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.”

Seven Deadly Vices and Corresponding Virtues

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discipleship, ethics, sin, vice, virtue

Below are lists and definitions of virtues that correspond to the “seven deadly sins.” I’m putting this list together as part of a plan for transformation for the men at Real Life Church who are undergoing Renovation. There is some overlap of course, but most of the virtues are defined in a way that counteracts the particular vice in question. Thoughts, additions, and clarifications are certainly welcome…

Stream of Consciousness on “the gospel”

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american culture, church, crucifixion, gospel, jesus, salvation, sin

Sorry it’s been so long! I’m in the middle of crazy season so I may not blog a whole, whole lot over the next bit, but I’ll be sure to get a couple things up a week at least. A while back I wrote “the gospel…” in my journal and then just started letting the words flow. Not saying this is the best way to do theology, but it can be fun (and at times helpful!). The only rule is that I promise not to edit or change anything, for better or worse. Here’s what I wrote next:

Jesus is the Messiah, our Savior and Lord, and in dying and being raised from the dead he has saved us from sin. Jesus is God’s Word made flesh, the culmination of God’s efforts in creation and Israel to build and then restore a world of peace, justice, and love. He is our King and we are his people, called out from among the nations as the peculiar people of a peculiar God, sent to declare his praises, preview his kingdom, and invite all people to join his family. We resist all that is hostile to God and out of line with his purposes as revealed in Jesus. We thus reject imperialism, individualism, secularism, rationalism, militarism, pragmatism, and consumerism, along with pride, anger, envy, lust, gluttony, sloth, and greed.

I’m not sure where I’d draw the line between what I’d call “the gospel” and what comes out of that. Actually, I’m not sure if such a line should be drawn at all.

Job’s Multi-dimensional Morality

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american culture, amos, job, old testament, politics, prophets, sin

Alternate Title: Don’t Call Him A Liberal!

I noticed something while reading Job a while back. I was reading chapter 31, where Job offers his final defense of his own righteousness. I’ve read it before, but I missed something.

Of those who are familiar with Job beyond the surface, many probably know about the “covenant with his eyes” he made not to look lustfully upon other women. Commendable, to say the least! He goes so far as to say, “If my heart has been enticed by a woman, or if I have lurked at my neighbor’s door, then may my wife grind another man’s grain, and may other men sleep with her.” I’m not really sure what all that means, and I am sure Mrs. Job wouldn’t appreciate being offered up in this way (even theoretically)! But one thing is certain: Job is clearly serious about sexual purity.

What I noticed this time, however, is that Job’s morality isn’t as one-dimensional as ours often is. We like to separate “moral” issues from “social” issues. As long as we stay in line with the former, we consider ourselves (and our leaders) to be doing well. But look at how Job continues. The bulk of the chapter speaks about what we would consider “social issues” – issues of justice for the poor. Take a look at Job 31.16-23!!

My point is that in defending himself, Job points to both sexual purity and his record of taking care of the poor. It reminds me of Amos 2.6-8, another place where disregard for the poor and sexual incontinence are seen as two sides of the coin called “sin” (one that elicits God’s wrath, no less).

Anyhow, I just thought we should be aware that when we talk about “moral issues” without regard to how the poor (and widows, orphans, immigrants, etc) are treated, we are speaking without the support of Scripture.
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What is a “Messiah”?

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gospel, jesus, messiah, new testament, politics, resurrection, salvation, sin, tyler stewart

My friend Tyler recently posted on “messianic expectations” in the first century and it got me thinking of a description of what “messiah” means I’d put together for one of my leaders at Real Life. (Of course I’m describing the word through my Jesus-lens.) Here’s how I’d describe it:

“Messiah” (mashiach in Hebrew, christos in Greek) literally means “anointed one” and typically refers to prophets, priests, and especially kings. In Jesus’ day, many Jews hoped God would send a “messiah” – a kingly figure like David – to rescue Israel from her enemies, purify the Temple, and re-gather God’s people so that they might worship faithfully. They were looking for a new exodus with a new Moses – a deliverer to save them from oppression and lead them in the ways of God. They believed this Messiah’s victories would usher in a golden age of justice and peace. To call Jesus “Messiah” is to say that he is God’s appointed King who came to save the world (beginning with Israel) from sin and evil.

But he did so in a surprising way. For one thing, he didn’t mount an attack against the Romans; he staged a deeper confrontation with and defeat of Sin/Death itself. And for another, the coming of God’s golden age (or “kingdom”) didn’t happen all at once – Jesus the Messiah inaugurated this new world and called together a people to continue his work until a future day when he would bring it to full completion. The early Christians would never have made such ridiculous claims – crucified would-be messiahs were by definition failures – were it not for the fact that God raised him from the dead.

Whadd’ya think? Anything you expected to see but didn’t? Anything you didn’t expect to see but did? What would you have put differently?

Theocapitalism and the Quest for Prosperity

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american culture, brian mclaren, capitalism, church, consumerism, discipleship, money, politics, sin, tom beaudoin

We want so badly to prosper (or at least have fun!) that we’ve turned wealth into a god and consumer capitalism into a religion. This is a religion complete with MTV and QVC as religious broadcasting, Oprah and Adam Smith as spiritual directors, malls as cathedrals, shopping as discipleship, commercial jingos as hymns and slogans as Scripture, amazon.com as online church, thrift stores as monasteries, bankruptcy as penance, amusement parks as shrines of holy pilgrimage, CEOs as apostles and bishops, celebrities and stars as saints, priests, and idols. “TV becomes an altar before which we don’t kneel but rather recline – entranced, enraptured, open-eyed and open-mouthed in speechless wonder, on pews called couches, eating our communion bread of potato chips and ice cream and sipping our holy wine or beer or Pepsi.” (Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, 190).

Tom Beaudoin helps us understand how this system functions just like a religion (paraphrased at length from Everything Must Change 190-1):

The Solution to Our Problems

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crucifixion, discipleship, gospel, grace, jesus, new testament, old testament, paul, romans, salvation, sin, theology

I know this sounds cheesy, but I believe it’s Jesus. I think Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection saves us completely, and I know of nothing else adequate to the task. Yesterday I talked about how sin works – the process of corruption that results in our world of broken families, political instability, a crisis of spirituality, and injustice all around. Read that one first because without it this won’t make full sense. There I described this process as having five essential steps: we reject God (rebellion) and replace him with something else (idolatry), with the result that we come to increasingly reflect our new idols and thereby lose our full humanness (corruption); we set ourselves a trap from which we cannot escape (bondage), eventually giving in totally to sin or at least resigning ourselves to a “realism” that is actually hopelessness or nihilism (depravity or despair). Here I want to show how Jesus’ death and resurrection save us from this fivefold curse.

1. Jesus reveals to us that God is truly Love and as such can be trusted safely. Remember the root problem of sin is that we doubt God’s love, we fear that he’s holding out on us, so we rebel against him and take our fate into our own hands. If God is love, this rebellion is altogether unnecessary.

This is What’s Wrong with Our World

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depravity, discipleship, God, gospel, idolatry, jesus, new testament, old testament, politics, prophets, salvation, sin

It had been way too long since I’d set aside a significant chunk of time for reflection and prayer, so this morning I went to Vasquez Rocks. I have some messages and decisions coming up so the timing was perfect, and I want to share some of the fruit of my time up there. I’ve been thinking lots lately about sin and idolatry and that sort of thing. (It’s made me extra cheery and fun to be around, I’m sure!) I think that a clear understanding of how sin works both personally and societally, and specifically the dynamics of idolatry, will go a long way in helping us understand the mess our world is in and hopefully how to move towards healing it. Today I’ll write about the five stages or steps of the downward spiral we call “sin” and tomorrow I’ll write about how Jesus overcomes this problem piece by piece.

1. We refuse to trustfully acknowledge God as superior, and so we set up ourselves as competition. This is clearly the issue in Genesis 3 – we want to be like God, knowing all the things that he did. Or as Paul puts it in Romans 1, we refused to thank him and glorify him as God. The root of this is fear that God can’t be trusted; we don’t think he really has our best interests in mind; we think he’s holding out on us. It is rooted in a denial of God’s love for us. I’d call this first step rebellion.

Life Journal 003 // the message of Joel

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bible, joel, judgment, life journal, old testament, prophecy, repentance, sin

Part of today’s Life Journal reading is the prophetic book of Joel, a short but power-packed (and vindictive!) oracle about God, his people Israel, and the nations. I want to make a few observations about the message of Joel, and later today or tomorrow I’ll post some thoughts about Joel, the New Testament, and Jesus. (This one is already a bit longer than I’d hoped. Sorry!)

Joel brings an unpopular prediction of judgment. (1.1-2.11) The whole first half of Joel is not good news. And it is not what God’s people expected or desired. The “day of the LORD” is not what they had hoped. Put simply, God’s people assumed that their capital city (Jerusalem) and its Temple were invincible. They took God’s promises to their ancient Kings David and Solomon to mean that God would make them victorious no matter what. Joel disagrees; because of Israel’s gross unfaithfulness – turning obedient faith into ritualistic religion, among other things – God was prepared to act decisively against them.

What to Do with Anger

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anger, old testament, sin, sinning like a christian

Thanks to so many of you (here and on Facebook) for your feedback on what makes you really angry. I don’t want to be too teacher-y, but I’d like to offer a few suggestions about what to do with our anger. I hope you’ll add your own thoughts or stories…

Pray it out. This was initially the only one I was going to offer. We see lots of disturbing prayers in Scripture, and while they may pose a problem for some people, there are some things we need to keep in mind. Simply put, it’s better to ask God to dash babies against rocks than to do it yourself (Psalm 137). By praying in this way, perhaps we protect ourselves from being more likely to do these things on our own (of course I also mean things much nicer than dashing babies against rocks). In the end, we are entrusting judgment to God who judges justly, which is exactly one way in which we are to be like Jesus (see 1 Peter 2). So when you’re angry, talk to God about it first.

Write it out. I’ve talked with numerous people over the last few weeks about this issue (we’re doing a thing on anger in our church) and many have said that what helped them was to journal their thoughts.