How I saw it...

I'm confused.  I guess the best way to start this little conversation is to admit that from the get go.

Growing up in the church can do things to a person.  For some it scars them.  They get out of High School, head to college, and never look back.  I feel bad when I hear about that happening, I know it does, and there are real valid reasons for it.  Just feels sad that a place that is supposed to help you live the life that you were designed to ends up being a place that you run from.  I never really felt wounded by the church I grew up in, or the people that were there.  Pastor John was such an amazing influence in my life, such a man of God, when I started down this whole pastoral path, there was an example of care and concern and service that could be aspired too. But...

Things started to unravel.  I began to see things differently than the denomination I grew up in.  I began to have questions about why things were the way they were.  I started to wonder and poke and prod and in doing so I began to see cracks in the denomination.  Now don't get me wrong,  look hard enough and there are cracks in every denomination.  Every time you add humans to the mix when it comes to a relationship with God there are going to be cracks.  I stepped away because for me the cracks were hampering my relationship with God and others.  They had the potential to make me into someone that I didn't want to be, and while I never left a relationship with God, I did step away from the church that introduced me to God.  I love the memories that come from my time in church growing up. The time praying, the time at camp, and at youth group and conventions.  I am proud of the work that I did while still in the denomination.  I look at what was accomplished, at all of it and while there are things that I would change there are things that make me a better Christ follower today that have their roots in my upbringing...and yet things did unravel. I began to see past some of the things that "God Said" to find that in digging a little deeper it may not be as simple as the interpretation given.

I began to wonder at the disconnect I saw between serving others because it's what Jesus wants, and serving others because in doing so they owe you a listen.  I started to question why some people were welcome whole heartedly into the faith and some were "prayed for" in love that God would really prepare their hearts to receive His message.  That they would accept the correction that came from God into their lives...I watched as entire churches fell prey to the idea that our country was founded as a Christian Nation, as opposed to one that was founded on Biblical Principles.  There is a difference.  I stopped wanting prayer in schools, started to question capital punishment, and began to realize that context is everything when studying the Bible.  I started to understand that for me there is a difference between endorsing something and recognizing that the very rights that assure me the ability to worship and study, and question, and protest for "Christian" values, also afford those same rights to others.  I began to understand that it's possible to support a woman's right to choose and still feel that life is precious and should be cherished, nurtured and cared for, all life not just new life.

I disagree with people all the time when it comes to these and other issues, but disagreement does not mean I need to make them see it my way, to force them to accept Jesus on my terms because every time I stick my terms into the very real and amazing gospel that will change a persons life, I am watering it down.  Every time I try and qualify exactly what the word whosoever means, I am telling God that he messed up in His inspiration of John 3:16, that he should have done some "extreme vetting."

All this seems to be coming to a head here in 2017 and it's coming at the intersection of faith and politics.  I find myself getting more and more frustrated at old friends seemingly blind support of our president.  Lies are renamed alternative facts, the women's march is talked about as pointless, conspiracy theories are now accepted by many that I know and love as fact.  There is no ability to dialog because the moment you question what is going on the claws come out and instead of answering the question they attack, blame, and rip apart the previous administration.

Looking at what has happened in the first eight days of the new presidents administration is frightening to me an many people like me.  Instead of doing things to answer those concerns, instead of attempting some kind of reconciliation the vast majority of people from my past and many who support the administration say things like "buckle up."  or "We won get over it." Meanwhile the president is taking a sledgehammer not just to the previous administrations policies but to constitutional rights afforded in the very amendment that Christians use when they don't want the government telling them how to worship, when to worship, and what their faith means and looks like.  In case we need a refresher on that amendment here it is.



That's a bit hard to read but I wanted to put that in there to show how long this has been a foundation principle.  Here' is the text in a readable state...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.^[1]

 If the past eight days are any indication this entire ideal, an ideal that our country was founded upon, the ideal that allows NOW, and GLADD and Westborro Baptist, and The Family Research Council, and Locust Point Community Church, and Liberty Assembly, and CAIR, and fill in the blank is a suggestion instead of a founding principle.  What we say matters, we all know this and yet for some reason our President gets a pass on these issues.

I feel such a disconnect from people I know and love from the past.  I read what they say on Facebook, I read comments to posts that I make and I get frustrated because what I see Jesus doing, and what I see them supporting don't add up.  What I see happening flies in the face of what we read in the Old and New Testaments.

I read this and I look at our country and many of the Christian leaders and people I know supporting it and this is what I see...

The thing is others don't, and while I can't imagine how these things aren't clear to anyone watching what is going on, to anyone taking the time to read the executive orders being signed on a regular basis, to anyone that is willing to dig a bit deeper, I do understand.  Which brings me back to the beginning of this particular post.

God's word tells us to work out our own salvation. It's important to attend Church, it's important to have fellowship with others, but it's also important to go beyond what your pastor says.  The moment we relegate our growth as a Christ follower to what we hear on Sunday and in modern worship songs, we stop growing.  We become a danger to Christianity because instead of living the word of God, we are living the word of the church and pastor we attend.  I spend a lot of time studying and praying for the sermons I preach on Sunday's, I step into the pulpit and I share what that study and prayer has pushed into my hear for the people I serve, but I also know that there are times that I get it wrong, that I misinterpret, that I misrepresent, not because I want to but because I am human and I don't see things clearly, or face to face but through a glass lens that is warped and smudged and dirty with my own thoughts, feelings, prejudices and leanings.  I always want my people to go home and dig in a bit more, to read the text and talk to God and learn for themselves what God is saying.

I could be wrong, I could be missing the boat when it comes to my fear and misgivings about our President, and yes I said our...I'm not about to suggest that President Trump isn't my president, he may not be my choice but he is my president...but isn't it also possible, just maybe that his most ardent supporters could be wrong too?   That's what is so off-putting to me in this whole thing.  The apparent blind support of a person who has had a past that would make all the dads in my audience with daughters, sit on the front steps cleaning their shotgun...

Celebrity Appresident...

It's not personal it's just business, while good in the corporate world is problematic when governing, be it sitting on the board of a church, being a member of city council, mayor, governor, senator, congressman or yes even president. It's no secret that I am not keen on our new president. I am amazed at the willingness of many to ignore, mansplain away (what is so frightening about the mansplaining is the women that are also engaged in it) comments that were made, by saying " but he didn't mean that," etc.

I am concerned for our country in the next four years. HOWEVER, that does not mean that I am rooting for his failure. That makes no sense. I will pray for him as I prayed for George W, and Bill Clinton, and George Senior. I suppose I prayed for Reagan but in an I was 8 when he took office and 16 when he left and yeah you get the point sort of way.

Governing is personal, things that work in the business world, the personality it takes to successfully grow, and run a company successfully are not the same.  As a government official you have to make difficult decisions, but as a business person you do so constantly looking at the ledger. The bottom line is growing the business, doing whats best for profit etc. While the best bosses have the ability to humanize the process, and can see the people they employ and serve as important, there is an over riding desire and look at the ledger, as it should be, it's business. However the bottom line in governing is not whats best for the bottom line, but what's best for the people you represent. Yes there are times that financial decisions will matter more, but there are also times that physical health will matter, or that housing and quality of life take a front seat. There are times that you can't throw money at the problem because it's not money you need.

 

When I look at some of the people being tapped for key positions in the current administration, I see someone assembling a team of elite 1%'s out of touch with the very people that got our president elected.

 

I want him to succeed but I also want us all to realize that we MUST stand up for those that are not just going to lose a voice, but those that think they now have one.

 

I find myself consistently frustrated by politicians in general. Too may are willing to re-write recent history to make themselves appear better than they are.

 

The thing is as a Christ follower my job has never changed and if you claim to be one neither has yours. It's summed up in these verses in Matthew...

As followers up Christ we are consistently supposed to do what is right, even when it may not line up with what we want to do, when it goes against what is considered the bare minimum, when the governing authority say's we don't really need to.

The apostles made it clear that there was a time to honor authority, but there was also a time to stand up, and many times in doing so, in standing up and living their lives for Christ they were not just persecuted by the governing authorities but in some cases executed.  Far from going meekly about their lives submitting to the authority they actively challenged it and stood against it when that authority was doing things that were contrary to what Jesus would do.

In many ways Right Wing Evangelicals have equated the republican party as a whole as the party of Christ.  To that end anyone they elect must be a Christian, and must by default be right.  I know that sounds simplistic, but the only answer I seem to get when bringing up my concerns about our president, and they are many, for our president's unflinching support from many who claim Christ, is that: "It's a big conspiracy," that the media is out to get Trump, that I didn't really hear or watch the the things that I heard and watched.  I have had my faith and profession called into question by a friend of a family in the church I grew up in simply because in that individuals mind, any true pastor would fall in line, vote Republican, push LGBT people out of the church, demand the de-funding of planned parenthood,  push for prayer in schools, and recognize that if America will just get back to God then suddenly it will be sunshine and unicorns.  The steel mills where I grew up will start up again, Detroit will start producing loads of gas guzzlers, and regulation of fossil fuels will disappear because face it climate change as we all know is bunk...I wish that is was just that person that thinks I'm past the point of what true faith is, but I know better.  As I read comments and see what people I grew up with are saying and how they are reacting to peoples very real concerns myself included I have realized something rather disturbing.  If that is what Christianity looks like, if those words, and those ideas, if this man is the person they want to anoint as the Christian choice for our country.  I don't want to be in the club...I'll turn in my card, and walk away from the entire system, because it doesn't fit...he doesn't fit.

Years ago Christians talked about the importance of the character of the people in office in our country.  They called the private lives of elected officials into the public, decrying past behavior and making it an important part of their ability to serve. All of that has gone out the window this time around.  Not only are the same people that called for impeachment, investigation, and imprisonment excusing the behavior, they actively stick their heads in the sand and ignore it.  Now the past should be left alone, who can really know what he was thinking, that's just locker room talk.  I get why people call so many christians in America out for their hypocrisy.  It's rampant.

I want a few things from President Trump.  I want him to succeed, but more than that, I want to see him come to a real, authentic, life altering faith in Christ.  Naive... of course it is but it's what I want.  It's what I have wanted for every President we have had since Reagan.   What I don't want is the de-funding of planned parenthood, the national endowment for the arts, the corporation for public broadcasting.  What I don't want is for my daughters and yours to have to worry that some idiot is going to act like this man has in his past, treating women disrespectfully  and talking down to them. What I don't want is for my black friends to be pushed and pushed and pushed into molds that they don't fit.  What I don't want is some big wall to our South and North, because remember not only do walls keep people out, they trap people in.  I don't want some vaccineaphobes kid to be in the same class as my daughters, exposing them and others to needless disease, but more important exposing people with compromised immune systems to danger.  I don't want my kids and grand kids to be the ones stuck with a world that has been used and used and used and used with no regard to what that use is doing to God's creation.  I don't want to be told how and who I can worship, which means I don't want us telling others how and who they can worship. I don't want to ostracize people who look, sound, believe, and love differently than I do, I don't want to put myself in a place to make decisions for a woman that I don't know, will never meet, and have no idea the situation she is in, because the moment I make rules or strike down rules that effect their freedom, I am removing my own freedom as well.

I will be praying every day not just for our President but for every leader that sits in Washington.  This I can and will do.  But I will also bee looking for ways to be Jesus with skin to those that are afraid, disenfranchised, and ignored.  I will take the opportunities that are afforded to stand with them, to be a voice that advocates for them. To call out our leaders if need be.

Being a Christ Follower has never been easy...if you find it so then you're doing it wrong.