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.

Church

In America, Christianity is the dominating system of belief. We go to church. I feel like we are content with Church. I feel like we are satisfied with what church is in our culture today. I realized I have no idea what Church is for.

I used to believe that Church was just a pointless, mandatory thing God makes us do in order to get to heaven. It didn’t have purpose for me. Then, someone told me church was about fellowship–uniting together in the name of Christ. However, until very recently, I had yet to go to a service and feel real fellowship.

That very recent incidence occurred at the Catholic Worker House in Waterloo. About once a month they have a Mass in which a local priest comes in with some wine in a water bottle and some communion bread. Previously, I had always disliked Mass because it felt like dry religion. This was an exception. Prior to the service, we had fed some fifty to seventy people–the kind that Jesus said were the most blessed. It was an honor. Then we started the service singing a song that I recognized from my middle school days (“The Song of the Body of Christ”) which I never much cared about. I’ve never cared much about that song before it came alive that night. Then we prayed for our local and global community. And finally, we broke bread. Broken people breaking bread.

Very rarely do I feel alive at church. And I’ve been to many churches. I think the difference lies in that we really were the Body of Christ that night. We became his hands and feet and we reached out to a hungry community. To a rejected community. To beautiful, broken people. In church we talk about what Jesus would do. When we are Church we do what Jesus would do. More importantly, we do it out of Love and not to feel like we’re “more religious” than someone else or to fulfill some absurd religious obligation. Real Church is organic. Real Church is humble.

That was also the first Church I’ve been a part of where Jesus would have unquestionably fit in, rags, homelessness, and all.

At Real Church I met a few guys from Kentucky who were contracted to come up to Iowa to help with the rebuilding after the floods. Many of them got in bar fights and sent to jail and were unable to pay their ways home.

At Real Church I met the craziest looking man I’ve seen in a long time. He was wearing clothes that transcended scruffiness and had the craziest beard I’ve ever seen. All of which sharply contrasted with his new, bright orange NASCAR hat which was pretty awesome. I found out that he was there to serve and not be served, which surprised the Hell out of me. Literally. Then I found out that this man went to Berkley (an Ivy League school, if I recall correctly) and has been to all sorts of cool places including France and knows all sorts of stuff about what’s going on in Africa between dictators, rebels, etc.

At Real Church I met a woman a few generations older than myself who, along with her husband, felt hypocritical living the “normal life” or the “American dream” or whatever you want to call it whilst there were people cold, hungry, and alone. These people sold their house and came to live and “work” in the Worker House.

As a disclaimer, this place wasn’t Real Church because it’s backed by Catholic doctrine or because it’s ministry is better than that of other churches or anything else. Actually this place wasn’t Church at all. We were Church. And we were Church because we became the living Body of Christ–his hands and feet–who humbly reached out to a broken people whom society condemns. We were Church because we did all of this not so we could feel good about ourselves for fulfilling a sickly religious requirement or to appear more religious than the Jones’, but because we conquered ourselves. We saw a broken people and we couldn’t help but love them. We witnessed the love of God directed our way though we didn’t deserve it and we had to reflect it to other broken people. This is the nature of Love.

Here is more about Real Church: A Call to The Church. (this is the link for the following vid):

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.