A friend was recently told by a pastor that she couldn’t become a member of my church unless she was baptized by immersion………she had been sprinkled……….. but sprinkling doesn’t count.

Another friend is gay………many churches are are not receptive to him.

Both of these things trouble me. In both cases the rules are pushing somebody away from Christ.

So…..I’ve been looking at the “rules”………and how we use them.

Arguing over the rules is a huge cause of strife. It is a source of divisiveness within the Christian faith. It is also at the heart of open hostility between Christians and the LGBT community. Arguably, it is one of the biggest problems that we, as Christians, face. It divides us internally. Even worse, it drives non-christians away from us…….away from God.

How do we, both Christians and non-Christians, handle this?

There are a great many rules/laws/ideas that we must deal with. They form a spectrum from foundational ideas that we cannot abandon or negotiate to ideas/rules that are meaningless today. We tend to draw lines dividing the list of rules/ideas into important ones that are non-negotiable, ones that we can discuss, and unimportant ones that we don’t worry too much about.

Let me begin by clarifying my perspective. I think that my job is to market Christianity to the unchurched. As such, I worry about any rule/idea that puts a wall between the seeker, the unchurched, the committed atheist, and God.

So…… what does this spectrum of ideas look like. Beginning with foundational/non-negotiable and going to unimportant.

God as creator
The divinity of Christ
The resurrection of Christ
The holy spirit lives in Christians
Salvation by grace
Love God/ Love your neighbor
The 10 commandments
Abortion is murder
Premarital sex is prohibited
Baptism must be by immersion
Male/Male and female/female sex is prohibited
Pornography is bad
Welcome the soujourner(immigrants)
Social security/ Medicare/Medicaid/welfare
Gun control
Legal recreational drugs(including alchohol)
Equality of the sexes
Things you cannot eat
Things you cannot wear
Things you cannot say
Places you cannot go
Don’t boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk (Exodus 23:19)

Please don’t complain about the list………it’s mine……..and it’s nowhere near complete. Furthermore, the details of the list are not the point.

How do we deal with the list? Pretty basic. We fight for the non-negotiable, we discuss the discussable and we ignore the unimportant. So far so good. So how do we get into so much trouble? We get into trouble when we draw the lines dividing up the list. We damn people to hell over this. We drive a wedge between God and the unchurched over this. And we allow ourselves to believe that we are better than the other guy……. because we have more rules on our “non-negotiable” list.

There has to be a better way.

I will focus on the line between non-negotiable and discussable, because this is where we get into the most trouble.

The free thinker, some would say liberal, might say that nothing is foundational/non-negotiable. The legalist, some world say conservative, might say it’s all non-negotiable.

It seems to me that where that line is drawn may be different for different people. FWIW……I have noticed an unmistakable trend. We all tend to draw the line so that the non-negotiable items do not interfere with the way that we want to live. This is either human nature or hypocrisy. The line also moves depending on where we are in our walk. A mature Christian may draw the line low on the list. A non-Christian or a new Christian might draw the line higher on the list.

As for me, I want as many people in paradise as possible. To alienate a non-Christian or even worse, a seeker over a discussable idea is self defeating. On the other hand, you can draw the line so high on the list that you stop being a Christian. “If you don’t stand for something……… you’ll fall for anything”.

I have come to the conclusion that where I draw the line should depend on who I’m dealing with and what I’m trying to accomplish.

As for my personal use…… today….. in this broken world……. with my limited perspective………. I will draw the line somewhere above many of the old testament household restrictions. In my dealings with others……especially with seekers…….I will draw the line just below “Love God/Love your neighbor “. Below this line I will not push the rules/ideas so hard as to alienate others. Below this line, my guideline will be relationship before rules…… love before legalism.

You will have to decide where to draw the line for yourself. In the end, we will get the answer……. to this delimma and many more……. straight from God.

But, the point here is this…… To beat somebody else up over a rule and in the process drive them away from God…….is not “winning” the argument.

Imagine a phone call from your child. As a parent, I’ve had a lot of these.

Here are 3 examples:

Dad, I really messed up. I went out after the game with some friends. We had some beers. As I was driving home I ran a light and hit another kid. I don’t know how he is. They took him in a helicopter. The car is totaled and they are putting me in a cruiser, they said I was DUI. Help me!

Dad, how are you? It’s Sunday and this is my weekly call. I’m fine and the kids are healthy. See you next week.

Dad, it’s been a wild week. We had a big problem at work. They told me to fix it……. and I did! They were so happy with me that I got a promotion and a raise. I want to thank you, because it was the things that you taught me and the example that you set that gave me the tools that I used to fix it. You’ve been a great father. Love ya’.

The relationship of a parent to his child is very much like the relationship between God and his children. This relationship is “written on our hearts”. When done well, the parent/child relationship is our best “window” into the heart of God.

Think of the 3 phone calls:

The first is a desperate cry for help. The second is a perfunctory “check the box” type call. The last is a call that didn’t have to be made. It is a grateful conversation between 2 friends.

Now….think of your conversations with God…….your prayers. We will all make call #1 and cry out in desperation from time to time. Unfortunately, many of us routinely make call #2…..a rote memorized prayer that requires no thought at all. For some of us, it is the only call we ever make. Call #3 is the real deal……a heartfelt conversation……it should be a daily thing. As a parent, imagine getting call #3. How great would that feel?

Think of these conversations from God’s side. He is going to field your desperate cry for help. He will listen to your mindless recitation and he’ll probably be just as bored with it as you are. But don’t you think he would love to hear from you when things are going great……..to hear a compliment and a thank you…….. to know that you value him and appreciate him………. his teaching, his example, and his leadership……….his gift of relationship?

God is not a sterile collection of rules, conditions, and punishments. He is your parent……….your Dad. He made you for one thing and one thing only……….relationship. We need to be sure that we are holding up our end.

I’m going to try to live my life as a grateful son……….to nurture and enjoy my relationship with my Dad.

I’m going to try to make call #3 a daily thing.

Eternity, Righteousness, & Perspective

Many of the problems people have with Christianity revolve around perspective.

We operate in a time perspective of about 80 years, give or take. God operates over eternity. When something bad happens today……..we get mad at God. Or, we say that we can’t believe in a god who would allow that. It was wrong, it hurts, and there is no remedy in our 80 years. And yet, God has promised to make it right……in his eternal time frame.

So, be patient…….trust that God will “fix” it…….but, on his schedule, not on yours.

We operate on a righteousness perspective that stretches from Adolf Hitler to mother Teresa. God operates on a vastly wider spectrum. It’s like the light spectrum. We see only visible light. But, there are vast frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that we cannot see. We look at the heroin addict shoplifting to feed her habit. We say, “I’m better than she is.” Well……..there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you probably are better, that is, more righteous, than she is. The bad news is that, on God’s spectrum of righteousness, the difference between you and her is of no consequence. “All have fallen short.”

Sooooo………

Never allow yourself the luxury of believing that, in any consequential way, you are better that the other guy……..because you aren’t.

A great deal of our confusion about God, flows from our assumption that God operates within the same limitations in time, space, and righteousness that we do. This is not the case.

Lord

Throughout eternity past, I was an idea in your mind.

For a brief span of a few decades you put me in this place to perform a task……..whether I accept it or not……. whether I accept you or not.

After that I return to you for eternity future……..one way or another.

Help me to keep an eternal perspective.

Help me to accept the fact that on your scale of righteousness, there is no meaningful difference between me and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Amen

First, let me be clear………I am not smarter than God. The fact is that I spend a lot of my time trying to understand my world and what is going on in it. To paraphrase a not so famous politician……….”my ignorance is encyclopedic”. But, at least I recognize my limitations.

What I’m angling toward is this: do you believe that you are smarter than God? Do you believe that we, as a species, are smarter than God? Don’t laugh yet……..If you believe that there is no God, then by default you are answering yes. If you find yourself saying……”I can’t believe that God would (fill in the blank)” then you are answering yes. If you are angry with God because of something that has happened to you or somebody close to you, then you are answering yes. If you reject “organized religion” then you are answering yes. If you believe in God but also believe in Darwin then you are saying yes…….by proxy.

One of my sons used to say that he was the smartest man alive. He was, in fact, very smart…….so smart that it was sometimes scary. He was, of course, wrong. However, just for the purposes of argument, let’s assume that he was right. Let’s go one more…….. let’s assume that you are as smart as he was.

How much, out of all that there is to know, do you have command of? If you are honest, you must say that you understand a tiny fraction of the universe. In reality, you rely on the understanding of others to extend your reach. This brings us to the next question.

How much, out of all that is out there, do we communally……..as a species…….know?

All of it………most of it………some of it………….or have we just scratched the surface. If you consider how much we learn each year……..if you look at the increasing pace of scientific discovery………you must conclude that there is a vast reservoir of knowledge that is beyond our current understanding. Either that or we will soon learn the last thing that is to be learned and our knowledge will be complete and perfect.

I’m asking you to place your personal knowledge and, as a species, our communal knowledge on a scale between hubris and humility. This is going to be hard. As humans, we like hubris a lot more than humility. Hubris is a lot more fun. Furthermore, and far more importantly, hubris allows us to do whatever we want. After all…….as smart as we are……we must be right……….right?

If you believe that we pretty much know it all, then you will no doubt find Darwin appealing. On the other hand, if you believe that we have just scratched the surface………. that we have the understanding of children…… then you are open to possibilities beyond what we, as a community, can explain…….today.

As I said at the top, I am not very confident that I have reached the highest levels of understanding. I am willing to accept that there are things that exist, that are completely beyond my comprehension, beyond our communal comprehension. As a corollary, I will not exclude the existence of God because I cannot see, touch, measure or understand him.

To reject God, you must believe that you are……. that we are…… close to the top of the scale of understanding. This, in spite of the fact that we, as a species, are well on our way to destroying this beautiful planet.

And that is a good working definition of hubris.