There's Love and Then, There's Love...

Popular worship song lyric:

"...In death and in life I'm confident and covered by the power of your great love. My debt is paid there's nothing that can separate my heart from your great love ..."


Pretty nice, yes? But something bothered me about it and I looked up the context. The love that is presented there, is not a feeling you sense with your heart. It's God acting on our behalf -- "working all things together, " justifying, interceding -- in the face of persecution and perhaps, not to stretch it too far, adversity.

Much could be said about a paradigm shift that has happened over time from decision/action based virtues to feelings, but if that discussion starts, here's a case in point.

Halloween is our day...

Attention all Christian paranoids and neo-druids. All Hallows Eve and All Saints Day are Christian holidays. Christians do not have to initiate imitation Halloween celebrations, calling them "harvest festivals" as if the word Halloween was tainted. And Wiccans and the like have no business reclaiming the "true" heritage of the ancient Celts and calling it their day.

So for a moment, set aside the undeniable fact that as Creator, all days (and nights!) really belong to our Father and no one else. This one's all about story. Those who think of Halloween as a devilish holiday think of the Church co-opting pagan holidays in some ineffective and paltry manner to try and woo primitive and medieval societies away from their true heritage. How silly to take the great festival of Samhain and call it All Saints Day. At least that seems be the way it's been told.

Let's try a different story. The Celts had the druids, the real druids. The genuine article. And guess what. When the light of Jesus shone in their culture, they turned to him and rejected them. Their nature-religion-based worldview was uniquely transformed into one of the most beautiful expressions of the Faith ever known. No one who is exposed to even a small part of what they bring can deny the powerful genuineness of their whole culture conversion. And they had the total right to re-purpose whatever holidays they wished. Done deal.

Oversimplification

There's a trend in today's theologizing that is starting to bother me a bit. We're  looking at God and the only lens we may use is his love. If something especially some traditionally held belief doesn't fit with our idea of love, we start to question it and start to downplay it because now we are uncertain of it. And this isn't necessarily a bad process. If we don't reevaluate our beliefs with some level of frequency, the tendency is to become dyed-in-the-wool dogmatics whose only anchor in faith is their unreasoning inflexibility.

But there's this niggling difficulty I have with the "only love" (and I have to include "only our understanding of love") view of God that we have. It's actually not what God says about himself. Moses asked God to show his glory and God's response was to proclaim his name. And what is the name of God?

“The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”

Do you see what I see? This is not a "love only" God. In his very name he reminds us that he justly punishes the guilty. Is this a horrible thing? No. The mercy he extends to us is not mercy at all if our actions, nay our whole lives don't really deserve punishment. I think that these two facets of God's nature feed into each other beautifully. In fact the one makes sense in the context of the other. Yes, this is God speaking to Moses in the context of the Old Testament and yes, the fuller revelation comes in the person of Jesus. But this is still in my books, red letter text -- God talking about himself. And we ignore it at great risk. God is loving. God is just. In the past, the church could be accused of oversimplifying on the just side. But don't let's commit the opposite error.

Not a Democracy

Have you ever heard someone declare in the context of church governance, "The kingdom of God is not a democracy!" I thought I would unpack that one a bit.

First of all, motive. The situation which typically brings up this say is one in which some people object to a decision by leaders in their church and some others, maybe the leaders themselves, want them to shut up, knuckle down, and toe the line (love that string of idiomatic metaphor phrases.) So what's really meant by "the kingdom of God is not a democracy" really means is "somebody else, somebody merely earthly, that is, is your boss, so deal with it." Motivation seems to point to coercion.

Secondly, how it is true. Because obviously it is true. We have one king, Jesus, who, if you follow Nebuchadnezzar's dream in the book of Daniel, has a kingdom that 1) was not given to him by any man, 2) is an everlasting kingdom (I suspect that is because he's never going to die again) and 3) beats the best, most glorious, and strongest kingdoms man can produce. So yes, it's not a democracy. It's a monarchy with an utterly deserving king as its head.

Thirdly, what's being left out. Our monarchy, the kingdom of God has a feature that is different from every single earthly kingdom ever. That is the ability, nay, the pleasurable obligation of all of the subjects of the kingdom to engage in frequent bi-directional communication with the king himself. It's almost as if people can sometimes experience the kingdom as if it was populated by just two, the king and you. So you can and ought to be ruled by the king here and now, with no go-betweens.

Fourthly,  the inherent error. When people say a thing like "The kingdom of God is not a democracy!" (and you really must include the exclamation mark) what they are envisioning loosely as alternative to democracy is something akin to feudal rule. In a feudal system, the dukes hold their rule as a gift of the king, the earls' holdings are assigned them by the dukes, and the lords and baronets receive their right to own land and rule from the earls. Or something like that. At the bottom of the ladder are serfs. They have no rights. All they receive are orders from the lords above them. For those who wag their finger in your face and decry democracy in the church, you are the serf. Shut up and obey (for there's no other way?) But hold on a minute, whose subjects are we? Not theirs. We have (as I said before) one king, Jesus. So then if everyone can and ought to hear from our Lord, then we have something very much akin to democracy after all. Except that ideally it is not the will of the people being expressed, but rather His will expressed through all his people. That's probably what he meant when he told leaders not to lord it over their people. 

Finally, if they really meant it. If the feudal, hierarchical view of the church implicit in the way this is said, was really the last word in church government, that means that nobody should ever disagree, or should ever have disagreed to the point of parting ways, with any leader in the church. This means that Martin Luther was wrong, Ulrich Zwingli was wrong, John Calvin was wrong and Menno Simons was really wrong. After all, they all disagreed sharply and finally with the Roman Catholic system and their feudal lords, the bishops, the cardinals and the Pope and instead went what they understood to be God's way -- we will obey God rather than men -- away from their rule. But if they are really as wrong as this phrase implies, then those who are against democracy in the church should ultimately undo that wrong and accept spiritual serfdom in a kingdom exactly like one they envision. Needless to say, few ever will.

I like our brother Paul's phrase, "What shall we say, then?" In this case I would say, "Listen to the King." He will not lead us into useless dissension. He will not lead us into quarrels. He will lead us into servanthood. But he will not lead us into servitude. And he will not lead us into prostrating ourselves before our brothers and sisters as if they were more representative of the King than we are ourselves. The kingdom of God is not a democracy, but when his people gather, I believe there should be an element of democracy there, or we are not honouring his relationship with each of our fellow subjects.

More on Prayer

(INSERTION) I'm somewhat ashamed of this post. I obviously wasn't thinking that clearly. I stand by some of it, but some of it has to be addressed (END INSERTION)

This week I was forwarded an announcement of a prayer conference/seminar that's happening in my area. Now besides the tone of the brochure itself, which was as sad an example of Christian grandstanding and namedropping as I've ever seen (here's the brochure, have a look at the blurb about the speaker. See if you agree with me. It seems to be all about who she's associated with and what "Apostolic" councils she's on) , it's the focus of the whole thing makes me wonder.

The focus of the conference is 'Strategic Prayer.'  Alright, I'm going to have to be careful what I say. I just recently posted a "howto" on praying for healing and some of it has an if not strategic, then at least a tactical element to it. Why would strategic prayer be any different. Well it's just this. Prayer is something we do with our friend, our Father. The strategy would seem to be on his end, not ours. Strategic prayer gives me the impression of an exercise in which we try to get around him by making darn sure we only ask for the right stuff at the right time with the right words... Well if you can't take it further on to "... with the right circles and diagrams traced on the floor at the zenith of the waning crescent moon..." I know I can. It looks to me like Christian magic.

(COMMENT)
I'm actually all wrong in my impression. I'm making a semantic error here. My impression is actually about tactics, not strategy. Yes, there is an element of Christian magic (you might say wacky tactics) in some of our prayers that I would like address. But strategy is an overarching direction, a focus, that could legitimately be communicated by a prayer leader in the context of a meeting. Heck, I do it all the time.

So on sober second thought, I'll have to do some research on the strategy that will be apparently be presented at this conference, the "seven mountains." I've heard of it off and on for a few years now, and what I heard did not impress me much, but I'll have a look.
 (END COMMENT)

Praying is where encounter God and he lets us in on what he's doing and we add our prayer to action, not that he needs our help, but he graciously lets us get involved. "Daddy, can I try?" It's not primarily  about strategy, but rather intimacy.

(COMMENT)

What I'm doing here is actually promoting one strategy over another. The strategy of listening first appeals to me a whole lot more than taking on the seven mountains.
{END COMMENT)

But, you might say, if you're into the strategic prayer thing, "what about binding demons over my home town?" or "What about conquering the seven mountains?' to which I can only answer, if God has led you  into praying that way, go ahead. But if you're going to teach prayer, try to stay within models found in scripture, especially the one given by Jesus. "When you pray, pray like this..."


 (COMMENT)
Still fuzzy about tactics and strategy here. Binding demons is a tactic; conquering the the seven mountains is a strategy. I still think that both tactics and strategy should arise from the life, practise and teaching of Jesus primarily and everything else is open to question.
(END COMMENT)

I'm sure I don't have the whole picture. But after reading that brochure, I'll pass for now.

Stuff to Remember

Last night I was part of a conversation that included a side reference to observing remembrance day in church (since it actually falls on a Sunday.) Last two years we've reeled off names of Canadian soldiers who died that year for us to remember. I think there are possibly a number of other things to remember as well. Here's my list. I should mention that this has been heavily influenced by a coworker's impressions of a history of World War II -- a book that demonstrates conclusively to his mind, and I think that he's got a pretty good one, that there were no good guys in that war. So, the list.

People first.
Several categories of victims come to mind.
Let's start with those whom the military arrogantly call collateral damage. Innocent bystanders who die because of war. Simple. Remember them.
Then let's remember the homeless and orphans through war, and their suffering. Finally let's remember the children of the future who will simply have less through the wanton wastage of resources by the armies of the world.

Along with victims, I'd like to remember the courageous and faith-filled ones who refuse to bow to the god of war. They, just like the young Hebrew men in Daniel, believe that God is able to save his people without resorting to carnal force, and resolve that even if He doesn't, they will not sacrifice their consciences to their countries or the forces of culture around them. Some of these have suffered horribly for their righteous stand throughout the centuries. Read this.

Other stuff.
Try the law of unintended consequences for example.
The fact is that war seldom accomplishes what it sets out to do. Every treaty contains the seeds of the next conflict. Every military ally has the possibility of becoming an enemy next. The evil Taliban of the present and the gallant, freedom fighting Mujahadeen of the past are, as I understand it, the same people. World War II, the popular no. 1 example of a just war, was a weird trade off where we took out Hitler by enabling Stalin.

Remember the adage that says that the first casualty of war is the truth. The implication is that people who believe the government's story about the state of the world and therefore enlist are perhaps not firstly heroes but dupes. Let us hope not. I have friends who have had military careers and they're not. But whole nations have been duped. No doubt about that.

Remember that today's generals march not into the front with their men. Soldiers who enlist as men are reduced to being someone else's pawns. Ugly but true.

Finally my choice for a remembrance day hymn.
The coda from Bruce Cockburn's It's Goin' Down Slow suits my mood for this Remembrance Day.

God, damn the hands of glory
That hold the bloody firebrand high
Close the book and end the story
Of how so many men have died
Let the world retain in memory
That mighty tongues tell mighty lies
And if mankind must have an enemy
Let it be his warlike pride
Let it be his warlike pride

Defense in Depth

I took a course on computer security last May. Lots of review. Some new concepts. Some stuff repackaged under a new name. Language is fascinating that way. If you have some idea you want people to remember, an alliterative phrase is a means to that end. A very prominent example from this course was "Defense in Depth." Isn't that catchy? It's a simple, and ideally speaking, pervasive, way of looking at computer security. It means you don't depend on only one way to keep your computers secure. Anti-virus software protects against one kind of attack. Firewalls protect against other kinds of attacks. Good passwords protect against other kinds of attack. Building security protects against yet another attack vector. Defense in Depth means you do your level best in each area. (Do All the Things)

I thought of it the other day when I was praying with a friend of mine. He was seeing a negative pattern developing in his life and at some level he wasn't just needing to help himself (i.e. to simply stop it) -- he also needed help, and in fact he was planning to go to counselling about the problem. But as it turned out, another dimension of help was also needed. As we prayed we discerned that there was a demon involved. We invited Jesus to deal with the demon and He did. Gone. Freedom. Hurrah! But my friend still planned to go to counselling, and furthermore we talked through some thought-based strategies to avoid the negative pattern in the future. Defense in Depth.

It came up again at a prayer meeting last Saturday. The raison d'etre of the meeting is essentially to pray for revival in our church. but typically at the end people bring up personal needs as time allows. Someone had a back problem and when we prayed, and, I might add, for only a short time, the pain went away. (When healings are that easy, it says to me that God is on the move.) But that wasn't the end of it. One of the group praying brought forth some counsel for our friend in the area of nutrition. Defense in Depth.

Point is, there's no one magic bullet. Jesus heals a man, and tells him to stop sinning to keep from further injury. He also talks about demons being driven out but coming back later to see if there is anything hindering a re-occupation. Life is a complex thing. Build on a good foundation in every respect. Defense in Depth.