Trapped in a Salt Shaker

I have said beforehand that I don't believe in trying to bring the Kingdom of God upon earth through political action. What role, then, should Christians play during their sojourn in a dangerous world? I believe the answer can be found in such Scriptures as Matthew 5:13-16; “You are the salt of the earth...you are the light of the world.” So said the Lord Jesus to His disciples. Salt is a seasoning and preservative. Lights are put out in places where people can see them. As long as salt remains in a salt shaker or in a cupboard, it does no good for food. Only when it comes in contact with food does it fulfill its function. It seems as if to be the salt of the earth, we must come in contact with our fellow residents on the earth. “Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”

Yet as I have said beforehand, too many of us are afraid to have any contact with our neighbors. This fear is partly justified, especially nowadays. Yet it is also taught to us to an unreasonable extreme by our mass media, both in “news” and in entertainment. And it leads to some rather tragically weird extremes.

There is the normal sort of reserve, of course. At least, I hope it's normal, since I have a large amount of it myself. Difficult life experiences have taught me not to warm up immediately to strangers. And once a person learns to be reserved, he finds in many cases that he saves a lot of energy by keeping his mouth shut. This can be habit-forming. So it is that when I go to work, as I ride the light rail line or bus line, I tend to dread chatty fellow riders. (It's hard to make small talk when you don't feel fully awake until the afternoon!) And on those rare occasions when I ride home from work on the light rail line, I get more than a bit intimidated by the presence of dozens of bodies – some of them quite strange – jammed in close proximity to me. I am working on not being stand-offish.

But there are more bizarre cases of this reserve. One example: my city has a community garden program available to residents who sign up to obtain the use of a city plot for a several months out of the year. It's a really neat program which fosters community-building and food security, but most of the garden plots are located far from where I live on the east side. I recently learned that the Oregon Sustainable Agriculture Land Trust teamed up with our county to try to start a new community garden on the east side, on a 3000 square foot vacant lot.

The only problem is that there are a few neighbors near that plot who are deathly afraid that strangers might come to their neighborhood to...garden, of all things! Of course, they have other fears also. One neighbor said, “We're not going to know who we are going to get in there. There are strangers in our face, casing our homes, looking in our mailboxes.” Another said, “Our neighbors throw their garbage out there. They're not going to go garden there; they're going to go smoke their crack or shoot up or let their kids go play there.” Yet another said, “I don't think you're going to get much support from neighbors on the street because we're not involved with each other.” This neighbor objected particularly to the potential use of the community garden to help provide food and education for the children of struggling families. “I have a pre-teen daughter. I don't want to leave her at home if we're going to have strangers gardening across the street from my house.”

Yet another person said, “We don't want to get to know them (those who would use the garden). We work hard to buy homes of our own, and we don't want the homeless or poor people coming in and planting gardens when they should be out looking for jobs.” Think on that for a moment – that a person would say such a thing at such a time as this, when the official unemployment rate in the U.S. is past 7 percent and the actual unemployment rate is probably at 15 percent, when the economy is crashing to pieces all around us, when that person's job might be the next to vaporize.

Fear leads to uncharity, then to passing wrong judgments on others, then to hatred.

I hate to say it, but this fear is alive and well and kept in a state of vigorous health in certain sectors of American evangelicalism. It was widely emphasized and taught and nurtured by the American Religious Right during the last election. It can be summed up in this statement: Instead of meeting people who are different from us, let's attack them and destroy them in order to make the world safe for us. To accomplish this, let's elect leaders who will keep us strong!

The most extreme example of this which I have encountered is found in a description of the writings of a so-called “Christian survivalist” named Jim Rawles, who wrote in his fictional Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse about a group of refugees walking unawares on land held by a survivalist group who captures the refugees, then determines that they really are in need of material help. Their response is to give the refugees an entire five gallon storage bucket of grain (wow! so generous!), along with other food and ammunition for their weapons, while leaving the refugees with a warning that if they came back and lived on that land the survivalists would cut them down like sheep. I haven't read the book myself, but from the description of it by other survivalists, it seems to be an expression of Jim Rawles' personal approach to life. Hmm...does it sound very “Christian” to you? His “charity” moves me to tears.

For true Christians, to live in this sort of fear is to remain trapped in a salt shaker – jealously hoarding your own things, and unwilling to come in contact with anyone else. So what would the Lord have instead? “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” – Matthew 10:16. We are commanded to go out, to meet our fellow men and women. We are commanded to love our neighbors – and not just theoretically. As Aaron Tate once wrote,

Let the bread on your tongue

leave a trail of crumbs

to lead the hungry back

to the place where you are from.

“But it might be dangerous!” someone will say. “Therefore be wise as serpents...” is the answer. Part of that wisdom consists of forming an accurate picture of one's neighbors, so that one can intelligently go out to meet them. Maybe we all need to take some time to study our fellows to see what sort of people they really are, and to see how much of our preconceived notions regarding them are due to lies taught to us by those who stand to gain from keeping us afraid.

Peace-Makers In The Danger Zone

We live in dangerous times. This fact is becoming increasingly hard to ignore. In my blogging, I have made room for two separate trains of thought: first, the physical, ecological, geopolitical and economic aspects of our present danger, and secondly, the process of recovery of a Biblical faith in the aftermath of an abusive church experience. These two trains of thought can be traced in my two blogs, The Well Run Dry and From SoC To Points North.

But lately, thoughts and reflections from the one train of thought have been spilling over into the other, to the extent that the one train of thought has come to dominate my thinking. Peak Oil, climate change, economic collapse, societal breakdown – these are things that get a man's attention. As Dr. Samuel Johnson once said, “When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” All around me I see the signs of a gathering storm. The storm-winds have reached even to my own place of employment, where last week, layoffs and furloughs of non-billable people began. I still have a job. For now.

The trouble is not merely economic. Everywhere I look, I see abundant evidence of the depravity of man, the soul-sickness of our original sin. Gangs have begun to make their presence known in the Pacific Northwest. People of every stripe are doing irrational, hostile things. Hungry, cold and desperate people in Europe are poised to explode into rioting. The greedy at every level of society are grabbing as much as they can for themselves, without any fear of God.

For too long, those in America who call themselves evangelical have willfully hidden their eyes from these things, content instead to be distracted by the sort of entertainment found in Christian bookstores and trendy megachurches, or eager to hear from less-than-honest preachers who talk about how God wants to make everyone rich. When genuine, 100 percent USDA sinners have infiltrated their ivory enclaves, they have fled to ever-more-exurban McMansionized hideaway “gated communities.” Or they have rallied round right-wing political candidates endorsed by the Religious Right who promise to do away with all not-so-nice people, “for the children's sake!”

Now there's no place to hide. Gangs have come even to suburbia. Increasingly the citizens of the gated enclaves are finding that they can no longer pay their mortgages. Our nation and world are facing severe challenges which require cool heads and clear thinking, yet we are a society of people who have fallen into the habits of dysfunctional, destructive thought and behavior.

Against this backdrop, God has a mission for His true people. It doesn't consist of agitating for political action or more “white flight” (or any other flight of privileged people for that matter). Over the next few posts, I intend to explore some of the dangers facing the earthly societies in which we live, and what I believe the Bible says about a Christian response in the face of these dangers. I just finished reading the Gospel of Matthew and am now in Mark, so I think I'll have plenty of material to draw on for inspiration. And if anyone has comments, ideas or thoughts to share on this subject, feel free to chime in.

Stay tuned...

"Shall I ... Wave Over The Trees?"

I read Judges 9 this week. It is the story of Abimelech, a son of Gideon whom he had by a female servant. Gideon was one of the Old Testament judges of Israel, and after his death Abimelech killed all of Gideon's other sons except one, and made himself king over Israel. The son who was left alive got out of town quickly, of course, but before he did, he gave a little speech to Abimelech and the men who backed him. The speech consisted of a parable about how God would cause Abimelech and his backers to destroy each other, but it also contained an interesting observation concerning the things people give up when they decide to live solely for the chance to be in charge of others. Here is a portion of the text:

When they told it to Jotham, he went and stood on the top of Mount Gerizim, and lifted up his voice, and cried, and said to them, “Listen to me, you men of Shechem, that God may listen to you. The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they said to the olive tree, ‘Reign over us.’ But the olive tree said to them, ‘Should I leave my fatness, with which by me they honor God and man, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ The trees said to the fig tree, ‘Come and reign over us.’ But the fig tree said to them, ‘Should I leave my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ The trees said to the vine, ‘Come and reign over us.’ The vine said to them, ‘Should I leave my new wine, which cheers God and man, and go to wave back and forth over the trees?’ Then all the trees said to the bramble, ‘Come and reign over us.’ The bramble said to the trees, ‘If in truth you anoint me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'”

Now I know that the main and specific point of this parable was to address the evil done by Abimelech and those who supported his evil deeds. But the parable of the trees got me thinking about how many benefits come to the world through people who are just content to live their lives as useful, honest citizens doing good work, and how such a useful and worthy life is forfeited by those who only want to have power over others. The only tree among the trees that was willing to wave over the rest was the bramble – a plant which does not have any obvious uses. Even so, there are many people in this world who want to be “in charge,” not because they have anything to contribute to others, but simply because they've always wanted to be over everyone else. They are rather useless people in every other respect.

This makes me think of the megachurch culture in American evangelicalism and the associated culture of celebrity which seeks to manufacture “Christian superstars” on a regular basis, complete with their own little (or big) personal empires. I'm still recovering from my involvement with one such wanna-be big shot, and memories of my involvement were fresh in my mind as I checked out a couple of blogs I recently discovered. I've been reading more posts from The Autonomy of the Believer, which I mentioned last week. It still amazes me to see how common are the tricks used by selfishly ambitious abusive church leaders, even when the churches under consideration have never even heard of each other. I have also been reading Letters From Kamp Krusty, whose author is running a spoof of church leadership seminars titled, “The 417 Rules Of Awesomely Bold Leadership.” Quite funny, actually.

The serious truth, though, is that there are still scoundrels at the helm of many evangelical churches, and I still feel the need to be on my guard when going to church. There are still churches whose pastors' main message seems to be how much authority the pastor is supposed to have over his congregation. There are still too many leaders in American evangelicalism who are tarnishing the testimony of Christ by their power abuse games. This is a shame. Some of these people are in sore need of a righteous kick in the pants.

Starting The Year On A Lutheran Foot, And Other Matters

I recently discovered another Lutheran church near where I live. It's part of the “Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod.” I wonder how they differ from the Missouri Synod. I think I'll check them out this Sunday. My experiences with Lutheran churches have been pleasant and normal, for the most part.

I haven't been attending the Russian church very much lately, simply because I've been too busy. Consequently, what little Russian I've picked up is starting to evaporate. I would like to visit them again, however. When I compare their culture to that typically found in the United States, I see how much American culture has been hijacked to satisfy someone's profit motive. All our “art” (entertainment, actually) and most of our interactions have been bent toward this end. Compared to cultures radically different from ours, American culture is quite tacky.

One thing about this Russian church is that they are pretty serious about literally keeping the Sabbath (Saturday for them). Their strictness extends to such things as teaching members that they should not drive on the Sabbath. This is very good for fighting global warming and reducing American dependence on fossil fuels, and I could almost wish that every day was the Sabbath ;) . Yet the form of their Sabbath-keeping strikes me as a bit legalistic. I guess I'm being challenged to look more closely at what the New Testament says about the Sabbath.

My busy-ness has had an unfortunate side-effect: I have slowed down considerably in my Bible reading. I am sort of stuck in Judges in the Old Testament and Matthew in the New Testament, although I'm almost done with Matthew.

I recently discovered a blog by someone who is traveling a journey quite similar to the one I've been on for the last few years. His blog is called The Autonomy of the Believer, and it describes how he and his wife were seduced into an abusive and aberrant church, the things they saw while they were involved, and their thoughts upon leaving – especially their thoughts on “the strange state of Evangelical Christianity in America.” I wholeheartedly agree with him that American Evangelicalism is truly strange nowadays, and I look forward to reading more posts from his blog as he sorts things out. I have added his blog to my list of “Blogs I Follow.” I am encouraged to see more Christians waking up to the abusers who have crept into positions of prominence in the Church. It's high time for a little housecleaning.