Is This Considered Elitist?

As many of you, I get emails from well intended folks, sometimes family members, that proclaim a “spiritual” message and then impose a bit of guilt if you happen to be the one that does not forward the email to your friends and family.

That whole process bothers me.

I received such an email today and here are its final words:

This is the simplest test. If you Love God, and are not ashamed of all the
marvelous things he has done for you.. Send this  on .  A nation no longer under God is a nation gone under.

Now as well intended as that message is I’m not certain about “A nation no longer under God is a nation gone under.” Aren’t there many nations around the world that might be considered as “no longer under God,” if they ever were in the first place?  Most of them exist today and seem to fair a bit better than we are as a country right now. 

Having founding fathers that attempted to establish our nation with a spiritual birth right as “One Nation Under God….” does not necessarily give us a guarantee of prosperity or longevity. To think that is rather elitist in my opinion. We get so absorbed in our Western culture mentality that we often fail to realize there is a huge portion of the globe that finds its strength in  deities other than ours. Does that make them doomed?  Spiritually perhaps as they live without the gospel, but I suspect in no other way.

It’s accurate to believe a culture without the underpinnings of faith can find itself mired in all sorts of difficulties – morally, monetarily, and otherwise. Yet, this country, from its very beginning has struggled with many issues that we prefer to sweep under the rug -slavery is just one example. Does that make us less faithful or spiritual or God-dependent?   Have we lost our moral compass because our whole society is not on the “Jesus Saves” bandwagon?  Has there ever been a time when a whole culture was wholly committed to the God of the Bible?

I’m no historian or anthropologist, but it seems that over the centuries cultures have come and gone. Cities, towns, people-groups have risen and fallen perhaps not so much because they didn’t believe, but because they could not adapt. Perhaps we, as a nation, will find ourselves in that same predicament.  To think it could not happen to us is indeed rather elitist.

Engaged – Not all it’s cracked up to be!

I’m heading full speed ahead toward the big 6 0 and this is one of the few times in my life when I’ve tried to be engaged in government affairs and how the action of the federal government shapes personal lives and history in general.  Quite frankly, I don’t like it.  Yes, I’ve voted regularly in national elections in the past, not so much in local elections. However, much of the time I was voting against someone or something instead of voting for someone or something. That’s never good.  And yes, I would suspect folks would label me as a conservative.

What concerns me about engagement is what you learn. You learn there are different standards for those in Washington DC and the rest of the world. You learn that politicians, in general, really don’t listen to their constituents unless it happens to be an election year. You learn that it’s all about control. If a particular party controls a branch of government then the country plays by their rules.  In this particular time, we are learning that the rules are more than partisan, they are down right in-your-face, personal, and often vindictive. For example, the current administrations attack on the FOX News Network.  What has Fox done to deserve this dubious target?  From what I have observed, whether it is opinion pieces or hard news, they have attempted to present the facts as they find them or as they are fed them from Washington. Then they make an effort to verify the “facts.”  If that is offensive to the White House, then perhaps they should counter with facts not attacks.

I’ve also learned over the years that being engaged in local congregations can bring it’s own issues. I suspect that is why I find it hard to be comfortable or find a place where we feel comfortable in worship and Bible study.  Some of the problem is a result of my getting-off-the-couch spiritually and thinking for myself when I read scripture and attempt to extract its meaning. I’m not content to have someone tell me what to believe, I want to learn it for myself and decide the merits of certain political issues.  For example, when we were attending a PCA church and taking a doctrine class. I wanted to be engaged in dialogue about the issues presented, not simply acquiesce to what was being taught. That proved uncomfortable for many, including myself, and often bordered on confrontational.  However, the seeds planted there have caused me to read scripture with a more critical eye when it comes to Calvinistic tendencies and the merit of such a theology.  Which in turn has fostered an examination of long held beliefs that, on occasion, must be abandoned.  That’s uncomfortable but refreshing in its own way.

I’m reading the Book of Daniel now. It’s one of the most challenging books in Scripture because of its supposed apocalyptic tendencies and it’s extended prophecy. Naturally, commentators of all sorts have opinions about the sitz in leben for the book and whether or not it foretells the exact year of the coming of the Messiah and what the end times will be like. This makes for interesting reading however I’m not certain those positions are always correct. Twenty years ago I would have swallowed it all hook line and sinker, but now I’m a bit more skeptical about what I read and whether it not it meshes appropriately with that the evidence shows.  Of course, in certain settings and with certain people, if you offer differing opinions it is seldom accepted and one is often isolated as not being in step with the teachings of scripture.  So much for being engaged.

I like engagement…even with its baggage. No, it is not all it’s cracked up to be – it can leave you scratching your head wondering “Why don’t they see that?”

The Anti-Christ

Recently my sister in-law sent me a video clip entitled “Did Jesus Reveal the Name of the Anti-Christ?”  If I can do this correctly, here is the link to that video clip.  Besides the content of the clip it was interesting that the author ended the piece with something like, “here are the facts – you decide.”  Rather Fox Newsish but also rather misleading.

I’ll be sixty years old soon. I’ve been involved in the faith at one level or another for over forty of those years and I can’t tell you the number of times this issue of the anti-Christ has come up with one leader or another. That and the assignment of the number 666 to one name or another. You would think after a while, folks would simply not do this any more because in my opinion it discredits the value and credibility of scripture and the Christian faith.

Now on face value, the author is basically correct in his terms and their definitions. But there is more to the “story”. For example Strong’s word H1116 baw-maw is the same word used for “high places” several times in the OT.   The word used for “lightning” (Strong’s H1299) is used sparingly and refers both to the phsyical event and figurative.    Not sufficient evidence especially if one realizes that his primary text reference starts with Luke 10:18 and in the context has nothing to do with naming anyone or anything other than an event related to the Satan. And, I might add, Satan and the anti-Christ are not the same.

These kind of things would be funny if it were not for the fact that many people take them seriously. Do I think BHO is the anti-Christ? No.  Is he acting like an anti-Christ? I tend to think so.  Does his personal faith, which he says is Christian, influence his policy? I’m of the opinion that it does not. In fact, if it were not for his admission to faith, I would suspect he is agnostic. And, I suspect, like the many others who have come before him, labeled as the anti-Christ, he will come and go – hopefully after one term.

Do the facts support Christ naming the anti-Christ. I don’t believe so. Just like contorting the numbers 666 to assign them to the name of Hitler or other characters of history. People in the faith must do better than this.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

Recently my Mom was visiting with us and it was pure torture for my wife. Not because she does not love my Mom, she does dearly. But between my Mom and I we were driving her nuts with “ugh?”, “What did you say?”, “I didn’t hear you.”  Apparently, my mom’s hearing is getting as bad as mine and we were pushing my wife to the edge.

I’ve had poor hearing for several years and gone through at least three sets of hearing aids. Yes, the hearing aids improved my hearing, but they drove me crazy with the itching and repeat ear infections so I stopped wearing them. Consequently my wife puts up with having to constantly repeat herself, I miss bits of conversations with friends, and I must ask my co-workers to repeat themselves once, twice, or three times before I understand what they are saying. Not a good thing for sure.

Right now I have my hearing aids in. I hear the keys on my keyboard, the whirl of the hard drive, things I don’t normally hear. There are a great many other things I don’t normally hear without my hearing aids. You could expect the normal things like kids playing in the yard next door and birds chirpping. But there are everyday sounds that many of us don’t really process until we can’t hear them. For example;  the shuffle of my feet on the carpet, the rustle of unwrapping a Pop-Tart, the splash of pee in the toilet, wind rustling past your ears, the fridge running or the soft sound of your spouse breathing as she sleeps next to you and more. In fact, for me, with my hearing aids in the world is a very noisy place.  Sounds that are commonplace for regular hearing folks have become a distraction to me.

There is a spiritual side to this as well. I don’t hear God as well as I used to either. It’s not because I don’t listen, it’s because I don’t always hear. Or if I do hear, I don’t always like what I hear. It can be a distraction from my routine and so I tune it out.

Jesus was asked by one of the scribes in Mark 12:28, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered with the Jewish Shema from Deut. 6:4, “Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and will all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” 

The emphasis in this phrase is not so much the love or the heart, soul, mind or strength. The key to this verse is shema – “listen” or “hear”. Adam and Eve heard the sound of the Lord in the garden, God heard Israel’s cry of oppression under Pharoah’s thumb. David cries out to God, “hear my prayer O God.”  If we do not hear or will not listen, we miss  what God is attempting to say to us. Naturally, God speaks today through his word – that involves reading. But if we do not hear the words or listen to the instruction we are simply doing the exercise of flipping pages.

Just like sounds I’ve forgotten, my heart and mind often fails to hear the words of scripture. I miss the intimacy of prayer because I speak and seldom listen.  Perhaps it is time to put my spiritual hearing aids on and become tuned in  to the sounds of God’s presence, the power of his word, and the joy of his salvation.