 |
| "Bridges that connect" (Bath, England/San Antonio, Texas) by Melody Kay Young (Post revised 3/27/17 and 5/26/17.) |
Monday, October 24, 2016
The Aftermath.
I planned to write a followup to my original book: Fragments and Faith: An Adult Third Culture Kid Experience In Evangelicalism , but I am prioritizing getting back into my career and completing my Masters degree. I wanted to give a little plug for my first book here. The evangelical church in America is going to have to do some soul-searching and/or decline, because it has chased people out with its worldly enmeshment in politics, as well as its total lack of love for foreigners like me. Too many privileged American evangelicals have forgotten Christians are aliens and strangers here, as well as responsible to love, not bite and devour, because God is love. For this reason, I am exiting "Christian twitter" for a more broad twitter experience. I can be followed @PeaceOfResista1 . Opinions my own, not reflective of my loved ones or employers.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
When people fail; God is faithful.
Seeing abuse victims betrayed by our system promoting abusers, and instead of standing against abuse, Christian leaders complicit in promoting abusers, has stolen much hope for a "United" States.
And still, the truth is that my God so loved the world that He allowed Himself to become a victim of severe abuse to save us from our sins. Jesus is the only hope for the nations. Follow Christ.
John 16:33 (NLT)
Saturday, October 22, 2016
A Warning Hope Must Heed
Galatians 5:15 NLT-"But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another."
Watch:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLdviqEygJzjNREuKMvv74jWYecC3u8zqI&v=Ax0FRBF8rVM
Watch:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLdviqEygJzjNREuKMvv74jWYecC3u8zqI&v=Ax0FRBF8rVM
Friday, October 21, 2016
Awareness Of Greatness
For all the "wake up America"s I have seen this year, even the church is still too often foolish when it comes to narcissism. There are many resources and ways to recognize it. It seems to me, too many in the American church have traded, "May I never boast except in the cross of Christ" for "Make America Great Again." That's been a long term problem; it's not Trump's fault. I'll add resources on narcissism on here in hopes that we Christians can instead "shine like stars in a crooked and depraved generation."
Selected Resources:
https://soundcloud.com/kendall-beachey/narcissism-and-the-system-it
https://graceformyheart.wordpress.com/2016/10/21/collateral-narcissism/
https://littleredsurvivor.com/2016/09/09/the-hidden-elephant-of-narcissism/
http://www.manipulative-people.com/malignant-narcissism/
Matthew 18:1-10 New Living Translation (NLT)
The Greatest in the Kingdom
18 About that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?”
2 Jesus called a little child to him and put the child among them. 3 Then he said, “I
tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like
little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. 4 So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.5 “And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf[a] is welcoming me. 6 But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.
7 “What sorrow awaits the world, because it tempts people to sin. Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting. 8 So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.[b]
10 “Beware that you don’t look down on any of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels are always in the presence of my heavenly Father.[c]
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
The Death of the "Moral" Majority and the "Christian" Right
There are many articles being written about the hypocrisy among American Christians supporting and excusing, even defending, Donald Trump this year. This post will be a space continually being updated with links to pertinent pieces.
May I say this: the death of the enmeshment in politics, that is the state of American evangelicalism, is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it gives me hope that those who really love God will shine brighter than ever. But on the personal grief side, what a way to go.
The twisted Scriptures and the spiritually abusive bashing of believers as Pharisees, when they stand against abuse, is nothing new, but what a tragedy. What blatant wickedness.
I follow Christ, who set me free from the legalism of such things as "having to vote" according to the consciences of esteemed religious leaders, as well as who instructs me to be holy, not to share in the sins of others.
I will never excuse nor defend those who call themselves Christians and use or un-repentantly abused their faith to promote Donald Trump. What they are or are not is known to God, but they are not people who have any right to speak into my life with spiritual advice, that I can tell you.
Thinking Through American Politics and Christian Ethics:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdviqEygJzjNREuKMvv74jWYecC3u8zqI
"Neither Trump nor Clinton are coming out clean from this one if this is the logic and metric we use. Even so, only one candidate has been the darling of so-called Evangelical leaders who allegedly take the Bible and its measures seriously."
"“When your leaders come out and make excuses and use biblical analogies to defend and promote Donald Trump,” she added, “that to me crosses a line I’m not comfortable with.”"
"After decades of hearing the Christian Right bleat about the importance of “moral character” and lamenting the “coarsening of our culture,” they’ve been finally exposed as amoral charlatans who give less of a f*ck about actual morality than the supposed heathens they hate."
"I refuse to be a Christian who believes that God blesses America more than God so loves the world."
"Trump is what happens when you wear your Christian conservative values like a cardigan to conveniently slip off when the heat rises."
"Realistically, there is no room at all for Christianity in Trump’s ego-driven narcissistic world."
Abusive immorality is what "The Moral Majority" are willing to overlook in Trump rather than stand against as Christians.
"He would reject Jesus, who threw money changers out of the Temple and who is coming back with a sword in hand to mete out justice, for a man who thinks it is okay to grab women by their genitals. "
"Evangelical leaders are going to lose an entire generation of Christians in the wake of our current political and social climate. "
"The misery is compounded when longtime friends and allies dismiss my experiences and the experiences of my colleagues as nothing more than the normal cost of public advocacy. It’s not.
"The Religious Right’s jaundiced presidential endorsement can’t but reveal the movement for what it is: an unscrupulous political machine that has nothing to do with genuine Christianity and everything to do with lust for power."
"Surely it is not the calling of the devout to put aside glaring assaults and affronts to morality in favor of winning a political race, one whose outcome could determine how Christians themselves are treated,” Ben Howe wrote last week in Red State, a conservative blog.
"The “religious right,” which I’ve defended my whole life, abandoned the posture of “family values” when they had the chance to gain a seat at the table."
"You have subverted and perverted the Word to justify and excuse the behavior of a man who finds it acceptable to degrade others and revel in sexual sin."
"How can we trust a man who says one thing but does another? Apparently, Trump’s evangelical supporters are asking us to do exactly that. This sort of ethical suicide is what gives evangelicals a bad name."
"Donald Trump is the apotheosis of the sexual revolution’s worst male impulses. He has spent his entire life creating the culture that encourages abortions."
"His Bonhoeffer was a born-again Christian who espoused traditional family values.
This is complete nonsense. ...honest engagement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and thought moves us a long way from the harrowing worldview of Donald J. Trump. It moves us to behold the world anew in the light of the Cross and Resurrection."
“Moral precepts are real; they are not like warm candle wax, easily shaped to fit the ends of this or that president, or this or that cause.”
"Christianity, with fundamentalism leading its charge, has just become SO shallow in this country. It literally diminishes its adherents, yet we think that we have some kind of national patent on Jesus Christ. No wonder we haven't noticed the rest of the world leaving us in the dust."
"Jesus never once sat on a throne here. The closest He got was the back of a donkey. God did not blaze a trail with the gospel galloping on a horse through the halls of government."
"People were being ushered into a deeply religious experience...and it made me completely uncomfortable."
"For today’s evangelical leadership, though, “Now go, and sin no more” seems to have become inconvenient to the church’s newest idol and most precious mission: Republicanism."
"Fundamentalists–including the vast majority of white Evangelicals in the US–are inherently authoritarian."
“Move along Jesus, we don’t give a damn about you.”
"After Trump’s victory, Edwards ferociously attacked the president-elect’s critics, Bible in hand."
"the authoritarian tactics of deflection, false equivalence, and whataboutism. "
"The American evangelical church is showing its heart online by how it shuts down dissent and bullies its own to fall in line. It is sick."
"People who defend Trump must behave as functional relativists, relegating all of his statements and actions to a place of fluid meaning and interpretation. His gross language about women is just “locker room talk,” so it can’t be held against him. His horrifying language about immigrants and Muslims is just a healthy zeal for the law. His covert dealings with Russia . . . well, maybe Russia’s not so bad after all. All presidents lie, you know. We’re not electing a “pastor-in-chief,” after all."
"To speak only in the language of pragmatism is to bring nothing distinctive to the table; to speak only a private language of revelation and self-proclaimed authority is to leave the table altogether."
"The Divinity of Donald Trump"
"At what point have Christians crossed over into dangerous wishful thinking that inhibits their ability to have eyes to see and ears to hear?"
I see the culture of Trump as undermining any net positive legislation from Trump. Who he is, how he leads through his leadership, undermines any net positive laws he might make possible.
“Donald Trump is the only candidate who has dealt almost exclusively in the politics of personal insult,” DeMoss said. “The bullying tactics of personal insult have no defence — and certainly not for anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ. That’s what’s disturbing to so many people. It’s not [the] Christ-like behaviour that Liberty has spent 40 years promoting with its students.”
"As a survivor of oppressive Christianity, I feel erased by claims that the Christianity I grew up with was not “real.”"
"Trump is a man who violates women, steals other peoples money, praises foreign enemies of the United States, persecutes human beings in 140 characters on social media, torments, harangues, doesn’t give alms for the poor, nor attends church, (he golfs). He doesn’t pray unless there’s an audience, or the cameras are rolling, and bears false witness to the American People on a daily basis. The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale keeps a running list of every lie. The Lord our God sees every good, and every sin human beings commit on earth. How we act in public, and in secret. Words used like brickbats, carry consequences unforseen. For politicians, lobbyists, corporations, and moneychangers, they are deemed hypocrites in Scripture. Reverend Falwell and Liberty U believe Trump’s violations of moral law circumscribe Christian values. The Book of Matthew alone is the antithesis of Trumpism."
"In months of discussions with evangelical Christians, none of the president’s self-inflicted wounds seem to register. Trump is one of their own now— his grievance is their grievance..."
May I say this: the death of the enmeshment in politics, that is the state of American evangelicalism, is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it gives me hope that those who really love God will shine brighter than ever. But on the personal grief side, what a way to go.
The twisted Scriptures and the spiritually abusive bashing of believers as Pharisees, when they stand against abuse, is nothing new, but what a tragedy. What blatant wickedness.
I follow Christ, who set me free from the legalism of such things as "having to vote" according to the consciences of esteemed religious leaders, as well as who instructs me to be holy, not to share in the sins of others.
I will never excuse nor defend those who call themselves Christians and use or un-repentantly abused their faith to promote Donald Trump. What they are or are not is known to God, but they are not people who have any right to speak into my life with spiritual advice, that I can tell you.
Thinking Through American Politics and Christian Ethics:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdviqEygJzjNREuKMvv74jWYecC3u8zqI
"Neither Trump nor Clinton are coming out clean from this one if this is the logic and metric we use. Even so, only one candidate has been the darling of so-called Evangelical leaders who allegedly take the Bible and its measures seriously."
"“When your leaders come out and make excuses and use biblical analogies to defend and promote Donald Trump,” she added, “that to me crosses a line I’m not comfortable with.”"
"After decades of hearing the Christian Right bleat about the importance of “moral character” and lamenting the “coarsening of our culture,” they’ve been finally exposed as amoral charlatans who give less of a f*ck about actual morality than the supposed heathens they hate."
"I refuse to be a Christian who believes that God blesses America more than God so loves the world."
"Trump is what happens when you wear your Christian conservative values like a cardigan to conveniently slip off when the heat rises."
"Realistically, there is no room at all for Christianity in Trump’s ego-driven narcissistic world."
Abusive immorality is what "The Moral Majority" are willing to overlook in Trump rather than stand against as Christians.
"He would reject Jesus, who threw money changers out of the Temple and who is coming back with a sword in hand to mete out justice, for a man who thinks it is okay to grab women by their genitals. "
"Evangelical leaders are going to lose an entire generation of Christians in the wake of our current political and social climate. "
"The misery is compounded when longtime friends and allies dismiss my experiences and the experiences of my colleagues as nothing more than the normal cost of public advocacy. It’s not.
"The Religious Right’s jaundiced presidential endorsement can’t but reveal the movement for what it is: an unscrupulous political machine that has nothing to do with genuine Christianity and everything to do with lust for power."
"Surely it is not the calling of the devout to put aside glaring assaults and affronts to morality in favor of winning a political race, one whose outcome could determine how Christians themselves are treated,” Ben Howe wrote last week in Red State, a conservative blog.
"The “religious right,” which I’ve defended my whole life, abandoned the posture of “family values” when they had the chance to gain a seat at the table."
"You have subverted and perverted the Word to justify and excuse the behavior of a man who finds it acceptable to degrade others and revel in sexual sin."
"How can we trust a man who says one thing but does another? Apparently, Trump’s evangelical supporters are asking us to do exactly that. This sort of ethical suicide is what gives evangelicals a bad name."
"Donald Trump is the apotheosis of the sexual revolution’s worst male impulses. He has spent his entire life creating the culture that encourages abortions."
"His Bonhoeffer was a born-again Christian who espoused traditional family values.
This is complete nonsense. ...honest engagement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life and thought moves us a long way from the harrowing worldview of Donald J. Trump. It moves us to behold the world anew in the light of the Cross and Resurrection."
“Moral precepts are real; they are not like warm candle wax, easily shaped to fit the ends of this or that president, or this or that cause.”
"Christianity, with fundamentalism leading its charge, has just become SO shallow in this country. It literally diminishes its adherents, yet we think that we have some kind of national patent on Jesus Christ. No wonder we haven't noticed the rest of the world leaving us in the dust."
"Jesus never once sat on a throne here. The closest He got was the back of a donkey. God did not blaze a trail with the gospel galloping on a horse through the halls of government."
"People were being ushered into a deeply religious experience...and it made me completely uncomfortable."
"For today’s evangelical leadership, though, “Now go, and sin no more” seems to have become inconvenient to the church’s newest idol and most precious mission: Republicanism."
"Fundamentalists–including the vast majority of white Evangelicals in the US–are inherently authoritarian."
“Move along Jesus, we don’t give a damn about you.”
"After Trump’s victory, Edwards ferociously attacked the president-elect’s critics, Bible in hand."
"the authoritarian tactics of deflection, false equivalence, and whataboutism. "
"The American evangelical church is showing its heart online by how it shuts down dissent and bullies its own to fall in line. It is sick."
"People who defend Trump must behave as functional relativists, relegating all of his statements and actions to a place of fluid meaning and interpretation. His gross language about women is just “locker room talk,” so it can’t be held against him. His horrifying language about immigrants and Muslims is just a healthy zeal for the law. His covert dealings with Russia . . . well, maybe Russia’s not so bad after all. All presidents lie, you know. We’re not electing a “pastor-in-chief,” after all."
"To speak only in the language of pragmatism is to bring nothing distinctive to the table; to speak only a private language of revelation and self-proclaimed authority is to leave the table altogether."
"The Divinity of Donald Trump"
"At what point have Christians crossed over into dangerous wishful thinking that inhibits their ability to have eyes to see and ears to hear?"
I see the culture of Trump as undermining any net positive legislation from Trump. Who he is, how he leads through his leadership, undermines any net positive laws he might make possible.
“Donald Trump is the only candidate who has dealt almost exclusively in the politics of personal insult,” DeMoss said. “The bullying tactics of personal insult have no defence — and certainly not for anyone who claims to be a follower of Christ. That’s what’s disturbing to so many people. It’s not [the] Christ-like behaviour that Liberty has spent 40 years promoting with its students.”
"As a survivor of oppressive Christianity, I feel erased by claims that the Christianity I grew up with was not “real.”"
"Trump is a man who violates women, steals other peoples money, praises foreign enemies of the United States, persecutes human beings in 140 characters on social media, torments, harangues, doesn’t give alms for the poor, nor attends church, (he golfs). He doesn’t pray unless there’s an audience, or the cameras are rolling, and bears false witness to the American People on a daily basis. The Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale keeps a running list of every lie. The Lord our God sees every good, and every sin human beings commit on earth. How we act in public, and in secret. Words used like brickbats, carry consequences unforseen. For politicians, lobbyists, corporations, and moneychangers, they are deemed hypocrites in Scripture. Reverend Falwell and Liberty U believe Trump’s violations of moral law circumscribe Christian values. The Book of Matthew alone is the antithesis of Trumpism."
"In months of discussions with evangelical Christians, none of the president’s self-inflicted wounds seem to register. Trump is one of their own now— his grievance is their grievance..."
Psalm 101
A psalm of David.
1 I will sing of your love and justice, Lord.
I will praise you with songs.
2 I will be careful to live a blameless life—
when will you come to help me?
I will lead a life of integrity
in my own home.
3 I will refuse to look at
anything vile and vulgar.
I hate all who deal crookedly;
I will have nothing to do with them.
4 I will reject perverse ideas
and stay away from every evil.
5 I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors.
I will not endure conceit and pride.
I will praise you with songs.
2 I will be careful to live a blameless life—
when will you come to help me?
I will lead a life of integrity
in my own home.
3 I will refuse to look at
anything vile and vulgar.
I hate all who deal crookedly;
I will have nothing to do with them.
4 I will reject perverse ideas
and stay away from every evil.
5 I will not tolerate people who slander their neighbors.
I will not endure conceit and pride.
6 I will search for faithful people
to be my companions.
Only those who are above reproach
will be allowed to serve me.
7 I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house,
and liars will not stay in my presence.
8 My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked
and free the city of the Lord from their grip.
to be my companions.
Only those who are above reproach
will be allowed to serve me.
7 I will not allow deceivers to serve in my house,
and liars will not stay in my presence.
8 My daily task will be to ferret out the wicked
and free the city of the Lord from their grip.
New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Go to the Source.
My husband is a very patient man. Having just endured a thirty minute sermon-lecture with the text, "My people perish for lack of knowledge," I think he deserves a quite comfortable mansion in the heavenly kingdom. If salvation were by works, of course.
In all seriousness, having checked in with the goings on in the world of history, I came across the following statement in today's article which I had been waiting for, about Eric Metaxas's biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and which confirmed some suspicions I had had about his "biography": "his biography, which is free of German sources." I had to re-read that a few times. Did I understand that correctly?
"Free
of
German
sources."
See, this is what I suspected but did not have confirmed, until I read the article today and subsequently preached a lecture to my husband about anti-intellectual Americanity. Or just Americanism, if you please. It did not seem to me, knowing the bare bones of what I know from studying German culture and politics, that Bonhoeffer would approve at all of the Christian support of the rise of Donald Trump. Just knowing the culture and a basic understanding of the state of the German church during that period suggests that much. Come to find out, Metaxas might not have really cared about the culture and person he was describing, as much as the points he wanted to make about the man's life.
Further, skimming some of Bonhoeffer's own works in the original German (via Google) I have discovered a man who was the antithesis of the kind of bold and brash Christianity many American evangelicals, including Metaxas, are apparently promoting today. German Bonhoeffer comes across humble and studious, a deep thinker, and definitely not a soundbite for Republican politics. In my view, it takes time to grasp the soul of a man, and to write a biography without referencing at least a little of the original language and culture of the person being described, seems to me to be a form of eisegesis, as opposed to exegesis.
Also having personally done the hard (and lifelong) work to learn the German language, and knowing how important our native language is to our cultural understanding of issues, I would suggest that without referencing at least some writings in the subject's language, any biographer would be in danger of remaking the subject into their own lingistic-cultural image. This is what I suspect, based on the commentary I'm seeing, is what may have happened with Metaxas' Bonhoeffer.
That anyone would try to write a biography without referencing some study of the nuances in the language and culture of their subject, seems to me to be shoddy workmanship. What makes me froth at the mouth (figuratively, thank the Lord) is that American evangelicals lap this kind of stuff up from some self-professed authority conveying reality to them, and don't think too deeply about their source of information. Nor do many Americans do the hard work of their own research, and evangelicals in America increasingly seem to despise critical thinking (apparently preferring "teachable-ness"), which is arguably a cultural factor in how German Christians were duped by the Nazi regime.
I mean, when you have Donald Trump joking about whether we should keep the non evangelicals , but you are "not allowed" to comment from history on what Adolf Hitler said in a speech in Passau in 1927, in seriousness, about the Christian faith as he saw it: ,,"In unseren Reihen dulden wir keinen, der die Gedanken des Christentums verletzt ... Diese unsere Bewegung ist tatsächlich christlich '' - "We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian"), we have not only a problem of willful blindness, but of willfully anti-intellectual ignorance that prefers partisan illusions to a fair discussion of objective facts.
To bring this back to my "sermon" text, which I have taken out of context myself for this post, so do due diligence in checking up on the context, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, " I can only say what I am so horrified at in American culture, and what is so deeply troubling in the American evangelical church, is this collective willingness to be led rather than to seek the truth for oneself.
In context, the lack of knowledge described in this verse was not intellectual reasoning skills or capacity, nor was it linguistics, understanding of history, or humility regarding culture, but the knowledge of a holy God. I would suggest that a willful lack of devotion to following God rather than earthly leaders, even if it means our death, is at the heart of the American evangelical betrayal of Christian values this election year. This is about the hearts of many evangelicals, gurus and lay-folk, and how they are willing to compromise and twist truth to gain or maintain power. Which again, has parallels with the state of the Christian church in Nazi Germany.
But don't take my word for it. Do your research, and please, don't just depend on Metaxas, or Ramsey, or Dobson, or The Gospel Coalition, or Alex Jones, or the Huffington Post, or whoever or whatever else you like listening to for your understanding of the world and our place in it. Check your sources, and go to primary sources, even if those who set themselves up as thought leaders are too lazy to do so.
Think for yourself.
It is my hope, that this election year will raise awareness to the American evangelical crowd, with their overemphasis on "community" of the importance of personal devotion to Christ and freedom in Christ, even when that means we find ourselves following Him alone as individuals for a time, scorned for our convictions by those who are considered by themselves and many others as leaders.
In all seriousness, having checked in with the goings on in the world of history, I came across the following statement in today's article which I had been waiting for, about Eric Metaxas's biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and which confirmed some suspicions I had had about his "biography": "his biography, which is free of German sources." I had to re-read that a few times. Did I understand that correctly?
 |
| Source: http://cloclo1114.deviantart.com/art/Huh-61267719 |
of
German
sources."
See, this is what I suspected but did not have confirmed, until I read the article today and subsequently preached a lecture to my husband about anti-intellectual Americanity. Or just Americanism, if you please. It did not seem to me, knowing the bare bones of what I know from studying German culture and politics, that Bonhoeffer would approve at all of the Christian support of the rise of Donald Trump. Just knowing the culture and a basic understanding of the state of the German church during that period suggests that much. Come to find out, Metaxas might not have really cared about the culture and person he was describing, as much as the points he wanted to make about the man's life.
Further, skimming some of Bonhoeffer's own works in the original German (via Google) I have discovered a man who was the antithesis of the kind of bold and brash Christianity many American evangelicals, including Metaxas, are apparently promoting today. German Bonhoeffer comes across humble and studious, a deep thinker, and definitely not a soundbite for Republican politics. In my view, it takes time to grasp the soul of a man, and to write a biography without referencing at least a little of the original language and culture of the person being described, seems to me to be a form of eisegesis, as opposed to exegesis.
Also having personally done the hard (and lifelong) work to learn the German language, and knowing how important our native language is to our cultural understanding of issues, I would suggest that without referencing at least some writings in the subject's language, any biographer would be in danger of remaking the subject into their own lingistic-cultural image. This is what I suspect, based on the commentary I'm seeing, is what may have happened with Metaxas' Bonhoeffer.
That anyone would try to write a biography without referencing some study of the nuances in the language and culture of their subject, seems to me to be shoddy workmanship. What makes me froth at the mouth (figuratively, thank the Lord) is that American evangelicals lap this kind of stuff up from some self-professed authority conveying reality to them, and don't think too deeply about their source of information. Nor do many Americans do the hard work of their own research, and evangelicals in America increasingly seem to despise critical thinking (apparently preferring "teachable-ness"), which is arguably a cultural factor in how German Christians were duped by the Nazi regime.
I mean, when you have Donald Trump joking about whether we should keep the non evangelicals , but you are "not allowed" to comment from history on what Adolf Hitler said in a speech in Passau in 1927, in seriousness, about the Christian faith as he saw it: ,,"In unseren Reihen dulden wir keinen, der die Gedanken des Christentums verletzt ... Diese unsere Bewegung ist tatsächlich christlich '' - "We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian"), we have not only a problem of willful blindness, but of willfully anti-intellectual ignorance that prefers partisan illusions to a fair discussion of objective facts.
To bring this back to my "sermon" text, which I have taken out of context myself for this post, so do due diligence in checking up on the context, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge, " I can only say what I am so horrified at in American culture, and what is so deeply troubling in the American evangelical church, is this collective willingness to be led rather than to seek the truth for oneself.
In context, the lack of knowledge described in this verse was not intellectual reasoning skills or capacity, nor was it linguistics, understanding of history, or humility regarding culture, but the knowledge of a holy God. I would suggest that a willful lack of devotion to following God rather than earthly leaders, even if it means our death, is at the heart of the American evangelical betrayal of Christian values this election year. This is about the hearts of many evangelicals, gurus and lay-folk, and how they are willing to compromise and twist truth to gain or maintain power. Which again, has parallels with the state of the Christian church in Nazi Germany.
But don't take my word for it. Do your research, and please, don't just depend on Metaxas, or Ramsey, or Dobson, or The Gospel Coalition, or Alex Jones, or the Huffington Post, or whoever or whatever else you like listening to for your understanding of the world and our place in it. Check your sources, and go to primary sources, even if those who set themselves up as thought leaders are too lazy to do so.
Think for yourself.
It is my hope, that this election year will raise awareness to the American evangelical crowd, with their overemphasis on "community" of the importance of personal devotion to Christ and freedom in Christ, even when that means we find ourselves following Him alone as individuals for a time, scorned for our convictions by those who are considered by themselves and many others as leaders.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
My God does not change.
Working through the grief of the complicity in sexual abuse coverups in the evangelical church that extend to the leadership in The Gospel Coalition and other high profile evangelical celebrities has been one thing. Then to add to that the- in some quarters phenomenal and unapologetic - evangelical support for a man who bragged about sexual assault, never apologized to those he spoke about (victims), and then yesterday smeared alleged victims who came forward to warn against him, is a last straw personally. I blew up on a few former friends this week. I was in the wrong for being toxic in my frustration. I can't undo what I did, and I can only move forward never handling it that way again. My language has been affected; I've excused things I've said because the evil I am seeing beggars belief and there are few words that are foul enough to describe it, or the betrayal I feel. Again, I am a child of God and do not need nor should I stoop so low. So I trust I can repent and grow in grace out of this, even if people cannot forgive me. I wouldn't blame them.
But to see that Ben Carson thinks we Christians have to set aside our Christianity to get things done in our nation, to hear that Jerry Falwell Jr. would still vote for a man who sexually assaulted women, and to see James Dobson and too many others so compromised they would insist Christians "forgive" an abuser (and also vote for him), is just too much. My blow up was to see Christians in a local church playing the God card of forgiveness and grace about Trump's most recent scandals, ostensibly because "he is a Christian" and who are we to judge, and on top of that one of them insisting that because they themselves had been sexually abused, the victims I know who were hurting over this narrative basically didn't matter. I was accused of lecturing someone who'd been there because I shared in one of my responses that people are hurting and it's not ok. I do not believe we all deal with things the same. I have been stalked and sexually harassed as well as groped once or twice in my life, though not abused as a child, but the pain we all carry is not redundant because of someone else's greater pain that they've managed to compartmentalize like their politics and their faith.
I knew Trump was an abuser the time he mocked a journalist on his disability. I could see the disdain for human life in his insistence on taking out the potentially innocents in a terrorists' family. I saw his willingness to switch, from politically correct sadness over the refugee crisis, to banning all Muslims capitalizing on a terror attack to appear strong, rejecting even the smallest child, with no remorse nor even fake sadness. He played to the callousness of the crowd, and used human lives to do so. I've seen a friend whose son is disabled deal with horrific patronizing arrogance instead of humble empathy when he spoke out on his Facebook about how much the attack on the journalist hurts. I've been told online to go back to the UK for putting my feelings about the way Muslims are being disparaged into personal life context. I've seen a Facebook page, for a group of Christians who are knowledgeable on Islam and Muslim cultures, receive comments accusing them of a left wing and an implied pro-terrorist agenda, for loving Muslims and wanting to tell them about Jesus Christ.
What is most despicable is how so many Christians have enabled and lapped this up. How Franklin Graham could use his platform to smear all Muslims as potential terrorists on multiple occasions, a narrative I know to be untrue. I have missionary friends who are friends with Muslims, and most Muslims they know are just trying to live their lives and be good people. I grew up with Muslim friends, and their Sharia law is practiced at home and is not their expectation for a democratic society, and no they aren't using deception to further an agenda, any more than evangelical Christians may or may not be! The binary thinking I've seen among evangelical Christians who are otherwise kind and caring people- even towards those unlike them, and maybe even with those Muslims they encounter in real life- dismisses human beings as trash online or in unguarded conversations. They spew hatred in the name of God hiding behind their Twitter accounts, and justify it because some guy with a bought PhD from an unaccredited Christian university said that that was speaking the truth in love. They then claim - when they get push-back for their bullying behavior- that the left is bigoted against Christians. The world sees through this. Nominal Christians in journalism are sounding more discerning these days than evangelical Christians,who pride themselves on their love of truth. They have forgotten love.
It seems to me from all I've seen this year that Christians who compromise by sticking with Trump become mockers like him. They abuse people and play the victim when people respond to their flawed and even wicked twisting of Scripture, as well as all reason. There is no reason to suppose they will improve if he were to win the election. They have chosen to follow his "leadership' rather than Christ. It is a grievous sin: idolatry.
There are Christian reasons not to vote for any candidate this year, sadly. There are moral reasons not to vote for most of them. The issue I have wrestled with before God is character and cultural direction, and I have accepted this country as not Christian and entirely ungodly, despite the evangelicals who think they can influence politics for good. One thing I don't think American evangelicals have woken up to yet is that this nation has been guilty during Republican presidencies of the evils of abortion, and God sees and weeps over that evil. He loves every single unwanted baby and not one of those lives is wasted. He is a good God. That doesn't excuse the vileness of abortion, but our nation is potentially guilty of more than killing innocent children in the womb. It has also rejected innocent children it could have helped: migrants, refugees, orphans who were born wanted, let alone families who just might have heard of Christ had they been more welcomed.
In all this, again, God is sovereign love, yet my point is the sin of the evangelical church in America.
In the rush to protect our children we have sacrificed our trust in Almighty God. We have been willfully blind and complicit with evil. Christians have grasped for political solutions of any color rather than getting on our knees and letting our paradigms be reshaped in the image of the true God of love. If you make these statements, some evangelicals will protest them, but they do not want to acknowledge their systems that make it hard to speak openly, make mistakes, grieve, or disagree, and thus will not acknowledge their complicity, so nothing can be healed.
American evangelicals have made God in an American image and forgotten that all the gods of the nations are idols, but our God made the heavens. They don't see their place in the world as in just another nation, but they think of their nation as the best, and that culture influences their evangelicalism in an unhealthy manner. It has for years, not just in 2016. The rhetoric I have experienced this year alone, about race and religion in context of the humanity of the other, has caused me to consider whether I can have my children around Christians who are Trump supporters. I have no problem with my children being exposed to the world if I teach them the truth at home. But to expose them to lies, about God and people, right in the local church, is unthinkable. Cultural sin is insidious in American evangelicalism. This is not a bashing of the movement, it is an observation from someone who grew up elsewhere and knows the sins of that culture too, about a warped theology. Americans love leaders and celebrities, and have remade the humble servant King as a warrior who is comparable in sacrifice to the American soldier.
That is blasphemy.
Indeed there is something noble and even Christlike about giving one's life to save another, but our God is only a warrior for truth and love, not and never American materialism, dreams, values, attitudes, nor interests. Christians are a peculiar people, strangers here, even in America, because we actually love one another. When love is absent there can be no true Christianity. When victims of sex abuse are un-repentantly smeared as slanderers, that is not Christian. When the hurts of privilege and race are diminished by believers in the privileged group, that despises the God who made us all. When Muslims are rejected as rapists and terrorists instead of loved as people, that is ungodly. All of this is sin. As a foreigner in the world it hurts me deeply, and I have been sinned against personally by rejection. How much more is it an offense to God to sin against people as many in the American evangelical church have done without pity nor remorse?
I believe it is time for judgement to begin at the house of God. This election is less an indictment on our nation and more one on the white evangelical church's compromise and failure to deal with sin. This compromise extends overseas in abuse apologism, shutting down of grief, and promoting of pastors who un-repentantly cover up abuse. Too many evangelicals have rather put people out or pushed them out than been honest and accepted they don't have all the answers. Pastors and leaders have been allowed to and allowed themselves to play God in situations they should rather have fallen on their face before God about, having called the authorities and rebuked the oppressors. This has been supported by compromised Christians whose values are arguably lower than the world's. It is thus no great surprise when a Christian defends an abuser in politics. It is still a great sin though.
I said the following in my Facebook, and the rest below are links to articles I very much agree with, even where I might disagree with the authors on small points of theology or the place of the USA. The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in a dark world, not to be setting that aside to embrace the darkness to make a fake light. It is impossible to bring light out of darkness unless you are God. And we sure are not. We most certainly need Him.
From Facebook:
Made the mistake of logging in tonight. Just horrified at the abuse apologism I have seen this year. I haven't been the kindest person myself, and for that I am sorry. I will attempt to stay offline and reduce my access to news on the election. Voting early so my part will be over soon. I don't think I can be part of an evangelicalism where Trump's behavior can be excused as "just politics" or "a morality issue". His abusiveness should be rejected and resisted by believers, per the Scriptures, especially since he has claimed to be a Christian. I don't know how to express my hurt at the silence of professing Christians when it comes to a bullyculture I don't want for my kids' generation that I've seen Trump encourage. What twists the knife are Christians I can't talk to honestly because they actively support that bully. It seems many Christians prefer bullying to Christlike leadership. It can reel me in and I lash out as a bully. I know a lot of people are hurting and angry on all sides, and I'm probably not the only one to have been unhealthily angry. I know there is forgiveness with Him. I also hurt because I've lost a masters' course, many friends I thought were wise about abuse, and any illusions I had about institutional church being a safe place where sin would never be tolerated. It's a huge grief. If I stay online, I'm going to say more things I'll just regret. But I will never regret standing up this year against bullying, abuse, fascism, and blatant disregard for precious human lives. I may yet decide to deactivate Facebook entirely after this election, whoever wins. I may entirely revamp my friends' list to people who know me that I can trust. I dunno yet. We will see how it plays out. But I will say this is classic abuse dynamics: when you get angry at evil, people are way more upset that you did it wrong, than that there is wrong that needs to get addressed. It hurts. This whole year hurts. The evangelical church has hurt me. I do not belong.
I would add this now: I do belong to Christ. My God will not and has not changed. He is right here: I AM THAT I AM.
At this point the only thing to do, having said and done most of what I can do this painful, evil year, where terror seems to have won out, is to stand firm trusting Him alone.
To that end, please read:
https://medium.com/@jonathanhollingsworth/evangelicals-are-supporting-a-sexual-predator-its-not-the-first-time-f7bdcdeca01c#.vens1hyea
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdLe5fbVw0d12MtiYcJCf-hLDjpr7AdiYTIkMBttqdLuTQbg/viewform
http://theresurgent.com/an-open-letter-to-the-christian-right/?utm_content=buffer2aad1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
https://engagescriptures.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/if-any-of-you-are-without-sin-trump-and-evangelical-illiteracy/
But to see that Ben Carson thinks we Christians have to set aside our Christianity to get things done in our nation, to hear that Jerry Falwell Jr. would still vote for a man who sexually assaulted women, and to see James Dobson and too many others so compromised they would insist Christians "forgive" an abuser (and also vote for him), is just too much. My blow up was to see Christians in a local church playing the God card of forgiveness and grace about Trump's most recent scandals, ostensibly because "he is a Christian" and who are we to judge, and on top of that one of them insisting that because they themselves had been sexually abused, the victims I know who were hurting over this narrative basically didn't matter. I was accused of lecturing someone who'd been there because I shared in one of my responses that people are hurting and it's not ok. I do not believe we all deal with things the same. I have been stalked and sexually harassed as well as groped once or twice in my life, though not abused as a child, but the pain we all carry is not redundant because of someone else's greater pain that they've managed to compartmentalize like their politics and their faith.
I knew Trump was an abuser the time he mocked a journalist on his disability. I could see the disdain for human life in his insistence on taking out the potentially innocents in a terrorists' family. I saw his willingness to switch, from politically correct sadness over the refugee crisis, to banning all Muslims capitalizing on a terror attack to appear strong, rejecting even the smallest child, with no remorse nor even fake sadness. He played to the callousness of the crowd, and used human lives to do so. I've seen a friend whose son is disabled deal with horrific patronizing arrogance instead of humble empathy when he spoke out on his Facebook about how much the attack on the journalist hurts. I've been told online to go back to the UK for putting my feelings about the way Muslims are being disparaged into personal life context. I've seen a Facebook page, for a group of Christians who are knowledgeable on Islam and Muslim cultures, receive comments accusing them of a left wing and an implied pro-terrorist agenda, for loving Muslims and wanting to tell them about Jesus Christ.
What is most despicable is how so many Christians have enabled and lapped this up. How Franklin Graham could use his platform to smear all Muslims as potential terrorists on multiple occasions, a narrative I know to be untrue. I have missionary friends who are friends with Muslims, and most Muslims they know are just trying to live their lives and be good people. I grew up with Muslim friends, and their Sharia law is practiced at home and is not their expectation for a democratic society, and no they aren't using deception to further an agenda, any more than evangelical Christians may or may not be! The binary thinking I've seen among evangelical Christians who are otherwise kind and caring people- even towards those unlike them, and maybe even with those Muslims they encounter in real life- dismisses human beings as trash online or in unguarded conversations. They spew hatred in the name of God hiding behind their Twitter accounts, and justify it because some guy with a bought PhD from an unaccredited Christian university said that that was speaking the truth in love. They then claim - when they get push-back for their bullying behavior- that the left is bigoted against Christians. The world sees through this. Nominal Christians in journalism are sounding more discerning these days than evangelical Christians,who pride themselves on their love of truth. They have forgotten love.
It seems to me from all I've seen this year that Christians who compromise by sticking with Trump become mockers like him. They abuse people and play the victim when people respond to their flawed and even wicked twisting of Scripture, as well as all reason. There is no reason to suppose they will improve if he were to win the election. They have chosen to follow his "leadership' rather than Christ. It is a grievous sin: idolatry.
There are Christian reasons not to vote for any candidate this year, sadly. There are moral reasons not to vote for most of them. The issue I have wrestled with before God is character and cultural direction, and I have accepted this country as not Christian and entirely ungodly, despite the evangelicals who think they can influence politics for good. One thing I don't think American evangelicals have woken up to yet is that this nation has been guilty during Republican presidencies of the evils of abortion, and God sees and weeps over that evil. He loves every single unwanted baby and not one of those lives is wasted. He is a good God. That doesn't excuse the vileness of abortion, but our nation is potentially guilty of more than killing innocent children in the womb. It has also rejected innocent children it could have helped: migrants, refugees, orphans who were born wanted, let alone families who just might have heard of Christ had they been more welcomed.
In all this, again, God is sovereign love, yet my point is the sin of the evangelical church in America.
In the rush to protect our children we have sacrificed our trust in Almighty God. We have been willfully blind and complicit with evil. Christians have grasped for political solutions of any color rather than getting on our knees and letting our paradigms be reshaped in the image of the true God of love. If you make these statements, some evangelicals will protest them, but they do not want to acknowledge their systems that make it hard to speak openly, make mistakes, grieve, or disagree, and thus will not acknowledge their complicity, so nothing can be healed.
American evangelicals have made God in an American image and forgotten that all the gods of the nations are idols, but our God made the heavens. They don't see their place in the world as in just another nation, but they think of their nation as the best, and that culture influences their evangelicalism in an unhealthy manner. It has for years, not just in 2016. The rhetoric I have experienced this year alone, about race and religion in context of the humanity of the other, has caused me to consider whether I can have my children around Christians who are Trump supporters. I have no problem with my children being exposed to the world if I teach them the truth at home. But to expose them to lies, about God and people, right in the local church, is unthinkable. Cultural sin is insidious in American evangelicalism. This is not a bashing of the movement, it is an observation from someone who grew up elsewhere and knows the sins of that culture too, about a warped theology. Americans love leaders and celebrities, and have remade the humble servant King as a warrior who is comparable in sacrifice to the American soldier.
That is blasphemy.
Indeed there is something noble and even Christlike about giving one's life to save another, but our God is only a warrior for truth and love, not and never American materialism, dreams, values, attitudes, nor interests. Christians are a peculiar people, strangers here, even in America, because we actually love one another. When love is absent there can be no true Christianity. When victims of sex abuse are un-repentantly smeared as slanderers, that is not Christian. When the hurts of privilege and race are diminished by believers in the privileged group, that despises the God who made us all. When Muslims are rejected as rapists and terrorists instead of loved as people, that is ungodly. All of this is sin. As a foreigner in the world it hurts me deeply, and I have been sinned against personally by rejection. How much more is it an offense to God to sin against people as many in the American evangelical church have done without pity nor remorse?
I believe it is time for judgement to begin at the house of God. This election is less an indictment on our nation and more one on the white evangelical church's compromise and failure to deal with sin. This compromise extends overseas in abuse apologism, shutting down of grief, and promoting of pastors who un-repentantly cover up abuse. Too many evangelicals have rather put people out or pushed them out than been honest and accepted they don't have all the answers. Pastors and leaders have been allowed to and allowed themselves to play God in situations they should rather have fallen on their face before God about, having called the authorities and rebuked the oppressors. This has been supported by compromised Christians whose values are arguably lower than the world's. It is thus no great surprise when a Christian defends an abuser in politics. It is still a great sin though.
I said the following in my Facebook, and the rest below are links to articles I very much agree with, even where I might disagree with the authors on small points of theology or the place of the USA. The purpose of the church is to be salt and light in a dark world, not to be setting that aside to embrace the darkness to make a fake light. It is impossible to bring light out of darkness unless you are God. And we sure are not. We most certainly need Him.
From Facebook:
Made the mistake of logging in tonight. Just horrified at the abuse apologism I have seen this year. I haven't been the kindest person myself, and for that I am sorry. I will attempt to stay offline and reduce my access to news on the election. Voting early so my part will be over soon. I don't think I can be part of an evangelicalism where Trump's behavior can be excused as "just politics" or "a morality issue". His abusiveness should be rejected and resisted by believers, per the Scriptures, especially since he has claimed to be a Christian. I don't know how to express my hurt at the silence of professing Christians when it comes to a bullyculture I don't want for my kids' generation that I've seen Trump encourage. What twists the knife are Christians I can't talk to honestly because they actively support that bully. It seems many Christians prefer bullying to Christlike leadership. It can reel me in and I lash out as a bully. I know a lot of people are hurting and angry on all sides, and I'm probably not the only one to have been unhealthily angry. I know there is forgiveness with Him. I also hurt because I've lost a masters' course, many friends I thought were wise about abuse, and any illusions I had about institutional church being a safe place where sin would never be tolerated. It's a huge grief. If I stay online, I'm going to say more things I'll just regret. But I will never regret standing up this year against bullying, abuse, fascism, and blatant disregard for precious human lives. I may yet decide to deactivate Facebook entirely after this election, whoever wins. I may entirely revamp my friends' list to people who know me that I can trust. I dunno yet. We will see how it plays out. But I will say this is classic abuse dynamics: when you get angry at evil, people are way more upset that you did it wrong, than that there is wrong that needs to get addressed. It hurts. This whole year hurts. The evangelical church has hurt me. I do not belong.
I would add this now: I do belong to Christ. My God will not and has not changed. He is right here: I AM THAT I AM.
At this point the only thing to do, having said and done most of what I can do this painful, evil year, where terror seems to have won out, is to stand firm trusting Him alone.
To that end, please read:
https://medium.com/@jonathanhollingsworth/evangelicals-are-supporting-a-sexual-predator-its-not-the-first-time-f7bdcdeca01c#.vens1hyea
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScdLe5fbVw0d12MtiYcJCf-hLDjpr7AdiYTIkMBttqdLuTQbg/viewform
http://theresurgent.com/an-open-letter-to-the-christian-right/?utm_content=buffer2aad1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
https://engagescriptures.wordpress.com/2016/10/13/if-any-of-you-are-without-sin-trump-and-evangelical-illiteracy/
Friday, October 7, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
For God So Loved The World
Images found online/screenshots from Instagram:
Reuters Migration, Everyday Refugees, We Welcome Refugees, online journalistic publications. All rights for these images belong to their owners.
Quote from William Wilberforce.
On left, living human beings; on right, human beings who died fleeing war.
"I don't care about Muslims."
That was what someone was overheard to have said in a church environment not long after listening to me express my grief at the American evangelical attitude towards Muslim refugees. Having had contact with a pastor friend who had been to refugee camps in France, it stung deeply. It means I have lost another professing Christian friend to Trumpism this year. It also hurts on a personal level, because I grew up as a foreigner in the UK, and one of my friends who understood that (Third Culture Kid) dynamic most was a Muslim of Pakistani heritage.
I have been meditating on the disconnect between American evangelicals' professed love for God and apparent apathy towards Muslims en masse. It hurts, especially when many seem to prefer ignorance to getting to know fellow human beings, or even understanding those who know and love Muslims. The Islam I knew growing up was not only tolerant and moderate, it produced people devoted to good works and kindness. They might not have believed it is possible to have full assurance of eternal salvation, but they did know God to be merciful.
Yet in America the narrative has been to the point of rejecting Syrian refugees because they happen to be predominantly Muslim culturally. This, from people who have currently little chance culturally to even befriend a Muslim if they wanted to, or to get to know Muslim traditions, beliefs, or heritage. And another former friend called me entitled for sharing my foreign experience out of grief at seeing Americans acting-in my words-entitled. American evangelicals have based their information on what they see in the news or on military deployments, and not on actual friendships with Muslims in democratic surroundings.
Yet in America the narrative has been to the point of rejecting Syrian refugees because they happen to be predominantly Muslim culturally. This, from people who have currently little chance culturally to even befriend a Muslim if they wanted to, or to get to know Muslim traditions, beliefs, or heritage. And another former friend called me entitled for sharing my foreign experience out of grief at seeing Americans acting-in my words-entitled. American evangelicals have based their information on what they see in the news or on military deployments, and not on actual friendships with Muslims in democratic surroundings.
This has led to a whole sale refusal to love one's neighbor, let alone our enemies.
The attitude I have seen this year towards Muslims and immigrants, let alone the most vulnerable, who are refugees and migrants, may sadly be American culture now, but it sure isn't Christian. It is nothing like Christ, who loved us enough to die for us even when we were still His enemies (Romans 5:8, 10).
The attitude I have seen this year towards Muslims and immigrants, let alone the most vulnerable, who are refugees and migrants, may sadly be American culture now, but it sure isn't Christian. It is nothing like Christ, who loved us enough to die for us even when we were still His enemies (Romans 5:8, 10).
The worst thing, in that statement of rejection and apathy towards Muslims, is that it is the unspoken rationalization I have seen American evangelicals make for lobbying against welcoming any refugees into our country. This dehumanization, as terrorists and rapists, has been used as an excuse to reject the poor (migrants) as well as refugees, who may or may not be religious. The fact remains, our Lord Jesus was called out of Egypt (Hosea 11:1, Matthew 2:15) , identifying forever with refugees. This has comforted me, because I grew up as a Third Culture Kid, a foreigner most of my childhood and some of my early adult years.
It is personally painful to see foreigners or members of a minority religious group treated with suspicion, apathy, hate, or fear, because I have encountered that personally on a much more mundane level. It is sickening to share that grief with anyone and then have it diminished, especially when not only is it deep grief for me, it is antichrist to reject people like that. Americans may have a choice who they let into their country or not, but Christians are not given a choice about whether or not they are to love.
It is personally painful to see foreigners or members of a minority religious group treated with suspicion, apathy, hate, or fear, because I have encountered that personally on a much more mundane level. It is sickening to share that grief with anyone and then have it diminished, especially when not only is it deep grief for me, it is antichrist to reject people like that. Americans may have a choice who they let into their country or not, but Christians are not given a choice about whether or not they are to love.
But even were it not personal to me or even to our Lord, the Judeo-Christian Scriptures themselves speak of attitudes towards foreigners, the oppressed, and the poor (which refugees most certainly are), even before Christ was born into our broken and divided world. Even in Israel, among God's chosen people, God ordained that His people were to treat fellow human beings with dignity and respect. And we are not in the days of divorce being needful because intermarriage between unrepentant idolaters and God's chosen people the Israelites occurred. In a spiritual sense, however, such severe separation might just be necessary between those who love, and those who profess Christ but hold onto hate, yet think they can remain in the church!
We are in times where God is calling out a people from every race, tribe, language, and nation, to Himself. We Christians have been given grace upon grace. And we are called to love as Jesus loved us, even reaching out beyond the bounds of His own religious environment. If we fail to love those fleeing war, poverty, or any other oppression, we fail to follow Christ as He revealed God's heart to be.
We Americans may be angry about terrorism (and as Christians we rightfully hate such evil), but Christians cannot smear all members of a particular group as the same. When God saved Nineveh, He revealed much of His character and exposed, in the book of Jonah, our fallen callousness in response to grace.
We love because we are loved (1 John 4:19), and we are told we will be known by love (John 13:35). That is sadly NOT how the majority of American evangelicals are known in our current political situation. I repeat, we Christians are not given a choice about whether we are to care about Muslims or anyone else. Nor are we Americans first if we belong to God. Christians are to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and even our enemies (Matthew 5:44). To love is to be like Christ. Jesus, our example, so loved the world, regardless of religion, that He gave His life (John 3:16), wanting all people everywhere to come to the truth and know life (2 Peter 3:9).
Christians have a clear mandate during these times, to educate themselves about the migration and refugee crises, in order to love people, starting right here at home.
In light of what Christ has done for us at the cross, find a refugee or foreign family to encourage. Find out how to donate to the local Refugee Services. Find out how to support refugees right where they are abroad. You don't have to become a radical left wing activist to love people (I'm still a moderate conservative with friends of all persuasions), but you can't claim to be a Christian ("Little Christ") without loving like God.
We love because we are loved (1 John 4:19), and we are told we will be known by love (John 13:35). That is sadly NOT how the majority of American evangelicals are known in our current political situation. I repeat, we Christians are not given a choice about whether we are to care about Muslims or anyone else. Nor are we Americans first if we belong to God. Christians are to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and even our enemies (Matthew 5:44). To love is to be like Christ. Jesus, our example, so loved the world, regardless of religion, that He gave His life (John 3:16), wanting all people everywhere to come to the truth and know life (2 Peter 3:9).
Christians have a clear mandate during these times, to educate themselves about the migration and refugee crises, in order to love people, starting right here at home.
In light of what Christ has done for us at the cross, find a refugee or foreign family to encourage. Find out how to donate to the local Refugee Services. Find out how to support refugees right where they are abroad. You don't have to become a radical left wing activist to love people (I'm still a moderate conservative with friends of all persuasions), but you can't claim to be a Christian ("Little Christ") without loving like God.
God has compassion on ALL that He has made (Psalm 145:9),
and He is not indifferent to the sufferings of any (Psalm 22:24).
References:
Leviticus 19:34
Deuteronomy 10:19
Deuteronomy 23:7
Proverbs 14:31
Amos 5:10-12
Jeremiah 8-9
Micah 2:11-13
Malachi 2:17
Exodus 23:9
Ezekiel 22:29
James 2:6
Psalm 146:9
Recommended Reading:
(Post updated for clarity and spelling after original posting.)
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