NBC & “One nation under God”

Sometimes I just don’t get self-righteous Christian anger – disguised under the notion of “standing up” for God.

Why are so many Christians so piously angry that NBC cut “under God” from their US Open golf coverage?  And, for another thing, why do so many Christians make such a big deal about insisting on pushing this phrase on so many unsuspecting Americans?

I have been leading my congregation through a reading of the Bible in 90 days – so the last 2 weeks have found me spending a considerable amount of time in the Old Testament.  The Pentateuch is not a fun read – especially once you get into the Hebrews and their 40 years of wandering.  God is not to be messed with – I think that is a fair summary of what I have gleaned from page after page after page (!) of laws, rituals, measurements, genealogies, promises of blessing, threats of judgment, etc.

Scripture (Proverbs 9:10) says that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”  So let me ask a simple question – how many Americans (how many Christians) actually fear God?

So often Christians settle for sounding shrill – rather than thinking theologically.

I believe that we SHOULD remove “under God” from our pledge of allegiance – along with getting God off our money, etc.  After all, how many Americans really mean it?!  One nation, under God . . . and how many children are going to bed hungry tonight?  One nation, under God . . . that (according to the World Health Organization) leads the world in illegal drug use.  One nation, under God . . . where (according to a 1996 Promise Keepers survey) 50% of Christian men are addicted to pornography.

If we as Christians believe that God’s name is holy, if we believe that making a rash vow in God’s name is binding – why, WHY, would we want to subject so many ignorant, foolish people to possible discipline from a holy and righteous God?

Maybe it’s really not about God – maybe it’s about us – the holiness of God takes a back-seat to our silly need to hear “God” – even when no one means it.

“You shall not take the name of your LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7).

In my opinion, every time a group of Americans repeats the Pledge of Allegiance, we (as Christians) are guilty of standing idly by while watching a the name of our God being taken in vain.  Put quite simply, most people don’t mean it, don’t live by it, don’t care about it.  If you have time to whine about NBC cutting “under God” – you had better spend some time at a soup kitchen.  Do something that matters for the Kingdom!

The Least of These…

I finally started to read a book that has languished on my bookshelf for awhile now – Kenda Creasy Dean’s Almost Christian. Professor Dean teaches youth ministry at Princeton Seminary – and I quickly pre-judged this book to be relevant for “youth” – how wrong I was!  This is becoming one of the most important books on ministry that I have read in recent years.

The Scriptures say that we will know people by the “fruit” that they bear – and this seems to be the main point of Professor Dean’s book – that we see in our youth just how vital our ministry as churches are.  The fact is that our youth ARE learning what we are preaching and teaching.  If faith is benign, safe, inarticulate to our teenagers, chances are better than not that this is exactly the message we are giving them.  Highly religiously motivated teenagers aren’t accidentally produced!

The academic foundation of this book is based upon a study produced between 2003-2005 entitled the National Study of Youth and Religion, which was a study of teenage spirituality in the United States.  As Professor Dean writes, “the religiousity of American teenagers must be read primarily as a reflection of their parents’ religious devotion (or lack thereof) and, by extension, that of their congregations” (pp.3-4).

So, let me just simply and demonstrably commend this book to your attention.  The leadership of my own congregation will become all-too familiar with this book in the coming months – I promise you that it will shape our strategy of living out our church’s mission.

I have introduced this book to get to this story – Professor Dean begins chapter 5 with a story about how one Christian school in Texas decided to live out the mission of Christ – in sports of all places.  Rather than stumbling through a summary, I invite you to go to the link.  I have to admit that I am not the biggest Rick Reilly fan – but this is a story that is compelling despite him.  Please give this a read:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3789373

Grace and Peace!

Rob

Gospel

I saw a picture of a US soldier holding the bloody head of a dead Afghan boy (aged 15!) – exactly in the same way a hunter holds the head of a deer or bear at the end of a successful hunt.

If you haven’t heard the story yet – go to Rollingstone.com and read the article: http://www.rollingstone.com/kill-team

I first saw this photo last week – a German publication (Der Spiegel) was apparently the first media organization to publish some of these horrible pictures.  And since then, I have had a bit of a crisis of faith.

And you should too!

Of course war is brutal – I’ve read many first hand accounts of some of the horrors of the war in the Pacific (Tarawa, Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima) and Vietnam.   We’ve all seen graphic photos of “collateral” damage (polite way of saying “oops we just killed an innocent family”).  And all you have to do is meet one actual combat soldier to know – even in the most justifiable of circumstances, war leaves deep, deep scars on those who have honorably served.

But this is a different sort of horror – a band of unholy brothers – thrill killers who gun down a young boy, hack off his finger, and then pose for their trophy shot.

OK, I digress . . . back to the crisis of faith.

Every day I hear stories of utter brutality.  Not simply these thrill killers, but also stories of an 11 year old girl gang raped in CA; parents in FL who killed their adopted daughter and badly burned their son; a Mexican man who was recently sentenced to 40 years for bringing young girls to Atlanta, each forced to have sex with around 40 men each night.

So, I wonder, how important are all these never ending debates that we Christians get into?!!

Rob Bell just published “Love Wins” – a rather mediocre essay that may or may not (!) say that everyone gets to go to heaven.  Some Christians are way too excited about this book – while other Christians couldn’t wait to sic the dogs of theological “orthodoxy” on him.

Fundamentalists are angry (surprise!) at a decision from a home school group for allowing Peter Enns (an author and former professor from Westminster Theological Seminary) to give a presentation because he is (gasp!) a theistic evolutionist.

My own denomination (the PCUSA) continues to argue over ordaining “practicing” homosexuals.

Not for one second am I suggesting that these aren’t relatively important debates – they certainly are!  None of the examples I have mentioned are simple – there are complicated, two thousand-years old doctrines and interpretations to sort out.  And the Bible matters – it is the unique witness to Jesus Christ.  I just wonder if we ever get around to Jesus!

I guess what I am shooting for here is this – can we agree that these intramural debates are very important, can we give them a LITTLE bit of our time (enough attention that we are not forgetting the issues and the people involved) – and yet…and yet, can we all agree that maybe, just maybe the children of God who are outside the church are desperate to see our witness in the darkest places of human depravity?

What has happened to the moral influence of the church?  Did we ever have it – or did we simply have a bully pulpit – did we simply seize the so-called moral high ground only to find that it was all an illusion – that we never really did have the hearts of the people we were cajoling into our stained glass edifices?

John’s Gospel says that the light shines in the dark.  We (as Christians) are told that we are light – and that we are not to hide this light under a bushel.

Where is our light?

What if we would spend just 1/10th of the energy we spend on debating evolution, or sexuality, or the authority of the Bible, or whether churches should look like houses or cathedrals or shopping malls?  What if we would spend half as much time praying to God on behalf of young girls being raped every minute of every day as we do praying for more people to sit in our pews?  What if we would give $5 to an organization like International Justice Mission or Amnesty International instead of to McDonalds?

Isn’t it interesting that the Gospels show that Jesus only spent a fraction of his valuable time in debates with the scribes and Pharisees!  Jesus teaches the curious, he heals the sick and the lame, he literally touches the “unclean.”  Jesus walks and prays and teaches and heals – he doesn’t show off how much he knows, rather he shows how deeply God loves especially among the “unloved”.

I’ll end with this – I am not ranting at anyone.  Well, maybe I am ranting just a little bit at all my brothers and sisters in Christ who talk a lot about Jesus.  But I am mostly frustrated with myself.  Frustrated that sometimes my priorities are really messed up!  All the troubles of my church, my denomination, my faith, seem very inconsequential in the face of sex-trafficking, slavery, starvation, wars, domestic violence, children being neglected, etc(!).  And I am frustrated because I know that alone I can do very little – yet together I also know that the Church can truly change the world.

We (both Christians and non-Christians) sometimes wonder why, if there is a God, why God permits all of this horror in the world.  How can a good and loving God stand idly by while all of these people suffer gross injustice and inhumane treatment?

But I no longer do that.  How is it God’s fault?  He has always had a covenant people – a people meant to be a light to the nations.  And what have WE done?  We, who have the ability to seek justice, have instead fallen asleep.  I fear that we are too much like the Disciples at Gethsemane – asleep in the garden when we should have been awake.

I don’t have any solutions.  I just wonder – can we do more . . . can we be more?

Church Is Not Boring…

Let’s just get this out of the way right now – every church is boring!  And every church gets boring around the same point in the service . . . the sermon!  Short of Stephen Colbert entering the ministry – every preacher has bored someone sometime.  Even Billy Graham has bored a few Christians in his day.

For the last month, I keep having this visceral reaction to the billboard on Mt. Vernon Ave. for a new church.  “Church Is Not Boring – Experience Something New.”  First, it concerns me because the intent of the billboard seems to be trying to get Christians to leave the churches that they are already a part of to join this “new” thing.  Second, it bothers me because it suggests that church is an event – like a concert – and that we have a right to expect to be enthused, amused, entertained, excited, etc.

When did boredom become the great sin of the church?!!

There is this great story in the Book of Acts (chapter 20).  Paul is preaching (and preaching…) and the story goes on to mention that a boy named Eutychus was sitting in the window of an upstairs room.  The text says that he “began to sink off into a deep sleep while Paul still talked longer” – only to fall out of the window, fall 3 stories, and then be healed by Paul.

Paul literally bored a kid to death!

Boredom isn’t the problem of our churches today.  And shallow enthusiasm is not the solution.  Do we really want to create an Amusement Park Christianity – where everything has to be bigger, faster, louder?!!  Even Cedar Point has to keep outdoing itself – their many roller coasters prove that they can’t survive providing people the “same old” experiences.  They can never rest – they always have to pay attention to what their competitors are building and to the fact that they have to keep providing people a reason to return.  They can never be satisfied doing what they are doing.

I am not Paul – so I know I have bored more than a few people in my day!  I try not to – but in the end it’s not all up to me.  When we come to church, we bring a lot of stuff with us.  We bring the busyness of our lives into the pews – the fights, the regrets, the shame, the guilt, the worries, the fears, the distractions (good and bad), the noon tee times, the Sunday brunches, the pre-game anticipations, the joys, the loves, etc…  These things leak into “church time” – and on a good day we are able to set them aside just long enough to “get” something out of worship.

But it doesn’t matter!  At the end of the day, church is not a worship experience, it is not boredom or excitement – when will we learn that church, that worship, is NOT ABOUT US?!!

First, understand that the church is not a place and it is not about what we do.  Church, the Body of Christ, is the heart of God’s relationship with all humanity.  In and through the church, God is re-creating what was fallen.  The Church is where we re-learn how to properly love God and love one another.  If all we do in church is sing songs, pray prayers, listen to sermons – then we have failed to be the Body of Christ.  If we do not learn how to love, how to forgive, how to be patient and kind, how to be peacemakers, how to care for the least of these, then we have failed to be the Body of Christ.

Second, the utterly awesome (and humbling) truth about church is that it is the one time in our busy weeks and lives where we remember that this time is not OUR time, this worship is not OUR worship, this hour is not OUR hour.  Every Sunday morning we have a choice – we either come to church as a consumer (what do I get out of church) or as a disciple (what does God get out of me).  A consumer has the right to complain, to look elsewhere, to shop around for the best deal.  A disciple surrenders!

Imagine what EVERY church in Marion, in Ohio, in the US, in the world would be like if we all came to church ready to surrender for one hour!  For one hour we set aside OUR lives – and we worship.  WE WORSHIP GOD!  We make it our intent to come together, knowing that I would rather be bored for one hour with my brothers and sisters in Christ to give God the praise then have box seats at the Super Bowl.

When the music is fantastic . . . praise God!

When the music is horrible . . . praise God!

When the worship leaders are easy to hear . . . praise God!

When the worship leaders are too quiet or too loud . . . praise God!

When I preach for ten minutes . . . well definitely . . . praise God!

When I preach for thirty minutes . . . (please!!!) . . . praise God!

You see, when the focus of our worship is not on us – when it is on the God who has redeemed us in Jesus Christ – then it does not matter how boring or exciting “church” is.  It’s not about us  – in fact, salvation is never about us!  It is about God in Christ!  It is about while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  It is about “in the beginning was the Word.”  From Genesis to Revelation, from Alpha to Omega, the story of the Bible is about this great God of ours who chooses to never be without us.  He is our God and we are his (whether we like it or not!) – he can do with us as he pleases, and it pleases him to save us.

Church can be boring.   Work and school can be boring.  Life can be boring.

God, the God of the burning bush and the whirlwind, is never boring!

It’s not about us.

What Is BookSneeze?

I recently discovered that Thomas Nelson Publishers will give out free books to anyone willing to post a review on their blog.  My first book should arrive later this week – and I will post a review shortly after.

Once I am done with a book, I will give it to the church’s library.

Connections

Time flies!  Incredibly, I have been your pastor for a full month now – and it has been a wonderful time.  Thank you all for your generous welcome to me and my family!

Now that this blog is up – I hope to update this frequently.

For now, I want to let you know that we are updating our ability to connect with you all through our web site.   To this end, we have created a Facebook page: First Presbyterian (Marion, OH) & we can now be found on Twitter: FPMarion.

And be looking for online giving.  The Trustees and I are working on identifying the right company – and hope to have this service up and running before September.

Peace in Christ!

Rob