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!

Getting Fit in 2012

            The start of a new year is the perfect time for making some commitments about fitness. Need to take off a few pounds? Need to be more frugal in spending and more zealous about saving? Need to do some things to enhance your business and family life? Want to end 2012 with more spiritual muscle?

            Making a few changes in your life can really make a big difference in your savings and retirement. As 2011 draws to a close, for example, most financial advisers are telling their clients about a higher contribution limit for 401(k)s that goes into effect for 2012. If you discipline your financial life to add the extra $500 the law permits – that’s $42 per month – it can help your retirement prospects.

            Then there are basic suggestions about improving your health most of us think about at the turn of a new year. If cigarettes and alcohol are still part of your lifestyle, save yourself the fiscal, health, and social problems they cause by eliminating both. The same goes with the excessive junk food that tempts us all.

            For your life as a leader in your business, this is the time to review last year and to focus for 2012. Does your company have a mission? One that people can recall? Articulate? Maybe this is the time to sharpen your communication.

            What about your family? Are you finding yourself making too many apologies for being absent from family events and unavailable to the people you love most? Are you feeling alienated from your children? The start of a new year is a good time to reset priorities with your family. And just sitting down with them to say out loud what you are doing – and to ask their help – may help heal some wounds.

            Then don’t forget your spiritual life in framing a fitness plan. I once heard a lady express admiration for a Bible teacher she respected. "I'd give half my life to know the Bible so well!" she gushed. "That's about what it would take," a bystander replied. I'm not sure she got the point. Do you?

            We'd prefer instant Bible knowledge from a pill or potion. Most of us would pay well for self-control, peace of mind, or power in prayer. But spiritual life is like physical health or fiscal soundness in one critical way: All the positive steps you take, even the smallest ones, make a significant difference over time.

            The art of change begins with a plan. Even the things only God can change in us depend on our plan to be open to the work of his Holy Spirit. Pounds, pennies, and prayers — success with all of them begins with a plan.

            May you live within God’s daily grace in 2012 and have a Happy New Year.

Christmas: “Denying the Rest of the World”

            There is a wonderful line from the American scholar Stephen L. Carter that is appropriate to the Christmas season: "Religion is, at its heart, a way of denying the rest of the world." He is surely, astutely, and gloriously correct.

            Faith's view of this world is strangely skeptical. No, more than that. It is a posture of unequivocal distrust leading to rejection! When the world recites its mantras – you matter only if you are beautiful, the most important thing is money, winning is everything, Look Out for Number One – faith protests them all. It adopts a posture of doubt and incredulity. It lives in skepticism and disbelief.

            I refuse to believe that selfishness is acceptable or that it is permissible to resent another's good fortune. I will not swallow the world's way of thinking in order to justify prejudice, aggression, and hatred. No believer can be anything but incredulous about the claim of this world that she is entitled to anything she can get her hands on or that he should feel no guilt in exploiting others.

            So distrust the alleged certainties of sense that cancel the mysteries of faith. Dispute the tendency of the masses to look forward only for the sake of declaring the impossibility of living with hope. Deny altogether the inevitability of such greed, hatred, and violence that we cannot prove the reality of love.

            The Bible warns against being blinded by this world and speaks of the danger of the blind leading the blind. That warning puts us on notice that things, people, and ways of thinking totally rooted in the finite world of time, space, and matter will keep us from discovering, experiencing, and delighting in the greater realities of God, spirit, and eternity that can only be known by faith.

            Faith isn't self-deception. It is neither wish projection nor wishful thinking. It is our willingness to hear and stand with the things God has shown us through events and people as awe-inspiring as a trembling, smoking mountain in the desert and as modest as a baby's first cry in the village of Bethlehem.

            So let Christmas deny the hold of this world on your heart. Let it open your eyes to what the willfully blind will never see, your ears to things the incorrigibly deaf can never hear. See Immanuel – and know God is with us. Hear the song of angels – and receive God's peace given to anxious hearts. Hold the confusion, cynicism, and antagonisms of this troubled world suspect – and choose God's reign as your way of affirming the true realities. Merry Christmas to all!

A Christian Version of “Dear Virginia”

Dear Virginia,

            There are many things you are discovering as you grow up. One of them has to do with all the fantasies we adults have invented for your entertainment. Bugs Bunny is on TV every Saturday morning. The Easter Bunny brings chocolate eggs in colored foil in the spring. Frosty the Snowman comes to life and plays with children. And Santa Claus comes down the chimney on Christmas Eve to bring you presents.

            We mean no harm with our tales. Sometimes, though, we may go overboard and try to convince you they are more than imaginary. We blur the line for you between “real” and “pretend.” Talking bunnies, snowmen coming to life, Santa coming down the chimney – these are fun characters for your pleasure.  But they are not the same as your Mommy, Uncle Bill, or me.

            What bothers me right now, Virginia, is the thought that what most of us call “The Christmas Story” might get caught up in your mind with all the other make-believe things you are coming to recognize as only pretend. I would hate for you to push Baby Jesus out of your world along with Elmo and Frosty or the Easter Bunny and Santa. The story of Jesus is very different. It is the true story of how much God loves you.

            We don’t know the exact date of his birth. December 25 was chosen centuries ago when some Christians wanted to turn a festival to the sun into a holy day for Jesus. It’s as good as any other day we might choose, and I find it hard to think Jesus would be upset with anyone for honoring his birth on any day of the year.

            It happened almost 2,000 years ago now. In a little town called Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary heard the first cries of a tiny baby. He was more than “precious” or “special.” He was the Son of God. Angels and shepherds worshiped him that night. Eventually people like Anna, Simeon, and the Wise Men paid their homage too. Millions of us worship him still.

            I want you to understand why Baby Jesus was born, Virginia. He came to show us how much God loves us and that he wants us to live with him forever.

            Jesus grew up and became a man who loved everyone, helped all who would accept his help, and changed people’s lives. He was God among us, and I want you to believe on him and make him the center of your life.

            This isn’t just another make-believe story. It really happened. Yes, Virginia, there really is a Baby Jesus!

                                                                                                                                                Your friend,

                                                                                                                                                            Rubel Shelly

In Defense of “Merry Christmas”

            I hope I’m not being overly sensitive. But I think window designers, greeting card companies, and media have fallen victim to what I hope is the unintentional diminishing of December 25 for people with backgrounds similar to my own.

            Have you noticed that “Happy Holidays” seems to have replaced “Merry Christmas” as the standard greeting for this time of year?

            There are some persons and groups who crusade against anything that carries even the slightest hint of God, religion, or faith. Thus you’ve read about the occasional music teacher who bans “Silent Night” or “Joy to the World” in favor of “Here Comes Suzy Snowflake” or “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”

            Sometimes it is the decision of a school board to ban all religious music in favor of performances that are exclusively secular. And sometimes it is the real or threatened court action of the American Civil Liberties Union that undergirds the move to ban religious songs and symbols at this season of the year.

             For the most part, however, I suspect the majority of people who celebrate Christmas – and that’s about 96 percent of Americans – have simply embraced the shift in terminology without thinking. And no wonder! Washington now has a “Capitol Holiday Tree” instead of what used to be the “Capitol Christmas Tree.” In our rush to political correctness, we can turn ourselves inside out. In trying to be so open-minded, we can let our brains roll out onto the floor.

            The vast majority of us cultivate a spiritual life. Should Jews be barred from sharing the story, music, and joy of Hanukkah with their non-Jewish neighbors? Should Muslims be silenced about the meaning of Ramadan? So why should Christians be expected to re-brand Christmas as “Winter Fest”?

            And it isn’t only Christmas that gets voided in our culture. Maryland, for example, defended its Thanksgiving curriculum recently by explaining that holiday “from a purely historical perspective” and omitting all references to God and religion. The truth is, of course, that one cannot teach the historical facts about Thanksgiving and omit the Pilgrims’ faith in and gratitude to God.

            I don’t use Christmas to bully or to offend my non-Christian neighbor. And my sense of Christian tolerance tells me to respect his alternate belief or unbelief as his right. But tolerance does not imply abandoning one’s own faith and custom.

            “Happy Holidays” is too bland. It falls flat for me. It misses the point of who I am and what I’m about. All that for the sake of telling you this: Merry Christmas!