Death Swallowed a Body and Encountered God: Happy Easter

Χριστός Ανέστη! Christ's Resurrection Icon

Let none fear death; for the death of the Saviour has set us free.

He has destroyed death by undergoing death.

He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.

He vexed it even as it tasted his flesh.

Isaiah foretold this when he cried:

Hell was filled with bitterness when it met Thee face to face below;

Filled with bitterness, for it was brought to nothing;

Filled with bitterness, for it was mocked;

Filled with bitterness, for it was overthrown;

Filled with bitterness, for it was put in chains.

Hell received a body, and encountered God.

It received earth, and confronted heaven.

O death, where is your sting?

O hell, where is your victory?

Christ is risen! And you, o death, are annihilated!

Christ is risen! And the evil ones are cast down!

Christ is risen! And the angels rejoice!

Christ is risen! And life is liberated!

Christ is risen! And the tomb is emptied of its dead;

For Christ having risen from the dead,

Is become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

To Him be the Glory and Power, now and forever, and from all ages to all ages.

Amen!

-St. John of Chrysostom: Paschal Homily

Why Jesus Hates Fig Trees

So in honor of this week set apart to observe all the things that surrounded Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection (Holy Week) I believe one of the most unsettling verses might just be the best way to enter into it!

In Mark 11 Jesus and his disciples stroll into Jerusalem. Jesus, who is riding on a peace donkey instead of a war horse, gets a kingly welcome with palm branches and coats thrown over the road and the people confess him as the continuation of the Davidic kingdom (11:7-10).  Things might just turn out okay!  Except, the very next day Jesus does something completely un-peaceable and unpredictable. He curses a perfectly good fig tree when he found it had all leaves and no fruit! What’s more is that he does it on his way to indict the Pharisees and the temple for desecrating what was supposed to be set apart for God. 

I have to admit, for a long time I never understood why Jesus would curse a tree for not having any fruit on it (while he was hungry mind you) especially since it wasn’t even the season for figs (Mk 11:12-14). My initial thought was, gee I guess Messiahs are prone to smite when their blood-sugar is low, but as much as I like to insist on this as a valid interpretation that is not what’s happening.  This is actually something more akin to performance-art of the prophetic genre. And like performance art, which seeks to rejuvenate art after artists have become dissatisfied with the traditional forms of art, Jesus too was dissatisfied with some traditions mucking up God’s expressions. 

Therefore, interpreting symbolism is vital to our making sense of this scene. Consider the idea that a “Fig Tree”, especially in Jerusalem, is no more just a tree than the Bald Eagle is just an eagle in Washington D.C. (or anywhere in the US).  It carries enormous symbolism with it. Fig trees were an icon of blessing, leadership, provision, but most importantly, it symbolized the temple and its structure which itself was a sign of justice and maintaining order. We should then conclude that the fig tree is thematically tied to the following temple scene and thus stands as a symbol for God’s judgment on Israel’s “out of season” religious leaders.

In Tim Geddert’s commentary on Mark, he makes the point that Jesus was no more punishing the tree than he was the temple as neither did anything wrong, but the religious leaders were being unfaithful to God and neighbor (12:40) so it became a prophetic symbol.[1] Upon entering the temple, Jesus’ suspicions are confirmed (just like with the tree) the religious leaders are “all leaves and no fruit”[2]  We should infer some things from the elements pointed out in Jesus’ condemnation to see what their out of season fruitlessness means.

Here is the temple scene for easy reference (so scroll on if you don’t need it):

¹⁵ Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; ¹⁶ and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. ¹⁷ He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written,

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’?
    But you have made it a den of robbers.”

¹⁸ And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching (NRSV).

In v. 15 we have money changers whose job it is to exchange currency so that foreigners could both pay the temple tax and buy sacrificial animals. These were promised to be ceremonially kosher and goods of convenience from temple dealers. The doves were the less expensive, but acceptable choice for those who could not afford a sacrificial lamb.[3] Jesus is asking in what way is this a place of worship? It clearly cannot be because it is commercialism and commercialism is enslaved to and worships Mammon.

So also, since Jesus points out that this is a house of worship for “All Nations” (compare vs.17 and Isa. 56:7) they have probably managed to exclude the Gentiles from worshiping. Whether the temple leaders organized it spitefully out of nationalistic smugness or just for selfish gain, Gentiles were only allowed to worship in the outer court where all the transactions were taking place. Thus worshiping God in such a noisy market for the Gentiles would have proved impossible.  To add to this, Geddert says that other sources affirm that profit-taking was commonplace and dealers could charge inflated prices (even on the doves) from those who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and had no convenient way to travel with sacrificial animals.[5]  The temple had been made into a burden for everyone, but those who profited.

In fact Jesus’ condemnation and cleansing of the temple means that it was so corrupted and failed that it could never be the completion of God’s eschatological promise (probably also the reason in Jn. 2:19, Jesus tells them to tear it down and he’ll rebuild it). The temple as it was had become a “dry withered tree” (Mk 11:20-21) with no future.  This scenario should make the reader exclaim, then where is the temple that is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision?

It is this question that we should reflect on from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday.  The fig tree is withered and can no longer draw and feed all nations, but there is the new Temple and he draws nations and exiles and captives and feeds them in the desert. The fig tree becomes the “lynching tree” of control, but this is the very tree that Jesus destabilizes and transforms into the communion table, the forgiveness tree, where bread and wine has been broken and poured out for all who will come.

[1] Timothy J. Geddert. Mark: The Believers Bible Commentary. (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 2001), 263-264.

[2] Ibid, 264.

[3] Ibid. 266.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

Lent and Trust

Many of us are on the annual Lenten journey of prayer, fasting and interior examination. This time offers the church opportunity to regain sight of and grow into the identity handed us at baptism. More specifically as individuals and as a community we intentionally deconstruct the postures and images of ourselves that we hide behind (acceptable illusions for thriving in a world of acquisition) and humbly trade it all in for a cross.  We can’t very well have resurrection without dying first, can we?

            Learning to discern God’s voice from other competing voices can never be done well while obeying the rules of the busy and demanding world. For forty weekdays in our liturgical calendar we give up the noise that hinders our discipleship.

Forty days reminds us of the 40 days Jesus leaves the safety of life-as-usual for the wilderness of testing (Lk. 4:1-2) which itself points to Israel leaving Egypt’s empire of greed and anxiousness for 40 years in the wilderness (Ex. 12:31-33). In both instances we learn to let God feed us; we learn to trust God with our suffering as much as with our joy; we trust God to give a beginning where there was only “The End”. So it is in light of this that we should with fresh eyes read these two Lenten passages from Isaiah and Peter:

 “Shout...
    Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives,
    face my family Jacob with their sins!
They’re busy, busy, busy at worship,
    and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they’re a nation of right-living people—
    law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, ‘What’s the right thing to do?’
    and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
    ‘Why do we fast and you don’t look our way?
    Why do we humble ourselves and you don’t even notice?’

 “Well, here’s why:

“The bottom line on your ‘fast days’ is profit.
    You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
    You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
    won’t get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
   and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
    a fast day that I, God, would like?

 “This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

“If you get rid of unfair practices,
    quit blaming victims,
    quit gossiping about other people’s sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
    and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
    your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
    I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
    firm muscles, strong bones.
You’ll be like a well-watered garden,
    a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
    rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You’ll be known as those who can fix anything,
    restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
    make the community livable again. (Isa. 58:1-12 MSG)

And!

“This is the kind of life you’ve been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step.

He never did one thing wrong,
Not once said anything amiss.

They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right. He used his servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing. You were lost sheep with no idea who you were or where you were going. Now you’re named and kept for good by the Shepherd of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:21-25 MSG)

Revelation: Speaking Truth to Power

Wall Street’s “Charging Bull” sure has come 

a long way from being a “golden calf”...

This is one of what might be a couple of follow-ups to my post on interpreting Revelation (See Here).  While I’m still not offering the typical “future events to come” interpretation, it is a book relevant for our day which is my main reason for looking at parts of it. This is to say that what John is revealing to the seven churches of Asia applies to churches across generation and geography in every era. Why? Because Empire still lives on and the whole earth, including large portions of the church, follows that Beast! The church needs ears to hear, eyes to see and the willingness to unmask the Anti-Christs, Beasts and Harlots of Revelation for what it really was in John’s day as-well-as what it is in ours.   

The Beast

 Looking first at Revelation 13, John is calling out the people’s blind loyalty to the Roman Empire (again see my other post for why I would correlate the Beast to Empire).  The Beast comes out of the sea and has ten horns and seven heads(13:1) which, as Ted Grimsrud says, symbolizes “the power of domination” and domination is antithetical to the power of the Slain Lamb.[1]  So also, the rest of its animal-attributes (bear paws, lion’s mouth) are given to it to paint the picture that this thing is a violent devourer(13:2). 

The verse then says that the seven-headed monster has blasphemous names written on its head(s).  What this probably implied to the ancient imagination was names that speak of fidelity to the Beast or equate itself to God such as, well, God, or Son of God, or Lord, or Messianic-Caesar, and so forth, but they will get the hint that any Beast-Empire demanding such recognition would always be quite the counterfeit. 

            As the chapter continues, Grimsrud points out, the motifs of “worship” of the Beast and the Beast’s “conquering” unfolds (13:4-6) but in the text it raises the question of who indeed can fight against the Beast (rhetorical propaganda in this chapter but a concrete question overall)?[2]  The statement is that the people all seem to consensually follow because any kind of physical resistance would be futile! Yet, the counter theme and exception is the perseverance and faith of the saints refusing to follow suit, but also refuse to fight like it fights (13:7-10).

            Then the second Beast rises from the earth (later revealed as the false prophet 16:13; 20:10) and speaks like the dragon (revealing that its power ultimately came from Satan). His job, however, is to support the first Beast and exercise authority on its behalf drawing people in with signs and wonders(13:11-14).  The subsequent oppression results in the people willingly taking the mark of the beast, six hundred and sixty-six, so that they can be part of its economy (13:15-18).  However, to draw from Grimsrud again, some deciphering of this number may be irrelevant.  It was a symbol pointing toward the people’s consent of the human-empire even though it would ultimately fall short of God’s completeness (seven hundred and seventy-seven) especially since Rome promised power, wholeness and peace.[3]

Nevertheless, John is warning the churches of Asia about Rome saying, in Bauckham’s words, “…either one shares Rome’s own ideology, the view of Empire promoted by Roman propaganda, or one sees it from the perspective of heaven, which unmasks the pretentions of Rome… Roman Empire is portrayed as a system of violent oppression, founded on conquest, maintained by violence and oppression.”[4] In brief, don’t be enthusiastically swayed by all the Empire’s vitality and prestige because in God’s eyes it betrays His creation and is anti-Christ.

The Harlot

Jumping ahead to Ch. 17-18, we meet the Harlot.  The Harlot is adorned in seductive colored clothing, but more crucial she is decorated with Rome’s finest commodities: gold, pearls and jewels and even drinks from a gold cup (Rev.17:4).

So, while John gave symbols and critique of Rome’s politics before, in this chapter he links the political with the economic by using symbols of commercial trade.  Simultaneously, and given that the Harlot rides the back of the Beast, we must see them as interconnected at least in their shared interests.  As Bauckham points out, the merchants of Rome benefited from the Empire because Rome (the self proclaimed eternal city) offered certain privileges and security for participation and bolstered their status within the society’s pecking order; thus “the Harlot lives well at her client’s expense.”[5] 

However, John’s main critique here is that the Harlot is an intoxicating deception (17:2), but one that will itself be devoured by the Beast (17:16).  Consequently, John’s angel explains, just as the Harlot’s self-glorification and luxuries will be brought to ruin and turned into torment and grief, so also will it be for those who get caught with her (18:3-7).  It is in this place of ruin that merchants can only greave the loss of the consumers even though it was the Empire that gave her power in the first place (18:11-19) but Grimsrud asserts that its fruit always rested on the backs of slaves and human souls.[6]  This brought an indictment against the Rome (their current Babylon), and those benefiting from it, as traitors. Its violence and inequality was an anti-creational and therefore seditious act betraying human life (18:20-21).    

Present Significance

If this has not felt reminiscent of America, especially now, I can only urge you to reread it.  The Beastly-Empire and its Harlot live on driving willing participants (with which it cannot operate without) for its political vitality and silos of wealth. It is a Pyramid and the Beast protectively sits at its top.  

Now before anyone goes quoting Rom. 13 or 1 Tim. 2:2 at me, let me say, yes, I believe we are subjected to governing authorities (they kind of make it that way) and yes we should pray for our leaders (and even the ones you disagree with in authority), but we Christians have another responsibility. It starts with dissociating ourselves from all that does not reflect the world’s Creator. We need to be a prophetic voice against unchecked power and a refuge for the poor, the hungry, the orphans, the widows and the immigrants (Lev. 19:33-34; Deut. 14:29; Jam. 1:27). This is especially true when authority feels rebuked (Isa. 1:17) and labels us traitors of their agenda.

Empires are part and parcel to a world that operates under domination as the main form of power. Its assumption is that it can coerce by deciding who is slave, who is free, who lives and who dies. This spirit aims to form us, but it is not real power! Who knows this better than those who have suffered the most? They are no longer blinded by the delusions that the Empire conscripts: its control, security and manipulated-logic. It is those who have both suffered and been comforted by God that know the Empire decides temporary things, but has no real power in the end (2 Cor. 1:3-5).

When you can let go of its lies and become aware that you live in God’s creation, you get to tell an alternate story.  The story is that we can let go and not cling to our lives because we die to living on our terms and become alive to the reality that we belong in the hands of He Who holds our lives and the lives of our oppressors. We are free to say No to the Beast that tells us to betray each other for something unattainable.

Power through domination is Anti-Christ. It is rooted in an ego that believes itself to be self-made, rather than other-formed, and by which every person is either a tool for its own success or a stumbling block in need of removal. So let me end by saying that it is the job of each generation to unmask this Beast and join the never-ending story of the Lamb who leads us another way.

[1] Ted Grimsrud. Revelation Notes: Chapter 13. Retrieved January 24, 2017 from https://peacetheology.net/2015/07/03/revelation-notes-chapter-13/

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid. With that said, I do know there are others (much more competent in Koine Greek than I am) who also say that 666 was a version of Nero’s name and was a mark or branding for people who wanted to buy and sell in that time period. So that is another interpretative aspect worth explore, though I don’t think it negates Grimsrud’s point.

[4] Richard Bauckham. New Testament Theology: The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 35.

[5] Ibid, 36.

Christmas Poem: Remembering that it Happened Once

Icon in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem

Remembering that it happened once,

We cannot turn away the thought,

As we go out, cold, to our barns

Toward the long night’s end, that we

Ourselves are living in the world

It happened in when it first happened,

That we ourselves, opening a stall

(A latch thrown open countless times

Before), might find them breathing there,

Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,

The mother kneeling over Him,

The husband standing in belief

He scarcely can believe, in light

That lights them from no source we see,

An April morning’s light, the air

Around them joyful as a choir.

We stand with one hand on the door,

Looking into another world

That is this world, the pale daylight

Coming just as before, our chores

To do, the cattle all awake,

Our own frozen breath hanging

In front of us; and we are here

As we have never been before,

Sighted as not before, our place

Holy, although we knew it not.

Wendell Berry: From his 1987 Sabbath poems.

Revelation and Interpretation

God: Slain Lamb or Golem

This is the beginning of what might become several posts on the topic of Revelation since I will be spending some time here over the next couple of months.  So I thought I probably needed something of a preface that explains how I could come to the conclusions I will about various aspects of the book.  I say this primarily because this is one area of the Bible where I (as do an increasing number of theologians, Biblical academics and so forth) strongly disagree with the prominent scholars, pastors and mainline evangelicals on its interpretation. It is often read as some straight-forward vision of future events without consideration for its literary genre. So if you are looking for bible codes, blood moons, or any astrological fortune-telling interpretation, it is not here. If you are looking for the return of a violent Jesus and/or blood-thirsty vengeful god, well I’m afraid John subverts all that too. However, if you want to see a letter with a prophetic critique of church and Roman Empire (and all empires to come) with an apocalyptic construction, well then stay tuned my friend!

Since I am mostly utilizing Richard Bauckham’s work here I want to begin with what is his take (amid all the negativity that gets put) on the book. He says, “The method and conceptuality of the theology of Revelation are relatively different from the rest of the New Testament, but once they are appreciated in their own right, Revelation can be seen to be not only as one of the finest literary works of the New Testament, but also one of the greatest theological achievements of early Christianity.”[1]

To begin, the literary composition of Revelation actually has three categories: prophetic, apocalyptic and letter.  Its “prophetic” aspect is actually not normal given that Christian-prophecy was primarily an oral practice in the New Testament church.  Bauckham makes the point that the vision itself was a private and spontaneous event which was orally reported to the church after it occurred, even if it happened while they were gathered together.[2]  While John’s Revelation does depict an oral vision (of critique, judgment and energizing-hope), we cannot overlook that it was a skilled and sophisticated literary composition that is more complex than most visions. This would mean that it was an altered depiction based off of a visionary experience, but do not think that this falsifies or detracts from its authenticity. Rather, as Bauckham suggests, after careful reflection on the revelation John could only convey the message of the vision by creating a literary composition dense with themes, images and meaning, rather than just retelling the actual vision.[3]  This is to say that our average words are insufficient for the task and cannot bear the weight of what God has revealed to us in our consciousness, visionary capacity and/or feelings.

Revelation as an “apocalyptic” work, however, carries close ties with its prophetic elements and is often cited as an apocalyptic-prophecy.  John uses a narrative framework common in the apocalyptic tradition for this revelation in a way that reveals a vision of the unseen world’s relationship with physical reality. Its generic relationship to other Jewish apocalypses is seen in how “a narrative framework, in which a revelation is being mediated by an ‘otherworldly-being’ toward a ‘human-recipient’, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (as J.J. Collins defines it).[4]  The point here being that the apocalyptic imagery that John constructs is how he thought it best to utilize words in a way that would paint the vision he had: A vision of overwhelming and cosmic perspective and one that speaks directly into the early church’s world.

While it is often debated as to where specifically apocalyptic-theology originated, its function, as Gorman says, does seem to consistently work to “sustain the people of God, especially in times of crisis, particularly evil and oppression.”[5]  This is pertinent as it reiterates the point that while in one aspect it uses vivid and inflated imagery to make the vision visible to the church, it simultaneously acts as an expression of hope for the oppressed and a critique of both the oppressors and dualist Christians trying to be on both sides of the issue (God and church vs evil and governing-powers).

This leads us to the “letter” aspect of Revelation. It was also a circular letter addressed to seven churches within Asia who lived under Roman occupation: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. Bauckham suggests that while John would have probably known this letter would find its way to other churches (to which he offers an indirect “and this goes for you too”) he blatantly addresses the situations and failures of each church in the seven messages (Rev. 2:1-3:22).[6] 

Thus, John’s introductive acknowledgment of these church’s situation is set up because John believes (or was told) his vision expresses an important relation to their situations. Moreover, with a pre-determined audience, John’s pointed imagery probably wasn’t mysterious in the first-century minds of his hearers, just as the imagery of something like our political cartoons isn’t mysterious in our minds. Because of this it will again require more from us, who are removed from the first-century, while interpreting.

To conclude here, while this apocalyptic-prophetic-letter is full of meaning for the church in every time period, it was not written to us, so prepare to take nothing at face value and interpret everything through another world’s current events, symbols, contrasts, parallels and cross-references.  The barrage of imagery John uses is drawn from several well established literary traditions, but it is applied to his own contemporary time. Therefore, the books character is formed by all that is happening around them which is essential to understanding its meaning. 

Consider these ideas to see how this might change interpretation:

1.      The serpent/dragon (Rev. 12:3-9) can be compared with the serpent in Eden (Gen. 3:14-15) as both symbolize sources of evil who aim to thwart God’s work (Adam in the Genesis verses and Jesus in the Revelation verses).

2.      In Rev. 17:8, when the Eastern invaders ally with the last “beast”, which the serpent/dragon has raised up from the bottomless pit, it is echoing their myth about Emperor Nero’s future return as head of the Parthian hoards to conquer Rome (historically the Parthian Empire was a constant threat to the Roman Empire).[7] Nevertheless, Nero is pointedly rooted in the serpent here.

3.      The common theme in both of these is that the evil serpent can only raise beasts to govern and be followed, while God rose up a “slain Lamb” (Messiah) for the world to follow. The slain Lamb’s followers will be an army that “defeats” by their testimony (not military action or WMDs, Rev. 12:11) and they will be known by doing the works Jesus taught rather than what the violent beast demands of them (Rev. 2:2, 19, 23; 9:20-21; 14:4, 12; 16:11; 19:8; 20:12-13; 22:11).

 In essence John establishes symbols (old and current) to develop the notion that all that is seen is intrinsically tied to all that is unseen and we need to wake-up to who and what we are following. Anti-creator will beget Antichrists and Creator begets Christ; one steals and one heals. So, while I say all this to set up whatever else I write about Revelation, these genres and themes are something to think about while setting out to read it for yourself.

 

[1] Richard Bauckham. New Testament Theology: The Theology of the Book of Revelation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 22.
[2] Ibid, 3.
[3] Ibid, 10.
[4] J.J. Collins. ‘Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre’, Semeia 14 (1979), 9. 
[5] Michael J. Gorman. Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation (Kindle Locations 505-506).
[6] R. Bauckham, 14-15.
[7] Ibid, 19.

Gomer and The Post Election Church

Da Vinci's Magdalene

This is for the Christians horrified over the election outcome: don’t be! This is for the Christians that are excited over their political champion winning: don’t be!  We have one hope and it is not in temporary things like systems, platforms or positions. No, it is in a Messiah that we have hope. This Messiah united us in the Eucharist of remembered suffering which can be remembered best when the meal leads us to stop trying to be winners and with a glad heart pick up the cross.

You may then ask what about our moral obligation to use our voting-voice? I contest that we are not obligated to bring God’s kingdom about through the management of any pagan-empire like Franklin Graham and the American Renewal Project suggest. In fact I believe that such “moral obligations” has less to do with obligatory matters and more to do with the church deeming an unrepentant social structure holy out of a desire for control. If you want a moral obligation, it is love for God, for the world and for someone who does not deserve it. It will look like radical attachment to friend and foe.   

We should stop and ask ourselves, is it even our job to control the country’s morality?  The reality is we can no more force someone into Christian morality through laws than America can bomb terrorists into a “higher” morality.[1] Not one bit of this softens hearts, offers mercy or tells of a Messiah that died for his enemies. Yet, as we keep trying to unlawfully manage American politics it is we who will be conquered by its corrosive nature; it is a beast after all. So until the church is satisfied with Jesus as our president, the Sermon on the Mount our constitution and the witness of God’s mercy our national anthem, just expect that God will have to come get Gomer from her new pimp every four years. If that sounds too harsh, well then just remember that the Church can always become the faithful partner living counter to the cultural that sells itself for self-preservation.

[1] I ripped that line off of Bill Cavanaugh and I make no apologies for it, unless he demands one.