Mere Reflections

Here are my two cents on the whole deal.

Obviously, “God is love” is true. It has to be true. But I don’t think it means what we sometimes want to think it means.

Obvoiusly, God hates sin, and condemns the sinner (Psalm 5:5, Psalm 11:5, Lev 20:23, Prov 6:16-19). And yes, Jesus was sent to cover this sin, poured out from the gracious mercies of the Father when we could not help ourselves (Rom 5:6). To tell the unregenerate that God loves them is beautiful, precious truth. It is life-direction-changing truth. But it is not the ultimate truth.

Here’s what I mean. To tell someone that God loves them, especially a lost person, is good. It is very good. But if it’s your main point, then there’s a problem. Because as humans, and as unregenerate people before being covered by the blood of Jesus, we will take that to feel better about ourselves. “God loves us,” we will think, “so we will be okay.” “God loves me how I am.”

God loved me so much that Jesus was sent so that I could be renewed and… live happily ever after? … have a better life? … feel better about myself? … get rid of that pesky sin  debt? No, God loved me and sent Jesus so that I could be cleansed, repent, and glorify Him. It’s all about God and it’s all about glorifying God through Jesus. The love we feel, the grace we experience, the righteousness that we wear, they are all side effects of the glorious main plotline: our glorification of God. So while “God is love” is true, it doesn’t always mean what we think it means. In light of the gospel, in light of Jesus, “God is love” means that everything God does, from destroying iniquity, from condemning the rebellious, from having beautiful mercy on the sinner, from bringing the Church through Jesus to glorify him, is love. They are all love. When we say “God is love,” we must means that “God is God.” They must be synonymous. If they are not, we run into the trap of fabricating a God or leaving the hard stuff out.

This doesn’t mean we stop showing mercy on the brokenhearted, or being utterly devastated to proclaim the Gospel to the lost, or sympathizing with the hurting. But it means we do them for the right reasons. And this doesn’t mean we stop saying “God is love,” but that when we say “God is love,” we point people to God the Father through Jesus. We don’t point people to love. We don’t point people to acceptance or good feelings or a better life. We don’t point people to sympathy, or even mercy. We point them to Jesus. The love, the mercy, the acceptance, the grace, they are all beautiful side effects of knowing the Lord. They are all beautiful results of communion with the Father. They are all characteristics of God that we come to know by first seeking Him. A man without a watch continually needs to be told the time. What he needs is a watch, but he’s too attracted to the concept of knowing what the time is that he forgets to acquire the necessary device from which notification of the current time comes. We could continue to tell him the time, or we could direct him to the Source: the watch. When he gets the new watch, he realizes how much he has needed it. He pours over it, examines it, and excitedly wraps it around his wrist. He puts it to his ear and hears it ticking. He polishes the glass face. He also looks at the time. What was once the object of his search is now the result of a new Object: the watch. Knowing the time is now a result of knowing the Watch. No analogy is perfect, but what a lost person needs is Jesus. They don’t need or deserve good feelings, or acceptance, or provision, or mercy, or grace, or propitiation, or even to breathe their next breath. But when we as humans are directed to Jesus, as the current lost person would be and as we were, we are brought to new life. We enter into communion with the Father. We glorify and worship his Name. And praise the LORD! We also receive his love, and his mercy, and his grace, and we receive eternal communion with Him. Thinking like this makes the Gospel so much deeper and so much more beautifully scandalous.

So what is my point? What am I trying to say? That the watch-less person isn’t looking for the watch. They’re looking for the time, and something to polish, and the sound of the ticking cogs, and the feeling of the solid timepiece on their wrist. But they need the watch. Let’s give them the watch! Even much more so, the lost person is looking for love and acceptance and forgiveness and mercy. But they desperately need Jesus. When they know Jesus, when they glorify Him, when they bring him praise and bow to the ground in worship of His name; when we do those things, it makes the blessing of forgiveness and the depth of mercy in the cross so much more profound. Why does Jesus matter? Not because we escape Hell. Not because he makes us feel loved and accepted. But because he brings us to God and imputes to us his righteousness so that we can worship the One True God. And praise Him! He allows us so many great blessings through this communion. But the object, the object is God. The way and life is Jesus. Giving the lost person a feeling of acceptance, or making them feel loved, these are not our objects. Jesus is. These things will be some of the glorious side effects of communion with a God who is love and life and goodness.

That’s my point. It’s all about Jesus. If it’s all about good feelings and love and peace and grace and mercy, we will keep leading the watch-less man to search aimlessly for all of the qualities of the watch but not search for the true Object: the watch itself. We will keep leading the lost person to search aimlessly for all of the wonderful free gifts through Jesus but not search for the true Object: God Himself.

Let’s give them the Watch.

-Riley

Please give this a read. It’s an article by Shane Claiborne, the author of Jesus for President and The Irresistible Revolution. He makes some great points about Christians and Christianity, and I hope it will inspire you. It definitely inspired me.

“To all my nonbelieving, sort-of-believing, and used-to-be-believing friends: I feel like I should begin with a confession. I am sorry that so often the biggest obstacle to God has been Christians. Christians who have had so much to say with our mouths and so little to show with our lives. I am sorry that so often we have forgotten the Christ of our Christianity.

Forgive us. Forgive us for the embarrassing things we have done in the name of God.

The other night I headed into downtown Philly for a stroll with some friends from out of town. We walked down to Penn’s Landing along the river, where there are street performers, artists, musicians. We passed a great magician who did some pretty sweet tricks like pour change out of his iPhone, and then there was a preacher. He wasn’t quite as captivating as the magician. He stood on a box, yelling into a microphone, and beside him was a coffin with a fake dead body inside. He talked about how we are all going to die and go to hell if we don’t know Jesus.

Some folks snickered. Some told him to shut the hell up. A couple of teenagers tried to steal the dead body in the coffin. All I could do was think to myself, I want to jump up on a box beside him and yell at the top of my lungs, “God is not a monster.” Maybe next time I will.

The more I have read the Bible and studied the life of Jesus, the more I have become convinced that Christianity spreads best not through force but through fascination. But over the past few decades our Christianity, at least here in the United States, has become less and less fascinating. We have given the atheists less and less to disbelieve. And the sort of Christianity many of us have seen on TV and heard on the radio looks less and less like Jesus.

At one point Gandhi was asked if he was a Christian, and he said, essentially, “I sure love Jesus, but the Christians seem so unlike their Christ.” A recent study showed that the top three perceptions of Christians in the U. S. among young non-Christians are that Christians are 1) antigay, 2) judgmental, and 3) hypocritical. So what we have here is a bit of an image crisis, and much of that reputation is well deserved. That’s the ugly stuff. And that’s why I begin by saying that I’m sorry.

Now for the good news.

I want to invite you to consider that maybe the televangelists and street preachers are wrong — and that God really is love. Maybe the fruits of the Spirit really are beautiful things like peace, patience, kindness, joy, love, goodness, and not the ugly things that have come to characterize religion, or politics, for that matter. (If there is anything I have learned from liberals and conservatives, it’s that you can have great answers and still be mean… and that just as important as being right is being nice.)

The Bible that I read says that God did not send Jesus to condemn the world but to save it… it was because “God so loved the world.” That is the God I know, and I long for others to know. I did not choose to devote my life to Jesus because I was scared to death of hell or because I wanted crowns in heaven… but because he is good. For those of you who are on a sincere spiritual journey, I hope that you do not reject Christ because of Christians. We have always been a messed-up bunch, and somehow God has survived the embarrassing things we do in His name. At the core of our “Gospel” is the message that Jesus came “not [for] the healthy… but the sick.” And if you choose Jesus, may it not be simply because of a fear of hell or hope for mansions in heaven.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in the afterlife, but too often all the church has done is promise the world that there is life after death and use it as a ticket to ignore the hells around us. I am convinced that the Christian Gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and that the message of that Gospel is not just about going up when we die but about bringing God’s Kingdom down. It was Jesus who taught us to pray that God’s will be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” On earth.

One of Jesus’ most scandalous stories is the story of the Good Samaritan. As sentimental as we may have made it, the original story was about a man who gets beat up and left on the side of the road. A priest passes by. A Levite, the quintessential religious guy, also passes by on the other side (perhaps late for a meeting at church). And then comes the Samaritan… you can almost imagine a snicker in the Jewish crowd. Jews did not talk to Samaritans, or even walk through Samaria. But the Samaritan stops and takes care of the guy in the ditch and is lifted up as the hero of the story. I’m sure some of the listeners were ticked. According to the religious elite, Samaritans did not keep the right rules, and they did not have sound doctrine… but Jesus shows that true faith has to work itself out in a way that is Good News to the most bruised and broken person lying in the ditch.

It is so simple, but the pious forget this lesson constantly. God may indeed be evident in a priest, but God is just as likely to be at work through a Samaritan or a prostitute. In fact the Scripture is brimful of God using folks like a lying prostitute named Rahab, an adulterous king named David… at one point God even speaks to a guy named Balaam through his donkey. Some say God spoke to Balaam through his ass and has been speaking through asses ever since. So if God should choose to use us, then we should be grateful but not think too highly of ourselves. And if upon meeting someone we think God could never use, we should think again.

After all, Jesus says to the religious elite who looked down on everybody else: “The tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom ahead of you.” And we wonder what got him killed?

I have a friend in the UK who talks about “dirty theology” — that we have a God who is always using dirt to bring life and healing and redemption, a God who shows up in the most unlikely and scandalous ways. After all, the whole story begins with God reaching down from heaven, picking up some dirt, and breathing life into it. At one point, Jesus takes some mud, spits in it, and wipes it on a blind man’s eyes to heal him. (The priests and producers of anointing oil were not happy that day.)

In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.

It is this Jesus who was born in a stank manger in the middle of a genocide. That is the God that we are just as likely to find in the streets as in the sanctuary, who can redeem revolutionaries and tax collectors, the oppressed and the oppressors… a God who is saving some of us from the ghettos of poverty, and some of us from the ghettos of wealth.

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

Your brother,

Shane”

1. Am I praying constantly and consistently? Not only for myself but for my church and my leaders.
2. Am I tithing generously? Are my money and other resources being given freely to my church and my leaders, or am I just skating by enjoying the fruits of the other parts of the body?
3. Am I helping? Am I just along for the ride, or am I actively working to find places to get involved in the Body? Get to work!
4. Am I rejecting selfishness? Church isn’t only about you. It’s about the Bride and it’s about full, ecclesiastical sanctification that may begin in an individual heart but ends when Jesus collects his whole, pure bride as One.
5. Am I meditating on the Word? Is my day saturated with meditation on the Word, or am I drawing conclusions based on man’s ideas?
6. Am I talking openly with my leaders? If my concerns are indeed serious, am I approaching my leaders directly or am I talking about them and my church  behind their backs? Am I a gossip and a stirrer of dissension?
7. Am I seeking the Spirit’s peace? Am I ever content to trust God and what He is doing, or am I constantly fretting and never letting go of over-meditating on my concerns?
8. Am I submitted to authority? Am I sensitive to and respectful of the leadership of my family leaders (parents) and church leaders (pastors, elders, deacons, etc) or are they objects of my disrespect and contempt? Am I willing to follow them even when it’s not easy for me?
9. Am I concerned with the big picture? Am I actively seeking what God’s plan is in the future of my church and ministries, or am I just thinking about the now and the present? What am I doing to establish precedents for the future?
10. Am I deeply burdened to give God the glory? Are my perspectives of God and the gospel big enough and the view of myself small enough*? Do I truly understand what Christ has done for me? Are my greatest desires to bring God the glory and to be like Jesus? What things do I need to lay at the foot of the cross so that I may further deny myself for the sake of Christ?

* – not that truly, fully understanding while on this earth the fullness of God’s glory and the depth of our sinfulness is easy to accomplish, but that driving forward to further understand these things is key to sacrificial living for the gospel.

A prayer: “God, may we be reminded of the plan that you have for your Church and for her growth and sanctification. May we be truly burdened for our local churches and their leaders and make commitments to be actively obedient to Scripture by loving them, taking part in them, praying for them, and being obedient to them. Thank you for our ability to worship in light of the blood of Jesus. May it continually cleanse us and remind us of how little we are and how big Your glory is.”

Let’s be burdened for our local churches and have a renewed since of devotion to them and a renewed sense of respect and love for our leaders. It’s not all about me.

-Riley

Let me say first of all that this is a topic that has been floating around in the back of my mind lately. It surfaces when I’m not doing much or when I’m working on a graphic design project that doesn’t take much thought. Some of my best thinking comes that way…ha. But anyway, here’s the question: What do I think about the doctrine of election? I mean, (as Trey so eloquently said of me) I’m a universalist in that I want everybody to go to heaven, but not in that I believe everybody will go to heaven. More recently I’ve been of the thinking along the lines of this quote from the end of an article written by Shane Claiborne to non-Christians:

In closing, to those who have closed the door on religion — I was recently asked by a non-Christian friend if I thought he was going to hell. I said, “I hope not. It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you.” If those of us who believe in God do not believe God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world… well, we should at least pray that it is.

(Read the rest of this article here for an interesting point of view to consider from a very legit, if a little extreme, Christian.*) Not so much of the “It will be hard to enjoy heaven without you,” part, though it definitely pains me thinking about friends I have and other people who won’t be in heaven (all the better reason to live out Christ’s love and forgiveness), I’m guessing I won’t be concerned with much else than God. I’m more talking about the last sentence. I’m of the mindset that I should believe that God’s grace is big enough to save the whole world and pray that God will use me and every other Christian to help that be accomplished.

I was fairly conflicted with my line of thinking I’d been following in my mind and the doctrine of election that is so prevalent in the Christians that I know personally until I read a post the other day that made perfect sense to me. This is what John Piper posted about election, and it’s the best way I’ve heard it explained so far:

Is it a sin to dislike the doctrine of election?

It’s sin not to like the true doctrine of election. It’s sin not to like what God likes.

I want to say it like that because many people have conceptions of doctrines—all kinds of doctrines—that are inaccurate. And therefore their good hearts dislike them.

So you could say, “I dislike election,” and be a good person, because you don’t see election clearly. And what you’re disliking should be disliked. Or you may be a person who is starting to see it clearly and your old self, which is bad, is rising up and not liking what ought to be liked.

So I don’t know whether this person should be chastised or not. The principle would be, “To the degree that you see biblical truth clearly, you should like it.”

Hell is a biblical truth. So when I say, “You should like hell,” what I mean is that you should like it the way God does.

God, it says, “is not willing that any should perish.” God “does not delight in the death of the wicked.” God “afflicts us, but not from his heart” (Lamentations 3). So there is in God himself a willing that hell be and a liking that it exists in that big picture. And yet he grieves over sending anybody there.

So the word “like” is just a little bit difficult here, because you’re going to have to do double perspectives again.

If God ordains that Jerusalem be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, should we like that? My answer is both yes and no. We should not like women boiling their children, but we should approve of God’s decision that it happen.

And so there’s a double perspective in which the things that you see in the small lens should be disliked, whereas what you see in the bigger lens of how God runs the world should be liked.

So there you have it! While I may not appreciate that people go to hell, I should appreciate the place hell has in God’s plan. Though I’m definitely still not saying I’m a Calvinist in regards to this debate as a whole. I feel like that’s too simple of putting it. I believe there is a tension between the two sides and I believe that John Piper pegged that tension very well in that post.

(I feel like I didn’t write this post as well as I could have, so please feel free to call me out on anything that is unclear.)

__________________________________________

*Though from what I’ve read of his work, he would greatly appreciate me saying I thought he is a little extreme, because he believes that if everyone agrees with him he’s doing something wrong, but that’s another subject I can post later. If you are looking for a book that is challenging/a different perspective, try Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. Though I don’t agree with everything he says, he poses very interesting points.

If I remember correctly, in the Metaphysics Club that Trey started a while ago he has a set of Debate Rules, and that the first rule is that you must agree on the basics before you can debate the rest of Philosophy. This seems to be what we have going here. Don’t get me wrong; I’m thoroughly enjoying this. I don’t get enough good discussion like this every day. But I think we’ve reached the point where no one is going to concede, because our basic beliefs oppose each other.

I mean, we all believe that life begins at conception, and that based on that fact, we all have concluded that abortion is wrong. But our view of government (Where, you will remember, this discussion spawned from. Thank you, Trey! ) is where we differ, along with a few other basic points in the discussion. So can we keep having this debate? I’m not sure. But I think Trey’s rule applies here. Just a thought.

I think it’s time for more pictures of cats wearing cute, knitted things and looking annoyed:

Though I suppose I’ll still let Trey post his Third Political Treatise.

Okay, so this is a much needed rebuttal on my end. I want to let all of you know I’ve really appreciated this discussion and the different angles we’ve had from things. I think we’ve all come to a better understanding of each other and of ourselves, and for that I know we are all grateful.

I wanted to clarify some things that I don’t think I made clear in my last post about my views and positions, so I’ll do my best to clarify them here. Some of these points may run together, because they will all tie together somewhat.

Okay, so here goes.

———————————————————-

Concerning Abortion: It’s an Issue of Representation.

Let’s go ahead and get this one out of the way. I understand that Zach and (I assume) Andrew’s approach is to come at the issue practically, which I completely understand and respect. Exempli gratia, whatever way means that practically less abortions will happen in America is the way to go. This is a position that I have come to understand more fully and respect more fully.

My own viewpoint adds an ideological addendum. While I do agree and will consider the practical, government-as-arm approach, another big factor for me is representation. This is where I want to explain myself more fully. In my last, single-issue post, I tried to explain that representation was a big issue for me, id est, if a president publicly and vocally condoned something evil with his platform, and not just silently with his policies, I have a hard time respecting that person and waving their flag. I gave the examples of a president who would be actively and vocally a racist, and that I would know his vocal view would have an affect on his policies. Otherwise, why would he say he was a racist? Furthermore, when I wave that flag, I’m supporting him and, whether I like it or not, making it appear I support his view on that subject. I couldn’t fully side with a president that actively and vocally supported rape, because I would know his vocal view would have an affect on his policies. Otherwise, why would he say he supported it? I then tried to make the connection to abortion issues.

My point is then that abortion is not the only thing I care about, and being pro-life doesn’t mean a pro-life agenda will always be enforced, but that one who makes it a point to be blatantly pro-choice (which at the end of the day either means pro-abortion or pro-ignorance-is-bliss, both of which ignore the severity of the issue and neither of which I would support) will be one who incorporates these into his policies and one who I have trouble waving the banner of. This is in light of a full knowledge that overturning Roe v. Wade is a seeming impossibility right now, and with full knowledge that practically, a pro-choice president might even be able to affect abortion levels for the good. With both of those taken into account, I still will think twice about waving the banner of that president, knowing what they represent.

———————————————————-

Concerning Other Issues: Weigh them in.

So what about the other issues? If I were to support a staunch Republican who opposes healthcare, supports the war, and seems to neglect other issues, aren’t I just pro-death anyways? This is a good question. I will do my best to address it.

Let’s start with the first, yet very sticky issue of innocent death. The opposition to my argument might say “an innocent civilian life lost on the war front is just the same as an innocent life lost in the womb.” I would have to disagree with you on this issue. Now, please don’t pull any Calvinist “we’re all depraved and sinful and deserving of death” stuff on me here, because I know that. But if you can look at a child who hasn’t even had the chance to take her first breath yet; hasn’t even seen the world; hasn’t even had the opportunity to take part in building their own life, and then look at an albeit innocent civilian of another nation, who has made a name for them self, who has established a life, who has battled with the sins of the world and who has (as any other human) lost the battles, who has experienced joy and sorrow and family and love and hatred and breathing and eating, and say that the infant deserves to die more than the innocent civilian, then we have something to talk about. If you call me a hater or one who doesn’t care for the civilian or the innocent adult, then you’re missing my point. And if you say that both the baby and the civilian are both eternally damned for hell without Jesus and so really there is no distinction between the two (which, I’ll give you, on a large, eternal scale the Bible agrees with and so does the Judgment Seat), you’re missing my point. My point is that that baby, curled within the womb, has not even tasted air or food or laughter or the reality of living on its own. To say that it has any reason to deserve to be killed by the powers of this world, I believe is fallacious. We’re not weighing evils. We’re not weighing souls. We’re not weighing innate, depraved value. We’re weighing one death to another death. One killing to another killing. If you must kill one, killing the infant makes little sense to me.

“So, Riley, what about those that do die because of a lack of healthcare? What about those that do die on the war front?” These are truly tragedies that I don’t mean to make light of. “And, Riley, you say that you can’t support someone who condones abortion, but you’ll support someone who opposes national healthcare. What’s up with that?” I’m hopefully getting ready to answer these questions.

So let’s examine the issues, shall we? Let’s look at the candidates. The likely opposition to my position would be “what would you say to a candidate who condones [insert issue] when you won’t support a candidate that condones abortion.” First of all, I would ask them to read the first paragraph of this section on the killing of innocent lives. Second, I would ask them to find me a good, logical reason for a nation’s government to support condoning abortions. Because, here’s the thing. Despite the terrible tragedies that happen because of casualties in war, deaths due to lack of proper healthcare coverage, etc., the political forces behind opposition to national healthcare and support of the war are not forces who desire poor, sick American citizens to not have healthcare, or innocent casualties at war to be lost. Show me a candidate that supports those things. A condoning of a ‘war on terror’ or an opposition to a national healthcare plan are not synonymous with a condoning of killing innocent casualties or harming poor Americans who don’t have healthcare. However, a pr0-choice argument is rarely anything else but a condoning of a mother’s right to choose to murder her child. The opposition to national healthcare is not “no health care at all,” which is what that argument would suggest. Generally the Republican argument is that national healthcare won’t work and will be too corrupted by bureaucracies, too tainted with unfair compromises, too much involving ridiculous deficits, and too damaging to market progress that would help the nation. To defend the Republicans here, the forefront argument has never been “no healthcare,” it’s been “no nationalized healthcare.” To the Republicans, healthcare reform is needed, but not at the cost of state involvement, market progress, fairness, and fiscal budget. So why doesn’t the same principle apply to abortions? Why aren’t abortions better worked out when not handled by the national government? Because, as I have tried to explain, a murder of an unborn child can hardly be justified. There is no overshadowing motive that would inadvertently result in the mass killing of these infants. There is no greater purpose for which these children would be the tragic, but unintended casualties. There is no state solution that would do a better job of outlawing abortions. When one is anti-national-healthcare, one has an option for which he thinks will help people get healthcare better. He has a way for which he will better represent the cause of healthcare and make it happen practically. When one is pro-war-on-terror, he (hopefully) has a greater purpose for which he thinks justice and freedom will be upheld. The casualties are not prescribed, intended, or desired. When one is pro-choice, however, there is no greater purpose. There is no greater option or greater cause. When one is pro-choice, this literally means he does not believe that the killing of unborn children is of great significance. In a war issue, casualties are a (albeit very important) sub-issue. In a healthcare issue, those without healthcare are most always considered to be the ones to be helped. In an abortion issue, there is no sub-issue or some greater cause. In an abortion issue, the issue is “Do you support a mother’s right to kill her child?”

So when one might say “You will be single-issue when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to healthcare, war, poverty, etc.” I would say: I am very concerned with all of these things. But if I do not support nationalized healthcare, I have another plan, perhaps localized, which I think will work better with a candidate who still represents the healthcare cause and knows there is a dire need. And if I support  a war (not talking specifically a certain one), I have reason for which I believe it to be justified and candidates who are pro-freedom and pro-justice, not candidates who are pro-death and pro-civilian-murder. However, if I do not support an anti-abortion cause and rather support a candidate who is pro-choice, I cannot say “this person supports a greater cause: [insert cause] where the death of these children is sometimes the unfortunate, unintended, undesired tragedy.” I have to look at that pro-choice candidate, even if I think he will help my cause, and say “this man supports a mother’s right to kill her cihldren.” A pro-choice candidate has no other cause to hold onto in this area.

——————————————————————-

Single-Issue: A Matter of Importance, not of Exclusivity.

Lastly, I want to explain single-issue. I am not single issue in the sense that I only look to a candidate who will help the anti-abortion cause. It means that I struggle to support a candidate who condones a pro-choice cause. I tried to explain this in the first section of this post, and hope I have conveyed my opinion on the matter. I have many other issues I will consider when I vote. I will consider what will help Americans without healthcare get healthcare, but I will consider the factor of deficit and national corruption. I will consider how to minimize innocent casualties at war, while preserving American freedom and safety here at home and fighting corrupt powers abroad. I will examine the options and decide which candidate will represent the issue and say: “I support the ability of Americans to receive healthcare,” while applying the issue in a practically sound manner, whether it be on a national reform basis or on a more local reform basis. Being single issue means for me that I have a hard time deciding for a candidate who will represent the issue and say: “I support the right of a mother to choose whether to kill or keep her child,” even though he may work practically and inadvertently reduce the abortion count. For me, it’s an issue of representation and practicality. For me, to deny the former denies my ability to truly support him, and to deny the latter denies his ability to make it happen. Both are important to me.

—————————————————————

Conclusion: Reflections on the Aforementioned Statements.

So, I’ve established why abortion is a big issue to me. It denies an unborn infant the ability to experience life outside the womb at all.

I’ve established why not only practicality, but representation as well is a considered issue to me. It enables me to vote with confidence and good conscience, and enables my issue to be represented as wholesome in government.

I’ve established why the issue of abortion is different from the issues of healthcare and the war and the like. It has no greater purpose and no other legal alternative that negates it.

I’ve established what being single-issue means and why it is important. It is a matter of importance, not exclusivity.

———————————————————————-

Hopefully I’ve made myself clear and have been succinct. Feel free to comment and ask questions or for clarifications. I have thoroughly enjoyed these discussions.

May we seek the Spirit in all things, even in that of government.

-Riley

How I reconcile God’s sovereignty in heart-changing with man’s responsibility in evangelizing to all:

“Never lose heart in the power of the gospel. Do not believe that there exists any man, much less any race of men, for whom the gospel is not fitted.” – C.H. Spurgeon

-Riley

I am in no way an expert, but I felt it necessary to post a response to Riley’s earlier blog post entitled, “Why Are People Opposed to ‘forcing your beliefs on someone’?” This is something that has been on my mind and in my heart for a while, and it is not against anything Riley said in his post (I agreed with what he said), it is more of an asterisk that I am putting out to the side of his post. Kind of how I view the subject.

Now, to what I have to say:

Where did Christians get the idea that we should be forcing our beliefs on other people? I know this sounds like a preposterous statement, because *Hello! Zach!* the Great Commission tells us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20a ESV), but I am approaching this from the opposite angle that Riley did. Riley was speaking about sharing Christ and Him crucified to non-believers in an intellectual way, as someone who loves and wants the best for them. I am coming at this from the angle of us (Christians) deciding that, we (as Molly so aptly says, quoting–I think–Jared Wilson) “like our heathens well behaved.” This is more of a warning against arguing angrily about things in the Christian life with non-believers, and how it does not do any good.

Here we get into the much bigger argument over the validity of biblical laws in an increasingly non-Christian culture, but I don’t want this to dissolve into that argument, for biblical laws are obviously useful and necessary. (Where else does good conscience stem from if not from the perfect Creator and His Word?)

My main point: We must not judge non-believers, for this only makes us look stupid and them angry at our hypocrisy. Though, if we must judge them (and we’re fallen so it’s bound to happen way more often than we want), we need to try and not get angry about the things non-believers do that go against our standards. One reason for this is that we would be setting a terrible example for non-Christians. We are called to “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life…” (Philippians 2:14-16 NIV) But if we are so busy calling out non-Christians for their faults, they who are not saved by faith alone in Jesus Christ, then we devalue faith in the first place, conveying to the unbelievers that we think we are saved by works. And that, my friends, does a horrible disservice to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” (Romans 2:1 ESV)

So, in closing, I ask that you please try to have conversations with non-believers glorify Christ, whether they are about his death on the cross, some popular controversial topic, or yesterday’s weather; and do it all in love, for “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” (1 Corinthians 13:1 ESV)

I hope this post has helped you as writing it has helped me to be more in awe of the vast love that God must have for us to forgive us though we are so hateful and prideful in the face of others. I pray that God would work in me and you to increase the knowledge of that love so that we may follow Him with more dedication, reflecting his attributes as the moon reflects the attributes of the sun.

I thought the first post I put on this blog would be discussion-oriented. Now, normally this would go on my personal blog, but I thought “Hey, what the heck, we need to use this thing.” So here I am.

Now, the issue at hand. My question may seem a little outrageous at first, but I want the readers to examine it carefully. I’ve recently been curious as to why my generation seems to be opposed to the idea of ‘forcing beliefs on someone.’ Now, I’m not talking about laws, or codes, or government, or society, or any of that right now. That’s for another time.

Here’s my question: if you knew that someone could accept the gospel truly in their heart through you forcing your beliefs on them, would you do it? I’m not talking about someone deciding to imitate you and not having a real heart change. I’m talking about you talking to them and talking to them and even debating with them until they realized that the Gospel really was beautiful and were reborn. I know the typical response to this would be: “Doesn’t the Holy Spirit bring the change? We really can’t make someone become a Christian.” I would agree with you. But ‘living out our lives’ and ’showing compassion’ are really not any more powerful than intellectual discussion without the Holy Spirit’s action.

I know I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I know that I sound like a grumpy grumpskins right now. But I want us to examine what it is we don’t like about the idea of intellectual arguments with unbelievers who will respond to intellectual arguments. If that will bring them to see the Gospel as beautiful, then why are we opposed to it?

Jimmy Needham has a lyric from a song that goes a little something like this:

We pass out paper facts all week but they won’t come around
We can debate theology but they won’t come around
apologetic reasoning but they won’t come around come around
there’s only one way they’ll come, and it’s love

I don’t think Needham is wrong here, but I can’t help but think to myself: showing love to someone has no more innate power to save than intellectual reasoning. Furthermore, showing love to someone doesn’t always have to mean living a nice, compassionate life and giving someone a pat on the back. Showing love to someone can mean going head to head with them intellectually if that is the best way the will be brought to a place where they see the Gospel as true and beautiful. I don’t want this to turn into an Armenian/Calvinist debate, so let me just set my view here: I pray and worship God like a Calvinist, but preach and proselytize like an Armenian. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit brings the change, and I know that. But I’m puzzled as to how our generation thinks that intellectual reasoning can’t bring people (through the HS) to a place of repentance. Yes, intellectual reasoning can only go so far. But so can compassion. Nothing against showing love to someone, and I’m not trying to be Scrooge here, all I’m calling for is a matter of perspective. If a person I know is an intellectual and reasons more on that plane, that’s where I’ll target them. If a person will respond better to compassion and niceness, I will target them there.

¹⁹Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. ²⁰To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²²To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. ²³I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Let’s not forget that ’showing our faith’ (also ambiguous.. what the heck does it mean?) is one way the Holy Spirit can use to bring change in a lost person’s heart. Intellectual/apologetic reasoning might be another. Friendship might be another. Logic might be another. Let’s not limit God first of all, and let’s not limit what he can do in us either. So to Needham’s lyric I’d have to respond:

We pass out paper facts all week but they won’t come around
We can debate theology but they won’t come around
Apologetic reasoning but they won’t come around
Showing love to them and they won’t come around
There’s only one way they’ll come, and that’s the love of God.

Yeah, I know I’m being all crazy YRR up in here. I’m just trying to create some discussion and give my position. Intellectualism gets a bad rap from a lot of the young crowd these days because many think it can’t do the same things that showing outward, obvious compassion to someone can. Neither can do anything without the Holy Spirit. And yes, while 1 Corinthians 13 is true, ‘having love’ doesn’t have to mean stereotypically what it usually means. It is possible to debate with love. Many people I know and I’ve heard have come to faith in Jesus Christ through logical debate and apologetics. It’s the way their mind works.

So here’s to befriending people and showing niceness to them with love for the sake of the Gospel and the glory of God, and here’s to intellectual apologetic debate with love for the sake of the Gospel and the glory of God. Both need the Holy Spirit, and both can be just as glorious if God works through them.

-Riley

Cynics like to question the idea of God not being able to be in the presence of sin because He is so holy, implying: “if sin has such power to corrupt holiness, isn’t it greater?”  But they’re missing the point.  It’s not that the light of the gospel of the glory of God is not strong enough to penetrate into the utter darkness of the fallen human soul–it can, and it does.  Rather, the reason why God and sin can’t be together is that the darkness of sin cannot endure the exposure and splendor and purity of God’s inaccessible Light.

In other words, it’s not that God can’t bear the presence of sin, it’s that sin cannot stand in the presence of the Consuming Fire who is our God.