Moving on.

It's no real secret if you read with any regularity where I stand with regards to my faith.  Anyone that has been around the blog for a while can see a common thread.  If you go back a bit you may even be able to see where things started to change.  I have given disclaimers on several occasions so that everyone would understand that I am not running from God, or forgetting my faith.  I am sure there are some that would question my motives, my understanding of being a Christ follower, and even the depth of my faith and if I even have the same relationship with God that I had back when they knew me.  

Time to answer that one.   Nope I sure don't .  My faith has changed.  My understanding of scripture has been and continues to evolve, the deeper I dig, the more I study, the time spent doing word study and really thinking about and taking context and history into account the more my idea of being a Christ follower morphs.  My understanding of what matters to Christ, and what matters to denominations or movements has changed.  

In 1517 Luther published his 95 Theses challenging the then current religious absolutes.  Questioning  doctrines, calling to account abuse by those in power in the church.  Raising a voice against a form of Christianity that had strayed from the purpose of the Gospel.

I am convinced that the following statement could be applied to many leaders in the church today...

33. Men must especially be on guard against those who say that the pope's (George Wood, The Counsel of Bishops of the Methodist Church, Rev. Ronnie Floyd,  Rev. Matthew Harrison, the list could go on and include any number of religious leaders who are in the public eye.) pardons are that inestimable gift of God by which man is reconciled to him.  

I fear this is where may Christians are today.  They have forgotten that we are not supposed to look to a man or woman or denomination for absolution.  Humanity as a whole is flawed, we are broken and don't really have the answers that we like to claim we have.  On any given Sunday you can find a pastor in a church somewhere that will validate whatever world view you have.  It's easy to find a church that wants to play the martyr, claiming that they are persecuted that they alone stand in the gap and that they alone understand what it means to suffer for Christ.  It's equally easy to find a church that has given up on the idea of salvation through faith in Christ because it's not really popular to tell people that they are incomplete without a relationship with the one who created humanity in the first place.  These churches tend to soft peddle on the idea of the fall of man because it may offend some people.  

Paul talked about being all things to all people, a concept that is abused on a daily basis by some who use it as an excuse to indulge in things that they would normally question.  Still others talk about the importance of taking a hard stance on sin, of course the sins covered under that stance very depending on the person in charge, and I would argue the sins that they may or my not have to deal with in their own life.  It's easy to come out against murder when you don't deal with that particular issue, harder to take a stand against gluttony when the point of Sunday morning service is to  find out who you're going to over eat lunch with.  Apply this concept to any of the lists of iniquity found in scripture.  Laziness is intolerable, gossip is okay as long as it happens in the context of sharing for the purpose of helping or remembering the individual in prayer... You catch my drift. 

My faith is not the same, because if it were then I would not be working on my own salvation with awe and reverence.  I instead would be happy to revel in my own ideas of what Salvation, love and service to others and God meant.  The problem that I see with that is that I have done the same thing that the Pope did back in Luther's day.  I have become the one that dishes out forgiveness, or discipline both to myself and the people I pastor.  Sure I can couch it in the right rhetoric, I can talk about how important it is to not compromise my faith, but is attempting to be more like Christ, to walk  in his steps, to love the way he did, and even at times look at myself and other church leaders with the same eye he did and in loving anger call them and myself on it, because hopefully when that happens eyes are opened compromising the faith that God calls me to or is it compromising human expectations of what true faith is?  

Being a Christ follower is more important to me than being a Christian.  Becoming more like the man that died for me, that rose for me, and that has promised to return for me, is the goal, not fitting the picture of what a good christian is supposed to be.  

Safe to say I have moved on in my faith, and I hope and pray I keep moving on, going further up and further in to borrow a phrase from one of my favorite authors.  As far as I can figure that's what we are all supposed to be doing.  Luther called the leaders of his day to account, hundreds of years later the vast majority of Christian leaders look at this as a good thing, but at the time his actions touched off controversy, and some even say war.  I fear that we are at a crossroads, actually I fear that we have long passed the crossroads, I see the spirit of Luther in some today, be it Brian McLaren, Donald Miller, Jeff Hood, Andy Stanley, Carey Nieuwhof, or Perry Noble.  These men are pushing at the edges of what it means to be a Christ Follower, I find myself doing the same thing. I'm okay with that...I hope and pray that you my readers are as well.  It's time for all of us to move on when it comes to our faith.  And then when we learn what He is trying to teach us. move on again.  

 

Is it just a form?

People have been bothering me a lot lately.  I suppose I should qualify that statement.  People who don't like that the establishment clause, and the free exercise clause of the first amendment cut's both ways.  Many of my old friends, and the religious right, and tea party members, (for some reason those three things seem synonymous when it comes to the friends I grew up around went to college with and even worked with fresh out of school and in the ministry for the first time), want a figurative interpretation of our countries most important document, preferring to interpret it through the language, ideas, beliefs, and customs of the day it was written.  The issue is many of them want a literal interpretation of another historical work, that I would maintain is infinitely more important that the constitution of the United States, but also needs to be studied and applied with the same type of scrutiny.  

I do not feel that Christianity is under attack in our country any more than any other religion.  But all religions are subject to attack in our country, a function of a society that allows free speech.    I am happy with the fact that churches can be built, sermons can be preached, outreach can be made, by the church that I pastor, I don't think the government should compel a Church to provide birth control for it's employees if doing so violates their conscious or interpretation of scripture.  I think that churches and pastors should have the freedom to choose who they are willing to marry and not, and as much as I hate to say it churches just like any other private organization have a right to exclusive membership if that's what they want to have.  I will say that any church that bars someone from entering, and worshiping with them based on age, race,sex, sexual orientation, or religious affiliation is stupid.  If we have the truth that we say we have, and if we believe that that truth is able to make a difference in peoples lives, why keep people away?

All of these things I am glad for.  A few things we need to realize,  

1.  We are not persecuted, not by a long shot.

2.  No one is going to tell you you can't worship on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day you choose.

3.  Christians are supposed to pray for their leaders. 

4.  The final mandate given by Christ upon leaving this earth was not go into the center of town, and get involved in politics.  It was not lobby for your rights, it was not champion the cause of capitalism.  

When we point to things like the Hobby Lobby verdict as Godly, we miss the point.  Scratch the surface of Hobby Lobby's financial records and you find things that contradict their stand.  Most of the stuff that they purchase comes from China where abortion runs rampant, they invest in companies that manufacture the drugs they refuse to provide because doing so violates their religious beliefs.  What bothers me is they are not a church, they are not even a hospital or school affiliated with a church, they are a for profit company, attempting to leverage their religion as a way to help the bottom line.  

If christians really believe that without a relationship with Jesus people will die and go to hell, how can they take the time to worry about these things.  Why is it so important to win the right to refuse contraception coverage, or strike a blow for sanctity of marriage in the courts, or voice their opinion on the minimum wage, or stand up with the NRA because we have the right to bear arms.  Why are American christians so concerned about their rights.  How do they have the time to devote to all of these political causes? 

In 1 Corinthians 9  Paul lays out all the reasons he has rights, and then gives them up.  If that's not enough in Matthew 5:39 - 42 Jesus shows us clearly that what's fair, that our rights really don't matter when it comes to people who are lost.  

As best as I can figure out 2 Timothy 3:5 is at play here, at least when it comes to some of the more prominent religious and political leaders of our day standing up for the rights of christians.  It makes them look good, it makes them seem holy, but in the end...