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.

Loving Truth vs Acquiring Accurate Information

The apostle John loved the truth (as opposed to simply knowing truth). He wrote this in his third letter, "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

There's a vast difference between being a "lover of Truth" and being one who simply knows true information or true doctrines. I believe that one thing that shows that John was a lover of truth is that he loved and closely followed Jesus who is Truth personified. More than simply giving data and facts about the Man, John shares from a deep personal knowing of Him.

The following are some characteristics that I see of one who loves the Truth (as opposed to merely having correct information or beliefs):

• Active seeking of the person of Jesus (Truth personified); i.e., not settling for gaining correct facts or beliefs about Him but seeking His Spirit for a knowing/understanding of the person of Jesus...who He is, what He's like, what He desires, and how He feels and thinks about His creation in general, and about me in particular.
• Holy dissatisfaction with what I presently know of Him and His ways; i.e., never content with what I have learned in the past. Although thankful for what I have learned, I should be ever pressing into His Spirit for further understanding and experiencing of this God-Man Who is unlike any other in the universe in His love and kindness and embracing of all humans.
• Willingness to let go of certainty and "unlearn" what I have known as truth; i.e., there are things that I have learned along the way that must be unlearned as I mature in God; this is a natural part of maturing in any walk of life, but it is painful for fearful humans because we find identity and security in believing that what we believe is correct. It disorients us to discover that something we used to be so sure of may not align with what we discover as we faithfully love and follow the Truth.
• Sincere walking in the Truth; i.e., loving Truth enough to follow Him in loving obedience.

Acquiring correct information is good and relatively easy; loving Truth is risky and requires courage and humility.

Jesus Before Christianity (Part 8 - Implications of the Divinity of Jesus)

The final chapter of Jesus Before Christianity is so wonderful that I would love to quote the entire chapter! After concentrating on looking at Jesus' humanity in all of the preceding chapters (1-18), Albert Nolan focuses his final chapter on Jesus' divinity and the implications of His being God.

There are two primary implications to Jesus being God that the author proposes:
1) We must allow Him to define what God is like (i.e., the way Jesus lived shows us exactly what God is like).
2) Acknowledgement that Jesus is God and Truth means to live like He lived, understanding the world and times that we live in just as He understood the world and times that He lived in.

Speaking of the early church's response to Jesus after his life and death and resurrection, Nolan says, "The movement was pluriform, indeed amorphous and haphazard. Its only unity or point of cohesion was the personality of Jesus himself...Everyone felt that despite his death Jesus was still leading, guiding and inspiring them...Jesus remained present and active through the presence and activity of his Spirit...Jesus was everything...Their admiration and veneration for him knew no bounds. He was in every way the ultimate, the only criterion of good and evil and of truth and falsehood, the only hope for the future, the only power which could transform the world...Jesus was experienced as the breakthrough in the history of humanity. He transcended everything that had ever been said and done before. He was in every way the ultimate, the last word. He was on a par with God. His word was God's word. His Spirit was God's Spirit. His feelings were God's feelings...

"To believe in Jesus today is to agree with this assessment of him...To believe that Jesus is divine is to choose to make him and what he stands for your God...By his words and his praxis, Jesus himself changed the content of the word 'God.' If we do not allow him to change our image of God, we will not be able to say that he is our Lord and our God. To choose him as our God is to make him the source of our information about divinity and to refuse to superimpose upon him our own ideas of divinity...Jesus reveals God to us, God does not reveal Jesus to us...if we accept Jesus as divine, we must reinterpret the Old Testament from Jesus' point of view and we must try to understand the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the way in which Jesus did..."

The author masterfully sums up the implications of Jesus being God: "We have seen what Jesus was like. If we now wish to treat him as our God, we would have to conclude that our God does not want to be served by us, but wants to serve us; God does not want to be given the highest possible rank and status in our society, but wants to take the lowest place and to be without any rank and status; God does not want to be feared and obeyed, but wants to be recognized in the sufferings of the poor and the weak; God is not supremely indifferent and detached, but is irrevocably committed to the liberation of humankind, for God has chosen to be identified with all people in a spirit of solidarity and compassion. If this is not a true picture of God, then Jesus is not divine. If this is a true picture of God, then God is more truly human, more thoroughly humane, than any human being...

"Jesus was immeasurably more human than other human beings, and that is what we value above all other things when we recognize him as divine, when we acknowledge him as our Lord and our God."

If we accept that Jesus is God then the way He lived His life on earth is how we must live ours: "In the last analysis faith is not a way of speaking or a way of thinking, it is a way of living and can only be adequately articulated in a living praxis...The beginning of faith in Jesus is the attempt to read the signs of our times as Jesus read the signs of his times...we can begin to analyze our times in the same spirit as he analyzed his times. We would have to begin, as Jesus did, with compassion - for the starving millions, for those who are humiliated and rejected, and for the billions of the future who will suffer because of the way we live today...

"Searching for the signs of the times in the spirit of Jesus, then, will mean recognizing all the forces that are working against humanity as the forces of evil...We shall have to try to understand the structures of evil in the world as it is today. How much have we been basing ourselves upon the worldly values of money, possessions, prestige, status, privilege, power and upon the group solidarities of family, race, class, party, religion and nationalism? To make these our supreme values is to have nothing in common with Jesus."

Nolan concludes his book with one final challenge: "There is an incentive that can mobilize the world, enable the 'haves' to lower their standard of living and make us only too willing to redistribute the world's wealth and its population. It is the same drive and incentive that motivated Jesus: compassion and faith...With this kind of approach to the problems of our time one will surely come to recognize the impending catastrophe as a unique opportunity for the coming of the 'kingdom.'...God is speaking to us in a new way today. Jesus can help us to understand the voice of Truth..."