor Christian, he absolutely did not do so.  Alec's story is told in the first person, with frequent quotations from the Bible.  The character is portrayed in a completely sympathetic light, and whatever Heinlein's own predilections about faith may have been, there is not a hint of mocking or hostility toward this character.  At least twice within the narrative, Alec makes a heartfelt effort to lead other characters to Christ in the context of a premillenial rapture that he is convinced is imminent (turns out he's right), and each time, the message Alec conveys is straight out of an Evangelical Christian playbook, delivered without a hint of irony or ill motive.

And yet the arc of the story is clearly not one that resonates with Christian teaching.  Beyond the character's shift in his sexual standards and choice of beverages, the real issue at the climax of the story is that Yahweh doesn't play fair (a la Job), and never has.  Consider this section near the end of the book:

Alec, 'justice' is not a divine concept; it is a human illusion.  The very basis of the Judeo-Christian code is injustice, the scapegoat system.  The scapegoat sacrifice runs all through the Old Testament, then it reaches its height in the New Testament with the notion of the Martyred Redeemer.  How can justice possibly be served by loading your sins on another?  Whether it be a lamb having its throat cut ritually, or a Messiah nailed to a cross and 'dying for your sins.'  Somebody should tell all of Yahweh's followers, Jews and Christians, that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  "Or maybe there is.  Being in that catatonic condition called 'grace' at the exact moment of death--or at the Final Trump--will get you into Heaven.  Right?  You got to Heaven that way, did you not?"

"That's correct.  I hit it lucky.  For I had racked up quite a list of sins before then."

"A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven.  An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain--then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity..."

"...I've known Him too long.  It's His world, His rules, His doing.  His rules are exact and anyone can follow them and reap the reward.  But 'just' they are not." (Hardcover edition, pp.291-292)

OK, so first of all it's obvious in the next-to-last paragraph I quoted, that Heinlein's not referring to the "eternal security" brand of Christianity; however I doubt he'd have come out any differently in his conclusions if he were.  Heinlein forces the reader face-to-face with a painful fact:  the God that is portrayed by much of traditional Christian teaching is not just.  No amount of wordplay can change the obvious truth of this statement.  Genocide of the Canaanites, the angel of death slaughtering thousands in penalty for David's adultery, the infinite punishment of hell for the necessarily-finite violations of temporal sin, none of these is remotely akin to our basic, reasonable notion of making the punishment fit the crime.  Merely shouting "but God is just" in the face of such evidence beggars belief.

I know people will defend their doctrines to the nth degree, and some will accuse me of heresy or blasphemy, but here I have to side with Heinlein's assessment (as a character says elsewhere in the book, "anyone who can worship a trinity and insist that his religion is a monotheism can believe anything--just give him time to rationalize it."

My frustration, and the one that made me finish "Job" with some sadness,  is that, like so many before him and since, Heinlein may have rejected the Gospel precisely (only?) because he was fed a counterfeit "gospel!"  He clearly knew--even understood--the message that churches have trumpeted for centuries.  He knew all about the Old Testament sacrificial system as portrayed by Evangelicals.  Like a lot of Christians, he apparently did not know that the "scapegoat" in the Old Testament wasn't sacrificed.  Heinlein knew about Old Testament blood sacrifice too, again as Evangelicals teach it.  He did not know that blood sacrifice in the Old Testament represents cleansing or thanksgiving, but not payment for forgiveness of sin (go back and read Leviticus!).   He understood the Evangelical teaching that Jesus' death finally fulfilled the blood-for-sin paradigm upon which Penal-Substitutionary Atonement is based.   But he was not equipped to realize that the PSA theory of atonement is at best a tiny fraction of the work of Jesus' death and resurrection.

Heinlein had presumably met a lot of Christians, but he had never met Jesus.  How could he?  The "gospel" message preached by most Christians throughout the Twentieth Century (Heinlein died in 1988) had very little Jesus in it...a "four laws and then the rapture" gospel needs Jesus for his blood and for his second coming, but completely ignores his teachings and his life, and only gives a passing nod to his resurrection.  If Heinlein believed the God of Christians and Jews to be unjust, well, when did anyone in either group introduce him to the justice preached by Jesus and before him by the prophets?

And most importantly, of course, here and now and today, what portrait of God are you holding up to the world around you?  If people consider your testimony of Jesus and ultimately reject him (as some will), are they rejecting the real thing?

Grand Theft Jesus - Part 2 - "All About Eve"

In my previous review of Grand Theft Jesus by Robert McElvaine, I mentioned that he did a spectacular mis-exegesis of the accounts of the creation and fall in Genesis 1-3.  I'd like to dig into this a little further, as McElvaine claims that mysogyny in religion is one of religion's (and for that matter, the world's) biggest problems.

Now I will stipulate at the outset that an awful lot of conservative Christians seem to me to be way too hung up on issues of sex and male superiority.  Please don't misunderstand me as thinking there are no problems here...though as I shall argue in the future, the problem isn't so much with male power over woman, but rather the notion that "power over" itself is a corruption that doesn't belong with followers of Jesus, regardless of their gender.  But having granted that there is a problem, the arguments that McElvaine lays out are spectacular in their overreach and just-plain idiocy.

We'll start with the "problem" of being "born again."  I was going to try and summarize, but this just has to be quoted in full:

The question becomes more complicated and intriguing when we remember that those who say it is necessary to be born again also say that the unborn are without sin: One of the worst things about abortion, they say, is that it is the taking of innocent life.  The unborn are innocent, without sin.  Yet the born have to be reborn in order to overcome their sin and be "saved."  Ostensibly this rebirth removes the stain of Original Sin.  But let's think about this assertion.  If the unborn are innocent, they must not have yet acquired Original Sin.  Both the unborn and the reborn are "saved;" it is the once-born who are damned.  Pre-born and reborn are good; it is the in-between state--born--that is evil.  So just when is it that Original Sin is taken on?  Given the foregoing beliefs, no other possibility seems to exist than that Original Sin is acquired at birth.  It seems we all get Original Sin from the same source that is said to have led Adam into sin: a woman!

And that, at the most basic level, is what is wrong with our first birth--it is from a woman.

McElvaine goes on to explain that being "born again" (that is born from Jesus, a man) sanctifies because it comes from a man instead of from a woman.  He then goes on to speculate that this whole dysfunction comes from men envying the female power of creation--that is childbirth.  (How any man who's ever witnessed pregnancy, or childbirth, or even the monthly misery that is menstruation, could possibly have "womb envy" is beyond me, but hey, maybe that's just because I'm so suppressed by the male-dominated culture!)  He goes on an intriguing excursion into the ways men have constructed "no-woman zones" of work, duty, ritual, power, etc., all to make up for the inadequacy we men feel due to our inability to create.  In fact, the whole notion that God is referred to as male in Genesis is, in McElvaine's analysis, a male-dominated insistence that creation isn't just a woman's thing!

And then it gets really weird...

To make a VERY long story short(er), in Paleolithic times where men were hunters and women were gatherers, both were valued in society.  As the agricultural revolution led to people settling down in groups, women's roles in agriculture and reproduction maintained or even grew in  value, while men's importance as providers of meat and defenders of the tribe declined precipitously.  Men, not wanting to get stuck with the "girlie stuff" like agriculture, instead built elaborate mythologies and power structures to assert their superiority.  "Because the switch to agriculture ultimately came to seem like such a bad deal for men, devaluing their traditional roles as hunters, leaving the with the 'woman's work' of farming, labor that was in fact much harder than hunting, they eventually blamed women for having lost what seemed in distant retrospect to have been a paradise in which people lived without work, picking abundant food from trees."  Here he then draws the analogy to Adam & Eve in the garden, with Eve's temptation being an allegorical representation of the woman taking man's power from him and forcing him into agriculture!

Here it becomes obvious McElvain is pumping his other book "Eve's Seed," in which I surmise he develops his special brand of misandry even more fully.  Here's his own footnote quoting that work (the entire section is from his footnoote; the quotes delineate that portion that he's quoting from his other book):

The Eve and Adam story wonderfully weaves together sex and agriculture.  "Eve's sharing of the fruit with Adam has often been interpreted as symbolic of introducing him to sexual relations."  In light of the Seed Metaphor, "a woman teaching a man how to have intercourse with her becomes a perfect symbol for women teaching men how to plant crops in the ground.  Both are seductions by woman, the temptress."

Of course, McElvaine's death-defying leap into the metanarrative of female subjugation overlooks a few obvious points about the actual Genesis myth, including

• The fact that Adam and Eve are told to be fruitful and multiply--presumably requiring sex--before the fall (Gen 1:28), and 
• The fact that Adam was placed in the garden to till and care for it, also before the fall (Gen 2:15).

For a long time I've seen one of the most-overlooked lessons of the story of the fall in Gen. 3 to be the failure of the man to defend his wife--when the serpent tempts Eve, she then gave some "to her husband who was with her" (Gen 3:6), but somehow he didn't think to interpose himself between her and a talking snake...hmm!!!  Anyway, I think it's safe to say the only way to come to McElvaine's wild interpretation of Genesis is to start with heavily-loaded preconceptions and little respect for even the mythologic structure of the text.

Where does all this lead?  McElvaine is not completely wrong when he paints a picture of religion in general, and hijacked Christianity in particular, of having been unjustly and cruelly down on women.  But his attempt to draw the theological lines goes stunningly wide of the mark, and can only be described as fantasy in itself.  And his conclusion is, I believe, deeply and basically wrong:  "ChristianityLite is Jesusless, but an even more fundamental problem shared by all monotheistic religions is that they are Goddessless.  The basic problem for millenia has been not that people are godless (Ann Coulter's accusations notwithstanding), but that people conceive of God as a male, rather than as a Being either undivided by sex or combining both sexes--either asexual or bisexual, as a Creative and Omnipotent Force logically must be."

Well, no.  A scriptural view of God is neither asexual nor bisexual, but better non-sexual.  That God represented himself in a male gender (though clearly not in a sexual sense) throughout scripture (in particular Jesus' references to the Father) may not fully make sense to us, but it cannot be dismissed  as simply out of style.  To go there is to finally say that nothing in the scriptural text really matters at all if we decide we have found a paradigm that "speaks to us" in a more attractive way today.  That's not the lordship of Jesus; it's merely hijacking Jesus for a different agenda.  That the hijacker comes from the left instead of the right is not progress.

McElvaine claims that "on one point after another, what Jesus is urging on us are behaviors more commonly associated with women than with men:  gentleness, compassion, and forgiveness."   He presents this as evidence we need to acknowledge the feminine side of God.  He doesn't seem to realize that when he makes a claim like this, he's actually reinforcing the same crap he combats:  those traits are only "feminine" if we acknowledge that the ascription of power traits to the man, and caring traits to the woman, is in fact valid!

BULLSHIT!!!


It's not "feminine" when I hug and kiss my boys.  It's not "masculine" when my wife disciplines them.  It's not "masculine" if a woman like Jael in the old testament or Margaret Thatcher in England leads a war.  It's not "feminine" when a man gently tends to the bruises--physical or psychological--of a friend.  I'll say it again: if one argues for a "feminine" side of God due to the compassionate and caring traits we see in scripture, then one is giving (undeserved) support to the whole notion of  "masculine" and "feminine" traits that really HAS caused a great deal of heartache in our world.

The gender wars have left a lot of casualties.  Soon, I'm going to take on this issue as it relates to the church.  But if we're ever going to make headway in this, as in so many other issues, we've got to face the reality that the answers have been wrong, not least because the questions have themselves been wrong.  In this, McElvaine has done the dialog no good.

Book Review - Grand Theft Jesus (Part 1)

I just finished reading the book Grand Theft Jesus -- The Hijacking of Religion in America by Robert S. McElvaine.  I really expected to love the book:  after all, he starts out sympathizing with

"the Christian Messiah (as he) looks at the crew of megachurch preachers, televangelists, hypocrites, imposters, snake-oil salesmen, and just plain snakes who have hijacked the name of Christianity, perpetrated identity theft against Jesus, subverted his teachings, transformed his name into a representation of just the opposite of what he stands for, mocked and damned those who advocate what he actually said, and shouted 'Jesus! JESUS! Jeee-SUSS!' at the top of their lungs to distract attention from their crimes against the one they blaspheme."

Anyone who's read more than five minutes in this blog knows I resonate with that sentiment.  But despite the fact that the author --in my estimation-- correctly catalogs and decries the manifold abuses of the Religious Right (who he alternatively mocks as the "Irreligious Wrong" or the "Xian Lite"), I found the book an exhausting read.   The first three quarters of the book are an unrelenting tirade against the evils of the "Christian" Right and their outright distortions of the message of Jesus, and however well-deserved McElvaine's accusations may be, I started feeling like I was just reading a left-wing equivalent of Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.  That may be refreshing to some...and if I defined what is wrong with conservative Christianity primarily by its being associated with the "wrong" wing, maybe I'd like it.  But I'm getting to the point where I'm tired of nastiness and ad-hominem regardless of whether I like the target (or the attacker) or not.

Don't misunderstand me.  I remain firmly convinced that a great deal that passes for conservative Christianity in America today is misguided at best and idolatrous at worst.  I am deeply offended at the hatred and bloodshed and plain-old meanness that are frequently perpetrated by those who loudly shout the name of Jesus.  I've said before, and it's still true, that if all I knew of Jesus came from what I've seen of Christians, I wouldn't be one either.

But replacing right-wing vitriol with left-wing vitriol, to me, is not progress.  If you feel the same, I suspect you, like me, would find Grand Theft Jesus to be an unpleasant read.

There are other issues.  In the last two chapters of the book, McElvaine does some spectacularly sloppy exegesis of Genesis 1-3 and comes up with a truly mind-bending screed against the male domination of society in general and religion in particular.  I'll get into that in a separate post.

But for now, I'll just say that while I'd probably enjoy a lively discussion over multiple beers with McElvaine, I cannot recommend his book.  More's the pity too!

Book in progress - "A New Kind of Christianity" by McLaren

I'm still in process of reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith, and for the most part I really appreciate it.  McLaren coherently describes the conventionally-accepted framework of the Biblical narrative, which he calls the "Greco-Roman model," and contrasts it with a narrative that takes into account the story of God's calling and working through the Jews leading up to Jesus.  He is likewise helpful in posing the contrast between Bible-as-constitution (his characterization of the various "inerrancy" approaches), and Bible-as-library, an approach that takes the breadth and nuance of biblical writers into account.  He's at his best, IMO, in his discussion of the centrality of Jesus and the gospels as the lens/filter/paradigm through which all scripture, both Old Testament and Epistles, must be read.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend the book unreservedly, because peppered throughout nearly every chapter, McLaren can't seem to get away from a need to throw in comments that essentially paint the gay rights agenda as the civil rights moral issue of the day.  Again and again, he lumps "homophobia" (a sloppy word if I ever saw one) with slavery, apartheid, Jim Crow, and the like, as places where the church has been on the wrong side of history and justice.

I haven't read other writing by McLaren, so perhaps I missed an argument he's made more coherently somewhere else.  I don't presume to understand where he's coming from on this.  But he seems to have made a category mistake that I find all too frequently among Christians who are recovering from their fundamentalist afflictions, of accepting without critique the claim that homosexuality is an identity, and therefore issues of how we respond to gays are necessarily civil and human rights issues.  Wholly unconsidered (at least in the present book) is the notion that homosexual practice might, in fact, still be sinful even if one is not a right-wingnut (As I have previously written, I suggest that gay practice is simply a subset of adultery, which remains equally unacceptable for the believer whether straight OR gay).

I'm sorry to say that this constant drumbeat distracts from an otherwise-helpful and -challenging set of questions that the church would do well to consider.  That said, if you can see past the distraction, I do recommend the book.

Edit:  Well, I was wrong about the argument being somewhere else---I just read Chapter 17 over lunch, where McLaren goes through his argument in greater detail.  I would not say his argument is compelling, though it is indeed interesting, as he makes the case that a binary (just male and female) sexuality is an "ideal concept" a-la Plato just as much as some of the Greco-Roman notions of God are Platonic rather than Biblical.  He goes on to basically say that our more nuanced understanding of biology today militates against such simplistic reading of sexuality.

McLaren then points out--quite correctly according to my reading--the fact that Christians in general, and Evangelical Christians in particular, seem little different from everyone else regarding sexual practice (premarital/extramarital sex, divorce), though perhaps we experience more guilt and conflicted feelings than others.  He concludes by suggesting that perhaps we need as a church to re-examine the whole concept of sexuality based on our current base of knowledge and centered in the love of Jesus.  He seems (to me at least) to leave open the notion that even serial or contemporaneous polyamory/polygamy, as well as the spectrum of GLBT issues, might not be outside the pale of Jesus-followers' practice in this new consideration.  In fact, I'm not sure he believes there's any place for sexual mores EVEN AMONG THE COMMUNITY OF BELIEVERS in the light of current biology and loving Jesus' way.
 
McLaren is correct that religion has been the bastion of a lot of stick-in-the-mud, head-in-the-sand obstinacy.  In this chapter he reminds us of the church's opposition to everything from Galilean and Copernican cosmology to South African apartheid.  But I think he, too, needs to be confronted with a question:  Are you saying that just because constitutionalist church hierarchies have insisted on a thing, that it must necessarily be wrong?  And how is this different from the Corinthian church Paul was blasting in 1 Corinthians 5?

I will reiterate that McLaren asks a lot of useful questions in this book...questions the church needs to confront.  But I think he's gone over the edge on the sexuality issue, and he seems to me to have forgotten that Jesus, while loving and associating with "sinners," still called them to "sin no more."  The conservative church still needs to be called to account for its demands that the unredeemed world start acting like they say Christians should act, before they can be "saved."  But dismissing all acknowledgment of a moral standard is not going to help get that message across.

God or Mammon?

My brother Dave's blog is primarily about economics, mine primarily about theology.  But I have got to highlight to you guys, this post in which Dave quite properly calls out some of the ways in which church institutions seem to have forgotten which deity they ought to serve (Matt. 6:19-24).

Churches sometimes talk a good game about justice, and even do great works for justice.  But who stops to think about what their investment and property holdings say about justice?  Dave points out some flagrant examples in New Guinea where he's done extensive work. . .I would suggest that a look closer to home, even to the lavish "worship centers" we build and equip, would be equally valid.  Where, then, is our treasure?

The Kingdom of Jesus Christ - of Sanctuary and Flag

There are perhaps deeper issues I should pursue first, but I'd like to take a look at a couple of highly  symbolic elements of the kingdom, and how they aren't commonly practiced in church, although perhaps they should be. 

First the element of sanctuary.  We all know the word; until the more-hip "worship center" started taking hold in churches that didn't want to sound too "churchy," it was what we called the giant room in most church buildings, where the Sunday morning service was held, and the notion that it was a holy place where people should enter with reverence (and kids should be quiet) is a venerable, if not exactly Biblical, tradition.

But the concept of "sanctuary"--not as restricted space but as refuge--actually has a long and proud history within Judaeo-Christian tradition, and perhaps other faiths as well though I am not familiar with them.  1 Kings 1:50-53 is an example where a man who feared the wrath of the king took refuge in the sanctuary and held onto the horns of the altar for protection.  Medieval churches took the concept quite seriously, and for the most part one who had taken sanctuary within a church compound (sometimes the building itself, sometimes the church property as a whole) was out of reach of the civil law as long as he remained there.  Part of the scandal of St. Thomas More's murder was that he was slain in the sanctuary at prayer.  In modern times, some churches in the United States have declared themselves to be sanctuaries for illegal aliens, although I do not know how successful they've been with American civil authority.

But whether the civil law honors the concept or not, I think it might be helpful to think of the church facility in the terms of an embassy.  Though embassies are obviously built on the soil of the host country, international law holds that the embassy is the sovereign territory, not of the host country, but of the country it represents.  Recognizing that we are "Christ's ambassadors" (2 Cor. 5:20), might it not be reasonable to consider our church facilities as embassies of the Kingdom of God?  This concept could take a lot of unpacking, but the notions that the church provides protection even for the "sinner" who seeks it, is not so far from the gospel if you think about it.  Contemplate:  the malefactor who's taken refuge in a holy Sanctuary (1) is unable to inflict damage on the wider society since he has effectively confined himself; and (2) while there, will inevitably be exposed to the love of God and of Kingdom ambassadors throughout his sojourn. . .what effect might that have?

But a corollary to this idea, and one about which I feel quite viscerally, is that the host country flag has no business being displayed in a sanctuary of the Kingdom of God.  From all I've heard and seen, this seems to be a particularly American issue; I don't recall seeing flags in the churches I've visited in most other countries, but in American Evangelical churches it's almost de rigueur.  And it's wrong, I believe, primarily because Americans (especially, but not only, conservative Christian Americans) treat the flag rather like an idol.  But if the church is an embassy of the Kingdom of God, the place the American flag should fly--if at all--is not the platform of the sanctuary, but rather at the front door.  Properly taught, this could imbue the door with meaning as the border between two sovereign kingdoms, and could be a helpful reminder to the believers of where their final loyalties must lie.  We certainly need to rediscover that, when we go out "into the world," we go as ambassadors, not as citizens.

Roger Williams - A patriot for the rest of us

I've just finished the book Roger Williams by historian Edwin S. Gaustad.  Loaned to me by a friend from church, this brief book is an overview of the life and writings of the man who founded the colony of Rhode Island in the early 17th century.  I recommend it to anyone who, like me, is frustrated by the frequent drumbeat among conservative Americans, as to the intent by America's founders to create a Christian nation.  Though it's true that some were, Williams (along with William Penn some seventy years later) offers a fascinating counterpoint.

Simply put, Roger Williams was one of the guys that the Massachusetts Bay Colony folks persecuted for not toeing the spiritual line.  A devout follower of Jesus, Williams believed firmly in liberty of conscience, and was therefore as offended by the theocratic tendencies of the Massachusetts leaders, as he was by those of the European despots they had fled.  Among his particularly interesting positions:

• Williams held that the English Crown's grant of land patents was immoral, as the land was already owned by the natives who lived there.  If the colonists wanted land, they should buy it from the Indians, not seek it from the King.  "In doing this, Williams questioned the very foundation of the colony's government and legitimacy.  Williams was especially troubled by the use of the Christian religion to do a very un-Christian deed: namely, depriving the Indians of their own property without due compensation or negotiation. . .Christian kings somehow believe that they are invested with right, by virtue of their Christianity, 'to take and give away the Lands and Countries of other men.'"  (p. 9)

• Williams also believed that requiring the phrase "so help me God" in an oath in court, was wrong in the case of anyone who was not himself a believer in God.  In fact, he argued that to so require was to force the unbeliever, not only to violate his own conscience, but to break the third commandment (against taking the Lord's name in vain) in the process.

For his unorthodox beliefs, Roger Williams was banished from the colony of Massachusetts, and forced to leave to parts unknown in the middle of winter in 1636.  He wandered for a while in the wilderness, was offered hospitality by the Narragansett Indians, and finally established residence in what would become the town of Providence, Rhode Island (on land he purchased from the Indians).  The colony which grew from these humble beginnings, required as part of its original laws and charters, absolute freedom of conscience in matters of religion.  No anarchist, Williams made clear that citizens were still subject to civil governance, but that in matters of the state, the church would have no voice, and vice versa.

Interestingly, his convictions regarding freedom of conscience led Williams to found the first Baptist church in America in 1638.  Though he himself left the church after a few months (concluding that the true church would only be re-established when Jesus returned to earth and appointed new apostles), he remained firm in his conviction that membership in both church and faith was a choice to be made by deliberate action of the individual--not a result of birth, christening, or residence (he actually wrote a tract "Christenings Make Not Christians" in 1645--though vitriolically anti-Catholic, it's worth a read considering it challenges the Christianity of good Protestant Englishmen).
 
There's much more, and I encourage you to get and read the book. . .and next time your friends trot out the writings of Patrick Henry to prove that America started out a Christian theocracy, remember the persecution and struggles of Roger Williams.

Must-Read: Mark Siljander's "A Deadly Misunderstanding"

Today I finished the book A Deadly Misunderstanding by Mark Siljander, and I vigorously recommend it.  A former Republican congressman with impeccable conservative credentials, colleague of Newt Gingrich and the "Young Turks" of the Reagan Revolution, Mark was also a staunch conservative Evangelical Christian, solid supporter of Israel and opponent of communists and Muslims wherever they might be found.  Challenged not long after an electoral defeat, to find the scriptural basis for his conviction to convert others to Christianity, Mark discovered to his shock that the supposed command wasn't there.  But rather than pull back into his comfortable religious shell, Mark did the crazy thing:  he learned Greek and Aramaic and started digging into what the original languages of the New Testament actually taught.

Without trying to tell Mark's story for him (which I couldn't anyhow--he tells it too well himself), let me just say that he's a shining example of what can happen when a true believer in Jesus allows for the dangerous possibility that what Jesus said and taught might actually be lived.  In Mark's case, that has meant learning Arabic and studying the Qur'an too, and discovering between Quranic Arabic, New Testament Aramaic, and Old Testament Hebrew, that an awful lot of the buzz words our faiths use to keep us apart, are actually the same words--or at least words with the same roots--in the Semitic language family.  For example, he demonstrates with some weight, that the Aramaic word "salem" that the Peshitta (Aramaic New Testament) uses to describe repentance and turning to Jesus, is of the same root as the Arabic word for "submission" to God (a Mu-slim is "one who submits or surrenders" to God).

I want to be clear:  this is no milquetoast universalist pablum.  Siljander is NOT claiming some notion of all roads leading to God.  What he's doing is far more careful and well-thought than that.  He is demonstrating the frequency with which fundamental--often violent--differences between the Abrahamic faiths are based on ignorance:  not only ignorance of the "other's" faith, but all too often ignorance of the actual text and context of our own faith and its creeds.  In this, he's coming to a conclusion a Muslim roommate and I (with far less scholarship) came to more than 20 years ago:  if both of us and our brothers merely were careful to follow what OUR OWN SCRIPTURES actually said, we'd find a lot of common ground, and at the very least, we couldn't fight each other.

Through story after story, Siljander tells how dealing with the actual person and teaching of Jesus (as opposed to the theological constructs ABOUT Jesus that make up most creeds), has opened doors for loving, peacemaking relations with Muslim, Buddhist, and other religious and political leaders on three continents.  This book is a powerful call to live in submission to the Prince of Peace, not in word and doctrine, but in actual love and practice.

Read it!

The Manhattan Declaration -- I won't be signing it

A couple of friends have recently pointed me to The Manhattan Declaration with encouragement that I and other like-minded believers should sign on.  I won't be signing it, and I encourage my believing friends to think long and carefully about it too.  The declaration purports to lay out three principals as particularly important for Christians to support, and to publicly advocate:

• the sanctity of human life
• the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
• the rights of conscience and religious liberty. 

I actually support all three of these principles, but not in the way the writers of the Manhattan Declaration mean the words.  In point of fact, a careful reading of the principals as elucidated in the Declaration makes it abundantly clear that they only mean these things in the American Christian Republican manner, despite their nonpartisan protestation.  I say this in particular with regard to points one and three:

The sanctity of life  The text of the declaration is unmistakable in its denunciation of abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, and therapeutic cloning.  I agree that abortion and euthanasia are inconsistent with a Jesus-centered life ethic, even though I disagree with most of the particular actions and laws that so-called "Pro-Life" advocates actually push (stem cells and cloning are far less clear-cut IMO).   In typical Republican fashion, however, the declaration says nothing about warfare or capital punishment.  While I freely grant that there are consistent, Jesus-honoring people who believe that there are times where the Christian may condone both of these, a position that truly considers the sanctity of all human life would have to require that any application of either warfare or capital punishment pass certain tests far more stringent than simply "the government (or at least the good, conservative, Christian, Republican government) says so."

In the case of warfare, a rigid application of just war criteria would have to precede every use of military force, and would require a deliberate and public examination of the causus belli and the actual prosecution of the war.  If human life is truly sacred, then the notion of "collateral damage" in warfare should be as horrifying as the notion of infanticide.  So, too, should the notion that we go and fight (i.e. kill people) for our "freedom."  Nothing but the preservation of life--not lifestyle, but life itself--can possibly justify the taking of other life if human lives are really sacred.

In the case of capital punishment, a Christian perspective should at the very least be in the vanguard of efforts such as the Innocence Project and similar efforts dedicated to making sure no one is wrongfully executed.  Quite to the contrary, Christians are often leaders in the enforcement of capital punishment.  If human life is truly sacred, then we should go to every conceivable length to make certain that those who go to the gallows are indeed guilty.  The notion that courts might actually reject the petition for a DNA test of a capital case is unconscionable.

The Right of Conscience and Liberty  This section advocates for the rights of Christians to promulgate and practice their views without government interference.  For the most part I agree with this, though when those same Christians attempt to enshrine their views in publicly-sanctioned (or owned) assets it gets a bit murky.  I do agree, for example, that Christian hospitals shouldn't be forced to perform abortions, and Christian adoption agencies should be able to screen their placements for families who meet faith criteria (though they should be prepared to give up government subsidies--including tax exemption--when they do).  However, there is not a word in this document on the liberty of other religions within America.  I know people in my own church who consider Islam to be an "enemy religion" and have said to my face that the Christian West and Muslim nations are inevitably at war.  I remember lots of Christians who felt that if Barack Obama were a Muslim (which anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows was false) it should disqualify him from the presidency.  The church in America has not been sufficiently vocal on the side of religious tolerance in our own country, and conservative Christians who support documents like the Manhattan Declaration are among the most egregious offenders.

Unlike points one and three, the section on Marriage at least shows some nuance in its acknowledgment that Christians have all too often violated the sanctity of marriage by their divorces and infidelity.  In large measure I agree with that section of the Declaration, though if I were to write a declaration of places we believers ought to take a stand, I doubt that the defense of traditional marriage would make my top ten list; it certainly wouldn't make it to the top three.

But until Christians who stand for the sanctity of life mean ALL human life (Jim Wallis of Sojourners calls this a "Consistent Life Ethic" and though I'm not an overall fan of Wallis, he gets that right), I can't endorse their statements on the sanctity of life.  And until the right of conscience is defended even for those whose conscience differs from mine--or yours--I can't endorse those statements either.

War and Peace - A Civil Discussion

I just wanted to point those of you who read my blog to a discussion I've been having with John Hobbins on his "Ancient Hebrew Poetry" blog. John and I most definitely do not agree about the appropriateness of Christians serving in the military, or on the justness of (at least some) military actions we're now involved with in the U.S. But we both agree that people who really care about Jesus don't all come down in the same place on these issues, and we're neither of us comfortable with the rancor that usually characterizes discussions between the "sides."

John has been proving to me that it is possible for one of my perspective and one of his to have a civil discourse. I doubt we'll come anywhere close to agreement on at least some of the issues, but IMHO this sort of discourse enriches the participants. I learned about a book I'm going to want to read, at the very least--the upcoming "Just War as Christian Discipleship: Recentering the Tradition in the Church rather than the State," by Daniel M. Bell.

But give John's thoughts a serious listen. And think about his challenge to "armchair pacifists." It's a worthy question he's asking, and someone who maintains that sort of Christian demeanor while asking is worthy of engaging.

Torture - May God have mercy on us!

I just learned of this CNN report from a friend. Here's the meat of the story, referencing a new poll by the Pew Research Center:

The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.

I have no words strong enough to express my outrage. I am ashamed to be part of the group "Americans who go to church" if that's what we look like.

as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.” (Rom 2:24)

Perhaps we need to follow the example of Daniel (Dan. 9:20) and learn what it means to confess the sins of our people. . .

A Gay Brother's Grief

I found this article linked off of a long discussion related to a gay fellow participating in a worship team, over at Scot McKnight's blog. Wesley Hill's poignant piece is what I want to highlight here.

Hill gives a heartfelt description of the deep frustration and intense loneliness he has experienced because, well, I'll let him explain it himself (the "Auden" to whom he refers is another author):

I am drawn to these haunting confessions of Auden’s because I, too, am a homosexual Christian. Since puberty, I’ve been conscious of an exclusive attraction to persons of my own sex. Though I have never been in a gay relationship as Auden was, I have also never experienced the “healing” or transformation of my sexual orientation that some formerly gay Christians profess to have received. But I remain a Christian, a follower of Jesus. And, like Auden, I accept the Christian teaching that homosexuality is a tragic sign that things are “not the way they’re supposed to be.” Reading New Testament texts like Romans 1:26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 through the lens of time-honored Christian reflection on the meaning and purpose of marriage between a man and a woman, I find myself—much as I might wish things to be otherwise—compelled to abstain from homosexual practice.

Hill makes a vital point in his article, which we straight Christians who still believe homosexuality is not God's standard, must take to heart. People need to feel love. They need community. This is true even for someone like me who's in a deeply satisfying heterosexual marriage--how much more for someone who does not have that privilege, whether through orientation, through a broken marriage, or through whatever combination of life's circumstances leaves them alone!

If we as believers do not provide a loving, sustaining community for those who are alone, how dare we blame them for seeking that love somewhere else? If we are (rightly) to teach that gay relationships, like other extramarital sexual relationships, are outside God's standard, then we have got to be the sort of "how few" Wesley Hill is seeking. As he himself concludes:

Will the Church shelter and nourish and humanize those who are deeply lonely and struggling desperately to remain faithful?

Homosexuality - It's really about which kingdom you're in!

So far, most of my posts have addressed areas that cause me concern within that part of Christianity that would tend to self-identify as "conservative." In fact the casual reader could be forgiven for pretty quickly lumping me in with a "liberal" stream of thought. I'm about to change that. A responsible reading of the Christian scriptures according to the "Word of God" hermaneutic that I advocate, will come up with plenty to challenge on the self-styled "left" side of the spectrum as well.

A major battle in the American culture wars today is the issue of homosexuality. (I must stress at this juncture that I don't think the various gay-rights issues should be as high on the radar screen of the church as they are. It ought not to be the priority it has become. Nevertheless, since the church left and right has taken its cues from the surrounding culture and MADE it an issue, the debate rages on, and it is for this reason I'm addressing it at all).

Like most such issues, the battle seems to have invaded the church along largely partisan lines, with each "wing" assuming the position of its secular compatriots, and then hitting up the Biblical text for support to the position already decided. Though this is a vast oversimplification, the conventional territory for Christians seems to have broken down to three main perspectives:

1. "Conservatives" say homosexuality is an abomination before God. They cite various texts, notably Leviticus 18:22 and Romans 1:26-27, as clearly calling homosexuality outside the pale. They then proceed to try to force secular society to hew to their religiously-defined sense of right and wrong through laws, censure and the rest.
2. "Progressives" or "Liberals" say that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, and that what's more, he taught a love of all people that clearly extended to "sinners," not just those who already follow his decrees. They argue that people who have sexual desire for the same gender are created that way by God, and that the only way we can behave in a loving, Jesus-like manner, is to welcome those with same-sex attraction into fellowship, blessing their union as equivalent to a heterosexual marriage.
3. A third group wishes the issue would just go away and they wouldn't have to think about it or deal with it. One might surmise they'd appreciate a spiritual equivalent to "don't ask, don't tell" in the church.

Number 3 has no chance of happening, and I'll dismiss it at that. But I submit that numbers 1 and 2 both have elements of truth and elements where they've missed the boat entirely.

Starting (as we always ought) with Jesus, we find he wasn't quite as silent on the issue as the progressives say, or as the conservatives imply by their lack of appeal to his words. While it is true that we have no record of Jesus addressing same-sex relationships directly, he made some very clear statements about marriage and adultery that we must consider. First of all, adultery: Although the word occurs (according to my quick search) 15 times in the four gospels, it is never fully defined. It's clear by Jesus' usage that he's using a working definition that was already extant in the minds of his hearers. The Old Testament, whether law or prophets, gives only a partial definition itself, frequently also just mentioning the word without definition (e.g. Exodus 20:14). However, O.T. passages make it clear that, at the very least, adultery is sexually violating a marriage (Lev. 20:10, Jer. 29:23), and using the services of a prostitute (Jer. 5:7, Ezekiel 23:43-45). Jesus then expands the definition to divorce and remarriage (Matt 5:32, Matt. 19:9, Mark 10:11-12, Luke 16:18) and even to lustful thought (Matt. 5:27). But here we're looking at the edges of the definition. If we are remotely honest with each other, we have to confront the reality that the Biblical authors saw no need to fully define the term "adultery," nor its cousin "fornication," for their hearers already knew these words meant "sexual relations outside the confines of marriage." Therefore, what we find in the Scripture is not a comprehensive definition, but rather a clarification and extension of the boundaries.

So we come to the Biblical concept of marriage. Here, Jesus simply quotes and then explains Genesis 2:25 in Matt. 19:4-6 and Mark 10:8-9:

He answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Here Jesus clarified what his hearers already would have known, that marriage is God's way of joining a man and a woman. There is no other form of marriage in the church, and God doesn't make two men or two women "one" in a marital way.

So the problem with homosexuality and bisexuality is the same as the problem of cheating on one's wife. They're all adultery. One is not "worse" than the other according to Jesus' words, and when the church gets itself into a lather over homosexuality but ignores divorce in its own ranks, it's playing a selectivity that is not Scripturally countenanced. Straight or gay, adultery is not an acceptable practice for the follower of Jesus.

One more point before I turn to the conservatives. . .the progressive will often protest that some people are simply, naturally attracted to the same sex, that this is a biological fact, and therefore same-sex attraction must be lovingly accepted as acceptable (even holy) practice. There are several fallacies to this argument, but I'll highlight just three:

1. The argument of a biological basis for same-sex attraction is really a red herring. The entire history of God's call to faithfulness among his people includes myriad examples where God expects us to act contrary to our fallen, earthly-powers-dominated nature. Some people's nature urges them to have multiple straight partners. Others find the urge to couple with the same sex. Still others are attracted by their nature to addiction, to domineering over others, to greed or theft, to deception. We have an old-fashioned term for this. . .the church fathers called it "original sin." Without getting into the theology of the fall, it's clear that Jesus calls us to act contrary to our fallen nature in a wide range of behaviors. To carve out an exception to this pattern in the case of sexual attraction is wholly unjustified.
2. Since when did loving someone mean unquestioningly blessing whatever actions make them feel fulfilled or satisfied? I can personally testify that some of the most withering criticism I've ever received was justified confrontation of my selfishness or bad behavior by people who loved me absolutely. In the same vein, I love my children totally. But it is precisely because I love them that I cannot simply let them do what I know or believe to be a deeply wrong action. Simply granting them license to do whatever they were inclined to do would be the most unloving thing I could do as a father.
   
3. It's not unique to our society, but we have the notions of love and sex hopelessly confused. In entertainment, in people's description of their relationships, in the various messes that people get themselves into over and over, it becomes abundantly clear that too many have bought the lie that if you love somebody, it's inevitably got to be sexual. This is not how God intended sexuality to function, nor love either, for that matter. Love alone is neither a reason nor a pass for sexual activity.

OK, so now that I've criticized the "progressive" point of view, what about the conservatives who, by now, should be cheering me on? Well, conservative Christians seem to have missed an even more fundamental point: Everything I'm talking about here is based on what I believe Jesus' standard is for his followers. Until one accepts the authority of Jesus, the standard doesn't apply--not because the act in question is not ultimately wrong, but because we can't expect those who aren't subject to the King, to live by the King's rules. "The world" (for want of a better term) is living according to the rules of its prince, and the Christ-centered solution to this problem is not to get the powers to change their rules, it is to get the citizens to shift their allegiance. We cannot, and we must not, attempt to accomplish by earthly fiat, what we have failed to accomplish by evangelism. The works of the flesh (Gal. 5:19-21) are what we can and should expect from those who do not have the Spirit of Christ, and the fruits of the Spirit (v. 22-25) come once a person has been subject to the Spirit, not before.

What this means to me is that believers have got to face the reality of the two kingdoms. We should make no bones about the different life that is expected of citizens of the Kingdom of God, but we have got to get off our high horse about trying to convert the kingdom of this world to good behavior without its citizens first shifting their allegiance to Jesus.

Now, does this mean that someone who's gay "can't be saved" as I know someone will ask me? To this I respond "You are asking the wrong question." Jesus extends his saving invitation to all humanity, and that includes gay humanity. He does, however, demand a different standard of behavior for those who have accepted his lordship. I don't claim to know how this might work out from a timeline point of view. God knows, a lot of us who have joined Jesus' kingdom still have areas where we have failed to fully surrender to his lordship. It is (thankfully) not for us to determine who's "saved" and who's not; however as 1 Corinthians 5 makes clear, it IS the responsibility of the assembled body to confront unrepentant sin among its members. This is something I think the individual body probably has to work out prayerfully, together. It very well may look different in different assemblies, even if all are doing their level best to remain faithful. But I think it is clear that we cannot go to the other extreme and bless these behaviors as appropriate for the faithful.

Observations about Rick Warren's inaugural prayer

Mostly I'm sticking to more directly Scriptural, doctrinal, and church/kingdom life stuff on this blog, but I'm going to veer into current events for a moment. Lots of people made lots of noise over Rick Warren's being asked to deliver the invocation at President Obama's inauguration this morning. As with most such storms, the import of Warren's presence got lost, I think, in the cultural warriors' interpretations.

But I was struck by the actual content of what Rick said this morning. Not only was it a prayer I could heartily say "amen" to in virtually all respects, it was truly inclusive from a man who has been vilified over and over again for not being inclusive enough.

Didn't anyone else notice that Warren invoked God as "the Compassionate, the Merciful?" This comes straight from the opening phrase of every Sura in the Quran ("In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful"), and I am certain it is no accident that in this phrase, Warren included faithful Muslims as they pray to God. Likewise, Warren used the Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish names for Jesus in another bid to be culturally inclusive.

That prayer made no apologies for where he (Warren) stands: how can anyone argue with praying "in the name of the one who changed my life?" But it opened the door for lots of people, and not only Christians, to honestly pray with him.

Good on you, Rick!