Wow. This is kind of surprising. The Roman Catholic Church announced today that they would fully receive Anglican (Episcopalian to American viewers) disenfranchised congregations under their wing, while allowing them to retain their local and historical Anglican traditions. Very interesting news and just goes to show that the world is growing smaller in so many respects…
Last night I attended the U2/BlackEyePeas concert in Norman. I’ll talk more about it later (suffice it to say it — it was super enjoyable). I did here want to say that I really like Bono. I love that he is not ashamed of what he believes and he’ll unabashedly call people to be and participate in something more than themselves. Here are a couple of quotes of his that I really like where he defends Christianity. He might not have everything right, but he’s not afraid to say what he believes:
“You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so you will sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff…I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep shit. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.”
and
“But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled… . It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.”
Taken from here
“I speak as a Christian- one whose commitment to democracy is very deep but whose Christian convictions are deeper. Democracy is not my faith. And American democracy is not my idol. To see the gospel of Jesus Christ bastardized by imperial Christians and pulverized by Constantinian believers and then exploited by nihilistic elites of the American empire makes my blood boil. To be a Christian- a follower of Jesus Christ- is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom. This is the radical love in Christian freedom and the radical freedom in Christian love that embraces socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope.
If Christians do not exemplify this love and freedom, then we side with the nihilists of the Roman empire (cowardly elite Romans and subjugated Jews) who put Jesus to a humiliating death. Instead of receiving his love in freedom as a life-enhancing gift of grace, we end up believing in the idols of the empire that nailed him to the cross. I do not want to be numbered among those who sold their souls for a mess of pottage- who surrendered their democratic Christian identity for a comfortable place at the table of the American empire while, like Lazarus, the least of these cried out and I was too intoxicated with worldly power and might to hear, beckon, and heed their cries.
Emphasis mine. Found here.
To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely- to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away. This is the kind of vision and courage required to enable the renewal of prophetic, democratic Christian identity in the age of the American empire.”
The divine banner and the human banner do not go together,
nor the standard of Christ and the standard of the Devil. Only
without the sword can the Christian wage war: the Lord has abolished
the sword. ~Tertullian
It’s not only the cry of the poor we must listen to but also the cry of the earth. The earth and human beings are both threatened. We must do something to change the situation… ~Leonardo Boff
Today is Blog Action Day for 2009 and the topic of focus is “climate change.” I’ve debated about joining in this year because climate change isn’t one of those topics at the top of my list to write about. There is a lot of heat behind a subject that at its very nature right now is quite subjective. But I decided I’d go ahead and join in the discussion to hone in on one specific and important aspect of it: stewardship. I’ll get to that in a minute though.
I should start however by talking about a few key things that should temper the “global warming” debate (at least as far as I’m concerned). For one, I think it worthwhile to note that its not exact science (or better put, centered around theories); there are many respectable scientists on each side of the issue and we should be willing to hear them all out. Currently, I’d say that the politicians tug our heartstrings a little too much (it can be hard taking Al Gore seriously when you match his Inconvenient Truth versus his lifestyle, which as the linked article notes, has thankfully changed, at least in part). Technically, the side I generally fall on is that of the “global warming” skeptics. BBC News recently published an article that fairly accurately sums my thoughts. In it, temperatures are shown to have not really changed much at all over the past 11 years. Further, it posits that the earth naturally goes through cycles of warming and cooling; historical data seems to back this pretty well. This is the side of the fence I’ve stood on for quite some time.
Now to get back to what this post is about. Practically speaking, even though I’m skeptical of global warming as hard science, I’m generally on the side of those seeking reform, not because I think it will necessarily change things but as a stewardship perspective, it’s generally the right thing to do. It’s frustrating walking outside in a big city and immediately choking due to the brown and grey haze that has descended upon it. Or finding oneself burned from the sun, in part due to an ever disappearing ozone layer. Or finding out that a different species has forever died each day due, at least in part, to our everyday choices.
For many, the choice to ignore what I might consider responsible stewardship is their perspective on God and the ages to come. A generalized belief that I’ve often heard repeated is that we were given dominion over the earth to use it (up) as we see fit, regardless of consequences. This theology saddens me as I see it take root in the lives of people. The fruit that it produces tends to be a neglect of the world around us (it doesn’t matter if we destroy all of these forests; we want the wood) and the people that live in it (there might be people that depend on that land for their very livelihood but it’s more fitting for my factory). And at this point it does become a justice issue.
So what might a theology that stands against this look like? For one I think it should be rooted in a desire for dominion with a heart bent on stewardship and not domination. Genesis 1:28 does say to be fruitful, multiply and subdue the land but with the context 2:15, where man is charged with the earth’s care and maintenance. Leviticus 25 is another place we see God demanding stewardship of the earth rather than its domination (these are the versus of the Sabbath and Jubilee years). You can find within the pages of the prophets condemnation for abusing the earth as well.
Another aspect of our theology that needs a healthy dose of consideration is our eschatology (the study of the end times). The Lord’s prayer is a good place to start. Near its beginning, Jesus compels us to pray, “Your kingdom come! Your will be done! On earth as it is in heaven.” We, as followers of Jesus and as we move through out our lives, seek to see the space we move in transformed into something more akin to the kingdom of heaven. Part of the reason for that is that ultimately, where we walk today will one day actually be the kingdom. Jesus is returning to earth, not to take us away, but to physically reign here! If we ignore stewardship choosing domination instead, we ignore the aspect of the coming kingdom that says all of creation is reconciled through Jesus (Colossians 1:20) and therefore matters to our God above.
This note isn’t designed to be comprehensive but merely a catalyst to get you thinking about our responsibility in caring for the world around us. I began it with the quote from Leonardo Boff, an astute theologian of liberation theology and it’s tie to ecology, because I think stewardship matters to God, specifically as Boff puts. When we fail to steward responsibly, missing the cry of the earth we live on, we often miss the cry of those around us in the process.
I thought I might share a thought for the day that starts with a question. In Jesus, were you given a spirit of fear? Or were you given something entirely different — a Spirit of power? Of love? Of self-control? This is an extremely important question which should greatly shape how we walk out our days. I’m hoping the answer is obvious. If not — turn no further than Paul’s second letter to Timothy. The first chapter opens with an exhortation to Timothy to remember the gift that we possess in the Lord —
For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.
2 Timothy 1:7
This begs me ask the followup question: Why do so many Jesus followers, fearing we are on the verge of the worst (either the end times specifically or national judgement due to the politics in Washington or some other imminent apocalypse) live like the former when we should be living like the latter? It’s disquieting hearing all of the talk that we as Christians should be readying ourselves for some sort of doom, or to head to the caves and across the borders in defeat or to buy up guns and such for the coming wars, whenever or whatever they might be. It seems to be rooted in an unholy fear — a fear that perhaps Christ’s death really wasn’t enough for us and the rest of the world, that perhaps our fate really wasn’t decided on Calvary as we might have supposed. Or at least that’s the impression we leave people with.
Where does this come from? I read the scriptures, spend time meditating on the person of Jesus and what He has accomplished and ushered in to this world and can’t find this fear or response in any of it. Were Jesus not in the picture, we might have something to fear but because Jesus is in the picture, the worst that evil can do is no match. Paul’s letter to Timothy says not 3 verses from his answer to the first question that Jesus has broken the power of death.
…He has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel!
2 Timothy 1:10
In John’s first letter it says that Jesus’ once and for all destroyed the works of the devil (that’s why He came into this world!). And again it shines through — in Jesus there isn’t anything anymore to fear. Honestly, I think some of the fear is wrapped up in how we individualistically view the cross. The reductionist tendency to see Jesus’ death as solely affecting the individual makes us miss the bigger picture — we are definitely a part of it but Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection brought victory decisively over all evil, once and for all. That should mean nothing to fear.
And it should flow from all of this, I hope, that rather then trying to escape when the going gets tough we should live in the realization that we are the tough (empowered by a Holy Spirit unlike anything in this world) and that we should get going, not away but into the thick of it, making Jesus’ kingdom known and available, here and now, for those who desperately need it. It saddens me to hear the Gospel cheapened into some sort of an escape plan when it, by it’s very nature, has the ability to radically change the world around us. I think it rather foolish of us to think that the time we live in is somehow so radically different from those times throughout history. Considering the Christian experience under pagan Roman rule is one early example of how easy we have it in light of what could be. And the kingdom of God exploded in that time period. Withdrawal, escape, rebellion, violence and other such ideas antithetical to living out the kingdom as its ambassadors wasn’t the modus operandi but living out the Word — Jesus and His life — was. It changed the world once; it’s foolish to think that it couldn’t again.
I started by mentioning that I wanted to share a thought for the day. Really this is a thought for our time and all time. It’s something to take with us wherever God takes us. It’s something to cling to. If the power of the Cross can transform our hellish lives into heavenly bodies then no matter how bad the world around might look we should walk in confidence knowing that the war is done and over and that one day, even if not today, the Kingdom will reign.