Bad News for Organized Christianity may be Good News for Our Times

 

"It will take a miraculous overhaul of the church to become once again the bearer of good news."  - Vincent Harding

The dramatic announcement made to the shepherds is truly good news! Unfortunately, in much of her history, organized Christianity has lived and framed the story of Jesus in such a way that it doesn't end up being such good news. Let's listen once more to the angelic announcement and ask ourselves what additives we have included in the gospel story that have turned it into not so great news after all.

Luke 2 ^{- "}And in the same area there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And then an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were very afraid. But the angel said to them, “Listen! Do not fear. For I bring you good news of great joy, which will be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the City of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign to you: You will find the Baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger.” Suddenly there was with the angel a company of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

                                           Glory to God in the highest,
                     and on earth peace, and good will toward men.”

Notice the following good news in the highlighted phrases:

First, "Do not fear." This suggests that God knows we are fearful people and wants us to understand that, unlike the intimidating gods of the nations, He is coming to us in a gentle loving way that dispels fear.

Second, "good news of great joy." Our God is a joyful God with good news for us. This announcement isn't that of a vengeful, vindictive God but One, who like loving parents, is eager to surprise their children with gifts of pure love and affection.

Third, "to all people." This God is not tribal. He isn't coming for only one particular group of people but for all people, all nations. This is staggering news for humans whose bent is toward thinking that God favors people like ourselves over others.

Fourth, "the Baby wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger."  A human baby is the most vulnerable and helpless of all babies. God comes in the most vulnerable form possible and is born into the poor of society, underscoring His desire to identify with the lowest and the disenfranchised of society and to come in the most non-threatening way possible.

Fifth, "peace on earth." This tells us that His nature is peace-loving and non-violent. He comes, unlike all other gods and kings, with no rivalrous nor competitive agenda, no need to prove Himself. The rule of His kingdom is a rule of peace.

Sixth, "good will toward men." This God comes with good intentions towards all people. All other gods and rulers view people as a means to accomplish their agenda and glory. Our God is about well-being for all in his creation.

This is an astonishing announcement! Everything about it shouts that this God has no animosity towards humanity but rather is in love with humans and will do anything to come to our aid. Because he is how he is, he won't assert and force himself and his ways on anyone but quietly persists in untiring love to the point of letting us collapse under the weight of our religious enterprises that have insisted on systems and statements of faith that:  fill people with fear for non-compliance, rob them of joy, exclude groups of people we deem 'sinners' or outsiders, threaten and intimidate people with our hierarchical systems, resort to violence in the form of coercion, and wish bad for those we consider undeserving.

 

...all the while justifying this with Bible verses. Maybe the good news in our time is that, just as God disrupted the systems and statements of faith of the first century religious and political worlds with the coming of a baby, so he is doing it again with the lifting up of the poor and rejected, overlooked and despised ones of society.  The Spirit of God cares enough about the good news to disrupt the Christian industry with its unhealthy gospel additives so that the Story that remains will be truly good news for all people everywhere!

 

 

I Still Don't Think We Get It...

 
...how utterly upside down (to us) God's kingdom ways are. A short article by Kenneth Tanner, The Great Humility that Redeems the Cosmos, expresses well how wonderfully different God's ways are from ours and how far astray the church in the west is from God's ways. He writes:

The gospels upend every human (perhaps every rational) notion of strength.

The cosmos—superclusters of galaxies, delicate wildflowers on countless meadows, the waves of every ocean—thrives on one source of energy, a hidden force of charity that does not seek its own, a Person with an unremarkable face, who came not to be served by his creation but to serve.

...The biggest challenge presented to humanity by his gospel is our mistaken bedrock belief that what drives the universe is an unbridled might that rules by fiat. This is after all the only form of power we humans recognize: brute force, cunning strategy, ruthless competition, and, above all else, "winning."

 

It goes against everything that man has built and everything that man has ventured to accept the idea that the real power that sustains all movement and all life, that binds all things together—from subatomic particles to intergalactic distances—is a self-sacrificial love without measure.

 

"If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it."  Jesus is not just talking about your life but is describing how *everything* works.

 

The losers in this scenario do not "win" but instead come to participate forever in the life of him who lays down his life for the life of the world and in so doing—by a great humility—redeems the cosmos and makes all things new, makes all things well.

 

This belief is not going to get you anywhere in the world that humanity has made but you can serve that world—this world that Christ loved before it loved him—by embracing this sacred path of humility and renouncing all the other ways and means and kinds of power.

 

All of them. Political. Military. Intellectual. Physical. All.

 

It is telling that almost every news story that compels the urgent attention of Christians these days can only do so because we have denied that we serve a Lord that rules by a mysterious humility that conquers all hearts by self-giving.

God Does Not Oppress Humans with His Will (contrary to what many of us are taught)

In his book, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man, Jacques Ellul looks at accounts from the book of II Kings and presents a case for a God who values human dignity so much that He allows us to freely be who we are. In chapter one Ellul writes about the healing of Naaman, saying that God used many different agents in Naaman's life. He points out that none of the people involved in the healing (i.e., the Hebrew slave girl, king of Syria, Elisha, Naaman's servants) acted under coercion from God but they acted according to their own "bent", at their own "level" and with their own "personal decision."

Ellul goes on to remark, "If the story wanted to show us God crushing the will of man and forcing man to do what God wants, then things would have been very simple."

The God and Father of Jesus Christ takes the dignity and freedom of human beings seriously and will not "crush the will of man" and force us to do what He wants. He allows us to be who we are and to act according to our bent or inclination, and He takes our small free actions, combines them with the small actions of others and brings about goodness in a situation.

George MacDonald puts it this way in his book, Knowing the Heart of God:

"God does not, by the instant gift of his Spirit, make us always feel right, desire good, love purity, aspire after him and his will...The truth is this: He wants to make us in his own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How could he effect this if he were always moving us from within? God gives us room to be. He does not oppress us with his will. He 'stands away from us,' that we may act from ourselves, that we may exercise the pure will for good."

The marvel of God is not that He is able to get things done because we finally "get our act together" but that He is able to get things done through broken vessels who never really get our act together but who freely move and act according to our bent and personal decision.

Is God "Omnipotent"?

Is God omnipotent?

If by "omnipotent" we mean that God is all-powerful and in control of all, then there's a good case for answering the question with, "No."

In her wonderful book on God and prayer, In God's Presence, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki says, "In bringing the world into being, God has chosen to share power. This means that the power we experience is not illusory; it is our reality. God has power, but so does the world, and the world's power is as real as God's."

She goes on to say, "I suggest that...prayer in a universe with a relational God who shares power and freedom with a people is quite different from prayer in a universe where God can at will override all persons and situations...

"So imagine with me the dynamics of relationship between God and the world. Think of it as a dance, whereby in every moment of existence God touches the world with guidance toward its communal good in that time and place, and just as the world receives energy from God it also returns its own energy to God. God gives to the world and receives from the world; the world receives from God and gives to God, ever in interdependent exchange...

"We are told in our tradition that God bids us to pray, invites us to pray, inspires us to pray. If it is truly an interdependent world, existing in interdependence not only within itself but also with the ever-creating God, then God's call to us to pray is neither whimsical nor irrelevant to God work with the world. (Prayer) is not a manner of (God) receiving compliments, nor is it a reminder service informing God of what needs to be done in the world. Rather, prayer is God's invitation to us to be willing partners in the great dance of bringing a world into being that reflects something of God's character."

The Meaning of the Word "Believe"

From Marcus Borg, New Testament scholar and theologian:

Prior to the seventeenth century, the word “believe” did not mean believing in the truth of statements or propositions, whether problematic or not. Grammatically, the object of believing was not statements, but a person. Moreover, the contexts in which it is used in premodern English make it clear that it meant: to hold dear; to prize; to give one’s loyalty to; to give one’s self to; to commit oneself. It meant. . . faithfulness, allegiance, loyalty, commitment, and trust.

Most simply, “to believe” meant “to love.” Indeed, the English words “believe” and “belove” are related. What we believe is what we belove. Faith is about beloving God. . . To believe in God is to belove God. Faith is about beloving God and all that God beloves. . . Faith is the way of the heart.