The (Unofficial) Fellowship Bible Blog

We are not a Christian Nation . . .and don't want to be.

As wonderfully illustrated in the sermon today, the USA isn't a Christian Nation, never was and was never intended to be. Frankly, that's a good thing -- especially for Christians and the cause of Christ. Consider the "Christian" nations of history and their works: The Holy Roman Empire and it's conquests, England and the Crusades, Spain and the inquisition. 

The USA too is not without error in mixing government and religion. Although the historical examples are plenty, look no further than the witch trials. 

But what about now? Have we learned our lesson? Are we free from government imposed religion or do we still force compliance with religious principles at the point of a gun rather than as a matter of conscience?

Unfortunately no.  We still are still a country that chooses to mix our beliefs and our government. Despite the failures of the past we still coerce our citizens to perform moral duty by force.

This is no more prevalent nor insidious than in the welfare system and the impending healthcare "reform". Through which, we "Free" Americans force on each other moral duty of charity.

What rightly ought to be done as a matter of conscience -- i.e. providing for the poor -- is instead supplanted by a government run and taxpayer supported forced system.  We are compelled to to give to the poor through taxation.  And in such compulsion, everybody loses.  

We don't get to experience the pain of poverty first hand.  We don't get to establish relationships with people.  We don't get to express the character of Christ.  When we mix Christianity and government in this area, Christianity gets lost and so everybody -- on both sided of the equation, the giver and the receiver -- lose.  

Givers lose the opportunity of doing God's work and the receivers lose the opportunity to see Christ modeled.  Sure it's easier to let the government handle it.  I can just vote for more welfare and feel that I've "done my Christian Duty" and I didn't even have to get messy doing it!  But getting messy is the point.  When we allow the government to do our job we miss the point there as well.  

WE are to help people. WE are to be the salt and light.  WE are to be the point of contact.  So that Christ may be exalted.

As Phillip said, mixing Christianity and government is like mixing ice cream and manure, it doesn't hurt the manure much, but it sure is bad for the ice cream.

Our desire should be to be Christian People, not a Christian Nation.

Jimmy Kimmel explains Christianity . . . or not.

In the recent episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live - Aloha to Lost, Jimmy Kimmel said:

"In a lot of religions, Christianity being one of them, the idea is that life is a test.  That you go through your life and if you're good you go to heaven or nirvana or whatever and if you're bad you don't. You go to hell or you don't go anywhere."

Wait, Wha . .?  Really?  Christianity teaches that life is a test and if you're good you go to Heaven and if you're bad you go to Hell?  I guess what Jimmy really is teaching us here is what most Americans believe about Christianity.  Or maybe what LOST wants us to believe about Christianity.

Honestly, my guess is that if you asked most self-proclaiming American Christians what Christianity is about they'd probably tell you the same thing.  And that is sad.

Let's get specific.  What is Christianity really?  Well, it's based on Christ (hence the name).  Jesus the Christ specifically and his teachings.  So what did he teach?  Did he teach that life is a test?  No, not really,  If he ever even inferred that it was only in the context that we all fail. 

 "You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect."

Jesus also never taught that the "good" go to heaven and the "bad" go to hell.  His standard was very different. 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life."

Nothing in there about being bad or good.  Only Faith.

Paul clarified this also: 

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing;it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Life is a test?  Good works = Heaven and Bad Works = Hell?  Not according to the Bible.  If anything the Bible teaches the opposite.  I.e. "Good People" -- those that try to earn their way into heaven by being good will actually wind up in Hell and quite shockingly "Bad People" -- those that recognize their failure to live up to God's perfect standard and accept through faith the grace of God in the form of the free gift of salvation, paid for by the death of Jesus on the Cross go to Heaven.  Being good or being bad has nothing to do with it!  

The harshest words of Jesus were given to the "Good People" of his day, the Pharisees.  

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean."

But for the thief, crucified at his side, he had compassion.

One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" ⁴⁰But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? ⁴¹And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." ⁴²And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." ⁴³And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

 Unfortunately, maybe that's the real point of LOST, that all religions are the same.  Take the stained glass window in the church at the end. When they're all in -- purgatory i guess.  It depicts six different religious symbols as if they all coexist in harmony, or as if they are the same - - the relativism of today that passes for faith.

But once again, Jesus said differently.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

There can be no parity among religions when Jesus is concerned.  No reconciliation, no homogenization.  Jesus' own words prevent it.  By his statement faith in HIM is the only way to salvation and no other.  Christianity is exclusive and any attempts to make it otherwise are in direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus himself.

Jimmy got part of it right.  Most religions do view life as a test where good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell -- and they can be reconciled to each other.   They all teach that salvation is through human effort.  That we can get to God.  But not Christianity.  It is NOT the same.  It's not dependent on us. The message of Christianity is that God saves us -- we don't. That he came for us.  That's what makes it unique -- it's no test, just grace.   Bad people can go to Heaven.  And that's very good news for all of us -- because we're all bad.  But through faith in Jesus we can be found -- not LOST.

Oh Waiter! I'd Like Another Juicy Reformation Please! (Part 1)

Following are personal thoughts relating to ongoing conversations I am having with living, breathing people, but also including many writers both ancient and contemporary. They hopefully tie into things that are relevant to what we will celebrate this coming Sunday morning. Sunday, April 12th of 2009, will be the day known to some as Resurrection Day, and others as Easter Sunday. It is the day when once a year, nearly all Christians remember and celebrate Jesus the Christ's resurrection from his death suffered three days earlier from his having been hung like a common criminal on a Roman cross.

DO WE NEED ANOTHER REFORMATION?

The gospel familiar to most American and evangelical Christians is derived from the writings of the apostle Paul; the focus of his arguments in his epistle to the Romans in particular. Reformation theologians Luther, Calvin, and others, found in these epistles a corrective to and hopeful cure for grave errors that had crept into the Church. These errors were so pervasive and endemic that, in their view, they threatened to destroy the Church’s foundations. At stake was the recovery and re-establishment of the gospel as good news that comes from outside creation and into a world that is perishing. This cure would require a complete overhaul of the Church’s teaching and understanding of how man is made right with God. Its main points were essentially:

1. A complete and irreparable break between God and His creation has occurred.
2. Humankind is powerless to bridge or repair the break. Men and women usually even deny its existence.
3. The essence of the break is separation from a God who is the creator and source of all life. Consequently, men and women are now spiritually and eternally dead. A single word for this is damnation.
4. If there is to be salvation from this damnation, it cannot come from man nor anything else in creation. It will be possible only if it comes from somewhere outside of creation.
5. Only God, the author of creation, can save it. However, His just and holy nature is an obstacle to this salvation that will need to be surmounted and satisfied in order for His loving and forgiving nature to mend the break, affect salvation, and bring forth a renewal of His creation.
6. It is exactly here that the Good News comes to us. This “satisfaction” was accomplished through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. God even supplies faith to those Christ died for as a conduit to connect and incorporate the individual into His death, resurrection, and life eternal.

This cure, this doctrine or teaching, became the cornerstone of reformation and protestant theology. It returned Jesus the Christ to the center of His creation. It re-established Him as the author and finisher, the Alpha and Omega of all that is, including mans salvation and sanctification. It also coincided with and even made possible the development of Western, rational, scientific reasoning, and enlightenment thought and culture. Like hand and glove, it fit into and became part of the modern ages detached, scientific, forensic way of viewing and thinking about the world. This gospel teaching was itself developed and systematized in much the same way everything else was. Biblical writings were studied, categorized, and developed into systematic theologies that were then moved front and center. The project to understand and organize everything God had revealed in scripture was done in precisely the same way one might study nature. The same types of observational study and systematic ordering that permitted the development of powerful chemical formulas curing disease and the construction of atomic weapons were now applied to the study of God.

Systems thinking requires detachment and distancing from the object that is to be studied. Consequently, our thinking about God and our experience of him became detached and distant. The cure that was meant to heal our break with God and rightly order our understanding of Him (or what was later called "getting saved") primarily came to mean getting ones thinking ordered in a particular way that would give them power to be saved. "The Cure" came to be something that could be memorized and applied like a mathematical or chemical formula.

Formulas are memorized in order to solve particular kinds of problems. I received an A in calculus because I was able to memorize the formulas I needed to solve problems given me on tests and provide the correct answers for them. I can’t solve a single calculus problem today because I had no idea what I was doing at the time. I had simply memorized formulas now lost to me because the only reality they connected me with was that of a good grade. It is possible to do math problems correctly all day long and never comprehend the problems and solutions. The Reformers gave us keys that were later developed into formulas that let us get ourselves saved in the same way I did calculus.

We now had a formula given us we could memorize and work to solve the problem of damnation. The formula  of confessing  I BELIEVE I AM A SINNER AND ALSO IN THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST) made us saved. Possession of the formula meant we no longer actually needed Christ. His part was in the past. We thought well of him for putting up with those irritating thorns, nails through the hands, and that nasty tasting vinegar. But now we simply needed to work the formula and solve the problem. Of course we did first need to be persuaded there was an actual problem in need of solution, and that a test on it was coming that we'd flunk if we didn't make class. But once convinced, we could quickly memorize the required formula, give the correct answer, get our A's, and go home just in time for the summer break.

Seen in this way, it becomes apparent we have gone somewhere the Reformers never meant for us to go. Once again, like sheep, we have all gone astray. A true teaching of scripture recovered and sharply articulated with the express purpose of returning the Church to Christ has become distorted and used to get us free not from sin, but from Christ Himself. Scripture magnifying God’s sovereignty has been turned about so we could once more claim sovereignty for ourselves.

Can this be true? If so, are we not right back where we were in 1500 AD?

Now what?

A tip on studying the Gospels

Darrell Bock on Differences of the Gospels from Mike Anderson on Vimeo. Thanks to the Resurgence blog for this video.