I have a confession. Not long after 9/11, I was walking to the bus stop to take the express bus to Midtown Manhattan. Waiting there were two young men from the Pakistan/Afghanistan region. They were smiling and wearing backpacks as they waited for the bus, and I 'profiled' them. In a moment of fear I stepped away and decided to be late to my meeting and take the next bus. Some reading this may empathize and assume that my reaction was justified. Others will see the guilt behind my stereotyping and panic response. Either way, for me in that moment the reality of having enemies that would travel half way across the planet just to kill someone like me seemed very real -- even if I was wrong about those two men.
There are surely people who want to kill us. They want to hurt us because of the passport we carry, or they may despise us for our ethnicity. Many have real disdain for those in the opposite political party. Some people really do hate Christians -- though as good liberals they won't use the word "hate." And yes, some who claim to be Christians actually hate them right back -- maybe even hated them first. Recently a Nazi walked into a Sikh temple and opened fire. Because it happened to a Sikh temple it may still seem rather foreign or detached for some, but what if it was a Baptist church in Dallas? It's happened before.
In 70 AD, Jerusalem was under siege by the Roman Army and virtually destroyed. Some forty years before that in what appears to be a collusion of powers, they hung Jesus of Nazareth on a cross to die, and it was not uncommon to hang dozens from crosses on the side of a road where all who could see the penalty for questioning Pax Romana. Within decades of Jesus' first teaching The Sermon on the Mount, followers of Christ would be thrown into prison, burned alive, beheaded, and face lions in arenas. Yet, it was into this environment of power and violence that Jesus says "Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you."
We have enemies. They may not even know our name, but they want to hurt us or at least what we represent. Maybe against one's religion or against one's ethnicity or against one's nationality or perhaps out of utter irrational madness, but for whatever reason, the hate burns. Share the Good News boldly; there will be opposition. Live a quiet life, and there will still be someone who simply hates something about you. We have enemies. Yet, Jesus says AGAPE them. Love them. Pray for them. This one command is a world-changer.
When we refuse to love our enemies, it is no small matter. We are plainly in rebellion against Jesus the Lord. In a moment of defiance, we are choosing to be a son of this world rather than an imitator of Christ. This doesn't mean that we don't feel the pain, even the anger, or the longing for a redeemed world, but Jesus, who took up a cross, does call us to a different response. We speak differently, act differently, and even learn with the help of His Spirit to think differently. Our response to evil makes all the difference in the world. We could talk about Ghandi, a Hindu, who learned the principles of peaceful resistance from reading the Sermon on the Mount. We could talk about Martin Luther King Jr. or about the reconciliation efforts of Nelson Mandela or about John Perkins, nearly murdered in a Mississippi jail in the '60's and his ministry partnership, a former Klan member. Stories such as these turn our world upside down.
Still, it is the stories of countless millions obeying Christ that creates the tidle wave of counter-cultural love. The greatest revolution the world has ever known has been the daily obedience of Christ-followers to submit to the command to "Love our enemies." And obeying Jesus changes everything. When we respond to the evil in our world with the Way of the cross, we are filled with the power that ultimately defeats evil. Conversely, when our response mirrors that of the world, evil is further empowered and armed to swell in its destructive force. When we refuse to love our enemies, I can't help but think that we are indeed refusing Jesus himself. Can we really do anything else and still call ourselves Christians?
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Worldviews In Conflict
We are living in the midst of worldviews in tension. It explains any number of very real issues facing the church, especially in Western society. For much of Western secular society, the climax of human history is the Enlightenment. This is when human history surged forward and our journey into ever greater human accomplishment began reaching extraordinary heights. Reason emerged, and the pathway to a secularized society began. And indeed, many great accomplishments have come from this period, and human reason is a God-given gift. Despite the holocaust, world wars, nuclear weapons, and various other atrocities, we also have seen diseases cured, human rights championed around the globe, and amazing quality of life advancements enjoyed by hundreds of millions (though certainly not by all).
For many, the underlying framework for understanding human reality is rooted in seeing our story through the lens of the Enlightenment as the climax of our story. The (Western) arrival at Reason marks the centerpiece of our existence, but more than that it shapes the way we understand our existence. That is, progressive achievement and human knowledge supersedes -- and often displaces -- revelatory encounter. Our epistemological worldview becomes rooted in human progress as our authority. However, for followers of Christ, the Western Englightenment is not the grand summit of human history. As we are "transformed by the renewing of our minds", our worldview experiences (or perhaps should experience) a major shift. It is not, I certainly should say, a rejection of such helpful tools as scientific method nor a wholesale adoption of fundamentalist principles and the problems that come that. However, such a reorientation is indeed a completely different framework for understanding human history, standards of morality, and existential truth.
Followers of the Way have embraced a different way of seeing reality. Our shift in allegiance is accompanied by an exchange of lenses -- a shift in interpretative frameworks. Simply put, we believe that the incarnation, passion, and victory of Jesus is the climax of human history. Jesus -- not the Enlightenment -- is the centerpiece of our story and provides the framework for interpreting what is real. Giving our allegiance to Jesus is so much more than a personal spiritual moment but is indeed paramount to entering a new narrative of human experience. The great summit of human history is not the Enlightenment nor the progressive achievements that have followed. Rather, at the core of our confession is that the defining moment of history is the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Incidentally, at a time (and for the last two centuries) that the Bible has been increasingly marginalized, this highlights why the Scriptures are our source of authority for faith, morality, and our understanding of what is true. Jesus himself embodies divine revelation, and the nearest witnesses of that revelation speak with the greatest authority about what was indeed revealed through his incarnation. The writers of the New Testament shared a proximity with Jesus -- who stands at the climax of human history as the Incarnated Word -- that no one else in human history may claim. While some were actual eye witnesses of Jesus, others were companions and contemporaries of these eye witnesses. Everyone is within a generation of God's clearest revelation of truth embodied in the crucified Messiah. These early witnesses shared a cultural, geographic, temporal, and spatial proximity to Jesus, and so they set the stage for a worldview rooted in the life and proclamation of the Resurrected Messiah. Along similar lines, Jesus models a way of reading the Bible as he interacts with Hebrew Scriptures in light of particular contemporary challenges in His first century context. It's worth saying that embracing Scripture's authority doesn't equal a license for reading it badly. Nevertheless, the witness and instructions passed down from those with greatest proximity to Jesus the Word provide our essential framework for discerning morality, ethics, and essential truths. Our center for understanding human experience and our existential hope is in Jesus and His Resurrection.
Today, at least in Western nations, these two worldviews are in conflict. Post-Enlightenment worldviews who inherently root their understanding of reality in human progress, often perceive that modern Reason trumps claims made by Christian scriptures. Many Christian believers have internalized the conflict because they believe the story of the Resurrection, but yet they are tied to a different (ie., post-Enlightenment) meta-narrative. Such an internal conflict stirs no small amount of dissonance. Furthermore, many secularists fail to recognize the extent to which much of our generally accepted ethics are rooted to varying degrees in the Christian story. Of course, the modern meta-narrative continues to be challenged as humanity graduates from slaughtering thousands with spears and swords to killing millions with bullets and bombs.
As followers of Jesus, we are called into a different story. As a result, our framework or worldview for interpreting truth, evaluating Biblical texts, and guiding our morality is rooted in the revealed Word, the apex of human existence. When we place our faith in Jesus, we are doing more than simply adopting another set of religious practices. We step into the narrative that shapes an alternative worldview, and so we share in telling an alternative story.
For many, the underlying framework for understanding human reality is rooted in seeing our story through the lens of the Enlightenment as the climax of our story. The (Western) arrival at Reason marks the centerpiece of our existence, but more than that it shapes the way we understand our existence. That is, progressive achievement and human knowledge supersedes -- and often displaces -- revelatory encounter. Our epistemological worldview becomes rooted in human progress as our authority. However, for followers of Christ, the Western Englightenment is not the grand summit of human history. As we are "transformed by the renewing of our minds", our worldview experiences (or perhaps should experience) a major shift. It is not, I certainly should say, a rejection of such helpful tools as scientific method nor a wholesale adoption of fundamentalist principles and the problems that come that. However, such a reorientation is indeed a completely different framework for understanding human history, standards of morality, and existential truth.
Followers of the Way have embraced a different way of seeing reality. Our shift in allegiance is accompanied by an exchange of lenses -- a shift in interpretative frameworks. Simply put, we believe that the incarnation, passion, and victory of Jesus is the climax of human history. Jesus -- not the Enlightenment -- is the centerpiece of our story and provides the framework for interpreting what is real. Giving our allegiance to Jesus is so much more than a personal spiritual moment but is indeed paramount to entering a new narrative of human experience. The great summit of human history is not the Enlightenment nor the progressive achievements that have followed. Rather, at the core of our confession is that the defining moment of history is the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Incidentally, at a time (and for the last two centuries) that the Bible has been increasingly marginalized, this highlights why the Scriptures are our source of authority for faith, morality, and our understanding of what is true. Jesus himself embodies divine revelation, and the nearest witnesses of that revelation speak with the greatest authority about what was indeed revealed through his incarnation. The writers of the New Testament shared a proximity with Jesus -- who stands at the climax of human history as the Incarnated Word -- that no one else in human history may claim. While some were actual eye witnesses of Jesus, others were companions and contemporaries of these eye witnesses. Everyone is within a generation of God's clearest revelation of truth embodied in the crucified Messiah. These early witnesses shared a cultural, geographic, temporal, and spatial proximity to Jesus, and so they set the stage for a worldview rooted in the life and proclamation of the Resurrected Messiah. Along similar lines, Jesus models a way of reading the Bible as he interacts with Hebrew Scriptures in light of particular contemporary challenges in His first century context. It's worth saying that embracing Scripture's authority doesn't equal a license for reading it badly. Nevertheless, the witness and instructions passed down from those with greatest proximity to Jesus the Word provide our essential framework for discerning morality, ethics, and essential truths. Our center for understanding human experience and our existential hope is in Jesus and His Resurrection.
Today, at least in Western nations, these two worldviews are in conflict. Post-Enlightenment worldviews who inherently root their understanding of reality in human progress, often perceive that modern Reason trumps claims made by Christian scriptures. Many Christian believers have internalized the conflict because they believe the story of the Resurrection, but yet they are tied to a different (ie., post-Enlightenment) meta-narrative. Such an internal conflict stirs no small amount of dissonance. Furthermore, many secularists fail to recognize the extent to which much of our generally accepted ethics are rooted to varying degrees in the Christian story. Of course, the modern meta-narrative continues to be challenged as humanity graduates from slaughtering thousands with spears and swords to killing millions with bullets and bombs.
As followers of Jesus, we are called into a different story. As a result, our framework or worldview for interpreting truth, evaluating Biblical texts, and guiding our morality is rooted in the revealed Word, the apex of human existence. When we place our faith in Jesus, we are doing more than simply adopting another set of religious practices. We step into the narrative that shapes an alternative worldview, and so we share in telling an alternative story.
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