Barney Wiget's Blog, page 41

Signposts or Stumbling Blocks?

Our motives for sharing faith should never be to appease God, impress Christians, or oppress non-christians. “Don’t be,” says Brian McLaren, “the ecclesiastical counterpart of a mealtime telemarketer or email spammer barraging people with unwanted messages.”

We’re supposed to be signposts that point people toward Jesus not stumbling blocks that trip them up on their way. Even though Jesus’ miracle compensated for Peter’s meltdown, we shouldn’t presume that God will use this same MO in every case. He’s pretty busy as it is without having to mop up our messes.

“When we make sharing our faith a war of ideals,” writes Carl Medearis, “we create casualties on both sides of the boundary.” If we’re wounding more people than we’re winning we should find a better way.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Kings, Prophets, and Presidents: A Warning about Power Abuse (Part 1 of 4)

I never imagined I’d be comparing these two kings of Israel: David, arguably their greatest monarch, and Ahab, reportedly one of their worst! At first glance these two men have nothing in common, until we look at their common abuse of power. Refresh your memory of their narratives here.

Even the best of people are subject to the wiles of power. Please excuse the reminder of the well-known dictum that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Both David and Ahab fell to the basest extreme to which power, if left unchecked, may result: murder!

David’s Bathsheba story is well known. He sees her, wants her, sends for her, sleeps with her, impregnates her, and to cover it up has her husband killed. He robbed something precious from someone else because he could. He had the power and he used it to get his way at the expense of another. He acted as though he were above the law. That’s what power abusers do.

Interestingly enough, when his prophet friend (Nathan) rebukes him he doesn’t even mention the adultery, but focuses his charge on the king’s abuse of power over the powerless. He reprimands his king by use of a parable, which involves a rich landowner who steals and slaughters the one and only ewe lamb of a poor neighbor who cherished the animal and treated it like a pet.

It’s not that David’s adultery was okay with God, but apparently the thing most insulting to him and that which became an occasion for Israel’s enemies to mock, was his abuse of power and privilege. He took something that he didn’t need from someone who did need it. David wanted Bathsheba and used his position to take her, whereas Uriah needed her and was murdered as part of the king’s cover up.

When confronted, David was so callous about his sin he didn’t even get the connection at first between himself and the rich man in Nathan’s parable. He raged about the fictitious landowner until the prophet barked the obvious: “I’m talking about you, stupid! You’re the man!”

David didn’t use his own sword against Uriah. That would have required to get up close and personal to his victim. He ordered his army to do his dirty work. He murdered by proxy. That’s the privilege of power.

Having been the victim of injustice for many years while Saul used his power to persecute him, David wrote a ton of lament and imprecatory songs about injustice, which he seems to have forgotten when he let his own power get to him. The victim became the victimizer.

Fortunately for David this was a temporary lapse of judgment, albeit an enormous one! He was not routinely given to abusing his power like some of the other kings in Israel’s history––Ahab, for example.

———————

Ahab is known as one of the nation’s most debauched kings and was married to one of the Bible’s vilest women. He influenced Israel toward its baser instincts and was eventually judged severely for his sins.

It’s uncanny how closely parallel his abuse of power is to David’s. He looks out the window of his palace, instead of a UFO (Unclad Female Object) he sees a beautiful vineyard that he wants for himself, has the owner murdered, and takes possession of it!

Like Uriah needed Bathsheba as the wife of his youth, Naboth needed the vineyard that had been in his family for generations as his sole means of support. But when that vineyard struck Ahab’s fancy as a convenient location for his personal garden he and his wicked wife plotted to take it. Thus, we have another example of the blinding and corrupting influence of power and privilege.

As he did with David, God sent a prophet (Elijah) to rebuke Ahab for his abuse of power. He didn’t employ Nathan’s diplomacy with a third person parable. Instead, as was his habit, he got right up in the king’s face and thundered, “You’re in major trouble. You have sold yourself to do evil!”

Like David, Ahab already possessed many times more than any one person could ever use in a lifetime. David, who already had multiple wives and didn’t need another. He just wanted her. And given his position of power, he had no problem taking her. In like manner, from his palace window Ahab saw what he wanted and took it. He had more riches and property than anyone in the country and didn’t need the poor man’s land for yet another garden. He just wanted it. And when at first he failed to get it he pouted like an entitled child!

Jezebel caught him sulking and concocted a plan to have “two scoundrels” bear false testimony about Naboth and then put a hit on him. Once again, murder begins with an abuse of power.

What do we learn about power abusers from these two Jewish kings?

Power abusers have more than they need but want what others have and just take it.
They keep their own hands “clean” by getting others to do their evil bidding.
They have the resources to cover up their sin, at least from human eyes.
They have a sense of entitlement and are seldom conscience stricken about victimizing from the powerless.
They see injustice when it’s done to others but not when they’re guilty of it themselves.
They tend to have to be hit over the head with their own sin in order to repent.
Convenience and personal lusts trump the legitimate needs of others.
They’re so used to getting their way that they have a tendency to pout when something stands in their way of getting what they want.
They need people in their lives that can speak truth to power and boldly bust them on their behavior.

Just in case you can’t think of any personal, social, or political lessons to glean from these two stories, stay tuned for next time!

In the meantime, take a look at: A Comic, a Candidate, and a Few Bad Cops 

Sinners in the Hands of Angry Christians

“And one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear.” — LUKE 22:49-51

This is a case of a “sinner in the hands of an angry Christian”! Not good. A lot of people think Jesus is pretty cool, but his Church––not so much. Go figure! Could their aversion have anything to do with how we approach them by cutting off communication with them? (Pun intended.)

After what Peter did, Malchus couldn’t very well “hear” the good news, at least not from him. Let’s just say that an outreach strategy that leaves people bleeding out of the side of their head is not a particularly good one.

Though not the last, or even the worst, of Peter’s impetuosity, it was his most theatrical. Assault with a deadly weapon is not included the apostle’s job description! For the time being he would be God’s poster boy for how not to influence people toward Jesus.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Captivating Evangelism

“As we argue, we can deceive ourselves into thinking we are actually serving them, helping them along toward Jesus, but often this reactionary posture actually works to derail their journey of faith.” — DON EVERTS

“Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone.” — COLOSSIANS 4:6

You’ll notice that Joshua’s scouts didn’t tie up Rahab and whisk her away to their camp against her will. They didn’t threaten, cajole, or strong-arm her into leaving Jericho and coming back with them. They simply offered to rescue her from her doomed existence and to include her in their community. This is how we win people to Jesus.

We captivate them not take them captive!

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Polishing the Brass on the Titanic?

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Is John MacArthur Right About Social Justice? (Part 6 of 6)  

“If I criticize somebody, it’s because I have higher hopes for the world, something good to replace the bad.” Mort Sahl

At long last we’ve come to my final rant contesting John MacArthur’s sermon series on “Social Justice and the Gospel.”

In this series Brother Mac emphatically claims that any plea for “social justice” is tantamount to socialism and leads inevitably to a faulty “social gospel.” Without disrespecting the brother I’ve tried to debunk his thesis in these posts, citing both his words and the words of Scripture.

As for the phrase “social justice,” I might point out that the term “justice” is used in Scripture almost 200 times. You place the word “social” in front of it as a modifier for clarity that you’re specifying the kind of justice that isn’t just about you, but about us. Social justice then is simply the justice that has social implications.

They say that, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” The Grand Canyon-sized gaps in my own repertoire of theological knowledge notwithstanding, I believe that our esteemed brother is mistaken regarding the importance of biblical social justice in Christ’s vision for a new and better society made up of new and better people, to say nothing about its place in our presentation of the gospel.

One common evangelistic pitch these days is, “Come to Jesus and when you die he will take you to a better world.” I believe that it should sound more like, “Come to Jesus and you’ll come alive. And while you’re alive, help us make this a better world! Then someday we’ll go to the best of all worlds, but for now we’re tasked to make this the best world we can. So, come to Jesus!”

I’ve never heard anyone actually say it out loud that working for social justice in this world is as futile as polishing the brass on the Titanic, but I suspect that is the working philosophy of many Christians including our esteemed Brother Mac. “If it’s all going to burn (or sink as the case may be) then why bother with beating our heads against the wall to improve the living conditions here?” Why bother? Because it’s God’s mission into which he invites us to collaborate!

What kind of world do we want for ourselves and for everyone else on the planet? What kind of world do we want to leave for future generations?

Furthermore, much of evangelical’s “Left Behind Christianity” leaves pre-christians, Millennials in particular, wondering what good is Christianity if all we do is complain about how bad the world is, sing happy songs on Sundays, and preach about how to be prosperous while waiting for Jesus to come and take us out of here!

“The typical evangelical gospel,” says Tim Suttle, “is a gospel built for death. The gospel Jesus preached was a gospel built for life.” Ours is a gospel, not just to die by, but one (the only one there is) to live by!

Since to them it signals an immanent return of the Lord, a lot of evangelicals like Brother Mac seem to be happiest when they observe the world falling apart. Rather than working to advance the mission of God in the earth, they celebrate the advance of the mission of the evil one.

The Lord instructed the Jewish exiles in Babylon to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city” to which he carried them into exile. “Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jeremiah 29:7) In anticipation of their inclination to neglect the improvement of the land of their captors he surprised them with a commission to the contrary. Though exiles, he tasked them with being a blessing to Babylon and Babylonians. “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

“My prayer,” said Jesus, “is not that you take them [his disciples] out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” (John 17)

Sure, someday he’s going to make everything better. God’s experiment will come to a close. Maybe a better description would be “full circle,” where Eden will burst back on the scene. Jesus will return and fix everything that is broken in this world. It’ll be a better world, the best world. I have no doubt of that.

In the meantime, he sanctifies us with his truth and sends us into this world, tasked with advancing God’s agenda for a more just society.

*                       *                       *

In case you’re interested to read my previous thoughts in this series:

Part 1 Social Justice or Sanctified Socialism?
Part 2 Doing Justice to Justice
Part 3 The Full Gospel
Part 4 “Victims of Injustice Are Just a Bunch of Whiners!” Really?
Part 5 Is Justice a “Gospel” Thing?

Is John MacArthur Right About Social Justice? No, I don’t think so, at least not in the series against which I’ve been pushing back.

MacArthur fans or not, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Words and Works

Most people who don’t follow Jesus haven’t yet been fully introduced to him. That’s our job, to make an adequate introduction through words and works.

By the way, Jesus did NOT say, “They will see your good looks and glorify your Father in heaven.” It’s not our good looks that verify that ours is a salvation made in heaven. Our witness has nothing to do with good-looking Christians or good-looking churches with impressive presentations. Our “good works” have to do with the way we conduct ourselves in the world as lovers of Jesus.

Being witnesses is not an either/or proposition. We’ve failed if they can’t hear our words past the noise of our lives. We have to both live and give a good testimony.

– Originally published in Reaching Rahab: Joining God In His Quest For Friends

Is Justice a “Gospel” Thing?

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Is John MacArthur Right About Social Justice? (Part 5 of 6)

We don’t have two gospels. We don’t have a spiritual gospel and a social gospel, or a salvation gospel and a social justice gospel. . . Jesus binds the spiritual and social into a seamless fabric that shouldn’t be torn in two. Donald Kraybill

We ignore social sin because we can. We ignore it because the only gospel we know is individualistic, and this does not address social sin. We do not know the gospel that confronts broken social systems—or systemic evil—with the good news of God’s redemption. Tim Suttle

We’re nearing the finish line now in our critique of John MacArthur’s sermon series, “Social Justice and the Gospel” 

If you haven’t already, you might find it beneficial to read some or all of the previous four parts to my argument. I’ll say again that my beef is not with Mr. Mac per se, but with his shortsightedness in this particular area, which is as diplomatic a description as I can muster.

I don’t just go around, like some self-appointed judge of everyone’s theology but mine. I made an exception here because of how potentially harmful are Mr. Mac’s faulty ideas on this particular subject.

If you’ve listened to or read his series you’ll know it is based on his application of the preaching of the prophet Ezekiel. He proposes––more like pontificates––that Ezekiel’s message is an example of how preachers today ought to preach to the unbelieving world and not pause for even a moment to relate to the suffering of the oppressed.

I suggest, that learning how to preach the gospel from the book of Ezekiel is like studying brain surgery by going target practicing at the gun range! Ezekiel had a Spirit-initiated assignment of his own, to be sure, but good news preaching wasn’t really his thing.

Bro Mac says some very helpful things about the need for prefacing the good news with the bad news, but he never seems to get around to saying anything about the good news of the grace of God in Jesus, at least not in this series. Since the name of his ministry is “Grace to You,” I suspect that at other times and places he’s given hundreds of hours and thousands of pages to the wonderful themes of grace, mercy, and the love of God. That said, in addition to taking issue with his use of the flaming prophet Ezekiel to be our model gospel preacher, I see no grace, mercy, or love in this whole series.

Read for yourself a couple of Brother Mac’s most derisive statements:

“Does he [the prophet] say, ‘Yeah, that’s right. You’ve been abused, you know, you’ve been treated unjustly. We sympathize; we see that. We want to embrace all that. We want to have a conference to make LGBTQ people feel welcome in the church. We want to start elevating women, make more women preachers. Yeah, we’re sorry you feel bad.’”

For the moment, I’m going to overlook his hyper-conservative views on women and gays, and ask, “Does the spirit of what he says here sound anything at all like Jesus to you?” To be honest, it doesn’t fit in my brain how after all his years of pouring over the words of Jesus, he could make such heartless and unkind remarks. He goes on to say:

“Is that what a preacher does? Or does a preacher warn that person [the victim of abuse], that wherever you are in this world and whoever you are, you are here within the purpose of God’s sovereignty, and the only thing that you need to be concerned about is your own sin? That message is the absolute foundation reality of the gospel.”

His claim that the preacher’s only responsibility is to call out sin (exclusively of the personal variety and not the social) without compassion for the abused and overlooked, is not only ignorant, it’s cruel! He’s saying to the abandoned and oppressed that they are there because God in his sovereignty willed it! The idea that injustice and man’s inhumanity to man is willed by God, is not even in the same universe as the message of Scripture.

“It is easy enough to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent,” says Thomas Merton. “But if you want them to believe you––try to share some of their poverty and see if you can accept it as God’s will for yourself!”

Rather than delve further into this theme here, I recommend this…

Loving the unpredictable God (part 4)

 

Of course everyone needs to look at their sin in order to come to God, but what Brother Mac overlooks is that sometimes the malignancies from relentless abuse metastasize throughout all the cells in their souls and loom so large inside them that they can’t even begin to process their own sinfulness. That is not to say that the Spirit is unable to bring conviction and reveal Jesus to even the most damaged soul, but he often communicates his understanding whisper through compassionate witnesses like you and me, and not always through Ezekiel-like fire and brimstone preaching.

I realize that Brother Mac is trying to protect the integrity of the gospel message by confronting people’s excuses for their sin, but his punitive rhetoric goes way too far to make that point, and insults the suffering and oppressed, and anyone with a compassionate conscience.

In our final post of the series, in contrast to Mr. Mac’s opinion, we’ll talk about the biblical role of the witness to the good news of Jesus. In the meantime, I’d be happy to hear what you think about these things…

Our Loss, Their Gain

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It’s likely that most people that I meet in the street assume that I’m just an old middle-class white guy who has had an easy life and that my faith just makes my smooth life smoother. (Not true. I’m not that “old”!)

I think that beat-down people assume that Christianity only works for people whose lives were already running pretty well. The fact is, none of us run right and we’re all “losers.” We’ve all lost our innocence, we lost our way, and we all need Jesus to find us and fix us. The life-wounds that we have in common bridge the gap between my street friends and me. As a tarnished, limping lover of God I can identify with their pain and they’re more apt to take notice when I share with them about mine. My loss is their gain.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

It Takes A Breaking

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Watchman Nee taught that the release of the inner man’s potential is contingent on the breaking of the outer man, which usually occurs through suffering. Compassion tends to seep out through the cracks created by hard blows and attaches itself to other damaged people.

Our humanity-wide shared spiritual poverty is the lowest common denominator between us and inducts us all into a hall of shame of sorts. We’re all soul-broken, cracked and leaking. Our destitution is not entirely obvious to all; some of us have to be convinced how poor we are. Loss is the master teacher; unfortunately only some of us learn her lessons or pass her tests.

I never dreamed that divorce, cancer, and relative destitution would be included in my repertoire of God-songs. Nevertheless, my interaction with people these days is much less of a: I have something that you don’t… I’m saved and you’re lost… I’m forgiven and you’re not… While there may be some truth in those, it’s just not the typical temper of my quest for friendship these days.

– Originally published in The Other End of the Dark: A Memoir About Divorce, Cancer, and Things God Does Anyway (the profits of which go to Freedom House).

“Victims of Injustice Are Just a Bunch of Whiners!” Really?

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Is John MacArthur Right About Social Justice? (Part 4 of 6)

I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun:  I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter;  power was on the side of their oppressors–– and they have no comforter. Ecclesiastes 4:1

Here’s what we’ve covered so far in our polemic of John MacArthur’s sermon series called: “Social Justice and the Gospel”:

Part 1 Social Justice or Sanctified Socialism?
Part 2 Doing Justice to Justice
Part 3 The Full Gospel

As I’ve said in previous posts, as much as I respect this brother’s sincere faith, at least in this series I believe that like the mighty Casey, he swings for the fence and strikes out, leaving Mudville joyless. Given Mr. Mac’s huge audience I thought it was important for someone to propose an alternative view of biblical social justice.

Throughout his series Brother Mac returns repeatedly to what he calls a “culture of victimhood.” I’ll quote him more in this post than in others simply because if you don’t see it for yourself you might not believe it. And, if you think I’m taking his words out of context, by all means see for yourself.

Let’s dive in here where he pitilessly discredits the “Me Too” movement and insults victims of sexual assault:

“’All this has been done to me.’ And so, hashtag, ‘Me too. I’m a victim.’ ‘Me too, me too. I was abused, I was abused, I was abused.’ ‘Somebody offended me. Somebody made a micro-aggression against me.’”

I seriously just don’t get how he could speak so coldheartedly about women and children that have been assaulted, silenced, and shamed! I can’t tell if he’s saying that ALL claims of abuse are false or that it doesn’t matter if they are true or not, and that all victims should just quit whining. Either way, it’s horrifying! He goes on to say…

“Nearly everyone now is searching for some kind of victimhood. Psychologists would tell them that they probably were victimized as children but they can’t remember it, so they would go into repressed memory just for the sole purpose of uncovering some supposed victimhood so they can have someplace to belong in this completely victimized culture.”

This is, in my opinion, ignorant wide-brush painting, to say nothing of rude speech and insensitive ideology! Is there such a things as false repressed memories? Sure, but he doesn’t acknowledge that there are many that are as real as the pulpit from which he preaches.

His message is essentially: Quit whining. We all have to endure some form of injustice. That’s life in this sinful world!

“So you have these victim categories: women, certain ethnic groups, the poor, homosexuals. And then there is a growing group of victims who would just simply categorize themselves as those who have to endure hate speech; and hate speech in our society seems to be anything you don’t agree with. Anybody who says something to you that you don’t agree with you find as hate speech…”

Is it possible that this white middle-class male has never been on the receiving end of an act of injustice? If he had, I can’t imagine how he could be so blind to what people on the margins of the dominant culture experience and so insensitive to their pain.

Richard Rohr said, “If you are a white middle-class American and all your beliefs end up making God look like a white middle-class American sharing all of your usual prejudices and illusions, I doubt whether you have met the Eternal God at all. You surely have not met Jesus, who always took the side of the outsider, the handicapped, the excluded and the poor.” Ouch!

Mac goes on to bloviate dismissively, “In God’s eyes – listen – no one is a victim.” I can’t imagine anything more obtuse and oblivious to the suffering of his fellow humans!

He goes on to say, “People are not victims, they are sinful,” as though they can’t be both at the same time.

“We understand all of those social inequities do exist, they’ve always existed. Even our Lord Jesus said, “The poor you’ll always have with you.” It is the nature of life in a fallen world that it’s never going to be perfect. … ‘As sparks fly upward, so man is born unto trouble,’ says the Bible. You’ll never be in a perfect world, a just world, a righteous world, until Christ comes and sets up His kingdom.”

So we aren’t supposed to wield our influence as salt and light to make the world better than it is? Could he be any more dismissive? Why bother praying “Your kingdom come, your will be done” if we are not tasked to improve the culture? What is it then that Micah envisions, “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God”?

In his classic overreach, our scholarly brother has somehow overlooked the sixteen times the Bible refers specifically to “victims,” none of which describes them as “whiners.” The choicest of which shows how God views victims:

“But you [God] see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.” (Psalm 10:14)

Instead of excoriating victims, the psalmist reassures them that God sees them, considers their grief, and takes it in hand. Mac says, “In God’s eyes no one is a victim!” yet David says, he “sees their trouble and grief.” Take your pick, John MacArthur’s word for it or King David’s!

David says God helps “the fatherless,” which along with widows are among society’s most vulnerable and victims of circumstances beyond their control.

James claims that the only kind of religion that the Father accepts is the kind that takes care of “orphans and widows” (James 1:27). Think of the orphaned child and the widowed woman as bookends on the spectrum of the most susceptible to exploitation and who represent everything in between.

The Psalmists knew that God cares about social inequities and commands us to follow suit:

The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. Psalm 103:6

I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. Psalm 140:12

His justice blesses the oppressed as well as blasts the oppressor. It both purges and protects. When the strong take advantage of the weak he sides with the weak. He is for the exploited and against the exploiter, for the victim and against the victimizer.

If you want to be like him, start there.

Any comments or corrections? I’d love to hear them.

Next time we’ll examine Mr. Mac’s thesis that social justice and the gospel have nothing to do with the other. As you can guess, I respectfully disagree.