“Nothing is impossible with God.”

"The Annunciation," by William Brassey Hole (1846-1917)

We know this … we believe it … we confess it with our mouths.  It’s a great theoretical statement that underlies our confidence that God cannot be defeated.  But this thought can also be a bit distant.  Just because God can do something, just because God is all-powerful, doesn’t necessarily impact our everyday lives.

In Luke 1:26-38 is recorded the story of the angel Gabriel’s visit to Mary, telling her that God has chosen her to bear his son.  We all know the story … Mary is amazed and asks Gabriel the quite-natural question “how is this going to happen, since I’m a virgin?”  Gabriel’s answer, as recorded in nearly every Bible translation I can find, contains this statement:  “Nothing is impossible with God.”

An Advent meditation isn’t usually the place to critique Biblical translation, but according to the original text, that isn’t actually what Gabriel said.  The declaration recorded in the Greek manuscript of Luke 1:37 is much more potent, and much more tangible.  Literally, Gabriel’s words were “not powerless is any decree from God,” or to phrase it better, “God’s decrees never lack power.”

We’ve heard this sort of language elsewhere.  Perhaps the most eloquent expression of it is God’s word through the prophet Isaiah:

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11 ESV)

This is so much more than just God’s ability.  Gabriel’s testimony to Mary, and to us, is that when God says he’s going to do something—when he issues a decree—he both can accomplish it, and he will.  Because nothing is impossible with God, yes.  But more so, because God keeps his word, and his word is powerful.

And if this is true of God’s word of decree, how much more so the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us!  That Word, sent to this world because God loved the world so much he didn’t want to leave it to die.  Jesus became a man because of that love, and he came with power.  The darkness around us not withstanding, the purpose for which Jesus came will succeed …

because God’s decrees
NEVER
lack power!

When I first heard that Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne were doing a book on Red Letter Christianity, I was pretty excited.  I have a great deal of respect for both men, and while I don’t always agree with either, I think their prophetic voice in the church is beyond any reasonable dispute.  So I actively sought a review copy of the book, and the kind folks at redletterchristians.org obliged. As a consequence, it’s with more than a little regret that I have to tell you that I found Red Letter Revolution a disappointment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still worth reading the conversation between Shane and Tony, and there are plenty of spots to get the reader thinking. But considering the authors and the title, I frankly expected a lot more. Red Letter Revolution contains far too few of the red letters (that is, the recorded teachings of Jesus in the gospels, often printed in red), and what’s more, it’s not all that revolutionary.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I’ve repeatedly suggested Christian theology spends too much time bringing extrabiblical questions to faith. Much of my objection to the traditional creeds is that they create a priority of emphasis that is discordant with scriptural priorities. Part of my own attraction to so-called “Red Letter Christianity” is that, if we approach the gospel accounts, not only for their raw content, but to see what Jesus did–and just as important, what he did not–emphasize, we find areas of focus that differ radically from those taught in most churches, and studied by most theologians. I had hoped Tony and Shane’s book would illustrate this approach, as I believe much of their teaching and living to date has done.

Herein lies my principal disappointment with “Revolution.” The topics chosen for Shane and Tony’s discussion seem to me to have been pulled largely from the agenda of those some might call “liberal” and others “progressive,” not from the gospels. The first eight chapter headings, under the rubric “Red Letter Theology,” illustrate my point: History, Community, the Church, Liturgy, Saints, Hell, Islam, and Economics. Each of these subjects is treated with an interesting and worthwhile perspective, but it’s often one that only tangentially references Jesus’ words–the red letters–at all. And quite frankly, I’m unconvinced that some of these topics, such as liturgy and the saints (that is, those saints recognized and canonized by an official church) would even figure at all in a gospels-sourced curriculum. Others of the eight are more vital, I think, and we certainly can find among the red letters, guidance for how to approach them. But absent the foundation of Jesus’ actual teaching on his kingdom, even these lose their context and much of their power.

The remaining major sections of the book, “Red Letter Living” and “Red Letter World,” continue the pattern established by the first, selecting topics of great interest to progressives (Christian or not) in a manner that I would have expected from Jim Wallis, but I did not anticipate from Campolo and Claiborne. As before, what the two say about the topics so selected is worth reading. But instead of walking the reader through a fresh exploration of life directed by a focus on Jesus’ priorities, I found a book that lays out a decent left-wing alternative to right-wing Evangelicalism. That’s not a bad thing…In fact it’s quite worth doing. But that is not Red-Letter Christianity…it’s Blue-State Christianity. They’re not synonymous.

So in the final analysis this book, though full of interesting insights from two godly men, fails to deliver what it’s title promises. I sincerely hope that the authors will try again.

Disclosure: I received an advance review copy of the book from the publisher; however the opinion expressed herein is my own and (obviously) not that of the publisher or the book’s authors. No consideration regarding the content of this review was asked or offered.

Edit: According to my Mom’s comment below, I conflated two guys in the charismatic movement named “Dick” in my memory.  I have revised this post to reflect the history accurately, and while I still maintain the “prophecy” by Dick Joyce was false, I withdraw any such suggestion about the late Dick Mills, who passed away last month.

My parents were involved in the Charismatic Movement in the 1970s when we lived in Southern California.  Much of my own suspicion about claims of supernatural happenings in Christian circles, actually comes from my experience with the Charismatics.  There’s a longer story there, and maybe someday I’ll tell more of it…suffice it to say for now that the vast bulk of all I’ve ever encountered claiming the miraculous work of God smells to me of delusion or fraud or both–not, please understand, because I believe God couldn’t do miraculous works today, but rather because I rather think he usually doesn’t, and more importantly that an awful lot of snake oil gets sold by Christians claiming otherwise.

Anyway, back in ’72 or ’73 we encountered this guy named Dick Mills when he spoke at our church in Upland, California.  He had a rather interesting ministry in that he claimed that when he met an individual, God would bring to his mind one or more of the many Bible promises he had memorized (and the man had a phenomenal memory), and with it give them a prophetic word that was uniquely suited to that individual.  Both Mom and Dad were given words by Mills during that service, which they believed were later shown to come true.  I haven’t asked them recently what their take on these experiences are 40 years on (Mom & Dad, you’re welcome to comment…I’d love to know), but this is my story anyway and not theirs.

Some time later, Mom and Dad went to a Charismatic conference (I believe it was called a “Holy Spirit Conference”) somewhere back East, and when they came home, they came with a tape of one of the sessions at which somehow another speaker named Dick Joyce had asked them both to stand up in what I gather was a rather large audience, and had given them a very specific prophecy regarding their four sons.  I clearly remember the message they played for us…Dick had told them that the Lord intended that of us four boys, one would become a powerful public speaker for God, two would be involved in Christian music ministry, and one would be, though “antisocial by the world’s standards,” a “conceptual thinker” about matters of faith.  I also recall that at least one later time Dick met our whole family at another event, and he remembered and reiterated this theme.

I grasped for this “word from the Lord” at the time.  It was a period of profound disappointment for me, where I saw all this activity around me that claimed to be the Holy Spirit working, and yet I always found myself feeling like the hungry little kid pressing his nose against the window of a restaurant where the happy patrons inside were enjoying a sumptuous feast.  This, I thought for a while, was the one place where God had actually directed some of this stuff to me.  I wanted that, and for a while I hung onto it.

So, forty years on and at the death of the prophet, what of his prophecy?  I’m in public health and government, my next brother down is a university chemistry professor, the next is an international businessman, and the youngest is a middle school science teacher.  Career isn’t everything though.  Can we be fit into any of those four categories?  Well, I suppose this blog might call me out as the conceptual thinker, but I’m hardly antisocial and am happy to speak in public.  None of us are remotely connected to music whether secular or sacred (and only two of us are particularly musical, me being one of the two).  Number three in the lineup is definitely a well-regarded public speaker, but it’s in the field of international economics, finance, and intellectual property.  Those may be articles of faith to some, I suppose, but. . .

The Bible makes some pretty harsh statements about prophets whose prophecies don’t come true.  Deut. 18:22 says:  “when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.”  Earlier in the same passage (verse 20) God is even harsher:  “But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.”  I never heard Joyce speak in the name of another god, but by this yardstick, he spoke presumptuously (in fact, to suggest God has a personal word for nearly everyone you meet seems to me presumptuous on the face of it).

There may be times that Joyce truly brought a word from the Lord to other people than me.  I cannot testify for them.  But while we’re not dead yet, it would seem to me that 40 years on it is highly probable that the very-public prophecy given about my brothers and me was false and presumptuous.  Dick Joyce was, by my testimony at least, a false prophet.

Why do I tell you this story?  Two reasons, I suppose.  First because it’s one small window for those of my friends reading this blog, as to why I tend to be pretty suspicious of miraculous claims of any sort.  My cynicism has been a long time in growing, and it’s hard-earned.  But more importantly, I tell it because I think it is vitally important that we be careful not to misrepresent our own works (or our good luck) as God’s miraculous intervention.  Giving glory and thanks to God for blessings experienced is good and right.  But I see a tendency among many Christians to mistake warm or ecstatic feelings for the presence of God, and to chalk up every positive occurrence to God’s miraculous intervention.  The unfortunate corollary to this way of interpreting life, however, is that the person who’s depressed or whose life isn’t going so well, feels abandoned by the same God that’s supposedly “blessing” the fortunate. This tragic interpretation can lead that unfortunate person to doubt the whole enterprise…I know well, because it’s been me on more than one occasion.

God may in fact do stuff in the church of today like we read about in the Book of Acts, sometime and somewhere.  But if he ever does, it won’t take manufactured faith to see it.  Until then, we would do well to be a little more circumspect in our claims of divine intervention.

No, that word “inclusive” does not mean what you  (probably) think it means…not this time, anyway.  The following has nothing to do with the gender of language, gender of leaders, sexual preference of anybody, or any of the other popular uses of the term.   I have been thinking, lately, of how exclusive the choice of “worship” focus, language, and music often are.  As with so many things, I believe the church has regularly misdirected worship in some important ways.

In this discussion I’m going to beg the question of whether the stuff we characterize as “worship” has any relationship to the biblical concept(s) encapsulated in the word…if you want to explore that further check out my mom’s excellent article on the subject.  For now we’ll just work with the common English usage: that is, some combination of music, readings, and other material designed–purportedly at least–to focus the corporate body on God and his work.

Two songs I’ve heard in the past week illustrate my point.  The first is the old hymn “Amazing Grace,” just sung at the funeral of my 102-year-old Grandmother:

Amazing Grace!  How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found

Was blind, but now I see.

(John Newton, 1779)

The second I heard last Sunday at church, and yesterday afternoon at an Arby’s in South Carolina (KLOV on the PA system…ugh!), “Forever Reign” by Hillsong:

Oh, I’m running to your arms, I’m running to your arms,

The riches of your love, will always be enough.

Nothing compares to your embrace,

Light of the world, forever reign!

Both of these songs are deeply meaningful to some people.  Both even focus some people’s attention at least partly on God.  But I can’t honestly sing either one.

“Amazing Grace,” of course, was written by John Newton who, before he believed in Christ, was captain of a slave ship, and a rather cruel one by his own account.  When Newton described the grace of God having “saved a wretch like me,” he was acutely aware whereof he spoke.  I have many friends who, having brought out of some pretty awful circumstances, likewise can testify to having been saved by Christ from some truly wretched things.  It’s certainly biblical too, as the apostle Paul also looked back on his persecution of the church and called himself the worst of sinners (see 1 Tim. 1:12-16).  But it is not universal. I make no claims to be a paragon of virtue, but I’ve had a pretty ordinary life in many respects and would not characterize any period of my own experience as “wretched.”  I have never been as blind as the song implies, yet even now I’m unsure just how much I see.  I do not discount the pilgrimage of those for whom “Amazing Grace” is a very real testimony, but it is not mine.

Likewise, “Forever Reign” paints the image of us running to the Father’s arms. I know that image intimately as I’m a daddy. I love it when my kids charge recklessly into my extended embrace…but I have never experienced anything remotely approximating that image with God.  I know what a paternal hug feels like, and God may give those to some of his followers, but I’m not one of them.

I do not mean to suggest that those who do find these songs represent their faith, ought not sing them at all. It’s even appropriate to sing them publicly in testimony if true. But they’re inappropriate for corporate worship, I suggest, for the simple reason that only part of the assembly can sing them with honesty. Better by far would be to select songs–old and new–that emphasize God’s goodness, power, sovereignty, and works.  These are true for all of us, do not depend on personal experience whether real or imagined, and most importantly direct our attention AWAY from self-destructive navel-gazing and TOWARD our creator and king.   Just maybe, such a shift in content might remind us that we aren’t the center of God’s universe after all.  And while we’re at it, maybe we’d make it just a tiny bit less likely people would feel the need to manufacture religious experience in order to fit into our molds.

Brian McLaren has recently come out with three little fiction e-books:  The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals, The Word of the Lord to Republicans, and The Word of the Lord to Democrats.

I heartily and without reservation recommend The Word of the Lord to Evangelicals to everyone who reads this blog.  It’s a wonderful little parable in which we follow Wheaton College student Wendy Gullivan.  Wendy has a surprise encounter with God in the form of a homeless man while she’s on an “Urban Immersion” ministry weekend with fellow Wheaton students.  God, it seems, is depressed–suicidally depressed–by Evangelicals…”Especially American Evangelicals.  And most especially in groups.  The more, the scarier.”

Over the next four or five years, Wendy and God meet up several more times, and with each encounter, Wendy learns a little more about how to shift her perspective from an obsession with personal salvation and certainty of doctrine, to loving and ministering to those God loves.  Along the way, McLaren is good for several hearty laughs from those of us who recognize ourselves, our friends, or our churches in his characters.  I don’t want to ruin the story by spilling too much…for three bucks you really ought to just read it!  But I will say his alternate rendition of some Scriptures the way Evangelicals teach them is worth the price alone.  Take this example:

For God so loved the church that he gave to himself his only Son, as a penal substitutionary sacrifice, so that those elect few who believe in this atoning doctrine would not suffer eternal, conscious torment in hell as a result of original sin, but would live forever in heaven after death.  For God did not send his Son into the world to save the world, but to condemn it, and save only the church.  (Not John 3:16-17)

The other two books, The Word of the Lord to Democrats and The Word of the Lord to Republicans are both good, but I can’t give them the same unqualified “You Must Read This” endorsement.  Both are actually funnier, in places, than Evangelicals.  But while McLaren’s skewering of Republicans is both witty and pointed (and quite appropriate, I think), in Democrats Brian pulls his punches too much.  I say this as a Democrat–it seemed to me that McLaren’s “Word of the Lord” to the Dems was largely that they are behaving too much like Republicans.  While this is to some extent accurate, it seems to me that if God were to send a message to Democrats it would have a lot more content than just “make up your mind what you’re going to stand for and then take a stand”  (for one thing, I think God’s message to Democrats would also remind them (us) that morality and holiness aren’t antiquated concepts to be left on the scrap heap of history).  So I finished Democrats rather disappointed that he hadn’t slapped them around with the same gusto he did in Republicans.  I will say, however, that his parody of Rush Limbaugh in Democrats is inspired…

All three books are well worth the $2.99 each.  Unfortunately they are only available as e-books…the good news being that this means they’re cheap, but it also means you can only read them on an e-reader or your computer (either Amazon or Barnes & Noble carry them).

The following is a guest post by my father, Aaron Martin, who just returned from a project installing a windmill to bring water to a village of displaced people in Papua New Guinea.  For more information about the “Model Village” project in PNG, please see the website of my brother Dave’s company M-CAM.

Dad’s account covers a lot of ground.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

Introduction
The following is my summary of my experience in Papua New Guinea (PNG) during Feb. 11 – 23, 2012.  It is not an attempt to detail all of our experiences or to give a complete chronology of the time.  Instead I have attempted to give you a taste of some of the experience.  The trip included such amazing experiences that it almost seemed as if we lived a lifetime in that short time span, hence my title.

To the reader, my training is in mathematics and the physical sciences, and I am very grateful for that training.  I have found it to be very helpful and useful.  My bachelor’s degree was in mathematics and my master’s degree was in astronomy.  Some of what follows will not sound very “scientific” but I remind you that the sciences are limited to the repeatable, the predictable, and the measurable.  Not all of our lives fall into these areas.  So enjoy the following for what it is, an amazing story.
March 9, 2012

A Lifetime in Two Weeks

The Background
For my wife Ruth and for me, this all began in the end of May, 2011.  Our son Dave wrote a posting on his weekly blog about a group of five tribes in Papua New Guinea (PNG)who had been driven from their ancient, ancestral home lands by Exxon and dumped in Port Moresby, the PNG capital, with no place to reestablish themselves.  Dave working with Clemence Kanau and others acquired a tract of about two square miles of unused land about three miles east of the Port Moresby airport.  The tract with very fertile soil could support several thousand of the displaced families, except for one problem, there was no potable water on the site.  The closest accessible water for most of the site was around three miles or more of walking distance from locations on the site, and that single tap water source was only available in mornings and evenings, if it was available at all.

This afternoon as I was driving my son to McDonald’s I turned on one of the local classic rock stations, that was doing a “Retro Weekend.”  Of course I’m just old enough to find it weird that the songs they’re classifying as “retro” came out after I was married, but I guess I’m just not young any more…anyway, I got caught short by a song I missed the first time around, “What if God Was One of Us?” by Joan Osborne (I understand I missed it the second time around too, as it was covered in “Glee” a couple years ago).  Anyway, give a listen:

I’m not going all theological on this song.  I could disagree with various nuances of the lyrics, and it’d be beside the point.  It’s somehow sweet and thought-provoking and worth chewing on.

Of course, season your thoughts with the fact that, if you believe what the Scriptures teach us about Jesus, than in some interesting, transcendental, and wholly-incomprehensible way God did, in fact, become one of us.  Not “just a slob like one of us” exactly, but certainly alone at times and trying to make his way home…with us in tow.  That’s worth contemplating as Easter approaches.

The geniuses of the legislature in my newly-adopted home state are proving their brilliance once again with regard to the Ten Commandments as a source of American law.  A bill has just passed our Assembly (unanimously, no less) and is now headed for the Senate, to make sure the “Foundations of American Law and Government” display can be posted, not only in judicial buildings and courthouses, but in any public facility in the state.  The “Foundations” display is itself prescribed in Georgia Code 45-13-51, enacted in 2006.  Here’s the description taken from the actual text of the law:

The Foundations of American Law and Government display contains documents that played a significant role in the foundation of our system of law and government. The display contains (1) the Mayflower Compact; (2) the Ten Commandments; (3) the Declaration of Independence: (4) Magna Carta; (5) “The Star-Spangled Banner”; (6) the national motto of the United States of America; (7) the Preamble to the Georgia Constitution; (8) the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution; and (9) a picture of Lady Justice.

The code has several provisions to make sure that no single one of these nine elements be given prominence over the others.  Though I’m not a lawyer nor a constitutional scholar, I find it interesting that this law appears almost identical to one overturned in the 2005 Supreme Court decision enjoining the display of the Commandments in a Kentucky courthouse.  Though I’m a staunch advocate of the separation of church and state, that is not the issue I intend to address today.  Rather, I’m looking at the ridiculous claim that the Ten Commandments actually serve as a substantial foundation for American law.

Here’s what the Georgia law states in its prescription for the “Foundations” display:

The Ten Commandments have profoundly influenced the formation of Western legal thought and the formation of our country. That influence is clearly seen in the Declaration of Independence, which declared that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The Ten Commandments provide the moral background of the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of our legal tradition.

The law further elaborates on the Commandments’ influence in its description of the Declaration of Independence:

Perhaps the single most important document in American history, the Declaration of Independence was, as Abraham Lincoln stated, the “frame” into which the Framers placed the Constitution. The Declaration’s fundamental premise is that one’s right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is not a gift of government. Government is not a giver of rights, but a protector of God-given rights. Moreover, government is a creation of “the governed” and derives all its power from the consent of its people. As the Preamble to the United States Constitution states, “We the People” are the government. (emphasis mine)

The Georgia (and previously, Kentucky) authorities claim that they are setting out an educational display to educate the public about the “Foundations of American Law and Government.”  45-13-51(a)(4) of the Code actually states “A basic knowledge of American constitutional history is important to the formation of civic virtue in our society.”  It is rather astonishing, in this context (and the Supreme Court decision referenced above observed the same thing), that a display purporting to teach “a basic knowledge of American constitutional history” does not even include the U.S. Constitution among its documents.  On the other hand, it does include several components that cannot plausibly be said to have any bearing on United States law at all, including most significantly, our National Anthem, the national motto “In God We Trust,” and a picture of Lady Justice.  These things are American cultural traditions, but they are not law.

That aside, the portion I highlighted above makes the true intent of the display pretty clear…among the “Foundations” of American law, in the mind of this bill’s advocates, is the premise that our rights come from God, not from man, or law, or government.  This is a premise worthy of debate on its own merits, but it is not one I intend to engage in this post.  Nevertheless the premise must be acknowledged, because it makes clear that when the legislators claim a secular, educational purpose for laws related to the display of the Ten Commandments, they are in fact being disingenuous.

The claim that the Ten Commandments provide a foundation for American law would be laughable if so many people didn’t take it so seriously. Here’s a link to the full text of the U.S. Constitution.  Go read it.  There is no mention of God or religion in the entire thing.  Nor does the Constitution touch on any topic addressed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17).  The two documents simply do not overlap at all. Now here’s a link to the first ten amendments to the Constitution, otherwise known as the Bill of Rights, and here are all the remaining amendments to the Constitution.  Go read those.  Note this important point:  The word “God” or any other name for (or reference to) the divine does not occur once in the entire Constitution of the United States nor its amendments.  Nor do the amendments allude to any subject also mentioned in the Ten Commandments.

Finally, let’s look at the Commandments one by one.  I’ve done a visual commentary on the Commandments in America before, but this time, we’re going to look at the actual text (taken from the ESV in this instance):

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

There is nothing in American law that specifies any God in particular, or any hierarchy of gods.  Even the Declaration of Independence only references a “Creator.”  Other than the Creator’s having given to humans the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” we are told nothing about that being.  Furthermore, as mentioned before, the Declaration of Independence, while an important historical document, is not actually a law.  Commandment One does not influence any law of the United States.

2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them…

The laws of this nation do not forbid idolatry, and they certainly do not forbid sculpture or photography, both of which create images or likenesses of many things.  For that matter, only very few Christians throughout history have had any objection to the creation of images and likenesses.  We have taken this commandment (correctly, I think) to enjoin idolatry, not art.  But neither is prohibited by American law.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Whether or not this command contributes to American law depends on what one thinks it means.  Though I’m not aware of any law currently in force, there have certainly been legal prohibitions against public profanity, particularly profanity using God’s name, in various American states in the past.  Clearly any such laws that still exist have lost any force, given the ubiquity of profane speech, music, writing, and general discourse in our country today.

Most credible sources I’ve read suggest this command has more to do with taking an oath in God’s name and then breaking it…and possibly even making an oath with full premeditation that one intends to break it (hence taking God’s name in vain).  We certainly have laws against perjury in this country, though I’d suggest there’s nothing uniquely Judeo-Christian about them.  The material sense of such laws is the dishonesty of the oath, not the violation of God’s name.  To claim we get our laws against perjury from Moses is a stretch at best.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Many places in America used to have Sabbath laws.  We don’t any more.  Very few Americans, Christian or otherwise, come anywhere close to keeping any sort of sabbath law on any day of the week.  American business, pleasure, goodness and sin all proceed apace on a 24-7 schedule.  Nothing to see here…move along now…

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

We could debate exactly what this command means too.  One common interpretation is that we should provide for the care of our elders, which could easily devolve into an argument as to whether each family should care for their own, or whether Social Security and Medicare are our way of keeping the Fifth Commandment.  I’m not taking that bait, at least not today.  But whether it’s the question of long-term care, or the more immediate question of kids obeying their parents, our society has mores and expectations in that regard, but not laws.  A child can disown, disrespect, and even abandon his parents, and as long as he does not physically abuse them (and there are other legal bases against abuse), there are no legal grounds upon which to charge him.

6. You shall not murder.

Yup.  We have laws against that.  So does every society, whatever god it does or does not worship.  Even atheist, Communist societies have laws against murder.  There is a much broader Biblical case, particularly in the New Testament, for a standard on the protection of human life that goes far beyond the prohibition of murder.  The standard of Jesus, which our nation most certainly does not presume to follow, elevates the sanctity of all human life including that of fetuses, enemies, and criminals to a level that those who claim to be “pro life” completely fail to grasp.  Nevertheless, for the point at hand, to suggest that our prohibition against murder descends uniquely from the Sixth Commandment beggars belief.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

Obviously, we have no law against adultery in this country.  In many states, even adultery as grounds for divorce has lost much of its punch.  Whatever public moralizing we may do (say, an adulterous congressman trying to impeach an adulterous president, to pick a random example), nobody goes to jail or pays fines for adultery in the United States.

8. You shall not steal.

We have that one too.  So does everybody else.  Our laws against stealing come from our standards of private property, not from divine fiat.  As I said for murder above, there’s nothing unique about our prohibition of theft that shows any divine sourcing.  Theft did not suddenly become a crime at the revelations from Sinai.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

I already touched on the subject of perjury up in the Third Commandment.  This command is more particularly about false accusation and testimony that wrongly convicts the innocent.  The Code of Hammurabi has several provisions with a great deal more detail than Exodus, regarding the consequences for perjured testimony against another.  Hammurabi predates Moses by anywhere from 300-500 years, depending on what date estimates one accepts.  Moses didn’t inspire this law.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

Of all the Ten Commandments, I find the Tenth to be the most blindingly obvious evidence that American law and Mosaic law are two radically different things.  Without covetousness, the American market economy would not exist.  Advertising as a profession is the deliberate creation of covetous desire in the contented.  Far from reproving covetousness, our society stokes the fire under every human lust and turns it into a market opportunity.

In summary, there is very little material overlap between the Ten Commandments and any laws of the United States.  The most generous reading would see links only in the sixth (murder), eighth (theft) and ninth (perjury/false witness) commandments, none of which contain anything particularly unique, none of which were novel at the time of Moses, and none of which require divine revelation to substantiate them.  To display the Ten Commandments as prescribed in the “Foundations of American Law and Government” regulation is a statement of religious endorsement.  Advocates’ claims  of  secular, historic motivation are at best specious, and at worst  baldfaced lies.

The concept and ideas around heaven is one of things that has been hijacked and subverted from its original understanding. I once heard N.T Wright eloquently say it like this: “heaven is great but its not the end of the world.”

Unfortunately most Christians believe that heaven is simply a destination and that death then heaven is what eternal life means. Of course there is something eternal to this thing we call life but the more profound understanding comes when we realize that an eternal kind of life is meant to be started right now in the here and now while we live on this earth.

When we begin to strive to live today as if all was right in the world as God originally intended, it is as if our veil is lifted and we see this world differently. This theme fits nicely into the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven reality. If only Christians would be taught more often what it looks like to be used a vessel to usher in heaven into the here and now. This I believe will be the challenge to the church over the next decade and longer.

The church has focused so much on the inner transformation that it has forgotten how to pair that vision with the transformation of the world vision as well. For some strange reason God has chosen to use his people to re-build his Kingdom on earth as it is heaven. Jesus was the first fruits of this vision and now it has been extended to his people through the profound presence of God’s Holy Breath (AKA Spirit).

I love how N.T Wright articulates this in that through Jesus God became King. When you pair that profound way at looking at how the heavenly realm and earthly realm are working toward becoming one with the Christus Victor view of the cross, you end up with a Kingdom citizens vision and mission. Loosely, to not just be recipients of new creation but to be agents of it as well. We are of course to shape ourselves into living an eternal kind of life now but we are too also look for places where the powers have strongholds and through prayer, sacrificial love, non-violence, etc tear down those strongholds and re-claim for the Kingdom what the powers have taken on this earth.

Shockingly in all of those battles Jesus has already won. All we have to do is remind the powers that they lost and send them packing. Because we are image bearers it will be our physical work and words / prayers that will accomplish this feat.

I want to end this post with an image and some reflections on it.

I have to say this image makes an interesting point. Of course it is entirely a generalization and deeply flawed, however, if the Church and God’s people were being loyal to their calling as also being agents of new creation, I believe the words describing Christians would be as follows.

Christian:
Takes care of the sick
Cares for widows and orphans
Advocates for the poor and those on the underside of power
Brings food to the hungry
Brings water to the thirsty
Provides shelter for homeless
……

And many more things rooted in sacrificial love. Believe it or not that list above, and more, is actually what I consider “evangelism.”

Grace and Peace.

This evening, the U.S. House of Representatives is voting on a resolution reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the motto of the United States.  I’m sure the purpose of such a resolution, which changes nothing and has no force of law, is mainly to get an election-year vote on the books reaffirming the difference between “God’s Own Party” and the godless Democrats.  But with full apologies to Seth, Amy, and all the good folks at SNL, I just have to say: REALLY???

These Congressmen are the guys who go on about our duty to build up a strong defense.  The bill’s author J. Randy Forbes (R-VA) is committed Baptist who is also the author of the “Strong Defense, Strong America” initiative, in which he argues against any further cuts to the U.S. Military because “a strong defense means a strong America.”  REALLY?  Maybe Randy and his colleagues haven’t read Isaiah 31:1, where the God they say we trust said “Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel or consult the LORD!”  REALLY!  Of course, we know you can’t trust in horses and chariots; that’s why we have F-14 fighters and M1A1 tanks and carriers and nukes and cruise missiles!  REALLY!!!

The resolution to be voted today states that “in times of national challenge or tragedy, the people of the United States have turned to God as their source for sustenance, protection, wisdom, strength, and direction.”  REALLY???  That must be why we sent our armies to kick the crap out of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein…because we were turning to God for protection.  REALLY!  And that must be why we spent billions of dollars bailing out banks that were “too big to fail,” because we were turning to God for our sustenance!  REALLY!!

In the resolution, Congress “supports and encourages the public display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools, and other government institutions.”  REALLY?  I’m sure that must include displaying it at the Department of the Treasury, because nothing says “lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth” like a big bold copy of “In God We Trust” on the Treasury walls!  REALLY!!!

And of course let’s not gloss over that part about supporting “public display.”  Because that guy who these congressmen believe is the son of the God they trust, can’t possibly have meant it when he said “when you pray, don’t be like those guys who stand on the street corners where they can be seen by men.”  No, REALLY!

REALLY, these guys need to have a little review lesson on what the God they trust said.  ‘Cause I suspect the closest he ever came to describing them is Mark 7:6…”These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  REALLY!!!