Faith Challenges: It Ain't All Comfort

We are seeing a spate of legislation being promoted or passed in many states, including North Carolina. These pieces of legislation are not all written the same way. Some would make it illegal for a church to put on a nativity or passion play if we did not have enough actors of the correct gender available. Some would make it illegal for a transgender person to appear in public and speak, sing, or otherwise entertain two or more persons. These pieces of legislation are not crafted to simply keep children from being exposed to drag. They are designed so as to keep businesses from allowing any kind of drag performances on their property. The loudest cry I continually hear is that we must protect the children. Are we concerned about exposing children to sexuality and sexual themes? Were that the case, we would be up in arms over all sorts of entertainment from what used to be Saturday morning cartoons to Disney movies, to advertising on TV, billboards, and print media. ...

Whether or not you have any background in Christianity, you have most likely heard the phrase, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” It is something Jesus quotes from Exodus about limiting retribution to the same degree of injury one has received. Exodus got the concept from Hammurabi, a king of Babylon. We often hear the phrase used in terms of supporting retribution or retaliation for insult or injury. The original purpose of the concept, however, was to limit retribution. It was a progressive concept attempting to create a more just society. When Jesus quotes the phrase, however, he takes the idea further. He cites it in response to common notions of retributive justice. In so doing, he tells his listeners that the code limiting retribution and revenge did not go far enough. Simply limiting revenge does not resolve conflict, manage anger, or teach us to move beyond retributive justice. True justice, per Jesus’ teaching, shifts from taking revenge to offering a surp...

Part of me likes to be in charge. I like to call the shots. I like to have others respect me and look to me for guidance, direction, and understanding. That is alright to some degree. The problem is that for far too many of us, we take that to the extreme. We allow ourselves to believe that we have then become more important than others, more worthy than others, more deserving than others. I like my comforts. I don’t want to have to “slave away” at manual labor. Maybe I don’t consider it beneath me, but I am more than willing to pay someone else to do it than to get myself hot, tired, and sweaty. While I am sitting in my air-conditions home or office, however, the two-thirds of humanity that does not have that luxury have slipped my mind. They are definitely not in charge. They are definitely not the ones calling the shots. For that matter, nor am I. On the other hand, I have a lot more power and influence that most of the world of humanity. I have a much larger degree of cont...

I know you have heard talk about heaven and hell. I know you have seen images of a bearded man stopping people at the gates on top of a cloud. I know you have seen images of a red demon with horns and likely a pitchfork or trident. For many people, that is what Christianity is all about. It is getting a “Get out of hell free” card or a ticket on the heavenly express. Were you aware, though, that in Jesus’ preaching about good news, heaven and hell are not much more than an afterthought? Sure, Jesus did actually talk about eternity, heaven, and hell, but they were not front and center in his teaching. He spent a lot more time healing people and teaching them how to live in accordance with the values of God’s Reign. He spent most of those three years dealing with issues that face people now, on this side of death and eternity. He talked about loving our neighbors. He talked about forgiving one another. He talked about elevating the rule of love over things like Sabbath observan...

I don’t know if you have seen some of the recent discussions on interpretations of the atonement, but it seems to be news for a lot of people that there is more than one Biblical description of the atonement made for us by Christ. It’s helpful to understand that the term itself originated with English translations of Romans. In one passage, Paul uses the same term for reconciliation about five times, and someone decided to use the term at-one-ment in one instance to interrupt the repetition. Paul was talking about reconciliation as God’s work to bring us into God’s presence and connecting with God in fellowship. That’s a very different picture of the meaning of salvation than what is garnered by an understanding of penal substitutionary atonement. In one picture, God is doing what is necessary to bring us kicking and screaming into the fold of redeemed. We have wandered away, but God has come to locate us and bring us back. In the other picture, God is angry and revengeful o...

“Blessed are the poor, for the Reign of God is rightfully theirs.” That phrase sets off Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It also sets off the contrast between Jesus’ teaching and the prevailing notions of the society around him. It is also a major reason why those in power turned on him, sending him to death on a cross. He was undercutting the foundational understanding and structure of the whole society. It was not simply Jewish society that was being undermined in Jesus’ ministry. It was also Roman society, and our as well. Look around at the various nations of the world, and find one example where the poor are the ones calling the shots, designing the laws, and being the driving force behind systems of justice at play. I’ll wait. Well, I won’t really, as there would be no point. The poor are never allowed to be placed in charge. They are never the ones granted voice, power, and authority to re-engineer how a society and its economy run. They may indeed be the economic backbone o...

So, in case you have not heard, poor people deal with poverty on a daily basis. It’s rarely too far from their conscious thinking, especially while being bombarded with messages reminding them of all the things they cannot have or do because of their poverty. When Jesus went about ministering and teaching his disciples, he began with a declaration that his mission was focused on preaching good news to the poor. This is in the context of lifting up the brokenhearted, restoring sight to the blind, and setting captives free. None of these other points in Jesus’ declaration is about some blessing to come on the other side of death. They are all about God’s blessings right now, and that is his good news. I don’t know about you, but rarely have I heard the gospel preached in this way. When we talk about poor people, it is as though now the gospel really only impacts them on the other side of life in the eternity which awaits us somewhere beyond the blue. That is not how Jesus phra...

I don’t know if you have noticed, but condemnation and punishment are not good news. I don’t care what you tack onto the end of a message of condemnation and punishment, it will never become good news. Even if you are speaking of condemnation and punishment for some evil entity we might imagine as wreaking havoc on life and society. Good news is redemptive. Good news is restorative. Good news is life-giving. It is creative. It seeks and finds a new and better path forward. Yes, I grew up under the notion that an orderly society must hold the “bad actors accountable” for their misdeeds. It’s still a challenge to get past the notion that condemnation and punishment are what it means to hold people accountable. If we, “Spare the rod, we spoil the child.” That’s what Proverbs tells us. The Ten Commandments follow that up with very specific indications of how to approach those who do not follow the rules. Leviticus sets out a broader list of reasons for capital punishment to be m...