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Censorship, Coercion, and Losing the Argument

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My parents were SBC missionaries. They took me to Brazil, where I grew up under a military dictatorship. The military wanted to be the morality police. They imposed all sorts of laws to that end, but it did not effect any real change. Thousands of people were “disappeared,” silenced, exiled, left the country, or used coded speech to get around censorship laws. With the fall of the dictatorship, what had been repressed exploded from the shadows. Censorship does not change minds. Censorship does not address who people are. Censorship is not the way of Jesus. Jesus did not deal with coercion. He allowed people to walk away. When we resort to coercion, we are giving up on Jesus. It is our stating the way of Jesus is not enough. It says we don't trust him. It is like Peter pulling out a sword only to have Jesus call him down, telling him to put it away. The way of Jesus is love. It is setting an example. It is demonstrating a better wa

The Gospel Is Not Conservative

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Fundamentalism and conservativism are intrinsically averse to change. They are tied with conserving a status quo or moving back to a former era. They seek a safe place, a respite from change and transformation in the world around them. They are threatened by new ideas. They fear that the foundations on which they base their lives will be uprooted, causing their view of reality to fall apart. Growth depends on change. Life requires change. Survival depends on responding to changes in our environment. It requires new ideas. It requires new answers to old questions, as well as new questions with even newer answers. Jesus was by no means conservative. Jesus challenged the status quo. He fought against the groundwork of much of the religious thought around him, as well as the structures erected to empower its values. He called out those who benefited from social, religious, and political power. He demonstrated God's love, forgiveness and grace to those deemed una

Redeeming the Cross

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I grew up under the shadow of crosses. They decorated churches, Bibles, necklaces, and were portrayed in hymns, sermons, and evangelistic meetings. None of that, however, really presents what I have come to understand as the meaning and significance of the cross in the New Testament writings. All those bronze, brass, iron, silver, gold, and wooden crosses have much more to do with how Constantine wielded the cross than anything written by Paul or spoken by Jesus. Constantine reported a vision in which he saw a cross of light and heard “in hoc signo vinces.” The vision was that under this sign (IHS), he should and would send out his conquering armies to victory. He was taking something referred to in Christianity and wielding it as a symbol of military might, of domination, of torture, of death, and of subjection and sending his troops to march under that sign of Rome’s Empire. The cross goes back to the Greeks, who used it for their enemies. The Romans took the cross

Restoring Jacob’s Daughter:

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There is this strange chapter in Genesis that talks about Jacob’s daughter. You might think he only had one daughter, Dinah, for she is the only one ever mentioned. On the other hand, the only reason Genesis mentions women is when there is some special reason to mention them. That does not make the women and daughters unimportant. It means that they played no role in advancing the plot of the majority of these narratives, from their patriarchal perspective. Genesis chapter 34 is one of those exceptions. We find that Jacob indeed did have daughters. They just had not been named for us at the time of their births. Now, however, she suddenly becomes important because of the aftermath of what is done to her. She is raped. While we might think of rape from the standpoint of the harm and trauma brought upon Dinah, the brothers would likely have been more concerned with the economic damage done to the family, as her bride price would be greatly reduced. Shechem’s father, however, ta

Interrogating the Church, 07 – Forced Conformity:

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We have a history with attempting to force others to adhere to our faith, our ways of doing things, our understanding of the world and reality. That’s not limited to Christianity. That was part of why Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. The Jews had failed to keep up their bargain with Rome to sacrifice on behalf of Caesar and Rome. By not sacrificing to the gods or at least on behalf of Rome, they were deemed atheists, insurrectionists, and determined to bring down all Roman society by incurring the wrath of the gods. They broke the pact, so Titus marched into Jerusalem and sacrificed a pig on Yahweh’s altar before effigies of Caesar and the Roman gods. Cattle ranchers and farmers battled over the use of land in the Western states, clashing over fences built to protect crops and a history of running cattle on a free range. Native groups clashed with settlers over land-use, water rights, encroachment, and questions of property rights and European authority to stake claim to lan

My Church Thanksgiving

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Church has played a big part in my life. It has always offered me an anchor of community wherever I happened to be. Living at my 41st address, that's a big deal. Then there was the year I spoke in 50 churches over 50 weeks and found the very same open community at each one. I have always had a welcome reception waiting for me in whatever new place I have gone from before my earliest memories. As I look to what the future holds, I imagine that church will be different. Gone are the days of “If you build it, they will come.” Gone are those times when church was the primary, if not the only social gathering place in the county. Gone is that period in which we could skate along with a sense that everyone felt that church was where they should be on Sundays and Wednesday nights, and then again for two or three other weekly events. The local church is no longer the accepted and expected social center for the larger community. Our society has built other options and opportunitie

Interrogating the Church, 06 – Persecution:

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There is an iconic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, in which a character yells out, “Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!” His claim is spurious, as what has happened is that King Arthur has asked him and then ordered him to be quiet as he rants on about his political views against most any kind of governance and executive power. The problem is not that his views have no merit or any value. The problem is that he is so intent on expressing his views that he leaves no room for any kind of dialogue. This is what comes to mind when I hear Christians in the United States talking about being persecuted. That is not reality. The reality is that people are disagreeing with them and not allowing them to force their views, values, and preferences upon everyone else. Persecution is not that people disagree with us. Persecution is when we are not allowed to live our lives according to our values, interests, and identity. Persecuti