I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold, rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber! But the one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice. (John 10:1-5)
Jesus came to call his own sheep to follow him. He didn’t force people to follow him. He invited them to hear, to recognize his voice, and to follow him. There are times when he warned people of the consequences of rebelling against God and refusing to turn to God in repentance and faith, but he called his sheep to follow him. He was a shepherd over his own sheep, not a herder over someone else’s cattle. How did Jesus call his followers to influence the world? You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless. You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father. (Matt. 5:13-16) We influence the world by being who we are— not only as individual followers of Jesus, but most importantly, corporately, as the Church. Against the backdrop of an evil and corrupt world, Jesus came to show us a better way, and he established the Church as a community that would show the world a better way. We reject the ways of this world. We pledge our allegiance to a higher Authority, and we point the way to a greater Kingdom. By not making a lot of unnecessary noise but by living in the ways of God in Christlike humility, love, compassion, and servanthood, by learning to “esteem other better than themselves” (see Phil. 2:3), we point to a better way— God’s way— and “those who have ears to hear” (see Mark 4:9) will join themselves to the Lord, and to us, because they will hear the voice of God as they see the character of God demonstrated by the way we live as followers of Christ. Jesus never taught that we could change the world by jockeying for power, by use of violence, by fighting wars or by forcing compliance to God’s ways through political coercion. We cannot force our beliefs and values on others, whether by war or by the ballot box. Christian values and ethics and a Christian lifestyle must we freely chosen. Our task is to influence, to demonstrate, to pray— in short, to be the salt and light that Jesus has called us to be. The hard way is to quietly demonstrate the character of God through godly living. The easy way is to jump onto the military and political power-plays of our world. God calls us to the hard way, which is the path of greater resistance. When we find this path too difficult, we settle for the easy way, which gives us a sense of power and control, but “the end thereof are the ways of death” (see Proverbs 14:12). God does not honor the path of the pursuit of power through military and political conquest. God’s Kingdom will ultimately destroy the pursuit of power. God’s way is the surrender of power. It is the pursuit of humility and self-sacrificial servanthood. It is the rejection of military and political power-plays. It is dying to ourselves, surrendering our power, “that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in us” (see 2 Corinthians 2:14). So, we have the larger society, built on principles that do not honor God or the ways of God, and we have the Church, built on principles that are contrary to the kingdoms of this world. Here in the US, what happened is that the larger society became polarized. The Left and the Right got into a tug-of-war regarding who would control the nation. Tragically, Christians took sides. That was a huge mistake. May God forgive us. We took sides because the way of the pursuit of power is easier than the way of surrender of power. By siding with either side of the so-called “culture wars”, we abdicated the way of God. We chose the way of the earthly kingdoms; the very kingdoms that God will eventually abolish. We made the wrong decision. We “traded in our birthright for a bowl of stew” (see Genesis 25:34), and Heaven weeps. When will we ever learn that Jesus came to call his sheep to follow him, not to pass laws to force those who are not his sheep to live as though they were his sheep, against their will? If Jesus never told us to force Christian values onto the rest of the world through military or political conquest, what, then, if anything, is the role of the Christian in politics? To begin with, if we are to have any political involvement at all, we need to stop taking sides in the “culture wars”. We represent Christ, not the Left of the Right. Both the Left and the Right try to control the nation through political power-plays, but the Church should have no participation in these manipulative grasps for power. We must reject the pursuit of power. We must embrace the pursuit of servanthood, love, and Christlike compassion. The Bible does talk about spiritual warfare, but let’s not so easily identify God’s side with either the Left or with the Right. I believe that God is equally opposed to both. The enemy is not the Left. The enemy is not the Right. The enemy is satan. Our warfare is “not against flesh and blood” (see Ephesians 6:12). God has not called us to be arrogant culture warriors who are engaged in a vicious tug-of-war in order to gain control of the nation. We are called to be humble servants of Jesus who see through the errors and the evil that exist both on the Left and on the Right. We need to have the proper stance before we can be properly engaged. Once our proper stance has been established, then I think we need to consider two options: The Anabaptist option and the “common good” option. One option is to go in the direction of the Anabaptists and to limit or refrain from political involvement altogether. That is a valid option that needs prayerful consideration. The Anabaptists have a long history behind them, and we cannot dismiss this option too quickly. If the way of God is to influence the world by being salt and light, then it makes sense for followers of Jesus to totally avoid or at least drastically limit our involvement in the world’s power-plays, both military and political. Another option is to seek “common good” politics. According to this option, the purpose of politics is to promote the common good, not to take sides between the Left and Right. We will side with the Left when the Left promotes the common good. We will side with the Right when the right promotes the common good. We promote what is sometimes called the “Consistent Life Ethic”, which advocates pro-life positions from conception to death, or “from the womb to the tomb”. Here in the US, the American Solidarity Party represents such a position. Here’s my approach: The purpose of politics is to preserve life and to promote the common good. If Christians feel led by God to engage in political activity, then it should not be to promote the interests of the Left or of the Right or the Christians or of any other special interest group. It should promote the preservation of life and the common good. We have no business trying to build a “Christian America”. God never called us to such a task. Our task is to be salt and light, to demonstrate the character of God through a Christlike lifestyle and demeanor, and, if and when specifically called by God, to wade into the waters of political involvement cautiously, in an effort to preserve life and to promote the common good. Now let’s talk about the overturn of Roe v. Wade. The purpose of the overturn was to preserve human life. The purpose of Christian support for the overturn was not to advance the cause of the Right in the culture wars. Our goal in supporting the overturn of Roe v. Wade was simply to preserve the lives of babies who have not yet been born. We are moving in the wrong direction if we are now going to use this as a stepping-stone into more and more issues in an attempt to gain control of the country for the Right. That would be a huge mistake. Christians, beware, we dare not let satan lure us into his quest for power. We Christians have an Enemy who is a power monger, who wants to turn us into power mongers. Don’t go for the bait! Our Enemy knows that if he can lure us into his political power-play, the Church will cease to function as the salt and light that God has called us to be. We cannot be salt and light if we cave into the power-plays of this world, whether they be political or military. We disqualify ourselves as representatives of Jesus, we discredit the testimony of Jesus, we trash our credibility, and we drag the name of our precious Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the mud when we resort to the manipulative power tactics and the arrogant and fear-based political polarization of this world. We lose our hearing before the watching world. We become very poor ambassadors who tragically misrepresent the One whom we were called to represent. We dare not let his happen! Far too much damage has been done already. It’s time to do an about-face. Allowing the Enemy of our souls to drag us further into the mud will be allowing the name of Jesus to be dragged even further through the mud. We dare not let this happen. We need to turn around. We need to repent. Those of us who are Christians need to be much more careful about what we say and how we say it, for our sloppiness in communication, especially on social media, is leading to gross misinterpretation. For example, when women struggle with an unwanted pregnancy, they need to see Christians as compassionate followers of Jesus who will help them to care for the beautiful child whom we hope they will bring into the world, not as heartless culture warriors who want to use them as pawns in a political battle between Left and Right. When those who are struggling with same-sex attraction are struggling to make the right lifestyle decisions, they need to see Christians as compassionate fellow-strugglers who well help them to deal with their sinful tendencies, as we continue to deal with our own sinful tendencies. This is not what the watching world is seeing. God knows what is in our heart, but what is in our heart is not always accurately reflected in our words. It is the role of an ambassador to communicate effectively. It doesn’t work to say “God knows my heart even if I am being misunderstood by the watching world”. We need to communicate more effectively with and before the watching world so that we will make ourselves understood. We need to be very careful about our “battle” terminology. We are forgiven sinners who sometimes continue to struggle with our sinful tendencies, and we are inviting other sinners to join us in experiencing God’s forgiveness and entering into a relationship with God that will change us forever. The language we must use is that of warm invitation. We are not trying to win a political or cultural battle through manipulation or coercion. We are inviting others to join us as we follow Christ. It’s not enough to believe that. We must communicate the message effectively, demonstrating its validity through our own Christlike character and our lives-in-transformation. Barking battle terminology onto our Facebook posts will be totally counter-productive to what God has called us to be and do. If we must celebrate the overturn of Roe v. Wade on social media, let’s be very cautious about how we celebrate and what we may be unintentionally communicating. We need to be careful and compassionate and Christlike at all times. The world is watching. For those of us who are Christians, let’s not use the reversal of Roe v. Wade as a stepping-stone into more and more culture war victories. The reversal of Roe v. Wade is not a victory of Conservatives over Liberals or of Christians over those who are not Christians. It is the preservation of life, plain and simple. Let’s not let this be the occasion for the Enemy of our souls to drag us more deeply into the mud, and then to drag the name of Jesus through the mud. Jesus didn’t die so American Christians could win the culture wars. He died to set the captives free. That includes all of us who have come to know him, as well as those who will eventually come to know him through our witness. Many of them struggle with fear of bringing their child into the world. Many of them struggle with same-sex attraction. Many of them are very suspicious of anything that looks like power mongering. Many of them do not understand that we Christians are fellow-strugglers who have been forgiven and who want to invite others to join us in the journey of forgiveness leading to life transformation. Our goal is to invite them to experience God’s redemption and transformation along with us, and to travel along with us as we together bring our struggles and temptations to God. That is God’s way. Let’s not sabotage it by settling for taking sides in culture wars that will ultimately destroy all of us and will not bring any glory to God, no matter who wins or loses. If we who are Christians are wise and cautious, we may be able to wade into the muddy waters of political involvement in ways that will preserve life and that will pursue the common good, but politics can never change a person’s heart. Only God can do that, and God’s chosen way of doing that is by calling the Church to be salt and light, so that by living out the implications of the Gospel, we show the world a better way. Any other method is an attempt of the Enemy to sabotage God’s plan.
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On June 19, 1865, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, the last of the slaves, living in Galveston, Texas, were finally freed, and that was cause for great celebration! Those of us who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ need to do some serious thinking about what Juneteenth is all about. We need to take off our Conservative and Liberal lenses and try to evaluate the issues concerning Juneteenth from a Biblical perspective, asking the Holy Spirit to give us discernment. We cannot allow the pre-packaged categories of Conservative and Liberal to do our thinking for us, for our identity is neither Conservative nor Liberal, and our allegiance is neither to Conservatism nor to Liberalism. If we are to be consistent and authentic followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, living out an authentic expression of New Testament Christianity, then our identity must be that of being apprentices of Jesus Christ, and our allegiance must be to Jesus Christ alone, not to a political ideology that we may find attractive. I therefore offer the following as an attempt to be neither Conservative nor Liberal, but Biblical. I am trying to ask the right questions and to seek Biblical answers. I know the questions are complicated, and I don’t have any simple solutions to offer, but I do think that we need to dig into the discussion somewhere if we want to respond to Juneteenth in a way that is appropriate to being apprentices of Jesus Christ, so this is my attempt to start the discussion. If you think I am off, I welcome your critique. Let’s talk about the situation in which the Hebrew slaves found themselves on the day when they were released from Egyptian bondage. They were free, joyful, able to worship and serve and obey God without Egyptian interference, but they were also unemployed, unskilled except in doing tasks that no one else was willing to do, living among a people who were used to thinking of them as their own personal property. Suddenly, the whole society had changed. The Egyptians had to learn how to function without their Hebrew slaves. The Hebrews had to learn how to function without their Egyptian masters. Thankfully God got them out of there quickly, split open a sea for them, gave them Moses as a leader, gave them the Ten Commandments and the entire Law of Moses, a whole sacrificial system, a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, manna, quail, water from the rock, not to mention His Presence in the Tabernacle. God had a solution that saved the Hebrew people from a lot of chaos that they would have otherwise experienced had they stayed in Egypt. Much chaos was averted because God quickly removed them from the situation. The Hebrews were freed, the angel of death had passed over their homes, and that was cause for great celebration! The Egyptians were judged, the angel of death had not passed over their homes, and the sorrowful consequences were great. Now let’s try to imagine what would have happened if the freed Hebrews had stayed in Egypt— no longer as slaves but as free men and women, still living within the society that had previously enslaved them. That makes the situation far more complicated! While the Egyptians are trying to learn how to survive without their slaves, the Hebrews are trying to learn how to survive without their masters— and both groups are trying to learn different lessons in the same place and at the same time! It would have taken many generations for everything to get sorted out. Even after several generations, it’s easy to see how the Egyptians might think that everything was now OK while the Hebrews would feel that there were unresolved problems that still needed to be addressed. Now let’s transpose this situation into our American context. The Civil War had been fought. Slavery had been abolished, but freed slaves were living in the same society as those who had previously been their masters, and racism and prejudice did not suddenly disappear overnight. Jim Crow laws kept the old patterns of racism and oppression going. Eventually the Jim Crow laws were abolished, but the old patterns still persisted, perhaps in more subtle ways. The Civil Rights Era made some more progress, but some of the old patterns still persisted. When we talk about institutional racism, we are saying that the problems have not yet been resolved; the old patterns still persist, not only in the hearts of people but also in the structures of our society. Becoming defensive and dismissive of the whole concept of institutional racism is very much the wrong approach. The right approach is to listen, listen, listen to those who are still being ground under the wheels of institutional racism, listen to their stories, listen to their pain and frustration, and then listen for the voice of God. If we listen, we may just hear and understand. It is possible for a society to repent corporately. Didn’t the people of Nineveh repent at the preaching of Jonah? They even put sackcloth on the animals! (see Jonah 3:8). God holds societies accountable, not only individuals. If a society can repent corporately, then a society can sin corporately. We can’t begin to dismantle systems of racism until we are willing to recognize that racism exists, both on an individual level and on a systemic level. When we acknowledge, then we can confess, repent, and take action. If those in society who don’t know God can’t or won’t repent, then at least the Christians living among them can and should repent— even if they are not personally guilty of the sin of the surrounding society. Didn’t Nehemiah confess the sins of his people, even though he personally was not guilty of the sins that they had committed? (See Nehemiah 1). We can’t take steps to remedy the situation until we admit that the situation exists, and that we are probably in some way complicit with the sins of our nation. If we have seen the problem and have done nothing about it, or if we have refused to admit that the problem even exists, or if we have refused to ask God to shine his searchlight into our own hearts to reveal to us any traces of prejudice or racism for which we must repent personally, then we have been complicit. To gain some perspective, let’s compare our response to the issue of institutional racism to our response to the issue of abortion. If we who are pro-life Christians are willing to confess “the sins of our nation” regarding abortion, then why are we not willing to confess “the sins of our nation” concerning slavery and the ongoing ripple effects of the sin of racism? Why the inconsistency? Are we putting political ideology over Biblical teaching? I see no other explanation for the inconsistency. As followers and apprentices of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is our task to wave the flag of surrender. We need to be willing to face both the ugliness of our own heart and the ugliness of our societal structures. We need to throw away both our tendency toward defensiveness and our tendency toward hiding behind political ideology. We need to come clean. We need to beg God to show us what He wants us to do, and we need to beg God to give us the ability to do and be what He has called us to do and be. There is no place for trying to preserve our own sense of righteousness, and there is no place for trying to preserve a sense of how great our nation is and has always been. There is no place for these things in the life of an apprentice of Jesus Christ. Now let’s talk about what is commonly called “institutional racism”. We know from the Scriptures that every human being is a totally depraved sinner. If we human beings are all sinful, then it stands to reason that everything we build will be corrupted by sin. Sinful men and women build sinful structures, because the sin that corrupts our beings also corrupts all that we build and do. That’s why our world is in the mess that it’s in. That’s why we have conflicts, violence and war. Would we expect sinful human beings to build sinless structures? If we as a fallen human race have an inclination toward prejudice and racism in our hearts, if our sin nature inclines us to suspect, even in very subtle ways, that those who are not like us are probably in some sense inferior to us, and if our first inclination is to protect ourselves, not to glorify God by loving and serving each other in the self-sacrificial ways of love, then it stands to reason that we will build structures that will reflect and are corrupted by this sinful inclination, whether we do so intentionally or not. So why are some Christians trying to say that institutional racism doesn’t exist? When people speak of institutional racism, rather than disputing them, we should high-five them and congratulate them for finally catching up to what the Bible has been teaching for millennia. What an odd situation we have here. Secular thinking is recognizing the effects of what we Christians call “sin”, and many Christians are denying that these effects even exist. Instead of denying their existence we should be saying “Yes, racism is real, both in our hearts and in our institutional structures. It’s sinful, there is no excuse for it, Christ died for that sin, and it’s a sin of which we must all repent continually, asking God to search our hearts and reveal to us our wicked ways, both as individuals and as a society”. I fail to see how the concept of institutional racism contradicts Biblical teaching. We never sin in a vacuum. The consequences of sin affect not only the sinner and the one sinned against but also many other people in the surrounding society. Sin has ripple effects that go farther and wider than we ever realize, and sometimes the ripple effects of sin last for many, many generations. The term “institutional racism” is a secular attempt to label what the Bible describes as the effects or consequences of sin. If we’re uncomfortable with calling it “institutional racism” then let’s call it “the multigenerational ripple effects of sin”, but whatever we call it, let’s acknowledge that it exists. If we refuse to admit that institutional racism even exists, then how can we ever appropriate the Biblical solution of the cross and the resurrection and confession of sin and repentance and faith, coupled with the injunction of Micah 6:8 to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God”? The secular world admits that there is a problem but doesn’t have the solution. Christians have the solution, but some Christians don’t recognize that the problem exists. Sounds like some deception is at work here. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”. (Psalm 139:23-24) “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. (1 John 1:8-9) We celebrate Juneteenth joyfully, for the freeing of the slaves is certainly worthy of joyful celebration! As we celebrate, we also need to ask God to show us what work still needs to be done, both in our hearts, and corporately as a society. We need to listen to and learn from each other. We need to ask the Holy Spirit for discernment. Those who are not the descendants of slaves need to try to understand what it’s like to be the descendent of slaves, to listen to them with an open heart and mind, and to gain their perspective on the work that still needs to be done to rid our society of racism and its ongoing ripple effects. We need to have more honest conversations with each other, and we need to be willing to listen with an open mind and heart. We need personal, ongoing repentance of our own sins of prejudice and racism, no matter how subtle, as we ask God to search our hearts. We need to ask God to enable us to examine our society from His perspective, to more accurately discern how the sins of yesteryear have set into motion policies and practices that still exist today and that still need to be addressed. We who are Christians are called to be “the salt of the earth and the light of the world”, but we cannot be who we are called to be in an authentic way if we insist on letting our political ideologies do our thinking for us. We have the Bible. We have the Holy Spirit. God will show us the way forward, but we must be willing to repent, and we must be willing to put aside our own perspectives and to ask God to show us His perspective. We need to be willing to do this not as Conservatives or as Liberals but as children of God. To those who are the descendants of slaves, I rejoice that slavery has been abolished! I want to do what I can to help complete the work that has was started on the original Juneteenth, as God enables. Many of us who are not the descendants of slaves want to be your allies in the ongoing work, not just celebrate a holiday in a way that probably misunderstands and misrepresents what the holiday stands for. Forgive us for celebrating a holiday without taking the time to think through its implications. Let’s work together to “do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God”. With this understanding and with this commitment, I hope we can now say in a way that is both honest and authentic, Happy Juneteenth! |
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