Tag: religion

Why Satan doesn’t get a say

A man has been charged with a hate crime for destroying a Satanic statue put on display in a state Capitol. The display was erected as a provocation by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, a largely political and performative group aiming to curb religious influence in America. It was not intended as a religious display, as the group does not actually claim to worship Satan. The man who ripped it down, Michael Cassidy, had been charged with a misdemeanor, but the enhancement raises it to a felony.

As a UC-Berkeley-educated, post-Enlightenment, Constitutionally-committed, classically-Lockean, free-speech-loving Pastor, I want to briefly defend this man’s actions and argue that any American, Christian or not, should do the same thing. I would happily tear down a statue to Satan erected in my own city, although, knowing my neighbors, I would have to take a number and wait in line.

FROM THE BIBLE

The idea of desecrating idols to false gods is praised in the Scriptures more than a few times. God commands his people to rid their land of idols (Deuteronomy 12:1-3). Josiah was remembered for being a great reforming king for tearing down the idols (2 Kings 23:24), as were other leaders (Judges 6:25, 2 Kings 18:4, 2 Chronicles 15:8). The prohibitions of idols is the second of the ten commandments.

But that was in a civil theocracy, not a liberal democracy. So per the first amendment, freedom of religion and speech are protected, and by the state laws of Iowa, a religiously motivated act of this kind is a “hate crime.” So how could anyone defend Cassidy’s action? Would we want people tearing down statues of Jesus? Would we want the State of Iowa to simply ban all religious imagery, including the manger scene at Christmas?

THE LIMITS OF FREEDOM

By virtue of labeling certain kinds of speech “hate speech,” we’ve already acknowledged that there are limits on freedom of expression. You can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, nor walk around naked in public as a form of self-expression, nor commit defamation, slander, libel, threats, incitement, nor a host of other prohibitions. We all believe that, given common sense, there’s a line somewhere.

And believe it or not, the line has moved.

John Locke, in his Letter Concerning Toleration, argued that people should be free to choose their own religious doctrines without coercion by the State. However, he does not extend religious toleration to atheists, because they could not be trusted to hold to contractual commitments founded in theological obligations. That’s where he set the line. We’ve moved it. Statues of Satan are attempting to move it again. I’m simply trying to hold the line.

WHERE FREEDOM COMES FROM

Locke believed that we should have freedom of religion and freedom of expression because in a state of nature, humanity is free and equal, because God created us that way. His primary inspirations were the Bible, from which he quotes profusely, and Luther’s Protestant theology, which had already thrown off the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Locke’s writings became the bedrock of American political ideology, as Jefferson follows him in declaring that there are certain rights endowed by our Creator. The ideological foundation of the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution is a God who makes people free. Without that theology, democracy is simply an option whose alternatives might be a well-run monarchy or a financially thriving tyranny. Values have to come from somewhere, and when Americans forget where we got freedom, we will lose it.

An explicit attack on theism in the name of freedom is actually a covert attack on freedom itself, and if we want to protect freedom, we have to recognize freedom-undermining wolves that climb in the pen posing as freedom-promoting sheep.

CONCLUSION

So, if you want God to bless your land, honor your God by desecrating the would-be mockery of outright idolatry, and whether or not you believe in Him, better thank him for making you free.

And if, in the end, you can criminalize someone for removing an ideologically motivated statue in the name of protecting free expression, we need to go back and arrest the government employees a couple of years ago who removed the statue of Thomas Jefferson from New York City Hall. He’s kind of the one who wrote down all those freedoms you like so much.

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Look for my upcoming book, Jesus Is Not King, for more about the relationship between Church and State and its limits.

Gods and Politicians

Not too many years ago, one of the primary condenders for the presidential election was a Mormon, today one is a Hindu, and there are elected officials who, presumably, could run for highest office and who are Muslims. The Hindu candidate has said repeatedly that it matters that there is a God, and he recently tweeted, “We share a common creed.” The problem I have with the ecclesiastical melting pot is that whether you look at this in terms of philosophy of religion, history, ethics, or sociology, we’re not talking about the same God, and that really matters.

This comes as a counter-intuitive shock to the average Joe who assumes all religions go roughly in the same category, the way apples, bananas, and apricots are all in the same row of the grocery store. Pick your favorite flavor; they all serve a related nutritional purpose. But no one who actively practices a faith and knows a good deal about alternate faiths thinks this way. Similar does not mean the same.

It’s like this. Two people might compare notes about their childhood experiences. One says, “When I was a kid, there was this guy in the house who was always there, and we called him ‘Dad.'”

“My house too!” her friend responds. “We had a guy like that and we called him ‘Dad.’ Maybe it was the same guy?”

“Well,” says the first, “my dad provided for me and wore out-of-date clothing and thought his jokes were all funny.”

“Mine too! We must be talking about the same guy! Isn’t that amazing? We have the same dad!”

“Well,” the first one continues, “my dad taught me that when someone does something wrong to you, you should love them anyway.”

“Oh,” says the second, a little bit mystified. “My dad told me that when someone does something wrong to you, you should punch them in the nose.”

Similar doesn’t mean the same. This also applies in matters of faith. Multiple faiths may talk about a God who created the world, who dictates principles for living, and who will be our judge in the end. But that doesn’t mean a shared identity; that only proves similarity. If one God tells you to love your enemies and another one tells you to get revenge, you are talking about different personalities, different “parents,” different gods.

Average Joe in the produce aisle may still not care about this. He’s going to pick his favorite fruit and leave you alone when you pick yours. Likewise, he’s going to care very little about the fruit preference of the person we elect president of the United States. The rub here is that gods dictate ethical norms the way parents set rules in the home. Not all gods have the same personality, and consequently, they do not share the same set of ethical principles.

Christianity is a faith that teaches the ultimate dignity and worth of every individual, regardless of their level of accomplishment, their intelligence, their moral uprightness, their able-bodiedness, and any other category into which we want to parse them. Jesus loves us all. America still enjoys the residue of a culture largely influenced by the teachings of Jesus. If you have a heart-to-heart conversation with someone who has been simmering in Confucian ideology, you find that there are sticking points at which you simply don’t share a common worldview, particularly as it concerns ethics. I invited a friend who was new to America to serve at a homeless ministry some years ago. They had never seen one before. They asked with incredulity, “You give all these groceries away for free?” They had been taught that if you gave your things away, there might come a time where you would not have enough for yourself, and you would starve. Those who have truly imbibed the values of Jesus believe that we should give to all who ask, that God can rain bread down from the sky, that we who sacrifice will receive much more in this life, and in the life to come, eternity.

In fact, it was on the basis of theology that the founders in America crafted some of the ethical mores which they prescribed. When Thomas Jefferson argued that there were unalienable rights bestowed by a Creator, he was borrowing from the British philosopher John Locke. Locke had argued with extensive citation from the Bible for the freedom of religious practice and liberty for the people. There is a direct line from the teachings of Jesus to Locke to Jefferson, and thus to the governing principles of America. In fact, one of the harshest critics of American independence from the monarchy was another British philosopher named Jeremy Bentham. Bentham was an atheist. He refered to the rights of dignity and freedom of each individual as “nonsense on stilts.” The nonsense was the idea that indivuals deserved freedom, and the stilts was the theology upon which such values were based. As an atheist, he believed only in doing what is best for the greatest number of people; sometimes the minority had to be overruled or ignored.

So put in place a leader who believes in a territorial god who advocates violent self-defense and ultimate conquest and you have the makings of a dictatorship. Put in place a leader who believes that the ultimate goal of humanity is to lose one’s identity to be subsumed into something universal, and you have the makings of something more negligent. Put in place a leader who really believes in Jesus, and you should have the makings of a nation which upholds the belief that every human being is of ultimate worth, that our country should do what’s best for everyone in the world so much as is possible. Gods create ethical systems. The objects of worship our elected leaders revere are not inconsequential.

Of course, if history is any indicator, we can rest assured that a generally blasé approach to faith and a hypocritical approach to ethics is all we will ever get from our politicians, so we needn’t worry too much nor get our hopes up. God is going to be a distant Creator who bestows only loosely prescribed unalienable rights, and nothing more. When it comes to the religious beliefs of our leaders, you say tomato, I say tomato.

From my forthcoming book, Jesus Is Not King.

A Christmas Miracle

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Well, this one is beyond explanation.

A family from the Real Life Church family contacted our Children’s Minister, Staci, to tell her that their house had been robbed.  The thieves got away with some cash that the family had set aside to send their kids to Winter Camp with the church.

Of course the church was ready to jump in and cover the costs for these two kids anyway, but the family told Staci to save the money.  The church might have to buy a new building this year – save the money for that.

This sweet family was about to sacrifice their kids’ opportunity to go to camp so that the church could continue in its mission.

What they didn’t know was that earlier the same day I had received a call from another member of the congregation who told me, “God is telling me to pay for a couple of kids to go to camp, in case anyone can’t afford it.”  The same day the house was robbed, even before it was robbed.

So of course, the kids are going to camp.

Now a skeptic might suggest that if God was behind this, he could have just stopped the robbery, right?  But think about that.  The family isn’t losing out on anything – they’re still going to camp, and not only that, they also know that God is watching out for them.  The donors aren’t out anything – they already wanted to give the gift.  Now on top of that, they know how special their gift is.  Even the thieves are not at a loss – they walked away with the cash, and, God willing, they are a step closer to finding out that money and theft will not lead to happiness.  If God had stopped all this from happening, we wouldn’t have this story to tell, and we wouldn’t have a deep sense of God’s hand in our lives.

So this is our Christmas miracle this year, and it’s my Christmas miracle, because what pastors want to see, more than beautiful services and shining smiles, is the powerful hand of God intervening in the world.  That is, after all, the story of Christmas.

#RLLA

Kyo

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Kyo

It’s not news that the Christian church is not proliferating in Japan.  It’s less than half a percent of the population.  There’s an interesting phenomenon in the Japanese language that help accounts for this.

In Japanese, a religion is named with the title of that religion, followed by the suffix pictured here, pronounced “kyo” (rhymes with crow).  So Christianity is “Curisoto-kyo.”  Islam is “Isulamu-kyo.”  Literally translated, it simply means “teaching,” but as with many words, there is a nuance not captured by the strict definition.

The nation of Japan is not religious in the Western sense.  They may offer worship to idols or ancestors, loosely grouped under the title, “Shinto,” but Shinto has no clearly defined doctrines.  When the Japanese talk about religions, they are generally referring to ideas from outside.  And when they think of such things, they still discuss the 1995 subway gas attack that killed 13 people and poisoned thousands.  The leader of that attack was executed this summer.  The name of that cult was Shinri-kyo.  “Kyo” has subsequently come to imply “cult.”  Because Christianity falls under the same broad umbrella of religious teachings, it too now bears a suffix that implies “cult.” Everyone in Japan has heard of the gas attacks.  Less than 1% of the population is Christian.  But when Christianity comes up, it’s immediately branded as related to the gas attacks.  No surprise that it’s not catching on.

A word to wise Christians in America: guilt by association is a real thing.  If Christians generally associate with unloving power-mongers who are more interested in politics that loving the lost, don’t be surprised when no one wants to talk to Christians any more.  At that point, the faith might as well be branded “The Christian Party,” because the suffix captures exactly how it’s thought of.  In America, there is a real risk that people may come to think Christianity is just a political slate that claims to have fallen from heaven.

That’s simply not what Jesus came to build.  He wasn’t out to create political power structures to shelter the fearful.  The teachings of Jesus (Jesuskyo?) are all about surrendering in the name of love.  The more his followers do so, the more likely Japan and the rest of the world are to see Christianity stand apart from cultish shadows.

I Don’t Want to Be A Christian

I sat with a friend today who is not a Christian.  She knows I’m a Christian and generally avoids the subject.  Today, out of the blue, she said, “Have you always been a Christian?”

I told her my story of growing up going to boring, dead churches.  I told her about rejecting the faith on rational grounds because of the wide variety of religions in the world and the painful exclusivity of Christianity.  I told her about my return to the faith.

She grinned and looked away.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t want to be a Christian,” she declared.

She told me about experiencing pushy Christians who tried to manipulate her to believe and who wouldn’t respect her disinterest when she said “no.” She talked about churches that made her fall asleep.

Listening to her description of what she had experienced from Christians, I couldn’t help but think it:

“I don’t want to be a Christian either.”

And by that I mean, I don’t want to be a Christian like the Christians she’s met.

I don’t want to be a Christian who disregards people’s feelings when they tell me they don’t want to hear or have heard enough.  I want to be a Christian who talks about Jesus with people who are open to listening, usually because I’ve taken the time to listen to them first, and then respects them if they say “No thanks.”

And I don’t want to be a Christian who goes to or leads a boring church.  Boring churches should almost unilaterally be closed.  They should be shut down until the people who are called to lead them can come up with a meaningful vision for what it looks like to reach lost people with the gospel.  And I don’t care if your approach is miraculous healings or one-to-one evangelism or an attractive megachurch or artsy alternative community, but if a church doesn’t have a vision, the church needs to close.  If a church is boring, it’s already closed in every way except the literal way, and that’s only a matter of time.

I told her that the way Christians behave isn’t a measure of whether or not Jesus is God.  And the real question is whether or not Jesus is God, which is irrelevant to how Christians behave.  She seemed unconvinced and changed the subject.  I let her change the subject.

In that exchange, I have to trust that God did what he wanted to do.  God never forces himself on us.  Christians need to unilaterally stop forcing themselves on anyone else.

But I do have one thing better than force, manipulation, or nagging.  I can ask you to pray for my friend.  Please do.

 

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Disciples and customers

The critical decision that the modern church must make is whether or not to raise up disciples or customers.  The results will be very different.

You can have a very big church filled with customers.  Appeal to the expectations, calm every complaint, give the old guard what they want, and appease the donors.  This can generate a gathering of satisfied church-attenders who bring their friends, promising them a similar customer-satisfaction experience.

On the other hand, a church can create disciples.  This necessarily requires telling peoplehqdefault.jpg that they can’t have what they want, that Jesus’ call is to take up your cross and to die to yourself.  A church in a frenzy of attracting customers can never deliver a message like this.  A church that delivers a message like this will never attract customers.  But it is fundamentally the road to discipleship.  Churches that create disciples define their purpose by their mission, not by the whims of their shareholders.

The result of a disciple-making church is a most likely initially smaller but impassioned group of people who are truly committed to the mission of Jesus in the world.  But when a gathering of people takes Jesus’ mission to heart, they become an unstoppable force for the kingdom.

The leadership of the church just has to decide at the beginning, when the groundwork for the church is being laid: customers or disciples?

Religion is stupid and evil

BillMaher_directI don’t know if you heard Jimmy Kimmel’s interview of Bill Maher the other day (I didn’t), but Bill was apparently sweating out the threat that Islamic jihadists now pose to people who mock them (aka Bill Maher).  And he said, “There are no great religions.  They’re all stupid and evil.”

I don’t normally take offense at comedians who are paid to offend.  You know what you’re getting into when you listen to them.  And I generally don’t listen to Maher, because I generally don’t find him funny.  But that comment stuck with me, because he’s actually rallying the hordes against the innocent.

I went to church the other night.  There were 200 homeless people sleeping at my church.  We fix them three meals a day, run a clothing boutique, offer free showers and haircuts.  They’re here for three weeks in January when it’s coldest outside, and then on to another church, such that they can be under a roof from December through March.  We’re not short on volunteers, so I usually just sit and talk with people who are having dinner.  One woman needed help finding a Narcotics Anonymous program, which we host at our church, so I helped her find it.  One woman was looking for a Bible, so I pulled one out of our pews for her.  Generally I just listen to their stories.  And as the 200 or so shuffled off to bed, I heard someone saying to me, of me, “You’re stupid and evil.”

I went to a congregational meeting on Sunday.  We just approved a new budget.  This year we raised our giving overseas by $30,000.  There’s a program in India that uses English literacy training to give people marketable job skills.  They’re helping people climb out of poverty by starting with reading.  And in the midst of that, they introduce whoever will listen to the guy who taught us to love people on the other side of the ocean.  Religious people in America usually give more to charity than their non-religious peers; we again have raised our giving.  And as we pour tens of thousand dollars of our charity into people we’ll never meet, someone tells me that I’m stupid and evil.

Last year we made a donation of about the same amount to an orphanage in Haiti that had lost a building to the earthquake.  We paid for the whole thing.  And the guy living in Haiti at the orphanage leading the build – he’s one of our church members who has moved there to live among and help the poor.  I gather that he’s stupid and evil as well.

But I can read the history of Christianity and so-called Christians as well as everyone else, and I see in my predecessors what is functionally just the same behaviors you see outside the church. And part of me has to agree – yes, religion, and religious people, are stupid and evil.  We always have been.  Just like everyone else.  Atheistic regimes killed 100,000,000 people in the 20th century.  Religious people haven’t done any better with power, just not worse.

But here’s the deal – Jesus wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t evil.  If I have to come to grips with my own stupidity and the darkness within my own heart, I start groping around for someone to bail me out.  The only person I have ever known who without question has earned the right is Jesus.  He isn’t stupid or evil, and only blind stupidity or fiery hatred would make anyone say otherwise.  I’ll admit it – I’m stupid and evil.  I need a savior.  But he’s actually worthy of the title.

So the bottom line is that the common thread between stupid and evil religious people and stupid and evil secular people is not religion, it’s humanity.  And rather than casting stones at we who have called out to a savior for help, in a century where persecution of Christians is at a historical high, you might just as well have the humility to admit that you need a savior too.

Islamic Violence

ImageAmericans are finally waking up to the fact that Islam is a worldwide phenomenon, and not just “over there,” although we seem to believe we are the first to have discovered this and are going at it like Marco Polo.  American media commentary about Islam would make you think that you were listening to the first broadcast from the moon.  “What’s it like?” America asks.  “We will tell you,” says the news.

For my part, I’ve read the Koran twice cover to cover, which is far less than many Muslims, and far more than most Christians.

The million dollar question today is whether or not Islam is inherently violent.  “Is it?” you are asking.  “I will tell you,” says I.

There are two popular lines.  One is the ranting and insistent “Yes!” which has on its side a vast array of very obvious evidence, namely, that some of the most terrorist-producing countries are Muslim.  Muslim countries are not good to women.  Honor killings are still practiced in some Muslim countries.  The people who point this out usually do so without much nuance.

The second popular voice is a more calm but less sensible, “No.” It’s the claim that Muslims are just people like everyone else who have a peaceful religion like Christianity or Buddhism.  They’re misrepresented by extremists the way sophomoric cynics try to group all Christians with Westboro Baptist Church.  This view is based on hope.

The Koran came to be when Muhammed entrenched the ethical code of the 7th century Arabian desert in an eternal religious being whom he claimed was speaking to him.  Thus Muslim ethics will always be tied to the nature of daily life in that cultural context.  In that context, if a tribe attacked your tribe, and you did not retaliate, you signaled weakness.  Thus the rival tribe would feel empowered to attack again, to take your women as property, to drive your people away.  “An eye for an eye” is the teaching of the Koran.  Forgiveness is encouraged only insofar as it causes a person to reform.  But territorial defense is essential.

Is that violent?  Sort of.  It’s also sort of basic, common-sense justice that you would expect of a culture that isn’t governed by a bureaucratic legal system.  It’s not the same as the Christian ethic of turning the other cheek and repaying evil with good.  It’s not the same as Christianity, and the two are not just different paths to the same God.  But it also isn’t crazy.

The problem is that masses of Muslims throughout the world are told that the West has already taken eyes and teeth from them in wars of incursion.  The sexual morality we dispense through our movies and our scandalous celebrities is fairly convincing proof that we’re not reforming.  So in a cross-section of the Muslim world, there is a wholesale belief that the West has attacked.  If they don’t respond in kind in some way, it will signify weakness and allow for further offense.  That’s just the way of the desert.  So rather than demonizing Islam, take its ethic for what it is: pre-Enlightenment myopia.  Combine that with abject poverty and you have something that is potentially volatile.  However, it isn’t of necessity violent.