Why does heaven seem so far away?

Album cover for Southern Gothic by Dan Tyminski. Displays dark shaded picture of man exhaling cigar smoke with trees in the background.

A few days ago, I re-stumbled across “Southern Gothic” by Dan Tyminski. In the song he cries out “With a church on every corner why does heaven feel so far away?” The question voices an ugly dissonant truth about the church in America. Church in the broader culture should be acting God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven,” but for all the churches nothing seems to be different.

Last weekend I received a call from a young lady I had not heard from in half a decade or more. I taught the youth group at church where she met John and was at their wedding. I didn’t know a few years into their marriage he committed adultery. She felt God called her, despite her wishes, to stay and forgive. She returned evil with good of forgiveness and reconciliation. After rebuilding trust, they started having kids. While pregnant with their second, it happened again – and he wanted a divorce.

“Why?” she asked.

The song continues, “This town’s got the good Lord shakin’ his head / Lookin’ down thinking we ain’t heard a word he said / A word he said”

Certainly, we can look at John and say, “he hasn’t heard a word,” but we would be missing God’s word to each of us. The call to follow Christ at all costs. She was like Christ amid suffering. She paid the price and brought heaven down to be at the doorstep of one who doesn’t deserve it.

Heaven came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ who took up the cross to bear our betrayal against him. The church brings heaven to earth when its people, like Christ, bear up the evil of the world in themselves by responding to evil with good.

The church is soft. In becoming a safe place we ceased to be a good place. We chose loving the self first and boundaries over self-sacrifice and turning the other cheek. The Christian walk has become indifferentiable from someone trying to live kindly. We are so fixated on pursuing dreams, feeling good, and being happy that we forget the cross is our hope.

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Apologetics of the Christain Faith

Apologetics is defined as, “reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine”. Typically, in the Christian community this is thought of as knowledge or rhetoric used in a debate for Christianity. Books such as, “Evidence that demands a verdict” by Josh McDowell, the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and grand presentations by Louie Giglio are most prominent.

I am dubious of the place apologetics takes among Christians. These Apologetics are primarily for the Christians bolstering of their own faith. The evidence for God and ‘proofs’ are not even secondarily for non-Christians – these apologetics may at best be tertiary for the non-Christian.

Paul says to, “Always be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is in you”. This could easily be applied to fine arguments, but context tells us something very different. The entire book of 1 Peter from which this quote is found, is admonishing the Christians to live peacefully in the circumstance they are in. We alongside them are called to return evil with Good.

Each person in their position is supposed to respond with quiet kindness. Our example is Christ who suffered because of our own evil and granted us good. It is good for us to suffer for doing good because we are then like Christ. It is from this very peculiar response, kindness in the face of suffering, that we are told to be ready to give an account for the hope that is in us.

In apologetics, at least old school, they talk of an attention grabber. The attention grabber for us is our behavior – a behavior so peculiar that Peter admonishes us to be ready to give a reason when people ask why we behave like we do. He expected the behavior to raise questions.

Peter qualifies how we should share the hope once we are asked, “with gentleness and respect”. God oversees drawing his people unto himself. We are not called to raise a ruckus – though I concede that there may be some called to speak loudly as an exception. We are to live, I summarize, kindly first. Fine arguments, dogmatism, bombastic speeches, though God may use them they fail the admonitions of Peter.

Live kindly and with respect.

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Secular and Sacred Pt. ii

The separation of secular and sacred is rooted in Gnostic Dualism. The belief that the perfect state of man and woman is spiritual. There is a perfect design or blueprint of a person. The only way to reach perfection is to shed the physical state and become a perfect spirit.

This is not Biblical. God made us with a physical body. When Christ returns and makes a new heaven and earth, we will have physical bodies. Christ himself is raised from the dead in his physical body and ascended into heaven in his physical body. We will be like him in the resurrection. We are made to be physical.

In the creation narrative Adam and Eve were gifted the responsibility of tending the garden. The command to subdue the earth is prior to the fall (Gen 1:28). The narrative then moves into a detailed look at Adam and Eve. God commands Adam to tend the garden God made (Gen 2:15). The intent for responsibility and work is present before the curse.

The curse after disobedience extends from our calling to be stewards of the earth. Adam’s curse was to toil with the ground. His job and life endeavor did not change.

The law that God gave to the Israelites continues the theme of earthly importance. Contrary to several surrounding religions, God gave commands regarding food, building their houses, and even their waste hygiene. Other religions gods did not care about the ‘earthly’ and ‘mundane’, only the spiritual.

Our spiritual health is important. But the spiritual is present here. The laws given to the Israelites to separate them from the surrounding nations were specific regarding how they lived their physical life. The Israelites were commanded to be different in their daily lives.

Finally, as James tells us, “Show me your faith without your actions and I will show you my faith by my actions.” The actions that show our faith is every aspect of our lives. Job, free time, shows we watch and don’t watch all point to what we believe in.

Busyness

In modern America there is a fascination with being busy. Individuals will take on work, hobbies, sports, church, and try to have relationships all at the same time. Even those who are not over achievers and try to at least appear and sound busy. It is bragging rights to say that you worked fifty hours a week are in school and still have time to iron your clothes.

But what are we as Christians supposed to do in this culture? Where do we put Christ? Is he part of our bragging rights of reading our Scripture every morning as part of a routine? Attending church services and bible studies. Helping with a kids service and still attending other services in an effort to be busy for Jesus seems to be common for the Spiritually dedicated.

Jesus took time to leave the crowds and pray. He listened to the Father and spent alone time with Him often. Not on a schedule or routine but on a basis of relationship.

One side affect of all of this busyness is that we schedule God to just one part of our day. We have a morning prayer time or bible reading. We have church on Sunday and bible study on Tuesday. This is far from the faith of relationship that we claim to profess. It is kind of hard to swallow that we are willing to die for Christ and plan him into specific parts of our lives.

I posit this response. That regardless if we are busy or not that in addition to any sort of scheduled time, for I will not deny the importance of planning time with those who are important to us, that we should also practice a daily listening and attentiveness to the working of the Holy Spirit. We should definitely set aside time with no schedule. A prayer time with no end date such as the evening before you can sleep in or before a day with no plans. But also, that we should slow down or stringent busy faith and just start allowing Jesus to work in every part of our lives. From the calendar to the rush out the door for work.

When we do this then we may begin to fill our time with more important things. For me, the leading that Christ has given me is to write. So I write this past my planned bed time (my new planning on goals I will speak of later) not to be busy but to carefully do what I feel the Spirit calling me to do.

Gay Marraige

I was at a LGBT workshop put on by the Flood church this last Sunday. It was a very well done conversation that highlighted several key points that should be considered when talking about the Church, Christ, and those with varying gender identities.

I seek to only highlight one thought from the discussion. Identity. The individual who shared, who himself was a man who was attracted to other men, and is also a brother in Christ emphasized one very important point. Ones attraction to one sex or another, heterosexual, homosexual, or bi sexual, or ones identifying as male or female is secondary to ones identity in Christ.

As a Christian, it is our relationship with Christ that defines us first, everything else comes from that.

For those that do not know Christ, lifting Him up and leading them to Him is the first step. For if they do not believe or know my Christ Jesus, why should I expect them to live as He calls me to?

I am very guilty in letting titles or identifying traits define me; male, adult, employee at such and such a company, boyfriend to so and so, brother, sensei, extrovert, etc. But first, my identity is in Christ, and I must live like Him.

For those that are not Christians reading this, please, don’t be shy about reminding my brothers and sisters where their identity is, gently of course. 🙂

Christian’s Response to Homosexuality

A few weeks ago Minnesota became the 13^th state to legalize gay marriage. Today the Supreme Court gave marriage rights to already married homosexual couples and declared prop 8 in California unconstitutional. A rally against the legalization of gay marriage by Christians will most likely begin with new fervor. Unfortunately, that outcry will fly under the claim that homosexual marriage undermines heterosexual God ordained marriage.

We as Christians must be careful how we talk about the issue of homosexual marriage and the Christian biblical view of marriage. If we say that allowing two men or two women to marry undermines our biblical perspective of a man and a woman marrying, we are the ones responsible for undermining our marriages, not homosexuals.

As Christians, we believe that God has ordained marriage as a covenant between a man and woman. It is specifically an irrevocable covenant in which we have the opportunity to be like God in how we keep our promises and be like Christ in his relationship with the church. It is set up by God, and therefore no human action can undermine what God has ordained. If God has made something good, it is good regardless of actions that are counter to God’s character surrounding it.

Homosexual marriage has no relation to marriage in the church. Even secular heterosexual marriages are not completely like ones in the church. They may represent God’s character in their commitment to the covenant, but they do not carry with them the implications of Christ and the church. Christian marriage before God is irrevocable and permanent. Contrary to culture, divorce is not an option.

In Matthew, Christ says that, “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (NIV). At first glance it may appear not to make sense. How can a woman commit adultery if she is divorced? But that is precisely the point. The only way it would be adultery would be if she is still married. In God’s eyes, she is still married to her husband even if the paperwork says, “divorce”.

Man’s actions of divorce do not change God’s view of the marriage. They are still in a covenant. There are two implications of this. First, that the biggest thing that undermines Christian marriage is Christian divorce. When we divorce we are not like God in keeping our covenants in that action. We have not been like Christ and his church.

Second, is that God ignores man’s view the marital status. Regardless of man’s divorce certificate Christ still sees the marriage the way he made it. In the same way we as Christians should not be concerned with what the world calls marriage. Instead, we should be concerned with our relationships and how they reflect on Christ.

So as you dialogue and talk about marriage with those for and against homosexual marriage as it relates to the church, remember that our first concern as Christians is the state of our own marriages and how we honor God through them.