I am writing because there are several things that have been ruminating in my heart, things, I believe, that have been placed there by our God Himself. I am writing because this word (these words) are not from me. I believe they have been placed there for a purpose. Now, hear me, please. I am not suggesting these words are on the level of divine revelation, on level with the Word of God. I am, however, suggesting that these "things" are firmly embedded in God's Word. I am writing because I think we have tamed and trained these word, these things so as to reduce the true threat that the gospel, and the God it represents, pose to our American Dream. Therefore, if you have faith in Christ Jesus as true Savior and true God, please, read on.
I start with a quote from Karl Barth's The Word of God and the Word of Man (also known as The Word of God and Theology):
This then is the inner situation in which we come upon the quite pointless question whether God is righteous. The righteousness of God becomes becomes preposterously a problem and a subject for discussion. In the war it has become a "real question" again. There is now hardly a community in all the country round in which, noisily or quietly, roughly or delicately, this question is not mooted; and it is mooted, fundamentally, in us all: If God were righteous, could he then "permit" all that is now happening in the world?
A pointless question? Absolutely so, if it refers to God, the livingGod. For the living God never for a moment manifests himself in our conscience except as a righteous God. When we see him as he is and when he asks us to recognize and accept him as he is, is it not pointless to ask, Art Thou righteous? A very pointed and correct and weighty question it is, however, when we refer it to the god to whom in our pride and despair we have erected the tower of Babel; to the great personal or impersonal, mystical, philosophical, or naive Background and Patron Saint of our human righteousness, morality, state, civilization, or religion. If it is he we mean, we are quite right in asking, Is God righteous? For the answer is soon given. It is our calamity, a calamity from which there is no posibility of rescue or release, that with a thousand arts we have made ourselves a god in our own image and must now own him - a god to whom one must put such comfortless questions and receive such comfortless answers. In the question, Is God righteous? our whole tower of Babel falls to pieces. In this now burning question it becomes evident that we are looking for a righteousness without God, that we are looking, in truth, for a god without God and against God - and that our quest is hopeless. It is clear that such a god is not God. He is not even righteous. He cannot prevent worshipers, all the distinguishedEuropean and American apostles of civilization, welfare, and progress, all zealous citizens and pious Christians, from falling upon one another with fire and sword to the amazement and derision of the poor heathen in India and Africa. This god is really an unrighteous god, and it is high time for us to declare ourselves thorough-going doubters, sceptics, scoffers, and atheists in regard to him. It is high time for us to confess freely and gladly: this god, to whom we have built the tower of Babel, is not God. He is an idol. He is dead.
Karl Barth. The Word of God and The Word of Man. (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publisher, Inc.) 1978. 21-22.
Barth goes onto say that only the true and living God is the only answer. Have we not confused the establishment of a Christian culture, either leaning one political direction or another, with the true Kingdom? What has this gotten for us, orto use more biblical language, what is the fruit? I will, in a manner that I admit is way too simplistic for you, dear reader, provide the following examples: on one side, with regard to a Christian who says they are against war, the death penalty, and are for governmental policies that consider the welfare of the poor, we throw them in the "Liberal" category, as in, s/he is a "Liberal" Christian; on the other side, the Christian who votes republican, is against abortion, opposes "Gay" marriage, and likes George Bush, we throw them in the "Conservative" category (by the way, I use parentheses for "Gay" because I don't find anything happy about or in the lifestyle - oh, have I played my hand? do you think you know which way I lean? guess again, dear reader!). All that's to say is that Christians of all persuasions have bought into a system of evaluation and judgment that is not to be found in the pages of Holy Writ, let alone in the Mind of Christ.
While I don't necessarily think Jesus was a pacifist, I do believe He was a peace-maker (wait, didn't He give high value to those who worked for peace?). I don't think Jesus would have necessarily favored welfare programs, but He wouldn't have devalued the people who are in great need by categorizing them as lazy, either. And in the gospels,Jesus doesn't make mention once about abortion, or homosexual's rights (let alone dating). But maybe that's because the Bible Jesus read, that is what we Christians call the Old Testament, stipulates quite well that such things like child sacrifice (which is ultimately what abortion is), and same sex relations are not acceptable to God, let alone healthy in an holistic way to the community.All of that's to say that we, as Christians, are divided. And we are divided because we put a higher value on politics and culture than we do the Kingdom of God, and serving the Lord of that Kingdom, Jesus Christ. Barth's words might well have been written today. But they weren't. The year was 1919, and the war he was referring to was World War 1, or then known as 'The Great War'. He was in Safenswil, Switzerland, I believe, serving a small, economically mixed congregation. And he was speaking into a culture that in as much as it understood itself was firmly rooted in a commitment to Enlightenment principles and religiously oriented to what we now know as Liberal Protestant Theology.
And I think Barth is speaking to us as well. Have we not, and I say we Christians, created a god in our own image? And have we not created a tower of Babel to reach it? Have we not confused Christian culture with God's kingdom? Have we notsought to follow the "righteousness" of this god, the god who encourages us to be constantly working for upward economic mobility, bigger homes, and faster cars?Does this god not asuage our guilt so that it is more "righteous" to plan our next vacation rather than wrestling whether or not we may find more to give to the local church for mission or assistance? Why is the name of Christ so misunderstood in our own country and the world over? Yes, the apostle Paul makes it clear that the cross of Christ is a stumbling block to the Jew and foolishness to the Gentile. But I think we are hiding behind the proverbial "Sunday School" answer if we shout this answer out. Yes, this is true. But remember dear brothers and sisters, God will not be mocked; we reap what we sow. My answer goes to Jesus' own words, that the world will know we are His disciples by His love. And Jesus prayed this be so. But in this, the greatest of all nations, the Church is sorely divided. Yes, one might throw into this discussion the parable of the wheat and the tares. And ironically, you might be right. But are you one of the tares? Are you working for division? Are you pointlessly slinging mud? all to the detriment of the Kingdom and the name of Christ? It is one thing to oppose a leader in the Church because s/he is clearly apostate. It is quite another thing to oppose brothers or sisters in Christ because they don't fit or submit to our self-righteous "litmus" tests.Dear brothers and sisters, I have no easy answers. But I will say that the answer is not to go run and hide in some Christian ghetto, nor is it to get out theRepublican vote in the next round of elections. It is to let your light so shine that it may be seen by all; to let our righteous acts (that is, those actions of ours that are rooted in the God) be seen so that even unbelievers praise our Father who is in heaven. It means that when we pray the Lord's prayer, and when we get to the part where we say 'Your kingdom come, Your will be done', we actually stop and think about it: what does this mean today? what should it look like in my life? And then we actually seek to live it out faithfully in the power of God the Holy Spirit.
Without the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ, we are, to remember Barth'swords, in a calamity from which there is no possibility of rescue or release. God, the one, true, living God, must be our righteousness; and only Him alone. Anything else is idolatry. Anything else is far less than God. It is what we now see.
What do you think?
