Bombs Don't Hug

War is never justifiable
Many Christians believe the war in Iraq is not only justifiable, but that it is just. Our soldiers freed a country from a tyrannical ruler who tortured and killed his people. Whether or not this will result in a better, freer Iraq has yet to be seen. But even if it does, it was sinful and wrong for us to invade Iraq. Nowhere in the Bible are Christians told to overthrow governments. Instead we are told to pray for people in authority. Why? So that we may live "peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness" (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Note that nowhere does it say we are supposed to go to war with them or kill them. Not even the really evil ones. (Remember this was written at a time when Christians were being fed to lions by their government).
I know this doesn't make any sense. Why pray when a gun will more readily take care of the problem? Praying is stupid. Unless of course God is really real and really does answer prayer. Then it makes all the sense in the world to obey what he has told us to do and pray.
Killing is never loving
I've heard people say they love the Iraqi soldiers, but still think it is necessary to fight and kill them. Killing someone is never loving. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to do good to those who harm us. Did he mean this? Stop and ask him. "Jesus, are we really supposed to love our enemies, even when we might end up dead if we do?" Stop and look, what is the Father doing? (We are to be like Jesus and Jesus only did what he saw the Father do). Is the Father killing Iraqis? Is Jesus? If not, why are we? When are we going to stop justifying sin?
And it is a sin. God, the Word made flesh, Jesus, commanded us to love our enemies, our neighbors as we do ourselves. Killing, torturing, bombing, shooting, someone is not loving them. No matter how you try to spin it so that you can sleep at night and pretend you are right with God, killing your enemy is a sin.

Not Everything You Get Through Email Is True

Atheists are not trying to get T.D. Jakes or Touched By An Angel off the air. Einstein never confronted an atheist professor. New U.S. coins do not omit "in God we trust". These and other "critical" forwarded emails assault me ever so often and I'm tired of it. The truth about these issues can be easily checked in a few minutes at snopes.com or some other source. Take a minute and check it out.
Sometimes I wonder if the people sending these warnings out even read them at all. Or just have really bad memories since many of these false warnings have the same message with only small details being changed.
Lets not waste our time rallying people to oppose nonexistent threats when there are many real causes we should unite for.

Why Every Christian Should Read Harry Potter and The Golden Compass

With the upcoming release of the Golden Compass movie based on the book by Philip Pullman my email has been flooded with warnings not to see this movie. I have also endured many warnings about Harry Potter and witchcraft. I am ambivalent about these warnings. On the one hand I agree with the people who warn that Pullman's work is anti-God and anti-church (it is) and that Rowling's series has witches and witches are evil (they are). On the other hand I was an English major and a former English teacher and a good book is a good book. It's hard for me to say don't read this book or that book when it is a really great read.
But these books being well crafted is not why I think every Christian should read them. I think every Christian should read them for these reasons:
1. Evangelism. Paul used the Greeks belief in many gods as an opening to share about Christ and the resurrection. Both series give excellent opportunities to talk with others about Christ. I don't mean saying, "God says, 'Harry should be killed!'" but using what the Potter series has to say about the power of love to talk about God's love. Or using what Pullman has to say about the evil of the church to talk about human evil and frailty verses God's goodness.
2. Greater is He who is in me than he that is in the world. We say this, but it seems at times we don't believe it. The message seems to be that if we or our children read these books (or see these movies) then they will be enticed into denying Christ and becoming Wiccans or atheists. But as Christians we are not called to ignore the arguments and reasonings of people who do not believe as we do, but to give an answer for the hope we have. We do not grow as Christians by avoiding things that challenge our beliefs.
3. If we are condemning magic in one book, we should condemn it in all. If Harry Potter is evil, then so are Gandalf and Aslan. We have not condemned The Lord of the Rings or Narnia because despite their use of wizards and mythical creatures and Greek gods, we recognize Christian themes and overtones in them. The same can be said of the Harry Potter series. Despite the use of witches there are Christian overtones to the book and moral lessons to be learned.
4. Our opinions and beliefs should be formed based on fact not on someone else's opinion or on rumor. I too often see Christians condemning something based on misinformation. If you are going to speak out against something find out for yourself if it is true. Don't just read an email or listen to a speaker and take it for granted what you read or hear is true.

Black and White In a Gray World

In debates I've had with some of my friends I have often been accused of wanting black and white answers. My friends assert that things are a lot grayer in the real world. It is true that we live in a complicated world and that there are hardly ever cut and dry answers that fit every situation. But my friends have missed what I was actually asking them. I was not and am not asking for a black and white answer that fits every situation. What I am asking for is why they believe the way they do and can they support it with scripture.
As Christians the Bible is supposed to be one of our moral plumb lines. (The Holy Spirit and fellow believers being some others). So when we, as Christians, go against something that seems fairly black and white in scripture I have to ask why. I am not doing this just to debate some issue (though I do love a good debate), but to get us to really think about why we believe something.
I had a friend in college whose grandmother was convinced "cleanliness is next to godliness" was in the Bible. I think a lot of Christians have similar misconceptions about what God's word says. It bugs me when someone claims the Bible says something that it doesn't (often the same people who send those urban legend emails -- grrr.) If you believe in Christ then your beliefs and actions should match up with his and his match up with the scripture.
I am not saying that there is no room for a different understanding of how scripture should be interpreted or seen. Most Christians would agree that polygamy and slavery are wrong, but these are both treated as acceptable in the Bible, clearly God has opened our eyes to better understand the scripture in these areas. But seeing scripture in a new light is different than ignoring it all together.

A Faith Like That

All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. (Hebrews 11:13 NIV)

I love reading stories about faith, from Noah to Smith Wigglesworth to Heidi Baker. These stories are from different times and places but in all of these stories people put their faith in God and God shows up and does amazing things. The faith of these people is strong and alive and vibrant. These stories stir up my faith and encourage me to believe God for miracles and other amazing things to happen.
But there are other stories. Stories from my life and probably yours as well. Times when I was certain God was going to heal, full of faith he would deliver and . . . nothing. Stories of hundreds of years as slaves to the Egyptians. Stories of Mother Theresa not feeling God's presence.
There is a faith in these stories too. It may not look as bold and alive and vibrant as the faith in the stories where God shows up miraculously, but it is there. It is a faith that despite disappointment, despite doubt keeps smoldering. It is a faith that says, no matter what happens or does not happen I trust God. God is good. God is good even if my prayer is unanswered.
Some people have a problem with this. They say that if you have faith you will always be healed or see something miraculous happen. And while I agree that sometimes we give up too easily and need to be more proactive in exercising our faith, sometimes faith goes unanswered.
So, while I pray for miraculous things to happen and long to see amazing things, I think the faith I am more in need of is the faith that keeps a hold of God and his goodness even when it is not immediately answered.

That's Not Fair! or Grace

Grace is one of those things that looks great in theory, but usually leaves me ranting at God in reality. Oh, sure, I love grace when it is directed at me. After all, I'm only human and I make lots of mistakes, so I need lots of grace. But sometimes I wish His grace was less available to others.
For example, there was a couple who were friends mine. I saw them starting to act a little cultish, so I confronted them. Rather than try to understand what I was saying, or work out our differences, or repent, they stopped returning my phone calls and refused to talk to me. My wife and I felt abandoned and wronged. We knew that God would punish them for their lack of love and their heresy. They would fail in their ministry objectives. They would lose money in their businesses. Instead they were successful and prosperous.
Needless to say I was angry at God. I wanted divine wrath for them, not divine grace. During this time I had a dream that the wife was in the hospital dying. In the dream I half heartedly prayed for her and she died. After she died God came to me and asked, "Is that punishment enough?" I woke up shaken.
Although I never would have said it out loud, in my heart I wanted them dead. That was the depth of my anger and hatred. But I wasn't just angry at them, I was angry at God. I was like the other son in the story of the prodigal son.
"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'" (Luke 15:28-30 TNIV)
I thought that by not punishing this couple God was saying that everything they did was okay with him. I wanted him to punish them so I could say, "See, I was right!" But God is not concerned with whether or not I am vindicated.
Grace is not fair. It covers people who live their whole lives sinless as well as those who sneak in at the last minute after a life time of sin. It covers those we love and jerks we don't. It covers you and it covers me. We have no choice about who God's grace covers. We do have the choice of whether or not we are going to join in on the grace party God is throwing, or if we are going to sit outside and grumble that the guest of honor should be punished.
Much grace!

Unanswered Prayer

One of the things that has bugged me most of my Christian life has been how it seems like God more readily, more miraculously answers the prayers of those in other countries. About a year ago I was struggling with this more than usual and at the same time preparing prayer activities for my church. As I did I reread Isaiah 58. It hit me hard, especially verses six and seven.

⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

What if the reason that a lot of our prayers go unanswered is not because of a lack of faith, or not saying the right words, or even because of what we typically view as sin in our lives, but because of our oppression of the poor and helpless?

Now most of us would not knowingly do any of these things, but what about the companies we buy from? Slave and near slave conditions occur throughout the world (yes, even here in the U.S.) and the fruits of this slave labor often end up on our tables. (http://www.ciw-online.org/index.html) Or on our backs.

Then there is the question of how our government deals with the world. It wages war that results in the death of innocent people. It uses sanctions that result in children dying. And these are just a few of the things we know about.

So, where do we fit in? If our shoes are made by a company that oppresses the poor (I'm talking to you Nike) then we are guilty by proxy. If our food is harvested by slaves then we are guilty of slavery. If our government kills innocent women and children and we do nothing to stop it we are guilty. And if we are guilty can we expect God to answer our prayers?

As Christians we must no longer be content to sing a few worship songs on Sunday and say that we are close to God. It is impossible to be close to God if we are not reaching out to and helping those he is near -- the broken hearted, the poor, the widow, the outcast, the foreigner (illegal or otherwise), the sick, the imprisoned. When we reach out to these that God has told us throughout scripture to reach out to, then we are close to God. When we stand up for the oppressed then our prayers are answered. When we love those God loves, then our lives and world is changed.