"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD" ?

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD" 

(Photo credit: Marshall Astor, on Flickr) 

Do nations, countries, and empires rise and fall based upon their relationship to God? Does God's Word promise that America is doomed to decline because of her rapid secularization and apparent abandonment of her Christian roots?

This raises a lot of questions. The most controversial, in my mind, is: What exactly do we mean by a country with Christian roots? How does one define a 'Christian nation'?  Do we mean something different than the Holy Roman Empire? America might have put 'God' on a lot of buildings and in documents, and the Church has always been a celebrated and supported part of American life and society (until recently). But looking back over history and distinguishing vibrant Christianity from a deistic civil, nationalistic, religion is hard to do. And besides, while all this was going on, America committed many sins from the very beginning. I cringe over how kitschy it is to bring these things up, but it is true that we have in our history the deliberate and biblically-justified displacement of peoples and slavery, greed, gluttony (all sins worthy of many sharp Biblical condemnations - condemnations just as harsh as anything to do with sexuality). To claim that our contemporary sins are really the ones bringing judgment and our downfall, seems a bit historically naive (and Biblically selective) to me. I don't deny things have gotten, in many ways, worse and I think it's clear that we're in a cultural tailspin. But getting too specific seems, at best, messy and, at worse, pharisaical. 

One might say 'well, at least we used to acknowledge God, even if we made mistakes, now our society doesn't even want to acknowledge God.' Fair enough. Maybe. But if we're going to use the Bible to find parallels, we must note that in the Old Testament, God's greatest wrath was saved for those who worshiped God with their lips, but denied Him with their actions (see Micah, or the early chapters of Isaiah, as examples). The Bible doesn't give us good reason to say something like that. 

As a seminarian, I feel most strongly about the exegetical issues this all raises. And I want to propose that attempts to use passages like Psalm 33:12 to predict the decline of America, or diagnose America's (or any other country's) spiritual or political problems, or cite natural or other disasters as God's judgment, is a pretty serious misuse of Scripture. 

I will make a few exegetical points about why I think this is a bad interpretation, but then I do want to affirm some of the correct sentiments these interpretations represent. But lastly, and most importantly, I wish to show why passages such as these are meant most of all, to give us hope - not a spirit of condemnation or fear. 

First, Six exegetical problems: 

1. This interpretation ignores Scriptures that emphasize opposite truths. 
No, I don't believe Scripture contradicts itself, but Scripture must be used to help interpret Scripture. And if a particular interpretation is contrary, or chastened, by another verse - we need to rethink our interpretation. 

Consider these other verses: 

"He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45) 

"Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You; yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?" 
(Jeremiah 12:1)

Righteousness and success do not always go together, and the Bible attests to the fact that often, just the opposite is the case! 

The story of Job clues us into this dynamic, does it not? Job's friends keep trying to convince Job that his sins must be the cause of his suffering, but the story ultimately reveals that God's ways cannot be known. Sin and suffering on the one hand, and righteousness and success on the other, don't always go together. 

And we know this too from history. Many great empires have come and gone without recognizing God or Christ. The longest-unshaken empire is arguably the Chinese, largely Buddhist, dynasty. Rome was doing quite well before Christianity came along (its decline began around the same time). And while it is wrong to blame Christianity for Rome's decline, as Edward Gibbon did, it's pretty clear that Christianity did not save Rome (well, at least not in the West). 

So, whatever this verse means, it does not appear that it can mean that godliness and success always go together, for that contradicts a whole lot of other Scriptures. 

2. It takes the verse out of its immediate context

The second half of Psalm 33:12 is rarely quoted. The next clause reads: " the people he chose for his inheritance."

Who did God call 'his inheritance'? Israel. No one else:  "For Yehovah’s portion is His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance." (Deuteronomy 32:9). 

This passage is not giving a general principle about all nations, but about the people of God - who had a unique relationship with God. 

The same goes for other passages cited along these lines: 

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

To apply verses such as these to our own country is to blatantly rip the passage out of its context. These are promises toward Israel, part of God's unique and special relationship with Israel (and dealing with a particular period in time). For its contemporary relevance, as I will show later, we must apply it to the Church. 

3. Such verses don't necessarily promise political/economic/social success, anyhow: 

In fact, Psalm 33:12 was a prayer that reflected a promise that was true even in times of failure. It is a promise not directly about political success or prosperity. Even when Israel was chastised, they were still God's inheritance. And they were still blessed, even in their destitution and in their suffering. Even in their sinfulness. When Israel was punished by nations who did not know God, that did not mean that God's blessing had moved, been abolished, or had been traded for one people to another. His promise to Israel was still true (see Hosea 11, as an example). 

And so, it is a stretch to apply this verse to other nations. It was a statement about Israel's relationship with God, which did not directly have to do with Israel's material success. 

It is true that God prospered Israel in times of righteousness, and let her suffer in times of unrighteousness. So, for this one nation at least, there seems to be a correlation in certain ways, in Israel's history. But these were based on explicit promises God made with Israel (blessings and curses in Deuteronomy), not with all people - and God always revealed explicitly when He was casting specific judgment at a point in history. And, yes, there are nations that are judged in the Old Testament for their unrighteousness. But apart from a specific revelation from God, we cannot ultimately know when and how and why God is operating in one way or another. Scripture is clear (as I have illustrated above) that, unless God tells us exactly what He's up to, we cannot know or depend for sure on a correlation between righteousness and success. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike. The wicked prosper, and the righteous suffer. 

4. It ignores the New Testament 

Some (Dispensationalists) will disagree with me, but I maintain the traditional position of all Christian history, that the Church is the continuation of the people of God. The story of Israel is the Church's story. If we are baptized into Christ, we are Abraham's descendants. The Church is Israel. 

And thus, this promise to Israel, is ultimately (in light of the New Testament) a promise to the Church - not one that can be willy-nilly applied to any institution or country. The Church is blessed because God is her Lord. She is the nation of God. Indeed, the New Testament is filled with 'nation' and 'empire' terms used to describe the Church - using the Greek word 'ekklesia'  (which we translate as Church) which is used in the Greek version of the Old Testament for 'the assembly' of Israel.  The people of God, Israel/theChurch (one thing!) is blessed because she belongs to the Lord. The Lord chose her, formed her, made her, keeps her. When the Church humbles herself, the Lord heals her 'land' (which, in the New Testament age, I do not believe means we will become prosperous). 

5. It ignores the cross 

When God talks about punishing Israel for her unrighteousness, I believe He is setting up for the atoning death of Christ. It becomes clear, in the New Testament, that sin was a problem that no one could escape from (Romans 1). All people are under God's wrath. Jews and Babylonians, Americans and Nazis, Israelis and Al-Qaeda. God may deal in temporal judgment here and there (and He announces it in divine revelation), but on the whole, sin is judged, defeated, destroyed, and dealt with on the cross and ultimately at the final judgment. Jesus takes upon himself the curse of sin and fulfills the demands of sin, death, and justice. The clear message of the New Testament is that Jesus is, represents, and fulfills Israel - He purifies Israel from/takes on Himself, the sins God said He would punish her for. In the grand scheme of history, sin and justice have already been dealt with. 

 I do believe God disciplines His people, and those who He is drawing to Himself, in everyday affairs. And, it is clear that many sins have general consequences.  But to look for God's judgment in everyday affairs is to miss that the big picture of all the talk about judgment and purification in the Old Testament is pointing to the act of Christ and the eschatological judgment of God. America's sins, Israel's sins, are dealt with on the cross and at the final judgment, as are mine and yours - for those who accept this grace. To look for temporal judgment in history is to ignore the trajectory of Scripture pointing us to the cross. 

4. The People of God, Especially in the New Testament Age, Are Called to Suffer 

This is where, I think, the Anabaptists understand the Bible well. The people of God, in this time of waiting for our promised inheritance of righteousness to come (for the Kingdom to be established) are in diaspora. We are not in control, we have not yet inherited the earth. We will perennially suffer at the hands of the powerful. Anabaptists would be wary of any close relationship between Church and state for this reason - this side of eternity all power and dominion is the tool of evil. I don't go as far, but I am also uncomfortable with too close of a relationship - I fear that if the Church is in power, she is likely being corrupted (or at high risk of it). But whatever one thinks about all that, we are compelled to realize that the Church's power and comfort will wax and wane, and our predominant call is to suffer. But that does not mean God's promise has left us. We are still blessed, for we are the nation whose God is the Lord. What that means for a state that embraces the Church, I do not think we can easily say. If a society truly grasps the call of Christ, I'd think they'd be likely to suffer - and if they survive and proposer, it may mean that the call of Christ has not been really kept. I'm not sure it's quite that black and white, but those are categories worth considering. We must remember that the kingdoms of this earth, even if closely related to the Church, are not themselves the Church. They come and go, they rise and fall, but the Church remains - the beloved possession of God. 

We in America especially, have a tendency to associate 'blessedness' with material success. This is why we have such a problem with health & wealth gospel teachings in the West. But, in the New Testament, it is clear that the blessing of the people of God, the blessedness of the sons of Abraham whose God is the Lord, is the promise of the coming Kingdom (Ephesians 1:3). Our blessing is in heaven, it is yet to come, it is coming with Christ. And in the meantime e will definitely suffer. The blessing of the Lord does not mean wealth or success in this life. So, it is wrong to look for political or material success as a sign of God's favor or disfavor - certainly for the Church and, I would say, of a society that embraces Christianity (in some way or another). 

It is a false, and wholly unbiblical, attitude to tell anyone - a person, a family, a country, a government - that if they accept God they will suddenly be 'okay.' America could have a massive revival and still collapse. The Bible offers no guarantees about these things - and the closest it comes is to promise the exact opposite! Coming to the Lord may mean remarkable suffering, all the way to the loss of ones whole life! Complete and utter sacrifice, complete 'failure' by the world's standards, is what we celebrate every Sunday morning! To speak like this is to sell a false gospel, and a false promise, and to create a hoard of Christians (if it even works) who are not ready to follow Christ and will fall away at the first sign of trouble - like the disciples who all abandoned Jesus in Gethsemane. They were still waiting for Jesus to become the political hero they had expected - to take over society, to take over the culture, to pull it in by the reigns and make it godly, prosperous, and victorious. They were not ready to pay the price of walking to the cross with Him. They were not willing to realize that the real battle, is not against flesh and blood. That the real Kingdom is not of this earth. That the path of God's redemption plan was one of utter self-sacrifice and loss! 

Please, pray for our country! Serve the good of our country (and whatever country you find yourself in!) Seek revival, pray for revival! Tell everybody about Jesus and about the judgment that's coming!

 But do not sell a false Gospel. 

Countries, nations, kingdoms come and go. Material success and prosperity, and freedom and peace, will come and go. The Church will have power and influence some days and none the next. These things do not shake us. They cannot surprise us. And we may never know for sure what God is up to in all of these things. Our blessing and our inheritance is sure yet. 

But to be fair...

All that said, it is impossible to ignore the correlation between the decline of the West as a society, and the secularization of the West. Christianity has long been a crucial part of the West's roots, and the West is cutting off all its roots. Of course it is going to whither and collapse. Christianity gave the West so much of its culture and its vitality - free enterprise, hospitals, the early scientific revolution, abolition, philanthropy, the fine arts, its moral compass - all these bulwarks of Western civilization were strongly helped, if not instigated, by Christianity. And as a Christian I wear these things proudly. 

As the world changes drastically, we see Christians in the West scrambling to come to terms with the fact that there is only so much we can do, or (and I'd say) have the responsibility to do, to preserve these roots. We preach, we serve, we build, we pray, we influence, we hope - but we cannot claw to control the tides of culture of history, or we will lose our witness. That is not the attitude of a people of hope - it assumes that we are only succeeding if the culture or the kingdom is thriving, and accepting us. And this is why you hear some people say 'when America rejects God, we should go to _______ where things are better.' What ridiculousness. What a slap in the face of the Great Commission, of the call of the Church. When we abandon the 'hard places' we've really missed the whole point. We were never promised a happy, peaceful, God-honoring culture to live in and do our work. And the goal of our work is not necessarily a prosperous, godly, country (it's not wrong to hope for such things, but we can't set our hopes on them, when we are so consistently warned in Scripture that most of our call as a Church will not look like this, and the fact that times of comfort lead to times of apathy and corruption). We were called to go to all the earth, to walk like Jesus walked, into the darkest, most hell-riddden corners of this earth. 

  Yes, we must be prophetic. We can point to the depravity and futility of the world and culture around us, as the Church has always done.  And there may be times where we can point to circumstances as God's chastisement or discipline. But we must be very, very, careful about pointing to specific instances as God's judgment, or make theological predictions about the relationship between Christianity, Christian vitality, and the rise or decline of a people.  Where God has not explicitly spoken with historical specificity, these things we cannot know for sure. We can only point to the ultimate judgment, and the breaking of sin in the death and resurrection of Christ, and speak prophetically about the general judgment of God. 


In conclusion

Augustine witnessed the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire. Early Christian hopes that Christianized-Rome represented the Kingdom of God, were dashed in a few short years. Augustine put pen to paper and wrote one of the most important texts of theology ever constructed - Civitas Dei (City of God). The legacy of this text, and of Augustine's political thought as a whole, is complicated and wrought with contradictions (other writings of Augustine, arguably, undermined the message of the City of God).  Nonetheless, that thesis is important for us today: The kingdoms of this earth, are not the Kingdom of God. Empires, nations, countries, will rise and fall, but the City of God is not shaken. Our citizenship is to another Kingdom. 

“The Heavenly City outshines Rome beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity,” 
― Augustine of Hippo, City of God

America might collapse, with or without embracing Christianity (just as Rome collapsed even after embracing Christianity). And the Church may suffer or prosper as she lives among righteous and unrighteous peoples. But whatever comes, her inheritance, her Kingdom, her promise, her blessing, is in heaven with Christ. And this gives us great hope. No matter kings that may fall, or kings that may rise, no matter what we suffer, our victory is secure. Indeed, as it was with Christ, our moments of greatest victory come when we let go and suffer unjustly. For that is when the glory of God is displayed against the depravity of this world. So do not be afraid of crumbling kingdoms, or of persecution, or of nations that reject the Lord and His people. God's power is as strong as ever, our inheritance, our blessing, is a sure as ever - and indeed, God's glory may be about to be displayed in new and glorious ways - just as occurred at calvary. His light shines brightest in the darkness. 

This people of God is blessed, because she is the Lord's inheritance. She is meek and she is poor, but she shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5). She is beaten down, but she is never destroyed (2 Corinthians 4). And at the last day she shall shine like the stars in the sky (Daniel 7) - the stars of Abraham's descendants (Galatians 3:29). 

So Let’s Be Trendy and Talk About Science and the Bible: How Postmodernity Might Save Our Skins

I don’t write about science often. It’s not one of my strengths. But with the recent buzz over the Ham-Nye debate, and yesterday being Charles Darwin’s birthday – I feel obliged.

From redeye on Flickr

It is common for Christian thinkers, and pastors, to critique the onset of postmodernity. And there are good reasons to do so – Western civilization has met a point of futility and utter disaster in its abandonment of God. Yet it is important to remember that ‘Postmodernity’ is not a life philosophy. It is not a ‘religion,’ per se. I do certainly believe that humans are inherently religious beings who will make gods out of anything they can get their hands on. But postmodernity does not have a central core of doctrines or philosophical claims to bind it together. It is, most fundamentally, a critique of modernity. And there are many aspects of modernity worth critiquing, and many of these critiques that we Christians can give some tentative, nuanced, endorsements to.

One of the central features of modernity was its elevation of scientific knowledge. Science was the cool kid on the street. It was the field of study that provided certainty and clarity to our universe. Human reason was elevated, even worshiped in the Enlightenment, and science was the pinnacle of human intellectual achievement.

Very quickly, the elevation of reason began to be criticized – by Kant, and those who followed him. In these first steps of the betrayal of the age of reason, science was still granted a privileged status. Perhaps certainty in ‘subjective’ fields of knowledge is not all its chalked up to be, but science is an ‘objective’ field of study. It is assured. It is clean.

The early stages of postmodernity began, and we started to realize that all sorts of things get in the way of our capacities for reason. Bias, privilege, emotion, history,  experience - the utter smallness of humanity in a big, complicated world, all gets in the way of our thinking. Dark gothic literature began to explore the horror and the mystery of that which is still unknown. Novels like Frankenstein considered the potential of science untamed and unfettered by morality. But for most of the world, science remained the privileged category of certainty. It, at least, is objective. It is uncomplicated by history or morality or culture. An atom is an atom whether you are a 2^nd century peasant, or a 21^st century biologist. The earth revolves around the sun whether the Church lets you believe it or not.

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And then along came Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996), a philosopher of science who would coin the phrase ‘paradigm shift,’ in his attempt to trace the way scientific knowledge changes, morphs, and develops over time. He obliterated the myth that science deserves to be in a special category of certainty.  We have assumptions that we bring to the ‘data.’ We conduct experiments and analyze empirical data through the lens of the assumptions we have developed within our historical context and within our point in the history of science. For example, the theory of relativity changed the way we interpreted data and the way we conducted experiments. Someday we may stumble on enough empirical evidences to force us to reshape the paradigm, but the conceptual framework remains behind our data-gathering. It’s a theory-driven field of study, just like anything else, and theories change as time changes. As new discoveries are made, cultural attitudes transform, and as intellectual climates ebb and flow. It's by no means useless or doomed to failure - absolutely not. But it is not a clean, objective, process. 

Science was now brought into the postmodern critique of certainty. Scientific reasoning changes and morphs with transitions in cultural values and other historical contingencies, just like other fields of knowledge. It can be driven by bias, self-interest, emotion, etc., just like anything else. Including religion. The science obsession of the Nazi regime and the related eugenics movement has jaded us - realizing what happens when science replaces morality or religion as the arbiter of truth and ethics. 

Science was pitted against religion all throughout the scientific age. It brought confident, clear, testable, truths while religion was supposedly subjective and human-driven.  Yet, since the work of Kuhn, no reputable theorist or philosopher treats science as deserving a privileged position. It is subjective, theoretical, and human, as well. 

The exceptions might be the ‘New Atheists,’ like Sam Harris, or Richard Dawkins – people who are remarkably ‘behind the times’ in terms of scientific thought and philosophy.

The postmodern critique of science has in many ways rescued us from the intractable conflict between science and religion. Apologetically, we felt long inclined to defend Christianity on the basis of science, in response to our scientific age which had so smugly thought it had found ‘real knowledge’ unlike had been found in religion. That’s not a worthless endeavor, but it often missed the bigger picture – and assumed the rest of the world’s perspective that science is the only sure field of knowledge. Postmodernity has made these debates largely irrelevant, and has handed us an apologetic ‘golden goose,’ as it were. Scientific data need not be a stumbling block to faith – science is (at least to some degree) just as subjective as any other field of study. It changes and morphs with time. Evolutionary theory might be discarded 200 years from now, and a new paradigm will govern how we theorize and analyze data. Although we got stuck in ruts of arguing over minutia of science and missing the big picture, at least we have been progressive enough be willing to question the Enlightenment-western arrogance that led to the assumption that whatever we now believe about science is certain and unquestionable.

Yet, we must stand our ground that scientific data does not provide comprehensive knowledge. It is a limited field. It can’t really tell us much about the validity or invalidity of Scripture, much less the existence or non-existence of God. It is not a specially privileged field of knowledge.

And so, the trick up our sleeve in contemporary apologetics is that we demand more from the secular world. We need not be on the defensive. You have tight arguments and hefty evidence for evolutionary theory? So what? What does that prove? That’s supposed to challenge my belief in God or my belief in the Bible? We should certainly not approach such conversations with arrogance - quick, impersonal, intellectually dishonest answers has demolished many a'faith. But in the big apologetic picture, we need not be on the defensive against science. The world has, at least somewhat, moved on - and we have that on our side. 

We must be clear with ourselves that this goes both ways. The phenomenon of ‘Creation Science,’ bothers me a bit. And it’s not because I necessarily have a problem with people believing evolution isn’t true or that the earth is young. How dare I think it worthwhile to tell the little old lady at church who has loved the Lord her whole life that she's wrong about the age of the earth. I personally don’t think a young earth reading of Genesis is exegetically defensible – I think it is a gross anachronistic misreading of the text to think the text gives an exact chronology or time frame (or excludes the possibility of evolution). But that’s neither here nor there.

What I have a problem with is filling our kids with scientific data and arguments to ground their faith in. This assumes the very modern-enlightenment idea that the battle for faith must take place in the scientific realm. You can never prepare a child for every bit of data they will read, or every argument they will encounter. As soon as one's creation-science artifice has been chipped away at college by something they were not prepared for and no creation scientist has yet written an article about, the whole faith comes crumbling down because their faith has really been in science. Not in the Bible, much less in Christ. I believe the more healthy thing to do is to help our kids have a faith grounded in something much deeper than the whims of science – that human, subjective, privilege-driven field. Tomorrow, half the arguments for a young earth will be proven wrong. And the day after, half the arguments for evolutionary theory will be proven wrong. This cannot, and should not, be the battle-ground of our faith. It’s too uncertain, too subjective. 

I will clarify: I’m not a complete relativist in terms of scientific knowledge (any more than Kuhn was). After all, I take antibiotics and I get better. I get on planes and they stay in the air. We certainly know things now that generations before us did not. I’m all for scientific endeavor and what it can discover and what it can accomplish.  And I personally lean towards an old earth and some form of theistic-evolutionary theory, because – from the best we can do – that this makes the most sense to me (and I certainly don’t think it contradicts Scripture). But at the end of the day, I don’t put much stock in it all; at least not as far as my faith is concerned. My faith is in something deeper. The confidence I have is from my personal encounter with Jesus, and the sustenance of the Church and the power of the Spirit. I proclaim what has been proclaimed by the Church from the beginning: That Christ died and rose again and that we must depend upon Him for salvation.

Science isn’t going to tell me much about the validity or invalidity of that belief. Its parameters are too small. 

Concerning Hypocrisy

I didn't feel inclined to say much about the Duck Dynasty fiasco, for a variety of reasons. But listening to the radio in the car the other day, I did have this one belated thought:

What does it say about our society when Phil's (undoubtedly crass and, I'd say, insensitive) words earn such swift and decisive reprimand, but our pop songs blatantly treat women like animals and practically advocate rape (Thanks Pitbull for the beautifully artful line: 'Face down, booty up. . . She says she won't but I bet she will' or shall I thank Robin Thicke's classic 'you know you want it.'). Yet, there is comparatively hardly any outrage, and such songs even jump to the top of the charts.

(See my previous rant on sexist pop music, here. )

In a world that is 'sexually liberated' and 'egalitarian,' sexual exploitation is yet rampant. Women are still not treated equally in the work place, and are tossed around like sex objects in pop culture.

I'll go further. One particular instance of hypocrisy has stood out to me.

 What does it say when our 'pro-gay' culture is yet full of constant degrading jokes and stereotypical portrayals of gay people on TV, or when reprehensible slurs typically reserved for the dark corners of the Internet appears in our music (or spewing from Alec Baldwin's mouth). I think Macklemore got many things wrong, but he certainly has a point: 'have you read the Youtube comments lately?' And indeed, 'if I were gay I'd think rap music hates me.'

What does it say when I, the Christian, am the one person who doesn't laugh or jeer behind the back of a cross dressing man who comes into my secular place of employment?

Or when young people struggling with their sexuality, if they ever betray to their peers any hint or clue as to their struggle, are bullied - sometimes to the point of committing suicide?

What does it say when gay people are token friends, or token characters in a movie, that makes one 'politically correct'? Or when they are treated as a voting block to be toted around for political points?

I'll be the first to admit that the Church is full of problems, and has made many mistakes on this issue in particular. But this behavior from our society strikes me as the utter definition of a culture of ridiculous hypocrisy. Quite stellar hypocrisy, actually.

I guess we're not the only ones.

I have this radical notion that the Church should be, and is, the one place where LGBTQ people can be treated with dignity in a world that promises to do so, but continues to do the opposite.

 There is a growing diversification of views on homosexuality within Evangelicalism - the disagreement over homosexuality, in the next generation, will not be between Evangelicals and liberal protestants but will increasingly becoming an inter-Evangelical disagreement.  But I want to be clear that this notion of bestowing dignity does not require one to abandon one's traditional opinions on homosexuality, any more than Jesus gave up his notions of right and wrong to dignify prostitutes, or adulterers; not to mention the pagan Gentiles and the poor. I was blessed by a gentleman from this organization who came to speak at our seminary campus last Fall.  He maintains an unapologetic conservative position on homosexuality, that more than a few Christians might disagree with, but whatever your opinion I don't know how you can help but respect that he works tirelessly to equip churches to understand and love homosexual people better. I especially respect that he helps equip public schools to prevent the suicide of youth who struggle with their sexual identity (such suicide rates are astronomically high, the Church has a crucial opportunity here to provide love and support and save the lives of those thrown under the bus of a culture that, really, doesn't seem to care all that much).

I love the story of Wesley Hill, a celibate Christian man. He tells the beautiful story of his life in the book Washed and Waiting. He explains his experience of feeling attracted to the same sex since the day he had his first conscious sexual feeling.  He describes in heartbreaking ways how he spent his whole life feeling constantly 'dirty' and utterly despised by God, because of feelings and tendencies he had known since puberty. But how, in the midst of confusion, pain, loneliness, infinite attempts to try different ways to change his orientation, and conflict about what lifestyle to pursue, he came to know (through the love of Christian mentors, friends, and his parents) that in the middle of all these things, God loved him, and saw him as a beloved child.  Hill explains gracefully how church leaders can, and must, show the same love and provide the same dignity to people with similar lives and struggles. We can do so because we serve a God of abundant love.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of non-Christian people who are loving and respectful of others. Many people, Christian and non-Christian, have raised awareness to the aforementioned suicide issue, for example. Many non-Christian feminists would agree with us in their disgust at the sexualization of women (and men) in pop culture. There have certainly been times in the past when the Church has gotten its act together by being shown up by people outside the Church, and there are some ways that this is the case now. I don't mean to simply portray this as a mere game of 'good guys' and 'bad guys.' But, yet, I remain astounded by the starkness of the 'big picture,' our culture represents a cycle of dizzying futility and hypocrisy.

We offer something none of the rest of the world does - the remarkable message that you are loved by God just for who you are. This is not to deny that we are all sinners in need of radical transformation. But we are loved by God while we are yet sinners, and we Christians owe that same love to everyone around us. We offer a call and a dignity that allows us to be understood as human beings, not a sexual identity, not a nationality, not our failures or our successes.

There is a wide open market for a context in which homosexual people are treated with dignity. Because the rest of the world, while talking big, keeps failing miserably.

The Church is not counter-cultural so much for thinking certain things are right and wrong.  We are counter-cultural for doing this very thing the rest of the world has failed to do. That's the trick up our sleeve. That's the punch line to the joke. We can lose the 'culture battle' and still win the war, because we have dared to love recklessly, better than our supposedly progressive society. You think the Church is slandered for her position on homosexuality? Such radical love is what will make us really hated. Such will lead to actual persecution, though it still may take the form of accusing us of monstrosities resulting our 'moralism.'  Don't be deceived by the rhetoric, and don't let it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We don't win by becoming what we are caricatured to be. We win by the utter surprise of being more sincerely loving than the world. This is what worried me about the Duck Dynasty reaction: Phil was definitely treated unfairly, and we should stand up for a society of fair and open dialogue, but we shouldn't be tricked into becoming martyrs for crassness. That's a victory for the world, not for Jesus. We win by not playing the game.

There have been many times in which the Church has inflicted severe and inexcusable pain upon homosexual people, and many others, and it is important that we recognize and own that fact. In fact, this is necessary so that we do not become like the world, or what the world accuses us of being. We offer something our hypocritical world avoids: A willingness to truly and sincerely apologize for our mistakes, because we understand the dignity of humility, and we know the power of grace. We pursue the sincere and meek love we have known in our Lord.

But at the end of the day, our moral opinions or the mistakes that we have made, is not what's really, actually, the most offensive. It's just easy fodder for a much deeper contention. What is offensive about us is our love, and the dignity we dare to bestow to those the rest of the world doesn't seem to actually care about. That is what put Jesus on the cross, marked as a common criminal and branded by the religious authorities as a friend of those they hated: sinners, the poor, Gentiles.

Come to the cross. Come to the place where you are a human being, not your gender, not your sexuality, not your race or nationality, not your mistakes or your successes, not your sins or your righteousness, not your sincerity or your hypocrisy, not your wounds or your woundings, but simply a human loved by a gracious God just the way you are, Who wants to become the only, most central, defining factor in your life. Come bring your pain to Him, who doesn't want to turn your pain into a political agenda, but wants to hold you in His arms just as you are.

Pop Justice

Neil Postman warned us of an age when 'entertainment' would be our primary mode of discourse. Right on schedule, our moral norms are now transferred through entertainment - especially for those must susceptible (namely, the young). We hand our emotions over to the sounds and images and through it, we are formed into who we are. I do not mean to be a mere prophet of doom of the evils of television and pop music. I love my sitcoms. And I'd consider losing a limb to see U2 in concert. It's a transition of discourse like others that have taken place. There are pros and cons to such a transition. It allows us to think anew about how cultural forms besides words form us - consider how the pre-modern world was largely shaped through liturgy, art, and religious music. But we must at least be cognizant of the fact (and the attendant dangers to this fact) that entertainment profoundly shapes our behaviors and social norms. And vice versa. Look to our entertainment to see what we value and how we live.

The picture is sobering.

Our pop songs feature men speaking the same words as rapists: "you know you want it" (Robin Thicke). Or they feature the manipulative language of a boy talking a girl into a one-night-stand: "I know we only met but let's pretend it's love. . .tonight let's 'get some'" (One Direction). A boy dances on stage acting out the ogling of scantily clad women who are stoic, nameless, impersonal (Justin Bieber). A man announces point blank that he's 'a dog' and that he wants his women 'like Miley Cyrus. . . facedown, booty up' - objectified and faceless. A slave. (Pitbull 'Timber').

                                               

Our music worships rape, abuse, and exploitation - why the heck are we so surprised over sexual violence in our society? We worship and glorify it and call it 'entertainment.' We dance to it at our parties, we get drunk on it. We unleash these songs on young people and we wonder why they turn around and exploit and abuse one another. Where are role models telling our young men to treat women with respect? Where are the encouragers telling our young women that they deserve to be treated better? Why are we only openly offended when a woman takes too much of her clothes off? We expend all our energy shaming Miley, while the likes of Robin Thicke and Pitbull get free passes for creating music that celebrates demanding women to be subservient to their monstrous desires. At least Pitbull is honest: the way we found Miley acting at the AMA is exactly how he wants her. She may deserve some criticism, but in a sick way she becomes the victim that allows us to ignore the real problem - and we perpetuate her exploitation by joking and ridiculing her.

We act shocked when teenage rape/sexting cases hit the news, or when a forced prostitution ring is uncovered. What blissful and damnable ignorance. Parents have no clue about the culture of sexual exploitation that exists among young people. So many are ignorant of the sex-slavery industry that is rampant here in the West (it's by no means a 'third world' problem). Don't they realize that those few scapegoat cases are merely the tip of the iceberg?

Why should we be surprised, when the hymns are of rape, and the liturgy on stage is one of assault?

This is not the prudish ramblings of a culture warrior expecting this sinful world to be good, or calling for people to hide from it. It's the indignant fuming of someone looking for justice.

Indeed, merely hiding away from 'the depravity of the world' does little good. The Church must offer an alternative set of symbols and values: Songs, sounds, images, practices, words, of justice, respect, value, and love. Not as an alternative sub-culture that mimics the world's forms (in diminished quality, typically) and gives us an escape from the world - but in dynamic, prophetic, active ways.

And so, it is in this spirit that I say to all women, including Miley: I just want you to know that you are worth so much more than this world tells you that you are. You are golden. You are loved. Pitbull may want you on your hands, 'twerking,' but Jesus wants to look at your face, and behold the beautiful, free, independent, whole person God has made you to be. And I see you that way too. To all men: you can live for so much more than this. For building up and not tearing down. For giving, not for taking. For serving, not for demanding. Come to the table, where you find all that you are looking for in giving yourself for others, and being given to by others. Find your identity in the humility of mutually serving and being served by women - live for their dignity while so much of the rest of the world finds their identity in exploiting and dominating over women.

All Christians, men and women, are called to submit to one another, just as Christ has given all to us; not to exploit and take from one another. We come to the table of Christ where there is reconciliation between the sexes, in stark contrast to a world where we enslave and dominate. We live in a new community in which we sing about, gaze upon, and liturgically mimic the One who came to heal, uplift, and dignify us while we are yet sinners - loving us merely because He chooses to, not because of anything we do. Through these symbols, sounds, and actions, we are reminded that we are set free, we have worth, in Christ. The world, especially our youth, is thirsty for such a community. Let us show the way, and in doing so announce freedom for the captives that are shackled to the violent sex gods that are hiding behind stylized synth tracks.



She must and shall go free.