100 years

A big Boy Howdy to you all,

I’ve been listening to Blues Traveler’s first album lately; one of the songs on there is called 100 years. The last verse says: Sit at the pier watch the sun go down Another lost little boy in a big old town I want to laugh I want to cry but no matter how hard I try; It won’t mean a thing in a 100 years.

I hope that’s not true. If you have known me over the last decade you know that I’ve gotten myself in trouble over trying to plan ahead for the next 100 years. Now, I’m pastoring a church that is celebrating its 100th year. I want what I’m doing here, now, in the present day to mean something to the lives of my great, great, great grandchildren. I want to place stones in the walls of the kingdom of God that will still be a part of a solid foundation for them and others.

I guess that’s why I’m pressing so hard to understand how to think Christianly in every area of life. I’m reading books that purport to be written in English with an eye toward assimilating them into everyday speak so that people can really get it. Academics tend to speak and write in a language that is alien to the blue collar man and woman. That needs to stop.

I am becoming more aware with each passing day that the church in our generation is enamored with forms. We think form is everything. If we just change the form then everything will be alright. We look for the forms that will cause church growth. But the truth is that if it is your form that is causing your growth your house is built on the sand. New forms are not the Holy Spirit. Increased numbers are not church growth.

In the church growth movement the form has begun to change to look like the very things that I’ve been studying. I hear and read words like Dominion and Spheres of Authority being used. They are good words co-opted from writers such as Rushdoony and Kuyper but when used by the church growth movement they are words out of their original context. They are the new form of the old ideas cut free from their foundation. That makes me nervous and at the same time it brings me encouragement.

It makes me nervous because it means that nothing has really changed; the emperor has another new set of clothes but he’s the same old naked emperor as gullible as ever. On the other hand, it encourages me because it tells me that there may be something to the words when they are in the right context. Why else would someone try to co-opt them?

My wife, ever the optimist, has found another reason to believe that I am ever the pessimist when it comes to the church. We both heard C. Peter Wagner on NPR the other day being interviewed about this new form which calls itself the NAR (New Apostolic Reformation). She was optimistic and in my own opinion I was a realist. I’m reminded of John 2 where it says: Many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.  But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men,  and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

For me it’s not how many people get saved, or how big of crowds you can attract; it’s, how are you preserving culture from decay and revealing the darkness? Is the church transforming the culture or is it simply allowing the culture to stay the same? You see if at the next election Christians were placed in every single seat of congress, the Whitehouse, the Supreme Court and all the other courts along with the entire governmental bureaucracy, I would be moving to a different country because it would be a recipe for disaster. Good intentioned people with faulty foundations do some horrendous things in the name of good.

Why would it be a disaster for Christians to be in charge? Because most Christians don’t think biblically; they don’t even think that it is possible to think biblically because they have swallowed the lie that the only place the bible applies is to religion. They think like humanists in every other area of life. That is why the neo-conservative movement was able to co-opt the religious right so easily.  They made us believe that conservative rationalism was Christianity but it’s not; it’s just a slower form of encroaching darkness. But we ate it up hook line and sinker after we got tired of eating up the fast form of encroaching darkness we like to think of as liberalism. Both sides of the coin in the game of politics in the US are based on rationalism, humanism, unbelief.

I find myself wary of the NAR not because I don’t believe in apostles and prophets and the gifts of the spirit but because when I was a part of what was called the third wave (the church growth movement loves snazzy catch phrases and titles) I got tired of hearing prophets say things that sounded spiritual but when it came down to it weren’t biblical. I saw twenty years ago (and before that) a tendency to be both non-biblical or at least only 1/3 biblical and spiritually legalistic. We don’t want the Old Testament law that’s bondage (even if though scripture calls it the path of life) but we will make all kinds of extra biblical rules for you to follow so you can get really spiritual (oh by the way that’s NOT bondage). Good bye freedom if they ever get in office. Good bye freedom if the neo-cons stay in office or the liberals for that matter. Freedom is only found on the biblical path of life. Death is never freedom.

It is for freedom that Christ set us free: Freedom to walk on the path of life with no additions and no subtractions. See, I don’t want people telling me what I can or cannot drink, eat or smoke; or how I can or can’t make love to my wife if scripture doesn’t tell me those things. I don’t want people forcing me to be safe for my own good. I want to be free to live within the confines of the law of God and free to fall flat on my face without a safety net because falling is about the only thing that causes me to grow up and the law of God is the only thing that can ensure my safety.

The truth be told I would rather have an relatively honest unbeliever running the government than a good intentioned Christian who doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground (Randy Newman would have said it differently) trying to do what’s right in his own eyes and ignoring two thirds of scripture. I don’t want a form of godliness without the power paving the road to hell for me.

There are no easy answers. If we are unwilling to think biblically in every area of life before we try to get into government- there are no answers at all that won’t lead to our destruction. If we are willing to think biblically in every area of life but don’t translate those thoughts and ideas into the language of everyday people so that they can be applied in real life situations then we won’t leave the path of destruction either. If we aren’t willing to live biblically in every area of life why bother pretending to be Christians? If you love me KEEP my commandments.

The question remains whose kingdom are we wanting to build? The kingdom of God or the kingdom of man? I would love to think that the kingdom of man won’t mean a thing in 100 years but I won’t hold my breath.

Grace and Peace from the pessimistic optimist,

Brad