Golden Calves

So before I jet off to work, here is a brief list of things I think we Christians worship above God frequently:

• America
• Money
• Success
• Capitalism
• Status
• The Republican party
• Discipline/Legalism
• Christianity (not to be confused with Christ)
• Correctness, particularly doctrinal correctness
• The Bible (well, our twisted interpretations of the Bible that make the above seem okay)

Again, this is brief and probably incomplete, but what is there is accurate. It seems we’ve got a golden heard. Baha. Sorry, lame joke.

ProLife

*Sigh*

Abortion… I’m so sick of hearing about it, yet my mathematically-inclined mind is driven to believe that this problem has a solution. And like all solutions to profound problems, I doubt it will be as simple a solution as some would lead us to believe.

Like so many other hot-button issues in the Christian world, I’m almost afraid to ask these tough questions for fear of judgment and criticism from my Christian peers. But I know God wants me to reason through this life with Him so those who have a problem can take it up with Him I suppose. So here it goes:

1) Does life really begin at conception, according to God? Is the abortion issue even relevant to our spiritual journey? I honestly don’t mean to suggest that it isn’t–this isn’t a rhetorical question. I genuinely don’t know the answer. I do strongly believe that the issue is used and abused as cannon-fodder for our political hate game. I do find fault with Christians (and non-Christians, but I tend to hold those who “speak for God” at a higher standard) for taking an issue that truly affects people in a real and emotional way and use it with false sincerity as a means of attacking an opponent. Before we can do good, I think we have to want to do good. Change really does begin within us. We really need to grow up.

2) Should the government meddle in the matter? (Or: can I oppose abortion as a moral choice like I can oppose lying, and oppose government involvement in the matter?) I can see this question as having many different answers. I’m inclined to believe that abortion is murder (not in a judgmental way derived from Christian dogmaticism, but from my own personal thought processes). Because of this, I would say that a government should have as much right to forbid abortion as it does any other kind of intentional killing, for the most part. However, I’m also increasingly inclined to believe that (from a spiritual perspective) Government should really have very limited control over anything. I think that our desire for order via laws and government speaks volumes about our legalistic nature–our desire for rules and laws over freedom–in a way that is directly comparable to our preference for rules from God over a free relationship with Him. The important issue here, I think, is that we question exactly what our government should do, control us with many laws or free us with few. It appears to be a continuum on which we sacrifice something no matter what we choose (except unless we choose to accept the idea that selflessly loving people will change them thereby building the kingdom of God and making government unnecessary, but let’s ignore that and be realists. /sarcasm). I think this thought process has a lot of implications outside of abortion and is actually very profound in nature so both as a result and because of this, I’m not going to go too in depth with it here.

Honestly, I don’t know… I can’t sincerely tell you that I feel strongly about the abortion issue in terms of national policy. Much like homosexuality, I’m against it morally, but I don’t think it’s the government’s job to enforce the “laws” of the Church (that is to say, I don’t think the government should ban it on spiritual grounds any more than I think they should ban homosexuality “because the Church says to”). After writing this little diddy, I can’t help but feel like the real problem isn’t abortion, it’s an America who pretends to give a damn about the issue so as to hurt the other team. A dogmatic and divided nation of equally ignorant, opposing beliefs. This is why I (and probably Rick Warren and millions of other Americans) like Obama–we may disagree with his policy, but we find value in our beliefs that he is honestly seeking righteousness and not just supporting his team dogmatically. But then again, that’s just our opinions of him.

What do you think? (about the whole issue, not specifically Obama).

Rick Warren

Edit: Shit. Not five minutes after I wrote this did I see that Tink has already spoken on the topic and, being far more deep, intellectual, and insightful than myself, his write up is pretty amazing. If you don’t want to read a lot, just read his. Don’t even read mine. Seriously. Link.

PS: Tell me if that link doesn’t work and I’ll copy/paste the contents in here.

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Edit2: On the topic, I just came across this little piece of awesome.

 

Open mouth. Insert foot.

 

 

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Dammit. My keyboard is in French again.éèÉ^çà Okay. So there’s a lot of controversy surrounding this Rick Warren guy. The conservatives tend bash him because he won’t be ignorant and the liberals bash him because they’re confused about how a person can be Christian and still be tolerant or how a person can disagree with another group’s viewpoints and still respect them (specifically the pro-homosexual movement, a part of which Mr. Warren decidedly is not).

I think it’s funny. Mostly because after researching Mr. Warren from a skeptical perspective (the guy is the author of the book “Purpose Driven Life”, which is embraced by many “Christians” in my area and that is generally enough to make me skeptical; then add to that the fact that he’s the pastor of a super church and I become even more skeptical), I came to realize that he seems to be more tolerant and open-minded than most liberals and that confuses them a lot. And he’s also more fundamental (in the sense that he does what Jesus did) than most conservative “Fundamentalists”. (Actually, in my experience, conservative Fundamentalists have always been opposed to the real person of Jesus just like the religious people in Jesus’ time were opposed to Him). So to me, the fact that the conservatives are against him is no surprise but the fact that the liberals are against him is amusing.

Probably my favorite thing about Mr. Warren is that he actually does what he preaches. Look here:

Warren survives the pounding partly because of his personal integrity. He donates 90 percent of his many millions in book royalties back to the church. He says he stopped taking a salary from Saddleback six years ago. No scandals have tainted his ministry.

Also, Warren is doing his part to fight AIDS in the most destitute places in the world. And more than that, he has enough faith in God that he is secure in partnering with non-Christian organizations who also want to be Jesus-like (even though they may not know it) to the poorest people in the world.

Moreover, the fact that he is mature and confident in his political views enough to host an unbiased bi-partisan conference is pretty amazing to me (given my stigma against wealthy pastors). It seems like both He and Obama are actually interested in the causes in which they claim to be interested (as opposed to just wanting to be seen as right or correct) enough to partner with eachother to overcome partisan ignorance. I feel like anyone who hates politics for all of its two-faced-ness and blame-game-playing-ness should love both of these guys. As the above article points out:

It is no surprise that he and Obama have become friendly. Each tries to operate outside a strict liberal-conservative divide, and has risked angering his supporters to do so.

So I’m going to give you some vids to watch and chew on because I’ve found that I respect this guy a lot, even though I don’t necessarily agree perfectly with his views of homosexuality–he genuinely is seeking the truth and not using the Bible as an excuse to hate a group of people.

And watch the video at the top of this page. It’s good. I specifically like what he thinks about Fundamentalism.

PS: “We believe in the separation of Church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics.” – Rick Warren at the 2008 Presidential Forum at Saddleback Church. Now I’m going to post this before I watch the rest of that damn video or I’ll end up regurgitating it to you verbatim.

Peace!

Help Children Fight

My iGoogle home page comes up with random YouTube vids. I saw this one today and it took me about 3/4ths of the length of it to figure out if it was serious or not. It’s really well-done although I can’t say I know what the video is intended to make people do. I certainly know what it’s intended not to do (I think we’re supposed to not send children guns and knives) but I don’t know if it’s specifically referencing violence in Africa or if it’s speaking out against child violence anywhere or if it’s a statement about how the war in Iraq is teaching our children bad values. What’s more than that, I’m not sure how the heck they got so many people involved, including a teacher and her class to make human target posters.

I can’t say that I feel terribly strongly about the video but I did think it tickled my sense of humor quite a lot. As did the Fuck The Earth Day video (albeit, the FTED made me laugh a lot more–I appreciate the satirical humor more than the ignorant portrayal of conservative America).

Tell me what you think.

Culture War

Barring about an hour during a movie last night, I haven’t slept since about this time (10AM) yesterday (Saturday). I attempted for several hours. I read chapter four from one of my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz, in an attempt to lull myself to sleep. Unfortunately that book is too entertaining or I was too restless–at any rate, I gave up and played Call of Duty 4 online for a few hours. Amazing game. I tend to camp with a silenced AK in inconspicuous corners throughout the map and irritate my opponents to death. But I digress.

After quitting that, I decided to come upstairs and start reading my newest book, Myth Of A Christian Nation, which I found out about here: part1, part2, and part3. The premise of the book, which is written by a pastor of what he calls a “conservative Christian” church (quotes because they’re his words and I try to be cautious about labels–especially shady ones like “conservative” and “Christian”). The central premise of this book is that the American Evangelical Church’s unhesitating alliance with the political Right is destroying the Church’s reputation and God’s by association. And I couldn’t agree more.

Disclaimer: the problem is not that people are associating themselves with conservative political ideas or moral values–the problem begins when people start saying that they’re values are “Christian” values and that anyone who disagrees with that individual is opposed to God. Most people don’t actually say that, but that threat seems to be in the air around many in our Christian subculture.

Anyways, the part that I found to be realy interesting was this:

For some evangelicals, the kingdom of God is largely about, if not centered on, “taking America back for God,” voting for the Christian candidate, outlawing abortion, outlawing gay marriage, winning the culture war, [etc]

The part that caught my attention is the culture war aspect. I guess I always knew it and was always aware of it, but we really are engaged in a culture war, us Christians. We want to make sure everyone understands that our ideas are right and we will stop at nothing to win. We want everyone to know that we’re right and they’re wrong.

If it isn’t obvious to you already, I’ll explain what is absolutely horrible about this frame of mind (and I’ve shared it as much as anyone at times).

First of all, seeking to control the beliefs of other people is not what God’s all about. He gave us free will. He never EVER forces himself on anyone. He doesn’t try to prove himself nor anything he says. He doesn’t operate in political or social power (he operates in weakness and foolishness). And most of all, he doesn’t set himself apart from anyone (save perhaps the religious elite).

That last point means he doesn’t try to make it known that he’s right and we’re wrong. He invites us to reason it out with him and doesn’t force us to agree. If we choose to be ignorant and closed-minded, he lets us. He’s not interested in winning anything because he doesn’t oppose anyone. He doesn’t really establish a group of people as his opposition because their views are wrong (if he did, Jesus would have been much lonlier than he was, considering no one was 100% right except for him).

This is what’s wrong with us trying to win a culture war. If you’re objective is winning, you’ve removed all capacity for love and growth to take place for you or your opponent (lest your opponent decide to take the higher road–then he or she might be apt to improve, but even that is in spite of your efforts and not because of them). Jesus didn’t care to win an intellectual argument. He was interested in showing a broken people that they’re loved by God.

Jesus alone could accomplish that. And he didn’t do it by political power (he denied that one in the desert specifically) or social/religious pressure (he CONSTANTLY opposed this throughout the Gospels). Instead, God showed his love for us by being born in a barn, wandering around homeless, and dying on a Roman cross like a criminal, all so that we can come to know about God’s intense, perfect, renewing Love for us.

Hopefully this leaves you a little more enlightened–especially if you’re as confused about this issue as I used to be.

NOTE: I forgot to add this in, but Megan pointed this out to me last night after reading Velvet Elvis: The Bible is an Open Ended book. God doesn’t try to prove his Word. Furthermore, it really doesn’t assign absolute rights and wrongs but serves as a guide to point to the one true morality: Love. It’s not a rule book. As my college pastor once said, the Bible isn’t a proof text. It’s the living Word of God, open wholly to interpretation. God invites us to read it and reason through it with Him so as to arrive at the one absolute truth. So perhaps we can think twice before we tell other people what God stands for.

Guilt By Association

Hopefully I spelled that right. I think maybe there are 3 “c”s in association? Anyways… Here’s number 3235342564236 on the things that frustrate me about politics, or at least about Christian people in politics who do this (people who don’t claim to be Christian are exempt from my wrath because they aren’t necessarily being hypocritical in this instance; actually all people are exempt because I’m often hypocritical… and it would be hypocritical to have wrath for hypocrites. But I’ll vent anyways).

“Christian” candidates who try to say that other people are bad people based on who they associate with. Duh. Obviously this encompasses anyone who says “don’t vote for candidate X because they hang out with person Y who is known to do action Z”. This is stupid because Jesus hung out with all sorts of sketchy people. Jesus was known as a drunkard and a glutton (Luke 7:34) for the company he kept–and you can be certain that he not only associated with the guilty but loved them passionately.

If we are really serious about electing a “Christian” candidate (in the sense of a Christ-following candidate), maybe we should start looking into a candidate who spends more time around guilty, broken people? Personally, because of the nature of God’s power-system (weakness = strength and first < last) I think the more a person follows Christ, the less likely they will be to seek power, even/especially in the form of public office, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Obviously, take the preceding with a grain of salt–I’m not saying that every person who hangs out with guilty people is innocent, just that the most innocent person in the world hung out exclusively with the guilty. He sought out the broken. So practice some common sense and make sure who you’re accusing is actually guilty–not just because they know or hang out with a “bad” person.

And finally, we all fail. Jesus is all-including. That means letting me and you call ourselves His followers is a stain to His name. If everyone could see you by your worst sins, do you think Obama or McCain would publicly proclaim you to be his supporter?

Some interesting thoughts on the Wallstreet Bailout

So sometimes I’m not entirely productive when I should be. I spent a good chunk of this afternoon browsing the interwebz to see if there are people out there who agree with my crazy-sounding ideas or if I’m alone in my absurdity. It turns out that this wacko also believes in a Jesus who says what he means.

And before you go off on me for proposing spending $700,000,000,000 on foreigners or whatever, please note that the big point isn’t what we do with this money, but what we do with our money in general. If we can come up with $700 billion to protect our comforts then why have we not been able to spare any more to protect LIVES? There are a lot of statistics in the following article which make that question all the more convicting.

Read Here

Also, I would recommend browsing through some of his other articles because this guy seems to have a pretty concrete understanding of God’s simple commands–especially the ones that we complicate by over-Religitizing everything.

In Need: Can government help its helpless citizens?

I consider myself politically neutral these days, despite having been both liberal and conservative in the past. Something that always attracted me to the Democratic camp is how they seem to genuinely feel for the poor among us–something that seems to be a very Christian idea. Unfortunately, I soon realized that a big portion of their solution to the problem seems to be throwing money at the less-fortunate.

First of all, I don’t believe that’s a viable solution because I don’t believe money improves anyone’s lives. I really think we need other people who believe in us and who can encourage us genuinely–something I don’t believe a government is capable of providing (because a government can’t tell people to go love people in need of love). No amount of money can do that. This goes to show just how powerless a government can be when it comes to actually making a positive difference in the world.

Secondly, the Republican solution seems to rely on giving tax breaks to the rich and relying on complicated economic trickle-down effects to get money and resources to the poor (which, again, I don’t believe solves the problem). It honestly appears as if many in this camp are using this solution as an excuse to be greedy and cling to their moneys (which is interesting because that makes it seem that Jesus would side with the “godless liberals” over the Religious Right–although Jesus never seemed to fit in well with the religious folks). However, I do agree with the conservatives in that [I believe] it isn’t the government’s job to take care of the needy–it’s the Church’s.

So I love the passion for humanitarianism (a very Christ-like quality that doesn’t seem to occur too often in the Religious Right) but I also feel like their methodology is wrong. But to their credit, (and realize I’m not saying this is true of all liberals) if I didn’t believe in God, I wouldn’t trust the Chruch for much anyways–the next viable option would appear to be the government.

On the flip side, I believe the conservative side has the right intellectual idea, but they seem to lack the compassion to actually care about the needy in the ways that their God does (so it’s kind of funny to me the godless liberals seem to follow God better than the Religious Right–which leads me to believe that perhaps the “godless liberals” have a confused idea about God because of how us “Christians” represent Him).

So to awkwardly tie-together this loose, airy post… Basically I don’t believe it is the government’s responsibility, I admire the liberals’ passion, I am disappointed in the conservative camp for not feeling more emphatically on the issue (especially those who believe God would only ever vote Republican), and I think it would be ephing sweet if we all would stop arguing and handle this without going through the ever-complicated middle-management that is our government. That is to say, if the religious and non-religious, liberal and conservative, etc would take care of the problem through private organizations (who would be focused on the actual problem) and unaffiliated with any church or political movement or some other means. The end.

So I’m writing this on 10/08/08: It seems to me lately that the welfare system may only be 10% effective and the rest may be “wasteful”, but if you think about it, that 10% is still getting used and it’s not like the rest of us need that additional money anyways. I mean, if you have a car you’re among 8% of the world’s most elite population anyways. Moreover, if we were really interested in efficiency, we could always take a little more time and ensure that that money gets used effectively by buying necessities for the needy. So I guess I’m now okay with the Democrats’ passion and their methodology on this issue.