The left has accused the right, especially the religious right, of being narrow-minded and focused on a few lightning-rod issues that they use as a litmus test for political candidates. They've also accused the religious right of co-opting the terms "family values" and "moral issues", using them as code words for their two big hot buttons of homosexuality and abortion (which, in their opinion, the right cannot see past.)
Now while the left is not at all immune from focusing on single issues (often the very same ones, just seen from the other side), and is full of fring-ey groups which certainly have their own set of litmus tests for politicians and which they apply, shall we say, religiously... they do raise a point which has troubled me more and more over the last 2+ years.
Why is it that, as Evangelicals, we are often every bit as narrowly focused as they say?
(note the use of we - I haven't left the camp, though I'm certainly out on the perimeter of it, looking around at things and thinking...)
We seem to focus on issues that relate to *individual* moral choices, rather than *collective* moral choices made by the community (be it society, government, the marketplace, etc.)
Why? Are the choices we make as groups of any less moral import?
We seem to focus on issues that impinge on a "traditional" definition of family (Dad, Mom, 2.3 kids, dog, white picket fence, suburbs...) and marriage (one man, one woman, for life, hearts and flowers, pipe and slippers, single breadwinner), even though these things are decidedly Western and Northern in flavor, and don't align with either urban post-modern or poor third-world or Eastern (Middle- or Far-) cultural realities.
Why? Do those definitions of marriage and family encompass the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or the Hebrews wandering the desert, or David, or Solomon, or Jesus, or Paul, or the Greek and Roman cultures in which he evangelised? Or are we really only interested in a North American pre-1960's marriage/family culture?
Are we that insular, that parochial? Are we that uncomfortable with people who disagree with us, and that disinterested in cultures different from ours?
Thinking back to the examples of both Jesus and Paul, there is ample teaching and precedent for us to be both open to and interested in mingling with those decidedly UNlike us, even hostile to us. Not to mention reaching out to those in the worst of conditions, regardless of the state of their hearts.
What's happened to change that? Why don't we reach out as God commanded?
What did Jesus say? Something about "what you do to the least of these, you do to Me"?
Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, James all talked about clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, tending the sick and imprisioned, as being tangible ways that we express our faith. And these are only some among many such social causes listed in Isaiah 58, which we often associate with Liberalism today.
Where is the Evangelical community on the long list of so-called "liberal issues", such as care for the environment, easing poverty and hunger, curing disease (esp. AIDS), restraining corporate greed and political corruption, giving the disenfranchised (of every stripe) a level playing field, and so on and so on?
Too often we are conspicuous in our absence, whether it's because we are hiding fearfully in our cloisters, working overtime manufacturing gospel literature, or carrying signs reminding everyone of what God hates.
I'm embarrassed sometimes to wear the Evangelical label, and am tempted to take off the red/white/blue logo-ed blazer altogether. (except that it's tradition, and goes so nicely with my white belt and deck shoes...)
And, if one happens to be (gasp!) a Calvinist, the predicament is even worse. Because, really - shouldn't the dyed-in-the-wool Calvinists be the most compassionate people on the face of the earth, to one and all, regardless of spiritual condition? Yet, we're not.
I mean, if you truly believe that salvation is a combination of God's sovereign unconditional election, His irresistable grace and ability to preserve His saints, why then... whom do we have to fear? Or convert, for that matter?
We can trust that God *will* save those he has marked ahead of time, and we can then indiscriminately shower His love and compassion on anybody and everybody without having to "target" people who might be salvation material, and avoid those who are obviously too hostile or contagious to attempt rescue.
We can simply love as God loves, and do as Jesus said: "love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?"
And dare I add, "do not even liberals do the same?"
So why don't we, who more than anyone understand the concepts of mercy and grace, exercise them toward others as God does to us, even when we are so terribly ungrateful and undeserving?
It's about time I got around to it myself.
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6 comments:
Reference the quote from Jesus right before the end of this post...
Why? Why would Jesus command you to love those who seek to destroy you? (And why is this quote often mistaken for 'submit' to those who seek to harm you?)
Evangelicals can stand up in defense of a system of laws or practices that they believe to be 'morally' right, but too often the process ends up generating the us (God) / them (Devil/evil) dichotomy which leads to the very hatred Jesus preached against.
It is unfortunate that too many people are demonized for their beliefs and actions by the Evangelical right. We are not on this planet to fight a battle with evil; we are here to learn to love.
But how can you love someone who threatens you or your loved ones? And why would God ask that of you when anger is a much better response for self-preservation?
Any thoughts, Bob?
I guess the quote from Jesus contains the answer for the why: "that you may be like your Father in heaven". If we love those who threaten us, we display un-natural human behavior, not the "hardwired" natural fight or flight reponse, and illustrate the super-natural instead, pointing to the existence of God we serve. It's counter-intuitive to love in the face of hatred and threats. But it should be the norm for Christians - of all stripes, from the most liberal to the most conservative. It should be the thread that ties us together: "they will know we are Christians by our love", not primarily by how well we articulate and defend our point of view.
Um, okay... I have trouble with that line of reasoning because a truly omnipotent God is threatened by what, exactly?
(I also wonder if Christians wouldn't have been extinct by now if they had seen that as the primary mandate of their God.) Don't get me wrong, I think there is a reason behind this 'instruction', but I don't think that reason has anything to do with learning to follow directions, even though they are directions from God.
And to say that we can simply 'love' on command because we are Christians... You said it is a 'un-natural' state for humans to be expected to love what threatens them. I agree. God would know this better than anyone if he created us. So what is he really asking of us? Or trying to teach us? The doctrines of Christianity do not (generally) hold that we will ever become God, or anything near in likeness. (This exempts certain Gnostic doctrines, which I hope you do get a chance to review in your seminary education.)
I may not have communicated clearly what I meant by that line of reasoning. To "be like your Father in heaven" is not that he is like us in any way, i.e. feeling threatened. Rather it's that He is indiscriminate with his kindnesses toward people, and doesn't withhold kindness from someone because they hate Him, and only show kindness to those who love Him.
I think the purpose is to show us not to love in a purely human terms, like for like, but also in a spiritual way - unconditionally, like He does. And, we *can* do that, even in the heat of the moment, if our spiritual life with Him is vibrant and active. His spirit moving on ours can overcome our "natural" inclinations with His supernatural influence.
And while we don't ever become God, we are enjoined in the Scriptures, and expected as Christians, to become more and more conformed to the likeness of Christ in our daily lives on this earth. How we love and who we love is tangible evidence of how well we are modeling ourselves after Jesus.
Okay, you don't create something which is clearly inferior to you and then expect it to emulate you in ways that go against the very nature you gave it. Which means... 1) We are not inferior to God, and therefore simply need to *remember* what we truly are.
Or 2) The purpose of this instruction was not to get us to strive for something which is, at best, temporarily achievable. (And if God helps us to do it, then we have not truly achieved it on our own. Similarly, if we can not do it without God's help, then again, what is the point?)
I think the key part of this answer lies in this part of the quote "for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." To the Creator, these 'evil' things do not represent a threat. They represent a threat only to his Creation.
So, why give us world where we are so distracted by survival issues that we cannot focus on the state of love we could achieve even with those beings which aren't so threatening to us (but who are still difficult to love *all* the time)?
Hopefully I've made my point clearer now. If you can see what I'm saying, don't feel like you have to answer right away. I'd rather have a well-thought-out answer than a recital of dogma. :)
Hm. I really think we are talking past each other on one key point, which you bring up in your option #2. I think it illustrates clearly the difference in our views.
When you say "...if God helps us to do it, then we have not truly achieved it on our own. Similarly, if we can not do it without God's help, then again, what is the point?", I submit that IS the point. We cannot, in our own human efforts, achieve the divine. It's only with God's help that it's possible.
But, that's what the whole concept of His "indwelling spirit" is about. At our conversion, God's spirit enters us and sets about the process of recreating us to be more like Jesus, from the heart outward, which we could never accomplish on our own.
We still have the ability to resist that transformation, or to cooperate with it, which is a lot of what Paul urges his hearers to do in his letters - focus on the transformation taking place in us by the Spirit of God.
I suggest that you, Anonymous, and I take this discussion off-line, because I think it will be lengthy. Since I moderate all posts to this blog, if you post a comment with your email address, I'll delete it, without allowing it to post (to assure your confidentiality) and then write you directly to continue the discussion.
Bob
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