Tag Archive for 'church'

Separating Culture and Church

Published on December 1, 2009 in Christianity and The Bigger Picture. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

            We live in a culture that sees a benefit in the individual over the group—at least it has been true until recently.  We seem to be going through a cultural shift that wants us to give up our individual approach to life and live for the group.

            We are also a nation that seems to believe that the Age of Enlightenment was a Christian movement.  The Declaration of Independence, that great American founding document, reeks of Enlightenment, yet it is most often used as proof of our Christian founding. 

            Therein lays the problem I see us facing today.  No where does the Bible declare that we have a right to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.  In fact, the opposite is true.  The calling of the Christian is to “lay down your life and follow me.”  One down.  Early Christians found themselves in prison, often with a death sentence over them.  Two down.

            As to the pursuit of happiness, that has never been considered a Christian principle—at least not before we got to this modern me first Christian generation.

            Not willing to stop here, I must look deeper into this “Christian” document.  The declaration does talk about ideas such as endowed by our Creator, giving the illusion of a Christian foundation.  Unfortunately, it later clears up the misunderstanding by naming that Creator as “the laws of nature and of Nature’s God.”  This sounds a lot like something more mystical than the God of the Christian Church.

            While we are busy tipping over sacred cows, let’s look at the concept that America has a special place in God’s heart and is inherently good.  This, to me, is the core of what is wrong with the American church.  We are looking to convert the lost to an American understanding of everything, including God.  Yet, God exists outside of time and space.  He is not a citizen of any one country.  He did not design the world on a model of America—in fact, America is late to the game, both our language and our culture.

            It is always a mistake to take our culture and try to fit the Gospel into it.  Our job is to take the Gospel and fit our culture into it.  Anything that does not fit must be discarded as not part of the true Gospel.

            We are not God’s special children, except that all men and women are created in the image of God and that makes us all special.  We are not immune from the problems of the world system—the last year has shown that to be true.  We are in need of God’s grace and love, before and after our conversion to Christianity.

            The only way we will become what we were created and called to be is to move away from the American approach to life and begin to live a truly Jesus centered approach to life.  I am not claiming to be there, I am merely looking at what seems to be obvious to me.  We are not living in a way that Jesus would be approve when we are living for ourselves without a thought to the world around us.

            We are also not living like Jesus would have when we are more loyal to our country than to our God.

Maybe Its Time To Reevaluate Our Faith

Published on January 30, 2009 in Christianity. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

 

            We cannot continue like we are going.  Modern Christianity has lost its connection to historic, first century Christianity.  We have lost our way.  Maybe you are a skeptic and want more proof than my bold declaration that we have lost our way.

 

            I think that the proof is in the pudding as they say where I live.  And the pudding is to look at how we are changing our world.  From the time of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry through the end of the first century the Church of Jesus Christ, and of course the master himself, turned their world upside down.  They did it without modern communication.  They did it without written apologetics.

 

            There were no televisions to promote the word.  There was no radio ministry.  Shoot, even their newsletters had to be written on reed parchments.  It was not an easy time to communicate.  And forget about traveling.  To get from one place to another they either walked or rode a donkey or horse.  Nothing was easy for these guys and ladies, and yet, they turned the world upside down.

 

            What did they have that we did not have?  Nothing.  What do we have that they did not have?  Everything.  And therein lays the answer.

 

            Jesus was homeless.  He was also relatively unemployed; in fact, Peter found the money to pay the taxes Jesus owed in the mouth of a fish.  Clearly, Jesus did not have a strong mailing list to go to for help.

 

            Where were the intercessors when Jesus needed them?  Here He is, facing the lord of Hell on a daily basis, and His ministry is not fully developed by our standards.  Yet He managed to accomplish the most important goal of anyone in history.  An accomplishment that stands as the turning point of history—even now.

 

            The second most critical person in the history of Christianity is the Apostle Paul.  A quick look at his life, found in I Corinthians 4:11 “To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless;”

 

            So now we are two for two.  The master and his top man are both homeless.  How many of our leaders are homeless?  How many of our leaders are hungry and thirsty?  How many of our leaders are poorly clothed and roughly treated?

 

            You got it—none!

 

            I am not saying that we all have to be homeless, hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed, and roughly treated to be true Christians.  What I am saying is that there is something missing because the Church, largely on the Christian right, does not have any place for those who are homeless, just as Jesus was homeless. 

 

            It is time we returned to a simpler day.  A day when we placed less value on the things we owned or the size of the reserves in our ministry. 

 

            The problem is that we are not asking the right questions.  We are concerned with what looks right for the staid and set believers around us.  We are concerned with not offending people.  All the time we teach that Jesus was offensive to most everyone he met.  Some He offended into the kingdom.  Some He offended so much that they had Him killed.

 

            Instead of wondering how to keep up with the Jones it is time we learned how to keep up with the Jesuses of our world.

 

            The question we have to ask ourselves is:  How do I respond to those around me the way Jesus did?  How do I learn to appreciate everything in its proper place the way Paul did?

 

            Maybe instead of fighting to get to the top of the heap we should be fighting to get to the bottom of the heap.

 

            Maybe instead of believing God for a new car and a better house we should be believing God to show us how to live with less.  Maybe we should be praying for the prosperity Paul had—you remember, the prosperity of hunger and thirst and homelessness.

 

            Where are the television preachers showing us how to move down the ladder in God’s will, rather than spending years convincing us that God wants us at the top of the heap in the nicest clothes and best cars and mansions in this world?

 

            Maybe I am dreaming.  I am not there.  But at some point we have to come to grips with the truth of the Gospel and not just the parts that make us feel good.

The Jesus I Read About, Or The Jesus I Hear About?

Published on January 14, 2009 in Christianity. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

We live in a culture that makes it hard for us to properly evaluate Jesus. We cannot see his legacy because it is shrowded in too much mystery. Not the mystery of the supernatural, but the mystery of the pop culture we live in. The celebrity of Jesus makes it impossible to look at the modern version and see the ancient reality.

Is Jesus the version we see in the movies? Is he the man in the photo hanging on the wall in Sunday School? Is he the man hanging on the cross around the neck of the priest? Is he the man the preacher is talking about from the pulpit? Does he want me to be rich? Does he really demand that I submit to the rules of man to achieve the goals of God?

So the question that must be answered is where do we look to find Jesus as he existed. There is only one place to find him and that is in the scriptures. Granted, many believe that is not the complete story. It is, however, the only story we have. We must go back to that place and see what Jesus said, what he did, how he valued things and people.

It is no longer enough to take the word of a man or woman standing in a pulpit-it never has been. There is no valid argument that Jesus Christ has not been one of the most influential people to ever live. How else can we understand the great esteem and the great hatred that a large population of the world feel for this one person.

When we look at the life story of Jesus we see a man who did not give in to the political pressure of his day. He was not influenced by the religious leaders of his day. He redfined how we should live our lives. He made it plain that life was not about what we possessed; life was not about what we achieve; life is only about how we treat those around us.

If we were to evaluate the world around us the way Jesus evaluated his world we would quickly realize that few people, even Christians, have any idea who the real Jesus is. He was a man who stood for the weak. He believed that a system that only rewarded the wealthy and popular was not a system of justice al all.

Remember, it was Jesus who rebuked the religious leaders of the day for giving more honor to the rich than to the poor. His point was simple-we should not show favoritism to those who can reward us now, we should stand for the downtrodden and God will reward us one day.

That is the hardest part of believing the real Jesus. One of the reasons he stands alone in history is that he teaches that we should work without concern for a reward in this life. In fact, he goes even further and states that if we are working for rewards here and now we will miss the purposes of God in this life and in the one to come.

Where is that being taught-even in the modern church?