Filed under: Christian Living | Tags: Christianity, Modern Issues, Representatives
Lately I have begun performing experiments with Google, more specifically with Google News. Every now and then, I will go to the news search engine and enter the word “Christian,” just to see what articles it will find. To make the search more interesting, I perform my own person filter, and skip over all the articles that come from a Christian publication. I don’t perform this search to regularly, but I always seem to find something interesting when I do. Today I found a May 7th, 2006 article titled, “America, A Christian Nation?” in the “American Chronicle.” The author of the article was giving evidence for why America was never supposed to be and is not a Christian nation. The author gave quotes from the Barbary Treaties and Thomas Jefferson which clearly stated America is not a Christian nation.
It is not the particular article or even the idea that America was or was not founded upon Christian morals; it is the attitude behind the argument that troubles me. I’ve read many articles about removing the Ten Commandments from courthouses, “One nation under God” being in the Pledge of Allegiance, or “In God We Trust” being minted on our money, and through all of the debates it is not the laws in question that make me worried. Many Christians nowadays feel like we have to fight to assert our presence in the country or in the world, and agree with them. However, I do not think the battlefield is in the debate whether it is over church-state issues, abortion, same-sex marriages, or any of those issues. The issue is with the way we Christians are representing ourselves and essentially Christ to the world.
Let me first begin by discussing what the main ideas of Christianity are. First, and foremost we believe that Christ died for the sins of the world. Second, we believe that He has called us to a way of living that is higher than what the world has to offer. Thirdly, we believe that this life is better with Christ, and life after death (for those who believe) is an eternity to live with God. All of these things sound fantastic and to Christians it seems incomprehensible that people would want to believe anything different, but perhaps we lack perspective in that area. We need to see what the world sees when they view Christianity, the church, and Christians. If what we claim to believe is so amazingly good, how is it there are people who are vehemently opposed to what we are supposedly all about?
Let me give an example. A very good friend of mine, who just happens to be a homosexual, at my college once saw me coming back from a church event. In his own personal history, he has probably been burned by one of his friends who was a Christian or he has heard some famous Christian on TV say something hateful about how all gays are going to hell. Because of this past, my friend asked me, “How can you be part of such an ignorant, exclusive, judgmental group?” My friend has been personally condemned by the church, so of course he is going to have some major problems with the people who spit in his face. But we must also remember that everyone sees how Christians act. Even people who have not felt outright condemned by Christians are going to recognize when a group is being treated poorly, and they too are going to pass judgments about Christianity based on this information.
The majority of Christians will argue that this is not a fair way of judging the whole of Christianity because every follower of Christ does not act this way, and I agree with you. The problem is that the world we live in is not fair, so we have to try as hard as we can to get things right. It is easier to launch a preemptive strike on how people view the church than it is to change people’s minds who already have their stereotypes in place. Paul said, “For while I was with you I resolved to know nothing except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Corinthians 2:2)” As Christians we need to remember that though we preach Jesus, the body of Christ (the one that walked around Palestine 2,000 years ago) is not here on earth for people to see today. We, the church, are the Body of Christ. If people want to see Jesus, we at the very least are the rough sketches of Him.
Therefore, if we represent Christ here on earth, we should be doing the things He did, and living the way He did. People should be attracted to us like people were to Jesus. We often think that people in Israel followed Jesus because merely because His name was Jesus and that is what people did. Keep in mind that Jesus’ name was just another translation of the name Joshua. It was not a name that attracted the people, it was the person Himself. He made bold and sometimes downright outrageous statements, but he backed them up by living the perfect life. So much to the point that just from watching Jesus die, a Roman centurion said, “This man certainly was the Son of God!” One could argue, that Jesus was God; of course He was able to do such awesomely powerful and attractive things. But we must also remember that in John 14:12, Jesus promises us that “one who believes in me will also do the works that I am doing.” In fact, He tells us that such a person “will do even greater works than these.” In that passage Jesus was referring to the miraculous works that He had been performing, but surely if we can join in Christ with His miracles we can join with Him in our attractiveness to men.
My question is a very simple one. If Christianity is so great, then what have Christians done to make it so repulsive to much of the world? We could sit around and talk about how much the world resists Christianity and how they have evil hearts that hate God, but we really can do nothing about that. What we can do is change the way we live. If I say I am going to be a representative of Christ, I intend to do it wholeheartedly. We have a giant world to reach, but we have the truth, and it is going to set this place free. The world just does not know it yet, because they have not seen what freedom is. Let us show it to them.
I have now almost reached the end of my first year in college and thousands of memories are flowing through my mind about this year, and everything that has happened to bring me to where I am now. One memory that keeps sticking out in my mind is from last August when I said goodbye to my parents as they left to go back to Virginia after dropping me off in Arizona. I remember my mom crying, and at that moment, I must have been thinking, “Oh she always cries about everything.” However, I can now have a new understanding regarding that moment. Surely, God must regard our leaving Him with the same kind of brokenness, yet even greater.
I can picture God at the moment right after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and I can see His brokenness. First, He comes down and calls for them, but they hide from them. Then He they tell Him that they did the one thing He asked them not to do. He knew the consequences for their actions in fact he warned them already saying, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:17)” Things get so bad by this time God “was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (Genesis 6:6)” This seems like a completely horrible time to be alive in, but even then, God was in control. Part of Eden remains in us to this day and we cannot escape the longing for our paradise.
Authors, philosophers, poets, musicians, and artists have spoke of this emptiness for as long as we have observed the world. One of my favorite authors G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “We are homesick in our own homes.” We know what it is like to be lonely in a crowd; we look for fulfillment, but are never satisfied. Philosophers might suggest that we are looking for utopia, paradise, the Garden, but we do not merely desire a geographic location. Rather it is what was in that place, or better put, who was in that place. Genesis 3:8 tells us that Adam and Eve were able to hear, “the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” God is the occupant of our lost paradise.
As I read over the Genesis accounts of man being cast out of the Garden, I see that God does not seem remorseful. In fact, God does not even say goodbye. I would propose however, that God does not say goodbye because He knows that eviction from Eden is not the end of all things. Moreover, if you want to see how much God hated being separated from us you need only look at the life of Jesus. John 10:11 tells us, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Sticking with the shepherd imagery Jesus asks, “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? (Matthew 18:12)” The answer is yes, yes he does.
Take heart in knowing that while goodbyes are the hardest part, they only make reuniting even better. For this reason, Calvin referred to the Fall of Man as the “Happy Fall.” If we had not been cast out of the Garden, we would never have witnessed the grace and mercy that was shown at the cross. If we were never lost, we could never experience the joy of being found again. That is the reason for all of our longing. If we had been cast out of our paradise without any chance of returning there, we would eventually forget the place altogether. But instead, we now live in a foreign land and our hearts will not be satisfied until we reach our home country after death. We may have lost our paradise, but through Christ we may return there once again.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Courage, Injustice, Invisible Children, World Issues
Last night (April 29) I took part in a worldwide event called the Global Night Commute. The even was a unified movement to help raise awareness for the Invisible Children, the child refugees of Northern Uganda who live in fear of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a cultic militia who abducts and brainwashes children between the ages of five and twelve for use as sex slaves and child soldiers. In over 130 cities, internationally people walked to designated sites and slept outside to stand in support of the Invisible Children of Uganda who are forced to walk every night into city centers in an attempt to avoid capture. Last night I got very little sleep, but I had a lot of time to think about not only the commute and the plight of the refugees in Uganda, but also the world as a whole.
I stand in full support of the Invisible Children organization and their mission, but I also am fully aware that they are not the only people working to fight against injustice, poverty, hunger, disease, and all the other problems that face the world today. In fact, anytime I see or hear about what is going on in the world, I find myself overwhelmed by the problems, the pains, and most of all the urgent need for action. It would be easy to just say, “The world has too many problems for me to deal with,” and just do nothing, but I believe this is unacceptable. When I read Jesus’ words in Matthew 25:40 I feel called to action by His words when He says, “Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me. (NASB)” I feel that as a follower of Christ, I have no choice, but to make the plight of others my struggle as well.
To me the Bible is amazingly clear that we as Christians are not to stand idly by while the world deteriorates around us. The Apostle James tells us, “If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? (James 2:15-16)” I know that in my own selfish and lazy attitudes I would love to just say, “Yes I will commit to pray for those who need help around the world.” It is not that prayer is not needed (in fact I think it is needed more than we even know), but urgency and action are required to bring the change we wish to see. Jesus tells us that the second greatest commandment is to “Love your neighbor” (Matthew 22:39) and how can we do truly do that without sacrificing something? I believe love has a volitional component that is to say, true love requires a sacrifice. If a man vows to marry his wife, he shows his love to his wife by promising not to have any other wives. There is clearly a sacrifice made. Jesus tells us what the greatest sacrifice of love is in John 15:13 when He tells us, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
I could go on and on with Bible verses about how we are called to love, serve, and sacrifice, but the point is pretty clear. The question we now are forced to ask is, “What do we do now?” It is a very good question indeed. Volunteer to help serve food at a homeless shelter, commit to sponsor a child through WorldVision or some other child sponsorship agency, go visit elderly folks at nursing homes, help spread the word about the Invisible Children, the International Justice Mission, or donate blood. We have so much potential, so much money, and so much time, but we do so little with it all. We need to stop doing nothing and start doing something. Lately I have been thinking about what it truly means for Christians to be referred to as the Body of Christ. If our goal is to be as much like Jesus as possible then we need to try to serve like He served and love like He loved. Mother Teresa once said, “It is a kingly act to assist the fallen.” Luckily, for us, we have the most kingly example of all to follow, Jesus, the King of Kings himself.
Having said all this I will admit that I find myself often discouraged by how much work there is to be done, and how much trouble the world is in. But I take hope in one thing. It is not up to us to save the world, we are not the ones who have to do the work, but it is Christ in us. We are not the savior of the world, but we serve the One who is. It is not us to win the battle, but we sure as hell can try. We only follow behind the one who has already told us, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
