Persecution Chic

It's an unexamined article of faith (literally) for most "Evangelicals" that they will be persecuted.  And we know Jesus did promise many times that those who follow Him will be persecuted (Matthew 10:16-23, for example: verified in II Timothy 3:12, and elsewhere).

It seems one of those true teachings of Jesus that we like to hear backwards: from our end of His teaching.  Jesus says His followers will be persecuted.  We hear instead that persecution proves we are Jesus' followers...glorifying us.

If Jesus' teaching worked the backwards way we want to hear it, the greatest Christians in America the last two centuries were the early Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses in World War I, and Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church today.  Persecution does not prove who is Jesus' true follower.

It's pride that we hear Jesus that way, of course.  Who wouldn't be proud of being persecuted, if persecution proves you are following Jesus ?

Self-deception is also necessarily involved, enabling pride.  Any human being convinced he has anything in himself to be proud of has to overlook a lot of contrary evidence.  But self-deception can make that evidence disappear, or minimize it sufficiently to let us convince ourselves we are a "good" person.

That judgement is God's alone: and His judgement is the only one that actually matters.  But self-deception, well- and long-practiced, can even satisfy us we meet God's standard.  And how much more could we convince ourselves it's so, than if we are being persecuted, as Jesus said His followers would be ?

There's consequently a kind of "persecution chic" among Evangelicals: a desire to be persecuted, and a desire to be seen as persecuted.  Why wouldn't there be ?  It plays exactly to our cherished pride and self-deception.  It "baptizes" pride and self-deception as adjuncts of our Christianity...rather than treating them as enemies that must be painfully and radically eradicated from our hearts.

Ordinary American Christians...to this point...have always had incredibly easy faith-lives: there's very little actual persecution anyone can point to.  But the "fake news" technique works for persecution the same way it works for event-Truth  and scripture-Truth: it can be manufactured by interpretation.

Philippians 1:15 attests that there have always been some "preaching Christ even from envy and strife."  There are still Christians who are obnoxious jerks (my observation is that their flawed lives usually go hand-in-hand with flawed doctrine).  And I've heard more than a few of them boast of being persecuted for witnessing Christ.

I'm skeptical of that interpretation.  People usually hate obnoxious jerks because they're obnoxious jerks.

Lacking a personal persecution merit-badge, many ordinary American Christians have embraced the interpretational class-action persecution of a "War on Christmas."

And there actually are occasional instances of an obnoxious jerk, atheist or Jewish or Muslim, who makes a public cause of his outrage at the "Merry Christmas !" banner in the local public high school.  Even more, there's a perception that "political correctness" forbids saying "Merry Christmas."  "Perception," because I've seen no verifiable evidence that supports the belief "they won't let us say that anymore."  (But who needs evidence for their perception, when the lie has assured us every one of the past eight Christmases that President Obama's issued an executive order forbidding Americans to say "Merry Christmas.")

Pressed on what they've suffered from the "War on Christmas," most Christians will say they're persecuted in being denied their "religious rights."

Never mind that "Christmas" is not really, in any historical view, a Christian holiday.  Or that most American atheists and Jews (and even some acculturated Muslims) celebrate Christmas. Or that their sloganeering insistence that "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" shows deceived Christians realize Jesus is tangential to most Americans' perception of the holiday.

That "The War on Christmas" specifically targets Christians is questionable.  That it is "persecution" in any sense seems whining exaggeration, and nothing at all that Jesus meant by "persecution."  Has any American been tortured for celebrating Christmas, or ostracized by family and community ?  Has anyone been sentenced to jail, or to death, for saying "Merry Christmas" ?

And we'd be rightly skeptical that any such things could ever happen.  Society only persecutes those at odds with it.  Would an American actually be persecuted for celebrating Christmas, when America loves its Christmas ?


If the "persecution" of "The War on Christmas" comes down to Christians being denied their "freedom of religion:" did Jesus consider being denied our "rights" is "persecution" ?  Did He promise us "freedom of religion"...or was that the American constitution ?  Most importantly: did Jesus command us to "stand up for our rights" ?

It's a political matter, not a Christian one.  (And even as a political matter, only relevant to Christians of a single nation for the past couple centuries, not to the universal Body of Christ in all times and all nations.)  But "The War on Christmas" (and "political correctness" generally) has been a very successful political deception aimed at Christians, because it casts "our rights" as Jesus' teaching.  Most American Christians don't love Truth enough to notice the lie.

It succeeds because it plays to the spiritual pathology of American Christians' "persecution chic."  We have not suffered for Christ's sake: certainly not for speaking Truth, as He IS: but we can yet convince ourselves (or let political deceivers convince us) that "our rights" have been denied us.

Our "right" to say "Merry Christmas," for example.  And if an anecdotal someone, somewhere, is occasionally brave enough to say they find that greeting insensitive in some contexts, we can throw an angry "Merry Christmas !!" in their face to show we will not be denied our "rights."  But more importantly, we can be proud of being persecuted...exactly as Jesus said His true followers would be.

Like a Roaring Lion

Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.       --  I Peter 5:8, my emphasis

Like a roaring lion and a rushing bear Is a wicked ruler over a poor people.   --  Proverbs 28:15

There is a conspiracy of her prophets in her midst like a roaring lion tearing the prey. They have devoured lives; they have taken treasure and precious things; they have made many widows in the midst of her...Her princes within her are like wolves tearing the prey, by shedding blood and destroying lives in order to get dishonest gain. Her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord has not spoken.       --  Ezekiel 22:25, 27-28

Scripture characterizes the devil as "like a roaring lion."  That's also scripture's characterization of evil rulers, and of false prophets.  Both kinds of men share satan's own nature.

Revelation tells us satan will work his purposes in the end-times through an evil ruler supported by evil religious leaders: scripture's "roaring lions" colluding in their father's work.

These may or may not be the end-times.  But we know satan is working today, and should probably expect he's working the same way now that he has throughout history, and will in the end-times.

Plans for the inauguration a few days hence are that, when Donald Trump becomes our ruler, a set of his hand-picked "faith leaders" will be there to bless his presidency.

So be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Let those who have ears to hear, hear.

Disposable Jesus

Another relevant re-post from 2011.

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Stephen Prothero published a thoughtful blog on our culture's "disposable Jesus."

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/11/my-take-poll-on-bin-ladens-death-reveals-a-disposable-jesus/?hpt=C2

One of his examples is the "Golden Rule:" most Americans say they believe we should treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves (though that's not just a Christian teaching).  Even when specifically applied, a small majority agreed that we should not do anything to enemies that we would not want done to American soldiers.

But less than half of white evangelicals agreed to that belief.  "In other words," observes Prothero, for a majority of white evangelicals, "when Jesus said, 'So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets' (Matthew 7:12), He didn’t really mean 'everything.'  He thought there should be an exception in the case of waterboarding your enemies."

This is what Prothero calls our "disposable Jesus:" the operative attitude that Jesus is not so much the sovereign Head of the Church as a useful pawn for OUR opinions...and can be ignored when He contradicts them.  I'd add that this attitude also manifests itself in the treatment of truth (who Jesus said He IS), particularly among followers of the politicized Church.

I have limited interest in heresy-hunting, and the conspiracy-mindedness that goes with it.  Heresies and conspiracies are certainly both "out there."   But time spent searching them out seems to me a complete waste, and conspiracy-mindedness is forbidden to us (Isaiah 8).

I doubt that conspiracies, even those which are real (most aren't), mislead and destroy anywhere near as many Christians as does "disposable Jesus" thinking.

It's again a question of thinking in Kingdom terms.  In the Kingdom, the King's word is law.

Amen !!

Where We Shop

Chuck Colson's remarks about Ayn Rand raise a question.

I'm appalled at where many Christians "shop" for ideas.  We have Jesus' Own endorsement of scripture: that God's word is truth (John 17:17).

. . . Why would CHRISTIANS shop anywhere else ?

Yet many "Christian" websites and e-mails endorse and promote ideas from controversialist and partisan sources.  The general run of "Christian" information pressed on me daily as "the Christian view" traces back not to the Bible, but to Ayn Rand, Glenn Beck, Fox News, WorldNetDaily, Rush Limbaugh, Breitbart News, anonymous "conservative" bloggers, and even less Godly sources (if such a thing can be imagined).

In the nature of our form of government...more importantly, in the nature of spiritual warfare...it's a given that manipulative lies will exist.  In the nature of mankind, there will always be those who CHOOSE to believe and promote such lies.

The question is why so many CHRISTIANS are among them ?

Ultimately, the only answer is because they choose to.  Receiving "the love of the truth so as to be saved" (II Thessalonians 2:10) is a choice.

When we want shoes, we go to a shoe-store.  We go to a candy-store when we've decided we want to buy candy.  We shop in a place where we can find what it is we want to buy.

Christians who "shop" for their operative ideas someplace else than the Bible show they're not really looking for Truth.   When they CHOOSE instead to browse the shelves in places where lies are sold, it's because they want to buy lies.  They will find what they are looking for, and they will "buy" it.

God guarantees so: "For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false..." (II Thessalonians 2:11)

Chuck Colson on Ayn Rand

The next two posts are from a former blog.  Posted in 2011, they still seem relevant today.

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Several years ago, Chuck Colson was already warning about the attack on Christianity in America represented by "conservative" leaders' embrace of Ayn Rand's "philosophy:" a warning he posted on a hard-core "conservative" website. That attack continues: most recently embodied in the 2012 budget formulated by Representative Paul Ryan, an avid follower of Rand's ideas.  Ronald Reagan, the "conservative" idol, also testified to Rand's influence on his thinking, as have many other "conservative" leaders.

Colson's remarks are worth re-reading.

http://townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/2007/10/16/the_legacy_of_ayn_rand/page/full/

"In his new memoir, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan reminds us that author Ayn Rand is still influencing the world. He credits her with turning him into something more than a 'math junkie.'

"Greenspan is not alone. A 1991 Book-of-the-Month Club and Library of Congress survey asked members which book had most influenced their lives. As expected, the Bible finished first. Unexpectedly, Rand’s most famous book, the novel Atlas Shrugged, finished second.

"Fifty years after its publication and 25 years after Rand’s death, Atlas Shrugged is still read everywhere from college campuses to Wall Street. Given its popularity and its impact, Christians ought to be acquainted with Rand’s work and, especially, her worldview.

"As theologian John Piper puts it, Rand’s work manifests a 'complete rejection of a divine or supernatural dimension to reality.' The absence of God causes Rand to get human nature wrong as well.

"In Atlas Shrugged and her other writings, Rand articulated a philosophy she called 'objectivism.' Among other things, objectivism teaches that man’s 'highest value' and 'moral purpose' is his own happiness.

"By 'happiness' Rand meant 'rational self-interest.' For her, 'virtue' consisted of doing what 'secured' your life and well-being.

"Where did that leave altruism and self-sacrifice? As vices. For Rand, altruism and self-sacrifice represented a betrayal of what should be a person’s 'highest values,' that is, his life and well-being. Similarly, justice would be possible only where you never sought for nor granted unearned or undeserved results, 'neither in matter nor in spirit . . .'

"But without altruism and self-sacrifice, how do people relate to one another? Ayn Rand says through exchanges that promote mutual advantage, what she called a 'trade.' In other words, as if each of the parties were businesses, not people.

"Rand’s inversion of biblical norms had predictable results: Scott Ryan, who wrote a book on Rand’s philosophy, called objectivism a 'psychologically totalitarian personality cult that allowed Rand . . . to exercise personal power over [her] unwitting victims.' He cites, for example, the way she manipulated 'her own unemployed and dependent husband' to get him to agree for her to have 'an adulterous sexual affair.'

"We’re not talking here about personal flaws or merely human weaknesses. As Ryan puts it, these abuses are 'demonstrably connected to Rand’s own "philosophical" premises'—that is, her worldview.

"Rand and her followers, you see, lived in a way consistent with her worldview. But you can hardly regard a philosophy that exalts selfishness and condemns altruism as the basis for a good society.

"That’s why it is so important for us as Christians to understand our Christian worldview and to be able to contend for it, because it gets God right, and it gets human nature right, as well. You can find that worldview in the one book that out-ranked Atlas Shrugged."

For the Non-Spiritual

I've been entirely one-sided in my comments.  I've thought of my audience...admittedly a very, very tiny audience...as people who know scripture, and listen to hear the Spirit.  So I haven't tried to address any others.

But that's not God's way.  He sends rain on the just and the unjust.  He sent His Truth into the world, to rub shoulders with the righteous and unrighteous.

He acts that way in mercy.  In the world as He's created it, the unjust can't live without rain.  Even those who love lies want their car-mechanic to tell them the truth when he says he repaired those dangerous brakes; and the doctor, when he says there's no cancer.

God puts "clues" out there, even for those who don't read scripture, or listen to the Spirit.  Reality itself reflects Him, in ordinary experience, to those who will pay attention to His "clues:" even if we want to believe those are "natural," or "secular."

So this post is addressed to the Non-Spiritual, especially the Christians among them.  This is one of God's "secular" clues to you:

what did you expect from a sleazy New York businessman ?

Who We Worship

He's all-knowing and all-wise.

He says what will happen, and it happens because He says so.

His enemies are absolute evil.

He alone rules.

Everything that exists relates solely to Him.


I'm talking about God.

Any similarity to the man entering the White House is entirely in his own mind.

Everything I Know: God

The start of a new year is a good time to take personal stock: especially a new year bringing as many spiritual dangers as this one.  It's what Christians are commanded to do:  check ourselves to make sure we are "in the faith" (II Corinthians 13:5), and that our works show it (Galatians 6:4).
 

So what do I really know in 2017 ?

I know this much: God is sovereign.  He rules over all things.  I don't have a quick verse of scripture that says exactly that...all scripture says exactly that.  All creation says exactly that.  All experience says exactly that.

God's sovereignty grounds all creation and experience in its definitive and defining relationship: all things in heaven and earth are subject to Him.  God's supreme and unchanging I AM opens to us what reality truly IS.  So I understand Psalm 111:10, that "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

The first wisdom we learn is how infinitely little we know.  How could we not, when God is the Teacher ?  But we have His promise we only need ask Him, trusting He is "in charge" (James 1:5,6).

Trusting too in His goodness.  Wisdom is more than what we know; wisdom is a moral quantity, "good" in the likeness of the One Who created it.  He is good to "give to all generously," life as well as wisdom.  "Good" would hardly seem a strong enough word: but it's the word Jesus attested describes God, and God Alone (Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19).

God alone is good.  God alone is wise.  God alone rules, in goodness and wisdom.  He is absolute and entire (the Biblical word for which is "perfect"), nothing less nor other than Who He IS.  Everything He touches, shows it: and everything shows more than His "touch:"  everything shows the infinitely wise and good craft of it's Maker.

A Scripture for This New Year

And He was also saying to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘A shower is coming,’ and so it turns out.

 

And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, ‘It will be a hot day,’ and it turns out that way.

 

You hypocrites !  You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time ?

 

And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right ?"  (Luke 12:54-57)

 

 

Jesus' words seem especially significant this year, when we're told that lies and unrighteousness will "make America great again."

 

God says unrighteousness will never produce good results.

 

 

Please join me this year in heeding what Jesus says:

 

"...analyze this present time."

 

"...judge what is right."

Revelation: Skepticism is wisdom

God hasn't given me permission to study Revelation for some years.  Quite a difference from when I was a "notional Christian" (in Barna's wonderful descriptor): back then, Revelation was the only part of the Bible I really cared about and studied.

Partly that was because my family loved to talk Revelation.  When we got together, we swapped and argued new interpretations of Revelation we'd heard or read.  Revelation was always the most interesting, exciting, and important thing God had said.

But it's not just Christians ("notional" or otherwise) who want to understand what the Bible says about the last days.  That desire seems widespread in our culture.  It's probably not just sales to Christians that put Hal Lindsey's books, or the "Left Behind" series, on secular best-seller lists.

God hasn't given me permission, or the insight, to read Revelation for some years.  I'm sure He will at the right time.  'Til then, one more theory about the events and players of the end-times won't be missed.

But until He gives me the Spirit's wisdom to understand Revelation, God has given me the wisdom of skepticism toward the thousands of interpretations that exist.

Revelation deals with end-time spiritual and political events and personages through intensely obscure imagery.  So the book is an open invitation to anyone confident in his own cleverness, to "discover" the hidden meaning he wants to find.  Deception (starting with self-deception) is virtually guaranteed any "interpreter" who comes to Revelation with his own religious or political axe to grind: and most do. 

Traditional interpretations especially have to be tested.  Interpretations of Revelation by Protestants (the branch of Christianity from which most end-time speculation comes) virtually all identify the major end-time personage, Revelation 17's woman seated on "seven mountains" (sometimes incorrectly translated "seven hills"), as the Catholic Church.  This interpretation has come down to us from the first Reformers, and has 500 years of tradition behind it.  But there's good reason to suspect their interpretation may not be based entirely on objective hermeneutic principles.

In outline, the standard Protestant interpretation is that the woman, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH,” is the end-time religious deceiver, and persecutor of true Christians ("drunk with the blood of the saints").  That's a valid reading, as far it goes.  And the Reformers undoubtedly saw themselves as the "true Christians" of that scripture (don't we all ?) in their battle against the corrupt Medieval Papacy.  That too was probably valid in their time.

Taking that interpretation beyond those two facts, however, we run into problems.

The woman is seated on the Beast which has seven heads.  Scripture specifically says interpretive "wisdom" is that the seven heads are "seven mountains."  Rome was traditionally built on seven "hills:" and that was close enough for the Reformers to identify the woman in Revelation 17 as the ROMAN Catholic Church: as most Protestant interpretations still do.

One problem of that interpretation (leaving aside the possibly-significant distinction between "mountain" and "hill") is that other cities of the New Testament Mediterranean world were known as cities built on seven mountains or hills: Athens, for example, and Jerusalem (Mount Scopus, the Mount of Olives, and Mount Zion: Old and New: among them).

Or if Rome is the city indicated in Revelation 17, there's a  problem for contemporary interpretation that Rome is also the "seat" of other world geo-political entities: the government of Italy, for example, or the "global think-tank" Club of Rome (prominent in many "New World Order" conspiracy-theories).  If either became more instrumental in persecuting true Christians in the still-future end-time God's describing: as either could: they might well be viable possible identities for the woman of Revelation 17.

For contemporary interpretation, there's also the problem that other world cities built on seven mountains or hills are centers of false spirituality.  Tirumala, India, for example, home of Vishnu's Temple of the Seven Hills, which claims to be "the most active place of worship in the world."  Even San Francisco, another city traditionally on seven hills, could be said in some ways to have a false spirituality "footprint."

There are additional reasons to be skeptical of the "Harlot = Catholic Church" interpretation.  The Vatican Hill where the Catholic Church is headquartered is not one of the traditional seven hills of Rome; and is, in fact, on the other side of the Tiber from those seven hills.  Rome was, at the time of Revelation's composition, the city of Imperial political power; and a religious center only secondarily.  Rome was certainly not identified with the Catholic Church, which didn't yet exist.

The standard "Evangelical" interpretation also fails to tell us how the seven heads which are seven hills are also seven kings (as are the 10 "horns" of the Beast on which the Harlot is seated); or about what it means that she is also said to be seated "on many waters."  A coherent working interpretation should consist of more than a single equivalence isolated from everything else in its context.

Especially when that single equivalence is itself questionable.  The certain identification is scripture's: the woman of Revelation 17:5 bears an inscription that identifies her as "BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH."  Revelation 14:8, 16:9, 18:2, 18:10, and 18:21 repeat that identification, as "Babylon the great," "the great city, Babylon" and "Babylon, the great city."
  
Revelation unmistakably identitfies "the great city" as "Babylon."   That is the understanding in which we must take the additional references to "the great city" in Revelation 16:19, 17:18, 18:16, 18:18,  and 18:19 (and indeed, the context of each of those verses show they likewise refer to "Babylon").  Revelation is thoroughly consistent in naming "Babylon" as "the great city."

It therefore seems honest interpretation to understand Revelation 11:8's reference to "the great city" as also denoting "Babylon."  The bodies of Christ's two great end-time witnesses "...will lie in the street of the great city...where also their Lord was crucified."  Knowing Christ was crucified in Jerusalem (another city seated on seven mountains) should give us pause in accepting the standard "Evangelical" interpretation that Rome is Revelation's "Babylon."

God hasn't given me Spiritual insight sufficient to say the woman of Revelation 17 is not the Catholic Church.  That may even be the true interpretation, exactly what God desires we understand from those verses. But He's given me skepticism about that interpretation, sufficient to keep me from the presumptuousness of certainty, until the Spirit speaks.

If He wants me to know who's who in Revelation, He'll show me, at the time He chooses.  My job 'til then is to listen: and to test what I hear.

Amen.