Jackson Pollock & Jesus

Today my wife purposed having a Jackson Pollock activity night for our youth group. If you're unfamiliar with Pollock he was a painter who literally threw paint at canvases; he flung and drizzled color off of brushes and broken glass until he felt satisfied. Whether or not you'll agree to call his pieces art, you will at least have to agree that the process does sound like fun. This fun process is what my wife proposed, and I'm ashamed to admit that my first inclination was to wonder where the “Spiritual Value” was in such an activity. I started thinking about how to put paint flinging into a devotion. Which is fine, it is good to communicate the gospel by all possible means; however, there is much more to life than a few prescribed ways to think about and interact with God. I want to say this very clearly: there is nothing wring with fun for fun's sake, or art for art's sake.

Not every moment of every day needs to be drenched in somber reflection or passionate worship. God is over all and through all and in all(Eph 4:6). He says to think about everything that is praiseworthy (Eph 4:8). He even promises a perfect day when there will be no more teaching about him(Heb 8:11). He has made for us a world full of clay, color, light, and also olives. We were not originally created for the purposes of going to church and reading quietly. We were created in the image of God, to be like God. It should come as no surprise that being like God includes being creative, fun, romantic, or playful. Still I forget.

Well that was my devotional thought about how not everything needs to be a devotional thought. I'm gonna go throw knives, drink tea, and read Inkheart. Go find something to enjoy.

RE: A Call To Conscience Chapter Three– Give Us The Ballot

“Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man. We must not become victimized with a philosophy of black supremacy. God is not interested merely in freeing black men and brown men and yellow men, but God is interested in freeing the whole human race. (Yes, All right) We must work with determination to create a society (Yes), not where black men are superior and other men are inferior and vice versa, but a society in which all men will live together as brothers (Yes) and respect the dignity and worth of human personality. (Yes)”

–­Give Us The Ballot, 1957 Martin Luther King Jr.

Each time I read from King’s speeches I am startled by the boldness with which he proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ, the coming Kingdom of Heaven, and Jesus’ command to love and forgive our enemies without condition.  I’m convinced that the heart and action that King advocates isn’t possible to achieve by human striving alone.  Our striving to live as wise and righteous people is as filthy rags to God (Isaiah 64:6); instead we must be clothed in Jesus’ righteousness and filled with the Spirit of God himself.  Only when our actions are the overflow of  Jesus in us do we have any hope of acting in a way that will benefit our neighbors or bring glory to God (Romans 8:5).

Joseph Kony 2012

When I was a senior in high school I watched the first Invisible Children film, and the following weekend slept in the parking lot of Ann Arbor's city hall to gain attention for the issue. I was prepared to put everything on hold to go to Uganda and see what I could do about stopping Joseph Kony and the LRA. During a 24/7 prayer week I committed a day to praying for the children in Uganda who were being abducted, raped, enslaved, mutilated, and forced to kill, all in the name of Jesus. The following morning peace talks began.

It is seven years later and peace talks have not been successful. Joseph Kony has gone unchecked and unpunished, using peace talks to regroup and rearm himself. However, there is hope; a short while ago the United States committed a small force of troops to train and equip the Ugandan government to pursue and capture Joseph Kony. Because on the scale of global events this action is small, it is possible that if Kony is not captured in 2012, national attention will wane and the US government will withdraw its small support.

I'm asking you to contact your congressmen, representatives, and friends. Let them know that you care about this issue. Help raise awareness, help get Kony.

I highly recommend watching this video.

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Image Credit: Penn State Altoona

RE: A Call To Conscience Chapter Two

The Birth Of A New Nation introduced me to the story of Kwame Nkrumah (KWAH-me en-KROO-muh), a native of the colony that would become Ghana and a child of two illiterate parents. Nkrumah worked his way to the US; put himself through college working as a dishwasher and a bellhop. He then returned home to lead nonviolent protests which resulted first in his imprisonment and ultimately in the freeing of his nation from British colonialism. I have a new hero.

Powerfully, King praised the righteousness of nonviolent protest, and how it wins hearts instead of battles, though he promised that no oppressor ever voluntarily gives freedom to the oppressed. King promised that any nonviolent protest must expect some violent opposition. Referencing the story of Israel’s Exodus he observed that when you leave Egypt, you have to face a wilderness. The whole time he kept reminding me of Jesus telling his disciples that following him would mean facing persecution.

King also spoke very critically of the Church of England, and though he pulled no punches he quickly moved past criticism to praise God that inaction on the part of a church can never mean inactivity on God’s part. The following excerpt is long for a quote, but I copied it by hand into my notebook because of how deeply empowering I found it. I hope it empowers you.

“I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa, and how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year they are living very well, they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire. All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system. The Church of England sanctioned it The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England. But something else came to my mind: God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, ‘And if you don’t do that, I will take charge.’ It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear him speaking throughout the universe, saying, ‘Be still and know that I am God. And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power. And your power will be no more!’ . . . . And I say to you this morning, my friends, rise up and know that, as you struggle for justice, you do not struggle alone, but God struggles with you. And He is working every day.” – King, The Birth Of A New Nation 1957

We never labor alone. We can do everything through Christ, who gives us strength (Phil 4:23)

RE: A Call To Conscience Chapter One

My friend Billy of The Orant recently asked his readers to join him in a personal effort to give up racism for lent. Knowing that prejudice is a malady of perception and that it is difficult to identify racism in oneself, Billy has posted a book list and asked his readers to each pick a book to reflect on and to let him know how it has challenged their perspectives. I picked, A Call to Conscience which is a collection of Martin Luther King Junior’s pivotal speeches. I’ve only read two of the eleven speeches, but I can see I won’t be able to fit my thoughts on the book into a single reflection, so I’ll be updating as I read through the book.

The first speech in the book was given at the inception of the Civil Right’s Movement. It is the address that King delivered to the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) at the start of the famous bus boycotts initiated by the arrest of Rosa Parks. Throughout the talk King encouraged his audience to stand united, he condemned violence and rumors of violence, and gave thanks to God that he lived in a nation that protected the freedoms of speech and assembly.

I was surprised to find that it was not just inspiring but also fun to read. The emotional interjections of those present at the historic meeting are recorded in the text, which makes it easy to imagine hearing King’s words delivered in a crowded meeting hall that simmered with emotion and energy. If I took one thing away from the MIA speech it is the following exhortation to keep God at the forefront and to be Christian in all our actions:

“May I say to you, my friends, as I come to a close, and just giving some idea of why we are assembled here, that we must keep--and I want to stress this, in all of our doings, in all of our deliberations here this evening and all of the week and while, --whatever we do--, we must keep God in the forefront. (Yeah) Let us be Christian in all of our actions. (That's right) But I want to tell you this evening that it is not enough for us to talk about love, love is one of the pivotal points of the Christian faith. There is another side called justice. And justice is really love in calculation. (All right) Justice is love correcting that which revolts against love. (Well)” –King 1955

Pray that we may we ever keep God at the forefront as we seek to correct that which revolts against love.

New Covenant - 1st Tuesday in Lent

“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.” -Hebrews 10:1

Imagine if you will being an Israelite in slavery in Egypt, and the joy you would feel when finally, after ten plagues and a hike through the red sea, you are free. I don't know that there is a greater parallel for the redemption Jesus bought us than being released from slavery. I sometimes naively feel jealous of people who've experienced both slavery and freedom, and can grasp the greatness of God's gift to us. I was baptised as a a baby, born into the freedom of Christ from the earliest age. It seems non-dramatic to me, but from a big picture perspective my baptism is something that God has been building up to for millennia. The same is true for you. All the trials of Israel, the judges, the law, the captivities and the victories are part of the same story you find yourself in today.

God has written you into an amazing story. The grace you know was prophesied in the old testament. The Bible you read was maintained and protected by countless people of centuries. May you understand and appreciate the privilege that it is to live in this time, when prophecies stand fulfilled and the the Word of God goes out into all corners of the world.

We Wrestle Not With Flesh, But Sometimes With Our Flesh

I am bugged by analogies that compare the Christian church to an army. When I hear talk of spiritual war I flinch and try to steer the conversation in a new direction. It's not that the church-as-an-army is actually a wrong idea, but too often I see this idea being used to turn Christians against their neighbors instead of against the Enemy who lies and divides (Eph 6:12). Sadly idea of a holy army always makes me think of well dressed church-folks shouting at poor people.

It's not that I don't believe that Christianity stands uniquely opposed to the habits and systems of the world. It is precisely because I believe that Christ and Christianity are so opposed to the world that military analogies bother me. The trouble with overextending these analogies, is that they turns people towards the wrong sorts of battles. My revulsion most often comes up when I hear the phrase “Defending the faith” and at the heart of that annoyance is, in actuality, a loathing for the ass I can be when I'm at my worst.

I spent my freshman year of high school engaged in what I believed to be the holiest of wars for the kingdom of God. At every opportunity, and with any excuse I could find, I wrote and spoke about God's word and my faith in Jesus Christ. That sounds fine if not excellent, but unfortunately what I was often doing was trying to set myself apart from people at the school whom I thought were evil. I was trying to show them that if they had faith they could just stop being evil and be like me. That was a pretentious mission with a rather faulty premise. A Christian who is under the impression that their faith makes them superior to others has missed the point of faith. Faith is a gift (Eph 2:8), and not the mark of some holier tier of society.

If people become Christians solely because they find that the Christian way of thinking is morally or philosophically superior to all others, they are not the sorts of people I really want to call brothers and sisters. Race, gender, religion, and every other conceivable distinction between individuals has been used since the beginning of time as an excuse for one group to call themselves superior to another. Christ's religion does not have room for that nonsense. Christ came to serve, love, and bless anyone who wanted him. Christianity even thwarts those who would earn God's favor. The Bible tells Christians that we are “the worst of sinners” (1 Tim 1:15) who are justified freely by the action of God. (Eph2: 8-9)

Here's what I think about truly “Defending the faith”:

Arguing does not defend Christianity. Arguing, as I understand is a competition in which two people stroke their own egos while belittling the beliefs of others. This closes down opportunities to minister while isolating and dividing peoples. Arguments honor a winning intellect, but Christianity exalts humility (Lk 22:27). When the faith is defended, it is by Christians of humble spirit who do not conform to the petty and adversarial patterns of this world (Rom 12:2). A smart Christian defends the faith when they value loving their neighbor above proving their neighbor wrong.

I know of no one who was intellectually persuaded into faith in Jesus Christ. Bringing people into God's kingdom is rarely done in debate (though God may make use of any means he likes). People are brought into the kingdom of God by generous Love. More practically, people are brought in by Christians who politely listening to people they disagree with, who show authentic friendship, and who act with generosity and kindness (Romans 2:4). These things are much more attractive than arguments, however clever the arguments are.

“Christian” is not a badge to pin to one's chest nor is it a set of rhetoric that explains why one is better or smarter than anyone else. Christianity is a loosing of the cords that bind and blind the rest of civilization. Christianity is freedom. It is freedom from pride, violence, bigotry, judgment, and fear which sap our energy, kill our joy, and repulse our neighbors. Christ sets us free indeed (John 8:36).

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8&9)