Legislating Morality? (from MLK)

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America, american culture, politics, sin

I didn’t want to lose this quote and it’s too long to micro-blog, so here you go…

From Martin Luther King, Jr:

“Now the other myth that gets around is the idea that legislation cannot really solve the problem and that it has no great role to play in this period of social change because you’ve got to change the heart and you can’t change the heart through legislation. You can’t legislate morals. The job must be done through education and religion.

“Well, there’s half-truth involved here. Certainly, if the problem is to be solved then in the final sense, hearts must be changed. Religion and education must play a great role in changing the heart. But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

“So there is a need for executive orders. There is a need for judicial decrees. There is a need for civil rights legislation on the local scale within states and on the national scale from the federal government.”

New Series – Conversion and Christendom (repost)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, conversion, new testament, salvation

[I started this series some time ago but never completed it. I think it is more than worthy of returning to, so I'm going to repost what I posted back then and then pick up where it leaves off.]

Over the next bit, I’ll be blogging through a little book called The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom by Alan Kreider. Here Kreider aims to better understand the changes that took place in the church during the fourth century (when the Christian faith was legalized and standardized by Constantine and his heirs) by examining their practice of conversion. If we look at how the process of becoming a Christian changed throughout early church history, especially with the beginning of the period called “Christendom,” perhaps we will better understand the larger transformation of the church during this time. (And, by extension, we will gain wisdom for our own time of transition back out of a “Christendom” situation.)

In the Introduction, Kreider lays out three goals:

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (4 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, crucifixion, discipleship, gospel, jesus, martyrdom, new testament, old testament, politics, salvation

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is my final post offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the very strange story in Daniel 3. See previous posts here,  here and here. So far I have claimed from this story that (1) Politics is a question of idolatry – that is, competing claims for allegiance; (2) Obedience to God sometimes requires disobedience to the government; (3) This “theo-political” showdown is often fought on the battlefield of symbolic ritual; (4) In the ancient world God’s people faced persecution due to their position as a minority outsider in an imperial world; (5) Loyal servants of idolatrous political powers often die needlessly and tragically; (6) Sometimes governments do acknowledge God’s superior power to save; (7) The “political idolatry problem” does not rule out participation in political affairs. Below are the final two of my nine reflections (the last one is my favorite!).

“Political” Musings on the Fiery Furnace (3 of 4)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, God, idolatry, old testament, politics

“They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3.28b)

This is the third of four posts offering reflections on the “political lessons” we learn from the story in Daniel 3 about  Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego being thrown into a fiery furnace by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. See previous posts here and here. I’m offering nine reflections in all, and 4-7 are below.

No Obedience Without Resistance (Revelation 2-3)

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America, american culture, christendom, church, new testament, politics, Revelation

Let me ask you once again to recall the significance of seeing that Revelation is a letter. Because Revelation is a letter, we simply must keep in mind the original audience – the 1st century churches living in Asia Minor under the long reach of the Roman Empire.

We’re going to spend the rest of this week camping out in Revelation 2-3, which is composed of seven messages from Jesus to his churches. (The order in which these churches appear in the text actually follows the standard mailing route in Asia Minor.) The further we get away from Revelation 2-3 the easier it is to forget about them, so we must choose to constantly remember that Revelation was written to them first. God certainly wants to speak to us through this book, but we have to respect the fact that he spoke to them first. It was God’s word to them before it is God’s word to us.

The most important thing for us to know about the life situation of these followers of Jesus is that they were being seduced by the surrounding (imperial) culture to compromise their absolute allegiance to the kingdom of God.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? (Maybe this book isn’t so far-removed after all!)

As we’ve said, these followers of Jesus lived in the Roman Empire, which was unquestionably one of the most powerful nations that has ever existed, either before or since. (Of course “nations” is a bit anachronistic, but you get the point.)

According to the official cultural script, Rome had brought unity, peace, and security to a world that desperately needed freedom from political fear. And the people loved them for it. (Well, most of them. Of course those whose families they slaughtered in the securing of “peace” and “freedom” weren’t so fond.)

What is “ideology”?

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America, american culture, ideology, politics

The word “ideology” gets thrown around a lot, and it’s one of those words I think I understand until someone asks me to explain it. I recently came across some helpful definitions and distinctions. Middleton (the author) distinguishes between “ideology” in two senses.

First, “ideology” refers to ideas that form a coherent worldview that commends or shapes specific patterns of behavior and has historically functioned to legitimate the social order or political arrangement of actual societies in history.

In other words, a society’s ideology is made up of the ideas that explain and justify the way the world works in that society. Take a specific example – homeless beggars on the street. Some in our society explain this by saying such people are simply lazy. Others object and say that they are evidence of unjust social structures that make “winners” of some and “losers” of others. Both explanations are ideological in that they aim to explain why things are the way they are, and why this is or is not acceptable or commendable.

Here’s his second definition: false or deceptive ideas that underwrite the oppressive circumstances of a people and serve as mystification or rationalization of these circumstances.

This one clearly has more of an edge to it. It carries an accusation that those providing “answers for why the way our world works as it does” are covering up their own vested interests. This is I think more how Marx used it in his critique of capitalist societies.

Sometimes you’ll hear people say that there is no non-ideological place to stand, that is, no set of ideas that are free from the label “ideology.” This is quite true in the first sense, but whether it is true in the second seems less obvious, mostly because of the accusation of dishonesty and oppression.

Anyhow, this explanation was helpful for me.

POLL: What’s Next for the Church in America?

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America, american culture, church, church planting, persecution, polls

If you vote, I may even send you a sticker.

On Being “Counter-cultural”

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America, american culture, church planting, discipleship, grace, politics

It’s not that we set out to be counter-cultural for its own sake, though doing so may indeed be worthwhile. It’s just that we’ve been called as witnesses to a reality that simply is entirely counter to the culture. We are not anti-world, but we’ve been called to live into a vision of the world that is often opposite the world we see everyday. It’s not that we get kicks out of saying that what the world thinks is wrong; it’s just that what most of us often think actually is wrong. Examples? We can’t save our lives by seeking security from every risk; we can’t find lasting pleasure by seeking it directly; we aren’t acquitted simply because we choose not to see the evil effects of our way of life; our problems can’t be solved apart from the grace of God – that is, his stooping down to be present and active among us. We believe that apart from grace, redemption just won’t happen, no matter what we call it and how we try to get there. So be counter-cultural this weekend, not because it’s cool or because it makes people notice you, but because you really do believe in a vision of reality that is different from the dominant ideologies and assumptions of our time.

Life Journal 005 // Joel and the New Testament

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America, church, heaven, jesus, joel, life journal, new testament, old testament, paul, politics, romans

Last week I posted on the message of Joel the prophet here, and I promised to add some thoughts about how Joel impacts our understanding of the New Testament. I have three texts / topics in mind.

First, I think Joel’s understanding of pagan armies helps us understand Romans 13, where Paul tells the Jesus-followers in Rome to “submit to the governing authorities because they have been put in their place by God,” etc, etc. People have read this as indicating God’s support of this or that nation or government, with the implication that what nations do is good and godly. Today I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the application points, but what we often miss is that for Paul, Romans 13 has everything to do with the way God works through pagan nations in the prophets. According to them, especially in texts like Isaiah 10 and here in Joel, pagan armies are both (a) tools accomplishing God’s purposes, and (b) enemies of God awaiting eventual judgment. The key thing is that God can use nations for his purposes, and he can call his people to submit to their rule, without them having his approval or blessing. This was certainly true of the Roman Empire of Paul’s day.

one-liners of the week…

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America, church planting, ed stetzer, industry, malcolm gladwell, NBA, one-liners, Sports

Enjoy…

“I think Jesus would have had trouble covering him.”

“It represented manufacturing supremacy and good jobs for American workers – that’s gone.”

“In my heart, I often feel that church planting should be simpler.”

“Detroit isn’t the only city on the list that’s suffering from abandonment issues.”

“These people were dying of old age. That’s it.”

…