Poverty: The result of the love of money . . .

I am taking the time to preach on issues this season that seem relevant to the national agenda, to the political process, and to the election in a little over six weeks. Nothing grandious, just a title "What the Bible has to say about . . . war, racism, the social safety net, and, this week, poverty.

My scriptures are from Amos, condemning those who oppress the poor, and Luke 16 where Jesus tells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, both who die and go to hell and heaven respectively.

$700 B to bail out bankers who screwed up in the face of children in America who will go to bed hungry tonight is obscene! More obscene is the money that the bottom five percent of Americans bring home is more than the majority of the "Third World", although that term is passe.

$700 B. would go a long way to feed the hungry and lift the poor out of poverty. It might fund the entire UN initiative designed to cut poverty in half. It might even cover the other half. It might prompt Jesus to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

$700 B. went down in flames today in the House of Representatives. I really don't know whether to feel sick over the future of my 403(b)-that is the not for profit equivalent of a 401(k) or to rejoice that there is still some backbone in Congress.

The amazing thing is that the people who got lousy mortgages out of this and are either being foreclosed upon or are hanging on by their fingernails are not even the poorest people in this country. There is a whole other layers of victims of the free market economy who don't even get to show up at the table to complain, much less have any chance of a government bailout.

Sunday last, I preached on racism, and I looked a lot at the life of Martin Luther King Jr. to prepare the way. He was organizing the poverty march on Washington when he was martyred for his faith. Lord, how can we pick up the mantle of the mighty whose fallen?

Seven Hundred Billion?

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's"

Do we really need to render so much cash unto the financial institutions that screwed up so royally? I was going to say stupid people making bad investments, but these are not stupid people. These are well educated, highly motivated, prime shakers and movers of the financial system. And they let their love of money outstrip all other considerations.

And now the government wants to bail them out-maybe. We don't know the final price tag. I heard in one report that all the insurance that has been written on all these financial investments is in the neighborhood of $62 Trillion (CAPITAL T), of which $700 Billion seems a drop in the bucket.

How much is this government in debt and how much more would this initial investment force us to add? It is more than 700 B. because there will be borrowing fees and interest and a cut for everyone along the way. In the end, do we sign over California to China and the Middle East to make good?

The absurdity that tickles me the most is that the presidential campaigns are saying that the people want to make this decision. No, they want to make the decision for the people. We are a representative democracy. If they really want the people to decide, make this a national referendum question on the ballet in November.

Jesus calls on us to pay our taxes, but I don't think it extends to this.

For more, google "Kansas Senate Prayer"

Don't know if it is an 'e-myth', but it stirred my heart when I got the email.

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleans us from every sin and set us free.

Amen!

X-men 2: A Christian Mutant

His name is Nightcrawler. He is a teleporter, German by background, mutant by birth, ugly by appearance, and a bona fide Christian in a comic book movie. During the course of the movie, he adds the Lord’s Prayer in a moment of desperation, he provides the words to the 23rd Psalm when they mourn the loss of one of their own, and he comes across as a creature of peculiar powers that is truly trying to put together his faith with his strange appearance.

The only really odd bits were the scars he gave himself as reminders of his sins. They had to do with angel signs or something.

Nightcrawler’s faith comes across in the comic books as well. There is some recollection far back in my mind of his becoming an ordained minister after some kind of evil befell the X-men and broke up the team.

But it X-men 2, it wasn’t over the top. The character of Nightcrawler is, but the portrayal of the faith wasn’t. There really seemed to be a subtext of this creature who was different by no choice of his own trying to live life, trying to understand by the power of his faith. At one point, the mutant is under the power of the bad guys, and he doesn’t get what he has done. He retreats to a church. When confronted by members of the X-men, he wonders out loud if he is being tested, looking to the crucifix placed in easy access.

I found their treatment of my faith to be respectful, compared to some movies I have seen.

“Inspiration and Incarnation”; my take

I think Professor Enns got caught between the trustees and the faculty at WTS which has caused a ferment about his book. The trustees raised a red flag while the faculty raised a green flag. He got caught in between.

So why a red flag from the trustees? My guess is somebody on the outside read the book and either didn’t get it and/or didn’t like it. So the word got back, maybe pushing some of the ‘orthodoxy’ buttons, and the flag went up. Maybe Prof. Enns did not reflect enough of a “WTS specific” set of presuppositions in his prologue. Maybe his critics thought he was a little too cozy with setting the bible into comparison and not enough contrast with the culture out of which the Old Testament was written. The trustees have the whole Seminary to think about, after all.

So why a green light from the faculty? My guess is that they recognized the book as an offering of Old Testament research, sound in its consideration of the cultural evidence that pre-date and co-date the Hebrew bible. It’s place was not an offering of cultural implications of Ancient Near Eastern literature to systematic and biblical theology. It was a text for Seminary students pursuing questions of the Old Testament and similar literature of that time and place.

So what issues does this raise?

Does all research need a full theological confession before you start?

Who decides, the trustees or the faculty, on what constitutes a ‘problem’ among the writings of the professors?

What is the difference in emphasis between a book meant for teaching in a Seminary and a book meant for popular Christian consumption?

Where is the border between theologically dominant and culturally dominant inquiry?

How does this weaken the witness of the Whole Christian Nation?

Bible: The Easiest and the Toughest Book

I find myself coming back to the Bible again and again as a concept. It is already an integrated part of my vocation and personal worship. As a pastor, the preaching of the Word is at the centerpiece of the ministry I carry out. As a Christian, personal devotional reading and meditation are the ways to get the Spirit flowing in my life and to simply get through the day sometimes.

But that is my bible, my relationship with the bible. I agree with the broad statements that there is a general lack of knowledge about what is in the bible, simply as a central literary work to our American cultural experience. That is a regrettable flaw in the core knowledge of our educational system. Then that general lack of knowledge extends to our religious use of God’s Word as the central message of our churches. No longer are we simply talking about the common reference points in our American cultural experience, but we are talking about ignorance of God’s saving message to us of Jesus Christ. That has tragic consequences for a nation that considers itself Christian.

If I am not the basic receptacle of biblical teaching, but my pastor is, or my leader is, or that person who sounds so nice on the television or the internet is, then how they define faith is how I will.

If someone tells me that if I believe enough, I will become prosperous and fulfill the American dream, I will grab hold. . . if they say the bible tells me so.

If someone singles out ‘those’ people as the harbingers of evil; fascists in my grandparent’s generation, communists in my parent’s generation, homosexuals in my generation, “PEOPLE X” in the next generation; I will hate ‘those’ people too. . . if they say the bible tells me so.

If someone tells me the poor are not to be pandered to, not to be charity cases to the government, that the homeless just don’t do enough, that such people are just too lazy, I’ll buy that. . . if they say the bible tells me so.

But I can tell you, as a preacher, as a pastor, as a ‘rigorously trained, academically oriented’ theologian, that is not the bible I know.

We Need All of God to Understand the Bible

Incarnation and Inspiration emphasized an ‘incarnational’ understanding of the bible. I understand it to be analogous to the incarnational understanding we have of Jesus as Fully Human. I think that is an excellent idea to prevent a definition of ‘inspiration’ becoming mechanical, that the writers of Scripture were stenographers in their day.

But I do not think that is the whole story. To understand and interpret Scripture as a Christian relies on the very Trinitarian nature of God.

The very idea that God gave us this book, that God inspired the writers, that God guided the selection process that has assembled the Canon of Holy Scripture is mind-boggling to me. We are looking at thousands of years of discernment among sinful, fallible human beings to give us what we have today. Dare I call it miraculous?

Peter Enns really sparked this thinking with his focus on the incarnational aspect of Scripture. It is truly the work of human hands, out of a human context, representative of the human written traditions of the times and places from which the bible emerged. One critique leveled against Professor Enns is that he speaks of the similarities of other cultural writings to the bible as a challenge to the authority of the bible. That may be in some circles, but for me, the similarity is proof to the bible’s inspiration. God did not drop something new from the sky, but interacted with his created order to provide us with the Truth of Jesus Christ.

But the final person of the Trinity is what really drives inspiration in my mind. That is the presence and witness of the Holy Spirit. That is what separates my finding in the bible the promise of salvation and the stranger finding nothing more than moral tales and religious ceremonial instruction in it. The Spirit is the presence that makes one heart stir at the preaching of God’s Word and its absence makes another heart drift into sleep.

I think that is another critique of Peter Enn’s book, the lack of focus on the activity of the Holy Spirit in reading and understanding Scripture.