Statues

It's been forever since I've posted. Recently racial violence has erupted in the US because White Southerners don't want statues honoring their Confederate ancestors to be removed. I understand they are grieving the loss of something that has been there for their whole lives. It's normal to grieve.

However, most of those White Southerners would also identify as Christians, and Christians are called to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Jesus. Grief and giving up your rights is one of the core attributes of a real Christian.

I wrote this on Facebook:

Statues.

I don't get how people who read the Bible can be such big proponents of saving statues.

The Old Testament is full of stories of the godly tearing down altars, shrines, and idols. A literal idol is a statue that represents a god or goddess. In the ancient world, a god or goddess was a representation of an ideal or a power.

Shrines are statues or memorials to an ancestor. (whether that ancestor is Hebrew, Egyptian, Chinese or Confederate).

Gideon got in trouble with the Baal-worshipers for tearing down a statue.

Aaron sinned when he built a statue.
Jeroboam sinned when he built statues.

The ungodly kings left the statues. The godly kings tore down the statues, and dealt with backlash from the people whose heritage was being offended.

Jewish people around the time of Jesus were so concerned with idolatry that they didn't even like the Olympics because of handing out little humanoid trophies.

Not all statues are bad--that is misunderstanding the goodness of the material world.

But, anytime you value a statue and what it stands for more than the vocation of humans to be shalom-makers, you're committing idolatry in the most literal way possible.


"Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles." Romans 1:22-23

The Olympics, Nationalism, and Christianity...and that Coke Commercial from the Super Bowl

Here are some barely-organized thoughts:

The Olympics are starting in a couple days.  It's always fun to root for your home country to do well, especially if, like me, you're an American whose country tends to win a lot of medals.

That being said, as a Christian, there are some concerns I have with nationalism.  I'm taking a church history class right now, and learned recently about the theology of the two kingdoms.  I was actually familiar with the idea, although I did not realize it was an essential part of Luther's reformation in 1517.  The basic idea is that as Christians, we are citizens of two kingdoms--the kingdom of God is our primary allegiance.  The second kingdom we represent is whatever nation we are from.

Many Christians today do not remember to separate their allegiance to the Kingdom of God from their allegiance to the kingdom of wherever they live.  This is especially true in America, which was a so-called "Christian Nation" in many people's minds.

As Christians, we ought to only celebrate our national identity as believers.  According to the New Testament, we are a new nation, made up of every ethnicity, language, and culture.

We need to keep our national affiliation to the Kingdom separate from our national affiliation to the USA or wherever you're from.  On top of that, we need to prioritize our affiliation to the Kingdom over our earthly nation.

Is it OK to root for your home country in the Olympics?  Sure, I don't see why not.  But, is it OK to root for your home country in a war?  I'm not so sure about that one.  Or, is it OK to root for the predominance of the language you speak?  I'd say no.

This past weekend in the Super Bowl, there was a Coke commercial in which "America the Beautiful" was sung in multiple languages.  Most people who didn't like the commercial were bothered that English was not being respected as the national language.  I don't think a Christian should care much for the predominance of English--we believe that one day America (and yes, even English) will pass away.  A Christian ought to look for ways to express the love of Christ to people who speak every language, even if they don't know the language of the country they live in.

But, that commercial did get me thinking about the song "America the Beautiful."  The song does something awful!  It takes biblical imagery of the kingdom of heaven and assigns it to America.  In the final verse, the song says:

O beautiful for Patriot's dream that sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears

The author of the song (originally a poem, according to Wikipedia) is saying that the American Patriot has the foresight of the future Kingdom of God (expressed in Revelation 21-22), to see the "alabaster cities," which is biblical language used to describe heaven.  In other words, the entire purpose of "America the Beautiful" is to perpetuate the belief that we can create heaven on earth through building human society.

If you're a Christian, you can't agree to that.  It is not through the building up of America that we will come to a society "undimmed by human tears."  Only through allegiance to our first Kingdom--that of Jesus--will we arrive in an alabaster city with no strife.

The song assigns Christian ideas of the New Jerusalem to America.  In a similar way, the Coke Commercial assigned Christian ideas of a perfectly unified nation made of every ethnicity to America.  So, those who are complaining about the commercial are missing the point that Coke made the same error as the original author of the song--conflating America with the Kingdom, and appealing to our God-given intuition and desire to be a part of that Kingdom.

Group Think | Do not conform to the pattern of this world. (God and guns part 1)

In the past year or two, I've found myself completely change positions on what became a hot-button issue after the Sandy Hook shootings in December.

I never have really enjoyed shooting guns--I do have a BB gun for trying to kill the gophers in my backyard, but I don't have that "Wow, this is so cool!!" feeling that a lot of other men (and women) get when shooting something more powerful.

However, I used to be really supportive of people who owned guns, and wanted to defend their viewpoint.  Here's why:

I used to be a pretty conservative Republican (today I'm a moderate independent).  Why? Because I'm an evangelical Christian raised in the 1980s and 90s, and that meant you were a Republican.  I used to be in favor of people owning guns because I was a Republican.

Even after I became a political independent, I was still in favor of people owning guns because most vocal American Christians are Republicans, and thus support gun rights.  I know that's a little over-simplified, but hang on with me, and I'll try to demonstrate causation.

My default way of thinking was "guns are fine. Self-defense is fine. Pre-emptive use of drones or snipers is fine if the person is really a threat to society."

I thought so because the people around me thought so.

On the internet, sometimes people talk about "group-think."  Group-think is when everyone on a message board has the same opinion regarding an issue because everyone on that message board has the same opinion (kind of circular logic).  In the outside world, there could be a much better opinion being discussed, but because of the bubble of that message board, the whole group has the same opinion.

My old views on guns, weapons, and such was group-think--group-think of my friends, the religious right, whatever.

What the internet refers to as "group-think" the apostle Paul refers to as "conforming to the pattern of this world" (Romans 12:2).

In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrased Romans 12:2 "Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."

When I first heard that sentence, it blew me away.  I think it's my favorite verse in The Message.  I had always assumed that I could stop conforming to the pattern of "this world" by avoiding things like sexual sin, anger, lying, bribery--you know, those clear-cut sins we love to talk about in America.

When I heard The Message, and thought about the word "culture," I realized how much of what I believe is based on how I fit into the group-think of those around me without even thinking.

What shapes your culture?  Your parents, family, childhood friends and experiences, religious background, ethnicity, social status, schooling, finances, TV, movies, songs, current friends and experiences, work environment...

The most overlooked way Christians fit into culture without thinking is by fitting into the group-think of the church.  Look, the church is made up of flawed people who are often deceived or distracted simply because they are people.  

I know (now) that not every evangelical Christian had the same view on guns that I did, but the majority of the people I knew in the church at that time had pretty similar opinions on this issue.

Just because everyone else thinks it doesn't mean it's right--even if they're Christians.

There are so many things that each of us believe because of group-think.  I'm going to dedicate a couple of blog posts to unpacking how to get out of group-think and stop fitting into culture as we are commanded to do in light of Romans 12:1-2.  Then, I'm going to spend some time looking at the issue of guns/weapons as an example of how I have applied Romans 12 to my own life and seen myself faced with the reality that my old way of thinking was rooted in group-think and often countered the very teachings of Scripture.  

Grace and Disgrace part 2

In my last blog, I wrote about how we tend to view people through the lens of disgrace, while God views us through the lens of grace.  When someone does one bad thing, we tend to write off all the good things about them--to us they are in a state of disgrace.

On the other hand, God views us with grace--despite the fact that we are sinners by nature (also by action), God writes off all the bad things about us when He looks at the one good thing Jesus did.

In other words:
Our disgrace-filled mindset: Allowing one bad action to overwhelm all good in a person.
God's grace-filled mindset: Allowing one good action (by Jesus) to overwhelm all bad in a person.

That's a little over-simplified, but it works as a summary.

Obviously, it's not good that we treat people by the rule of disgrace, when God is treating us by the rule of grace.

In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a story about a servant who was in debt to his master.  Verse 24 says the man owed 10,000 talents.  A talent was 20 years wages for a day laborer.  Just for comparison purposes, if you worked at California minimum wage 8 hours a day, five days a week, one talent is the same as $332,800.  So, if you owed someone 10,000 talents, that would be $3,328,000,000  ($3.3 billion).

Obviously, if you owed someone $3.3 billion personally, you would be in enormous debt.

In the story, the master is going to take everything from the servant, including his family, but decides to forgive the debt instead.  The servant asked to have more time to pay back the debt, but the master decided to just eat the loss of 10,000 talents.

After the servant's debt was forgiven, he found a fellow servant who owed him 100 denarii (v. 28).  A denarius was about one days' wages for a day laborer.  So, by California minimum wage, one day's earning would be $64.  The second servant owed the first one 100 denarii, which would be like owing someone $6,400.

The second servant couldn't pay the first, so the first one had him thrown in jail.  The master heard what happened, re-instated the debt of the first servant, and had him thrown in jail and tortured.

When we convert the numbers to modern approximations, we see how ridiculous the servant was.  If someone forgave you for a $3.3 billion debt, you would surely not care about the $6,400!

Jesus says that when we fail to forgive others in spite of God's forgiveness of us, we are doing the same thing!

In fact, after Jesus says the master threw the servant in jail to be tortured until his debt was paid, he says, “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

When we allow people's sin to put them out of our good grace, we not only are ruled by disgrace, but we are choosing to live outside the rule of grace.  God views us through that lens, but He doesn't have to, and Jesus gives us fair warning that we can place ourselves back in debt.

So, all that to say...Forgive!

Forgive people when they sin against you.  Forgive people when they sin in general.

Don't keep a record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:5).  When we live based on disgrace, we look at all the good things people have done in light of the bad.  Instead, we ought to assume the best in others (1 Corinthians 13:7--love "always hopes").

Look at the good and bad things people have done in light of the fact that you have been forgiven and commanded to love.

Grace and Disgrace part 1

I often think about the meanings of words that include "grace."  Usually when we talk about grace in English, we're talking about doing something gracefully (with style, ease, and beauty).   The theological meaning of "grace" is quite different.  So, I will sometimes think about how the English words including "grace" are related to the biblical meaning of the word.

Grace means to receive something good that you didn't earn.

All of us are sinners.  Our sin nature is what makes us unworthy of God, and our sinful actions (trespasses/transgressions) are symptoms and signs of our guilt (Romans 1).  It is not our sinful actions that make us unworthy of knowing God; we are already unworthy by our sin nature.

God, in his radical love for us, gives us grace--an undeserved gift:  he pays the price for our sin, making us innocent, which we call justification.  The second thing God promises is to remove the consequences of our sin: death (spiritual and physical).  We call this removal of consequences "salvation."  In other words, we have been declared innocent, and our sentence has been commuted.

God shows us extreme forgiveness, and we call it grace.  We, on the other hand, tend to treat people quite differently.

Imagine a hypothetical friend.  If they have some shortcomings, it's easy to look past them by remembering your friend's positive traits.  However, if that person does something really wrong (a grievous sin) or really annoying (a "sin" against you), you tend to notice all the little bad things about them.

Personally, I tend to think back on my relationship history with the person and question everything that they did that I previously viewed positively or neutrally.  All their past actions instantly seem suspicious.  I tend to suddenly go from supporting my friend to judging them based on the broken trust caused by their one action (a severe sin, or a sin against me).

We tend to be impacted by that one misstep our friends make.  I was trying to think of a word that describes the one action that taints the whole history of a person in my mind, and I thought of one:

Disgrace.

We usually refer to a person as a disgrace, but the word has other meanings, which can refer to actions.

Dictionary.com defines "disgrace" as:
1. the loss of respect, honor, or esteem; ignominy; shame.

3. the state of being out of favor; exclusion from favor, confidence, or trust.

Simply put, disgrace happens when one thing reflects negatively on a larger situation.

When our friend does something wrong or annoying, we often allow the disgraceful act to rule our opinion of and attitude toward our (former) friend.  

When someone does one bad thing, we view all their good in light of the one bad thing. On the contrary, when God looks at us, he views all of our bad things in light of the one good thing His Son did for us on the cross.

We show others judgment, based on disgrace.  God shows us love, based on His grace.

We'll explore this issue more in the next blog.