Why No Repentance ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It seems a valid question: why is there not a wave of repentance sweeping over the American Church ?

Some 80% of American "Evangelicals" voted for Donald Trump.  That's tens of millions of professed Christians.  Their votes were the margin by which Donald Trump became president.

Yet there are virtually no American "Evangelicals" confessing their sin to God, and asking for forgiveness.  I can only think of two reasons.

That American "Evangelicals" and "conservatives" think the president they chose for America is doing good for our country and people.

I've heard some delusional people say that.  But I doubt anyone with commonsense and a basic moral concept of "good"...which should include most Christians...could say so.

Or perhaps pro-Trump "Evangelicals" don't really believe Jesus is Lord of their political opinions and actions; that politics is somehow the one human activity exempt from His moral law and judgement of good and evil.

If "Evangelicals" believe that...how are they Christians at all ?

Why are there not millions of American "Evangelicals" bitterly repenting before God ?  The only reasons I can see are self-delusion, or unbelief.

Which, if either, is more "Christian" ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Faith Without Works Is Dead:

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I think it's self-proclaimed "Calvinists" who get rabid about faith being more central to Christianity than "works."  What I've read of John Calvin's Institutes, he seems much truer to scripture than those who call their teachings with his name.

But it raises the question why some self-identify pre-eminently as followers of a particular man's interpretation of Christ's teachings.  Doing so seems to effectually make "their" man's interpretation of greater importance than Christ's teaching.  I have to think that's exactly the sort of thing Jesus had in mind when he rebuked His listeners for following the "traditions of men" (for example in Mark 7:8, where He calls them "hypocrites" for doing so).  What is more a "tradition of men" than interpretations identified by mens' names ?

It's certainly not just "Calvinists" who fall into that trap.  Wesleyans are another example; who, if I remember right, are either strongly pro-Arminian or strongly anti-Arminian...and so position themselves as a second-generation human-interpreter doctrine.  There are others: and the map of such doctrines seems too tangled to make any sense of whatever.

Needless to say, controversies about those doctrines give satan tremendous opportunities to divide Christians, and set them at their brother' throats.  Satan doesn't miss the opportunity

But for anyone who becomes apoplectic at the title of this blog (probably chip-on-the-shoulder "Calvinists"), I'll just point out those words are taken from James' discussion of faith and works.  Dogmatic controversialists can (and do) work their heuristic sophistry on James 3:14-26 to "prove" that James meant the opposite of what his words say.  But I'm quoting his words because they seem to me to mean exactly what they say.

I quote James because I've been reading Jimmy Carter's most recent book, Faith, and one of his early chapters is "Demonstrating Our Faith."  His discussion of "faith" and "works" seems scriptural, and not at all about the supposed controversy.

Indeed, everything Carter has to say seems informed by his life of commonsense Christianity.  His life is what makes his words worth listening to; and no doubt some who read his book because they admire his life will gain insight into the faith he lives.

For most convinced Christians, what he says about faith is probably preaching to the choir.  But some of the quotations he uses to open each chapter contain striking insights.  Those he used for the chapter "Demonstrating Our Faith" particularly struck me.

Emil Brunner sums up James 3:14-26 better than anything I've ever read or heard: “There is no such thing as Christian faith apart from Christian conduct.”   Faith is real-world stuff: it's what we do, not a theological construct for controversialists in-fighting.

Karl Barth too put James' truth in terms of everyday reality: “You should read the Bible in one hand and your newspaper in the other.”  Faith is what we do in terms of daily reality.

I've said it before, many different ways.  I say it here in terms of living faith manifest in Christian conduct.  In 2018 America, there is a very prominent anti-"Church," a faithless body.  A body of people who claim to love Jesus, "The Truth," but instinctively follow and revere the lies of their politics and nationalism.

May God open their eyes.  And may they choose to see, when He does.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Oddly Enough . . .

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Oddly enough...as I've been recently pondering what it means to be a "Christian blogger"...it seems the majority of people find it strange (indeed, alarming) that anyone would say, "I hear God speak."

That's probably understandable from secular people.  From what I've heard them say or write, most thoroughgoing secularists are pretty skeptical that God (if He really exists) actually says anything to human beings.  Even casual unbelievers somewhat aware the Bible is supposed to be God's word (including many average "church-goers"), don't really believe God has anything to say that is personally and universally relevant, immediate, and powerful.

The fact is most people, professed atheists as well as professed Christians, really don't believe God's word is a living word to human beings.

So neither group is comfortable hearing that God's word is so alive it can be heard, in or out of the scriptures, by anyone who will listen for it.  Hardcore secularists find that idea nonsense: indeed, evidence of mental defect.  Their unbelieving cousins in the church probably think it theoretically possible: but really only possible for, and really only the business of, missionaries and preachers...the professionals.

And it's not rare that church-goers, clergy and laypeople, react with anger as well as skepticism to anyone saying "I hear God speak."  Saying so is often considered hubris, and the natural reaction is  "who do you think you are !?!"  (Jesus got this unbelieving reaction from the people of his home-town when He taught there, Mark 6:1-5.)  The corollary thought...man being the jealously self-interested creature he is...is "do you you think you're better than we are !?!? "

It's a very natural, and completely wrong, reaction.  Hearing from God has nothing to do with hubris.  Indeed, the proud are the very people who will not hear from God (by their choice): He says He is far from the proud...He says He gives grace only to the humble (James 4:6, I Peter 5:5).

If this were more than a quick lunchtime post, I'd search out, and ponder, and write about the scriptures where God says His people, all His people, should hear His voice, and should expect to hear His voice.  I'd quote all the scriptures that tell us hearing God should be our standard, ordinary, walk with Him, daily, and hourly.

I don't right now have the time or tools for that kind of in-depth study: and hope the reader will.  Suffice it to say, it is the Bible's teaching that we should all hear God speak to us (and if the reader disagrees, all the more reason to minutely search the scriptures on this question...and please correct me if I've misstated God's command).

So I say, I hear God speak.

Unbelieving secularists can take that as evidence of mental instability: unbelieving "Christians" are welcome to take it as vaunting pride.  Their reactions say more about where their heart is than about mine.

Saying I hear from God is my affirmation that God tells His people to listen to Him; so I do.  God says those who listen will hear Him.  I affirm that what God says is so in my experience.  I affirm that God is true to His word

I hear God speak.  I affirm that all who love God will obey Him, and all who obey Him will hear Him.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Rob Schenck, "Costly Grace:" The Conversion of an "Evangelical" Activist

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio's award-winning "Fresh Air," yesterday talked to Rev. Rob Schenck about his new memoir, "Costly Grace: An Evangelical Minister's Rediscovery of Faith, Hope, and Love."  Schenck reflected on what he calls his three conversions: from Judaism to Christianity, from a Christian missionary to an "Evangelical" activist, and from a Reagan "Evangelical" to a minister of the inclusive grace of Christ.

Schenck talked about his 25 years in the most militant and violent wing of "Evangelicism."  His beliefs and actions at that period were, he said, a result of his embrace of  "...what I now call Ronald Reagan Republican Religion, which is distinctly different from Christianity, and, over time, became very narrow and very contemptuous of other people - and very self-righteous, very self-affirming at the expense of others. And I spent a long time there."

Schenck's view of today's "Evangelical" movement deserves to be quoted in full:

[Political involvement] "...has compromised our spiritual and moral integrity. In fact, I entitled my chapter on Donald Trump 'Donald Trump and the Moral Collapse of American Evangelicalism.' I think it's a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. And I think it may lead to the demise of American evangelicalism as we have known it. But my hopeful thought in that - that as the phoenix arises out of the ashes, so a new evangelicalism will emerge mostly led by a new, younger generation of evangelicals that are truer to the faith that is at the center of evangelicalism."

The mp3 of that interview at https://www.npr.org/2018/07/11/628000131/once-militantly-anti-abortion-evangelical-minister-now-lives-with-regret is "temporarily unavailable."  A transcript of Schenck's interview can be read at: https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=628000131.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

"Political Correctness" I

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

One of the mindsets that has grown up with...or rather, degenerated with...today's "conservatism" is hatred of "political correctness."  By that term, the opponents of "p.c." mean the social viewpoint and responses that we're all supposed to subscribe to, and operate by.

That its opponents choose to cal it "political correctness" says a great deal about where they're coming from.  Instruments of social control...which is what they mean by their use of that term...can certainly be political:  especially if they are embodied in law, and subject to political debate.  

In that sense, the civil-rights laws of the 1960s making it illegal to deny a job, or refuse to rent to, or deny restaurant-service to, black people were quintessentially "p.c."  They may indeed be where the idea of "political correctness," and opposition to it, originated.  Civil Rights law is most certainly an instrument of social control.

Following the Civil Rights era, many Americans were doubtless over-sensitive that their words and actions not offend other people, especially "minority" people.  Not just black people: native people, handicapped people, oriental people, mentally-ill people...the list is endless.  Of course "endless:" if society is broken down into its constituent parts (a favorite ploy of politicians), we are each some kind of "minority."

That was the jumping-off point for many hate-groups, like the "White Power" movement.  Their claim was that if black people deserved "special" treatment because of their race, so did white people.  It's a typical operative "principle" of such movements to claim they stand up for the "rights" of some (in their eyes) unjustly-downtrodden "minority."  Telling people their "rights" are being denied them is a guaranteed way to generate anger: and anger always produces hatred: and, when you make enough people hate, you can gather a hate-group.

Though not all poltical movements or parties are hate-groups, the "White Power" people illustrate another "principle" by which politics operates.  Politics is not an endeavor in which deep and honest thought is required, or rewarded.  So it's always easy to create a "movement" or "party" among the thoughtless, simply by reversing, or opposing, or denying some accepted verity in society.

That's largely the origin of today's Reaganite "conservatives," whose (notably-shallow) demi-god told them that "government is the PROBLEM" ...in reversal of, opposition to, and denial of the American operative verity that "the people" are the government; and the operative Biblical verity that government is "a minister of God" to do good for people (Romans 13:1-4).

The "anti-p.c." idea undoubtedly came into being that way.  At a time when Americans were especially sensitive, and some overly-sensitive, to not offending others, it was easy...indeed, inevitable...that some people would react against, and reverse, and oppose, the idea that people should be sensitive toward each other.

In the lower middle-class mixed-race and -ethnicity neighborhood where I grew up, my mother taught me it was rude (and the hint was, low-class) to call neighbors "dagos" or "wops, "niggers," "spics," "kikes," or "polocks."

In practice, it was usually no big deal among friends: "ethnic" guys just took it as a friendly joke.  Guys from the Ozarks weren't offended or angry to be called "hillbilly" by friends.  But in the Civil Rights era, on TV, we saw angry southerners cursing "niggers" or assaulting "niggers" often enough to know that was an intentionally, violent and hurtful epithet: we never would have said it to a black person.

And my mother was right.  Treating people with contempt, deliberately "hurting their feelings," is simply the wrong way to treat people.  Not because my mother said so: because Jesus said so.

What has always struck me about the "anti-p.c." movement is that it ridicules the simple decency of treating people right: that it legitimizes treating other people contemptuously, because being sensitive to other people's feelings is "politically correct."  The problem is not that the "anti-p.c." movement views Jesus' teaching as "social control:" it is.  The problem is that "anti-p.c." teaches that social control is evil.

That's largely because haters of "political correctness" view it entirely as "liberal" social control.  We all know "conservatives," deep-thinkers that they are, think "liberal" means "evil," of course.  And there are historical reasons they do.

The Civil Rights movement in which "political correctness" had its origins was a "liberal" movement: those who opposed it did so on the "conservative" principle that government should not "intrude" in citizens' lives to tell them what to do.  That political "principle" of 1960s' segregationists (and of their Confederate ancestors) was the "conservative" one Ronald Reagan legitimized slightly over a decade later in his first inaugural speech, when he proclaimed that "government is the PROBLEM !"

In accord with that doctrine, Reaganism ever since has sought to "de-regulate" governmental control of society: never mind that that is the job of government, and one of God's mandates to human "authorities" in Romans 13:1-4. 

And when Reaganism also renounced the principle that American government expresses the will of "the people," what could be more intrusive social control than "problem" outsider-government telling citizens how to treat each other: with Civil Rights laws, for example, embodying societal "political correctness" ?

That's the conservatives' " nightmare, which always sends them into hysteria about losing their "rights" when evil socialist government tells citizens what to do.

But to be honest about the matter, no one is more insistently "p.c." than "conservatives" themselves; no one more fearfully vigilant that everyone in their ranks rigorously conform with whatever is the current group-think.  "Conservatives," more than anyone else I know, delight in searching out and anathematizing each other for the least deviation from the party-line.

And having bought into the deception that "conservatism" is Christian, much of the American Church today likewise practices its own rigid "political correctness," with accent of the "political."  There are spiritual truths about Christians' politics, and the politicians they follow, that no one is ever supposed to speak in Church, or to the Church

The fact, for example, that the "conservative" politics most American Christians follow is a manifestation of the sin scripture calls "rebelliousness:" the stiff-necked autonomy ("self-law") that comes from a heart-attitude that "nobody tells me what to do."  The fact that, rather than their works of "Christan conservative" politics, God looks on the heart of American Christians.

Rebelliousness was satan's own original sin.  I have a hard time believing God is pleased when He finds it in the hearts of those who claim to be His people.

(To Be Continued)

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Resident Aliens

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.     (Romans 12:2)


No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.     (II Timothy 2:4)


Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.     (I Peter 2:11)


But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.     (Philippians 3:20)


The most basic operative fact of life for every believing Christian is that we are subjects of the King.  We live in His Kingdom.  Jesus said His Kingdom is not of this world...and therefore, He said, His servants don't do things the way the world does. (John 18:36)

It's a fact we have to keep in the forefront of our mind, because for our time on earth we live in enemy-occupied territory.  People do everything differently here, because the laws of their ruler are different than ours.  And his first law is that everybody do things his way.

For those of us who don't, and won't, it's an uncomfortable and dangerous place to live.  That's why Jesus' prayed for us:

"I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world."     (John 17:14-18)

It's no accident that we're here.  Jesus sent us here.  He doesn't ask the Father to take us away from here (I have to believe whatever Jesus asked the Father, would happen)...rather, He asks the Father to keep us in truth, while we live in this foreign kingdom that hates truth.

But some of those whom Jesus sent here have "assimilated."  That's what this foreign kingdom wants from us: we can always get comfortable with living here, and not be in any danger, if we'll just do things their way a little.  Especially if we'll just relax our insistence on truth a little.

Actually, the assimilationists tell us, we should relax a little, because if you squint hard enough the rulers of this kingdom could almost seem to be Christians.  And hasn't God blessed this kingdom more than any other nation: doesn't that prove He loves this nation, above every other ?  This is a Christian nation (if you squint really hard): why shouldn't we make ourselves at home, and do things the way the people here do ?

Since they believe here that "the people rule," why shouldn't we ?  And if we go along with them, we can take power and exercise power the way they do.  We can keep the Presidency, and the Congress, and the Supreme Court Christian, as they are today...and isn't that really what Jesus meant by "the Kingdom of God" ?

What most recommends doing it this nation's way is that the only alternative is living here as "resident aliens," people whose allegiance is to a different ruler and different laws than they have here.  If we do that, all we can expect is that the people we live among will fear, and hate, and mistreat us.

Jesus said so Himself.  But even if we didn't have His word for it, we've seen firsthand how this "Christian nation" treats its resident aliens.  Really, do we want that for ourselves ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

4th of July 2018

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

It's a bitter holiday, today.

It's America's great patriotic holiday.  I'm always skeptical of what commonly passes for "patriotism."  But this day is more bitter still.

Certainly there is such a thing as real patriotism: love for one's country.  Certainly God has created us capable of love, and commanded us to love.  In simple definition, God commands us to think the best of, desire the best for, and do the best for others, the same as we do for ourselves.  "Others" manifestly includes our countrymen, who are our nation: and, Jesus said, every person, of every other nation.

But we are temporally- and spatially-limited beings, and it's probably an in-born impulse to love first those closest to us, emotionally as well as physically.   Our family is usually both.  And we also usually find our first friends (with whom we are often bonded most closely throughout our lives) among those who live nearest to us.

There are many exceptions, of course.  We may have an unbreakable bond with family-members who live hundreds or thousands of miles from us.  And increasingly, in this digital world, we may form a strong friendship with people in other nations or continents, whom we've never physically met.  Even so, who we meet is (by definition) primarily a function of physical proximity; and those we meet are usually the people we come to know the best, and come to love.

Geography is not destiny: but it is a factor of destiny, as it is of love.  What happens to our neighborhood, or city, or state, to the nation and the world in which we live, happens to us.  The people are the place.  If they could, those who wish to destroy Aleppo would no doubt preserve its buildings and infrastructure.  Their horrific assault is on the people who are Aleppo.

As we do the family of which we find ourselves a part, we identify with the human geography into which we're born, and in which we live.  How could we not ?  The physical place we live, our family and our closest friends live.  We are, with them, in every real sense that "neighborhood," "city," or "state."  Our destiny and the destiny of all those we love is what happens to that place.  How can we not think the best of that place, desire the best for that place, and do the best for that place: how can we not love that place ?

I won't bother to contrast that genuine patriotism, "love of country," with the widespread false "patriotism" that pervades our society.  The latter is too familiar to need description, beyond saying its effects are always to harm a country, and ultimately destroy a country.

Should anyone need an example of false "patriotism," I can think of none in our recent national experience that has harmed our country more than Vietnam.  "Patriotism" is always used to sell war, and that was very much the case with Vietnam.  It was the standard "patriotic" argument of every war: if you love our country, you must love the war.

Never mind that Vietnam resulted in almost-unmitigated harm to America as a nation.  Death is always the major result of war, and hundreds of thousands of people died in Vietnam.  Presumably the fraction of those which were American deaths would not be considered good for America, even by "patriots" to whom only the American deaths matter.

Still worse was the harm done America's spirit.  Many citizens began, with Vietnam, to distrust and hate our government.  That mindset is still with us, and still working to destroy our country.

Hatred for authority, satan's own sin...which scripture condemns as "rebelliousness," and "lawlessness"...always destroys a people: as scripture likewise proclaims.  It gave rise in the 1960s to America's drug-culture, which is still doing us immense harm.

It is also the basis for the policy of "de-regulation," which began with the Reagan administration.  The President who characterized government as "the problem" of course rejected government's authority to regulate: even though scripture's mandate to human government was that it be "a minister of God" in punishing evil-doers (Romans 13:4).

Reagan's followers continue to this day "de-regulating" laws which formerly restrained powerful evil-doers (especially wealthy "business" evil-doers) from doing harm to America's people, environment, and economy.  The financial crisis of 2008 and the current destructive head of the Environmental Protection Agency* are examples of the harm we've suffered, and are still suffering, from the governmental lawlessness of "de-regulation."

The distinction between patriotism and "patriotism" is at root a moral one.  Patriotism desires and does what is good for our country: "patriotism" produces harm and destruction for our country.

It's an easy choice, for those who can...and will...discern between good and evil.  People who can't (even more, those who won't) are not patriots: are indeed incapable of patriotism.  But they can, and do, always avail themselves of the shallow "patriotism" by which the morally-blind, -foolish, and -deceived destroy themselves and their country.

America's tragedy is that so few...notably, even so few Christians...can (or will) discern between what is good for our country, and the harm done to America by deceivers whose lying "patriotic" slogan is that their evil will "Make America Great Again."

It's a bitter holiday.  Bitter that the "patriotism" most Americans celebrate today is the false one that does America deep and lasting harm, and leads America in evil ways.  Bitter to all who love America, seeing millions cheer that evil as America's "greatness"... knowing that God's sure promise is that He will destroy evil and evil-doers.

* Scott Pruitt, the corrupt and destructive head of the E.P.A., resigned July 5th 2018.

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Heart-Sick

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Church was hard to take this morning.

Everything was as good as usual; the music, the sermon, the presence of brothers and sisters whom I love and rejoice to worship with.  Everything was as I most hope and expect and thank God for.

But it was the patriotic "4th-of-July" service.  Canada Day, actually; but American Christianity owns the Sunday closest to the 4th, of course, no matter any other circumstances.

Today's service didn't trumpet America's glories, and our military "heroes," nearly as much as some have in the past.  Today's service was more as it should be, about worshipping God.  But that was what hit me hardest.

Our first praise-song was one we often sing, with the repeated refrain "because of Who You are."  It's a great song, affirming God's centrality in all the events of our lives.

Throughout the service, there were comparatively few and passing nods to America's greatness, and we only sang one "patriotic" song, "God Bless America," at the end of the service.

But that was what hit me extremely hard.  Because of Who He IS, how can God bless who America is ?  Can God bless pride and unrighteousness ?

My wife argued as we drove home that I was making it all about politics: and she certainly knows how I feel about politics.

But I can't agree.  If it is in people's hearts, the hearts especially of Christians, to accept and follow and promote the politics of lies and hatred, what is God's heart towards us asking and expecting Him to bless us ?