The Worst of Both Worlds

            There are times and places where the mixing of old and new works well. It is quite creative, for example, to search for old pieces of furniture, refinish them, and put them in your house. At least, that’s what my wife says. So she likes to troll places that I call “junk barns” and she alternately labels “antique stores.”

            There are other places and times when mixing the two doesn’t work. Anyone out there still have an old analog TV and roof antenna? Since the spring of 2009, television stations have been broadcasting exclusively in digital format. The old boxes with antennas can’t pick up and process the new signal.

            In your business or profession, you have to be on the alert constantly for the new products and approaches coming online. If you aren’t careful, you can be left in the dust by the people who are adapting to the new while you are still trying to justify the old. Do you know any scientists who still use slide rules? Do you want your child treated by doctors who aren’t staying current in their field?

            So why do Christians kick so hard and scream so loudly at the idea of change? The way things have always been is not sufficient justification for things as they should be today. Much less tomorrow.

            Even though the core message of the Christian gospel is fixed and unchanging on the person and work of Jesus, the means of communicating that message must change. It must address today’s cultures and their concerns.

            Even though Scripture itself remains unbreakable, the ability of individuals and groups to grasp and apply its teachings advances or draws back under certain conditions. Did the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s read respect and brotherly love into the Bible? Or did it challenge reluctant hearts to embrace and live what everyone now sees more clearly about what was there all along?

            So what is the issue staring you down today? Is there something different from what you’ve always thought or believed or done that is challenging you? Don’t give up your view or practice without thinking it through. But don’t refuse the face the possibility that you are learning and growing – and need to change.

            The ways of God are always fresh and challenging. When Jesus came to his peers, he was rejected because of the new things of God he said and did. Then or now, those who try to contain the fresh presence of Jesus within the old and familiar forms typically wind up with the worst of both worlds

            “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost,” Jesus told the reluctant-to-hear crowd. “New wine calls for new wineskins” (Mark 2:22 NLT).

The “Christian Vote”

            What we have come to call the church-state issue is highly complex. On the one hand, Peter could affirm the authority of the Roman government, declare the emperor “supreme” among earthly rulers, and urge Christians to be good citizens; on the other hand, the emperor when he gave that counsel was none other than the villainous Nero, who eventually had Peter put to death.

            So what does the biblical data say? Is government a good and necessary thing? Ordained of God and to be respected? Or is it an obstacle to the Kingdom of God that persecutes prophets? Perpetuates violence and masks injustice?

            Here is the certified and unambiguous answer of Scripture: Yes.

            Human government – whether tribal or national, democracy or monarchy, freely elected or installed by military force – is capable of both great good and terrible evil. It is the same with every institution populated by human beings.

            For the moment, let us grant Paul’s teaching that both family and government are God-ordained. Do you believe some ways of doing family are more ethical and healthier for its members than others? Do you know of some families where a spouse has murdered his or her mate? Or where parents abused children? So family and government share at least this much: Though ordained by God in Holy Scripture, both are capable of either enormous good or monumental evil.

            As people of goodwill who care about their neighbors, Christians should be concerned about both these social institutions. We should affirm the value of healthy families, promote marital stability, and support the protection and nurture of children. We should also pay our taxes to help finance the state, encourage integrity in government, and otherwise show ourselves to be good citizens.

            But I resent the wrong-headed and manipulative use either of state by church or of church by state. The state should not, for example, require synagogues, mosques, or churches to affirm policies and actions that violate their established tenets of faith. Neither should churches, synagogues, or mosques try to impose their doctrinal beliefs or distinctive behavior codes on the broader citizenry.

            Thus I understand why non-religious people are already bristling in the unfolding nomination-and-election cycle. CNN polls “born-again Christians” for their voting patterns, and the Wall Street Journal writes of the “crucial evangelical vote” within the American electorate.

            Christians are not monolithic in their political views. Persons – whether clergy or candidates – who position themselves for power by exploiting religion do no favor for either church or state. They use Scripture for leverage and unethically hammer an ethical issue for selective voter appeal. (Sexual promiscuity and concern for the poor are both prominent in the Bible, but the former tends to be a defining issue on the right and the latter on the left. Isn’t that being “selective”?)

            Read, think, support, and vote your convictions. Just don’t get suckered into equating the Kingdom of God with party or confusing Messiah with candidate.

           

Tim Tebow Can’t Win!

            To borrow a sports metaphor, poor Tim Tebow just can’t win.

            I’m not talking about football games, mind you. Tebow had a great winning career at the University of Florida. Against the cynics who said he couldn’t make the grade as a pro, he led the Denver Broncos to some highly improbable wins this year – including that remarkable game-winning pass that beat the Steelers in overtime in a playoff game. Quickest OT win in NFL history. Only 11 seconds.

            It’s in his polarizing public image that Tebow can’t seem to get a break. On the one hand, does anybody really think God cares who wins a football game? On the other, would there be protests against a person of a faith group other than conservative Christians showing a public sign of his religious faith?

            From within Christian ranks, some point to Jesus’ words about letting people “see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven”; again, though, who thinks he was talking about a touchdown pass? Others point to Jesus’ words later in the same sermon that his followers should “beware of practicing your piety before others to be seen by them”; there, in fact, he was specifically talking about making donations and saying public prayers.

            Then there’s Bill Maher’s now-notorious crudity about Jesus and Tebow in celebration of the Broncos being beaten. Others make fun of his virginity. Maybe the story will be told in a Chariots of Fire-type movie a quarter century hence and Tebow will be as heroic as Harold Abrahams (Jew) and Eric Liddell (Christian) are in their cinematic personas. Or perhaps they were as vilified in their own time for their Jewishness and Christianity is Tebow is being scoffed at now.

            So what’s a religious athlete to do? Why can’t Tim Tebow seem to win here? Will he eventually get the same respect Sandy Koufax did for not pitching on the Sabbath or Reggie White for intimidating other teams’ offensive lines on Sunday? Koufax was an observant Jew, and White was an ordained Christian minister.

            Let Tim Tebow play football. While some athletes play the strutting-peacock role, notch their beds with willing partners whose names they won’t remember in 30 days (or minutes), and make headlines for violating league policies on banned substances, let him live the conservative values his missionary parents taught him as a home-schooled Baptist child.

            Please don’t encourage Tebow to prove he is a peer to his pro colleagues by taunting him to violate his convictions or act more like a thug. If his religiosity seems a bit over the top and immature at times, make the same excuse for him as for the defensive back lined up against him who has fathered three children by three different women. He’s trying to find his way in a confusing environment.

            This season is over for Tebow after being dominated by Tom Brady and the Patriots. Did God decide the outcome of that game? I suspect a seasoned pro quarterback with a superior supporting cast dictated the score. Not divine whim.

            Time will tell if Tebow is a franchise player and a godly man. I don’t have a clue about the former, but I am optimistic about (and praying for) the latter.

           

Hands Off the Brooms!

            You’d think religious people could do better. But the fact that we tend to train our guns on one another – sometimes scholarly, sometimes denominational, and sometimes literal – makes faith look foolish to whole hosts of people. “Why can’t those Christians all get along?” they ask in Rodney King fashion.

            It’s a perfectly legitimate question. While Jesus said his presence would have the effect of dividing family and friends, he expected those who chose to stand with him to stand with one another. Not to fight one another. But to be a family. A united community. A people who would be marked by a common loyalty.

            Jesus not only expected unity among his followers but prayed for it. “I ask not only on behalf of these [apostles], but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,” he prayed, “that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:20-21). So why all the division? The church fights?

            For several years now, the world watches around the Christmas season for a possible brawl among the clergy-caretakers of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Folks certainly weren’t disappointed this time.

            Palestinean riot police had to come in to break up a fight between two groups of monks swinging at each other with brooms! Maybe you saw the video on TV. If you didn’t, millions of unbelievers did. They laughed. And they made both mental and public notes to the effect that this is why the whole “religion thing” is a farce.

            Three Christian traditions claim the traditional site of Jesus’ birth as their own. The Church of the Nativity – under their shared administration – is in such disrepair that the roof leaks and water runs through to damage the building. The three groups can’t agree who should pay for the repairs. Each of the three wants to pay in full; they just don’t want to join hands to share. So repairs aren’t made. And the damage continues – not just to a property but to a larger perception.

            This year a monk from one of the groups apparently was sweeping the floor in an area claimed by another group. Outrage! So a “holy man” from the group taking offense started the swinging. The melee began. The police had to be called. But the cameras had been rolling, and the event made headlines.

            An editorial by Giles Fraser in the (London) Guardian commented: “When that happens Christianity becomes petty and narrow, all about who cleans a few [square feet] of floor, rather than a means of imagining human life from the context of all eternity.” Indeed. But are most church fights less narrow and petty?

            Lord, heal your people! Friends, let’s keep hands off those broom handles!