Friday, October 17, 2008
Disciples of Satan???
I wrote this to one of the elists for my denomination, the Church of the Brethren.
I am writing this email for the ***** list and copying it to the ***** list since some of you were participants in this discussion. I am writing on behalf of (though without his knowledge) Rick *****. Rick posted an article to ***** from a noted African American Christian musician explaining why he would not be voting for Barack Obama. The man's primary reason for opposing Obama was his stand on partial birth abortion. For posting this message which raises some valid questions, Rick was called a Disciple of Satan. He shared the discourse with me by forwarding the emails to me and I was appalled. I want to start off by saying I know Rick *****, he is a friend of mine and I love him as a brother. He is a godly man who loves Jesus and was one of the finest youth workers I have met in the Church of the Brethren. He deserves an apology for being called the foulest thing any Christ follower could ever be called. The difficulty with this mode of communication is that this level of discourse can be carried out in relative anonymity rather than getting to know the people involved. After reading the various posts my only comment to Rick was this is why I have left ***** and politics.
The fact that Rick is struggling with a candidate's positions hardly makes him satanic. As a matter of fact I believe most people who enter the voting booth this time around will be holding their noses over one issue or another. The response to Rick shows my dilemma over the peace position of the COB in general. We want to talk about peace in the world and say we work for peace in the world yet we cannot have peace with a brother who holds an differing opinion. If we really want to know why we are falling apart as a denomination I believe it is at least in part this combative attitude which flies in the face of our words of peace. Jesus said they will know you are my disciples by the way you love one another. When we (please note I said we, I'm a flawed sinner here too) can't show love to other Christians with divergent opinions perhaps we need to ask ourselves, "whose disciples are we really being in this issue?"
The peace position is great, though I believe to some degree it has been skewed by politics. I love the concept of peace in the world, and I work for it in my little corner of the world by helping/challenging my congregation live at peace with one another and with those around them. The early brethren's peace position came out of a healthy distrust for government. Being put to death by the government will do that to you. As a matter of fact the Brethren for the most part did not vote at all until very recently. Today it seems we are willing to overlook anything a candidate stands for as long as they oppose war.
I might be tempted to point out here that in the old testament God sent the nation of Israel to war over and over again but judged them when they began sacrificing their children to other gods (which is in essence what abortion is). I don't really want to go too far there though because I also hate the concept of war and wish there would never be another one. This brings about the crux of the dilemma, politics is in the end a no win situation. The early nation of Israel had it the best of any nation. Their king was the only one capable of figuring out this mess, God himself. They messed up when they decided it was better for them to be led by another sinner. We've been messed up ever since because we have been placing our trust in flawed men to save us from our problems when we should be trusting Christ alone.
I used to be a died in the wool republican because I am pro-life. (Losing two children to miscarriage will do that to you.) But a funny thing happened. I began to see that I kept voting for pro-life candidates and people kept on having abortions. I also began to see that many of my pro-life brothers and sisters had some very un-Christlike, un-loving methods to make their point. It all looked so judgmental and I began to see that their way of being pro-life was very hard cold and judgmental and lacked the love of Jesus. It was all politics. I began to see that abortion and peace and everything else are issues of the heart and politics is powerless to change the heart. We look to politics because it is capable of making quick, sweeping change and it's easy, one vote and we get on with our lives. The problem is it can't change hearts so it doesn't really work. Getting to know people, loving them and leading them to Jesus is hard and slow and takes a lot of work but it works because God is in it and God changes hearts. If all of us who love the Lord would place our trust in him, place our one vote for the one He leads us to vote for and get back to working to change hearts through His love, we would see the change we desire.
In the end it comes down to this, though I believe they really intend to try and that they genuinely believe the words they say, Barack Obama will not be able to bring peace and John McCain will not end abortion. Why? The things they promise are not theirs to give. They are promising the blessings of God and God decides if and how He will bless a nation and right now we are a nation that is far from Him. If we want to see the change we desire, we need to unite and be the body of Christ in this world sharing the love of Jesus and leading people to Him as the Spirit allows. The Bible says that all authority is ordained by God and this was written during the time when Christians were being thrown to the lions for entertainment. We need to realize that we are not in this world to be comfortable, we are in this world to represent a savior who bled and died for sinners. We need to repent of our idolatry of placing our trust in politicians, pray thy will be done before we step into the voting booth, push the button the Spirit leads you to push, and step back out of the booth determined to be salt and light and full of the love of Jesus no matter who wins. Trust that God will give us the leader we deserve and get back to doing our job of turning the nation to God one soul at a time. Remember if every one of the American members of the church of the Brethren led just one person to Christ a year, it would take less than 17 years to evangelize the whole world. I know that seems like an impossiblility, but why not pray that God would use us mightily and see what happens.
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I wrote this to one of the elists for my denomination, the Church of the Brethren.
I am writing this email for the ***** list and copying it to the ***** list since some of you were participants in this discussion. I am writing on behalf of (though without his knowledge) Rick *****. Rick posted an article to ***** from a noted African American Christian musician explaining why he would not be voting for Barack Obama. The man's primary reason for opposing Obama was his stand on partial birth abortion. For posting this message which raises some valid questions, Rick was called a Disciple of Satan. He shared the discourse with me by forwarding the emails to me and I was appalled. I want to start off by saying I know Rick *****, he is a friend of mine and I love him as a brother. He is a godly man who loves Jesus and was one of the finest youth workers I have met in the Church of the Brethren. He deserves an apology for being called the foulest thing any Christ follower could ever be called. The difficulty with this mode of communication is that this level of discourse can be carried out in relative anonymity rather than getting to know the people involved. After reading the various posts my only comment to Rick was this is why I have left ***** and politics.
The fact that Rick is struggling with a candidate's positions hardly makes him satanic. As a matter of fact I believe most people who enter the voting booth this time around will be holding their noses over one issue or another. The response to Rick shows my dilemma over the peace position of the COB in general. We want to talk about peace in the world and say we work for peace in the world yet we cannot have peace with a brother who holds an differing opinion. If we really want to know why we are falling apart as a denomination I believe it is at least in part this combative attitude which flies in the face of our words of peace. Jesus said they will know you are my disciples by the way you love one another. When we (please note I said we, I'm a flawed sinner here too) can't show love to other Christians with divergent opinions perhaps we need to ask ourselves, "whose disciples are we really being in this issue?"
The peace position is great, though I believe to some degree it has been skewed by politics. I love the concept of peace in the world, and I work for it in my little corner of the world by helping/challenging my congregation live at peace with one another and with those around them. The early brethren's peace position came out of a healthy distrust for government. Being put to death by the government will do that to you. As a matter of fact the Brethren for the most part did not vote at all until very recently. Today it seems we are willing to overlook anything a candidate stands for as long as they oppose war.
I might be tempted to point out here that in the old testament God sent the nation of Israel to war over and over again but judged them when they began sacrificing their children to other gods (which is in essence what abortion is). I don't really want to go too far there though because I also hate the concept of war and wish there would never be another one. This brings about the crux of the dilemma, politics is in the end a no win situation. The early nation of Israel had it the best of any nation. Their king was the only one capable of figuring out this mess, God himself. They messed up when they decided it was better for them to be led by another sinner. We've been messed up ever since because we have been placing our trust in flawed men to save us from our problems when we should be trusting Christ alone.
I used to be a died in the wool republican because I am pro-life. (Losing two children to miscarriage will do that to you.) But a funny thing happened. I began to see that I kept voting for pro-life candidates and people kept on having abortions. I also began to see that many of my pro-life brothers and sisters had some very un-Christlike, un-loving methods to make their point. It all looked so judgmental and I began to see that their way of being pro-life was very hard cold and judgmental and lacked the love of Jesus. It was all politics. I began to see that abortion and peace and everything else are issues of the heart and politics is powerless to change the heart. We look to politics because it is capable of making quick, sweeping change and it's easy, one vote and we get on with our lives. The problem is it can't change hearts so it doesn't really work. Getting to know people, loving them and leading them to Jesus is hard and slow and takes a lot of work but it works because God is in it and God changes hearts. If all of us who love the Lord would place our trust in him, place our one vote for the one He leads us to vote for and get back to working to change hearts through His love, we would see the change we desire.
In the end it comes down to this, though I believe they really intend to try and that they genuinely believe the words they say, Barack Obama will not be able to bring peace and John McCain will not end abortion. Why? The things they promise are not theirs to give. They are promising the blessings of God and God decides if and how He will bless a nation and right now we are a nation that is far from Him. If we want to see the change we desire, we need to unite and be the body of Christ in this world sharing the love of Jesus and leading people to Him as the Spirit allows. The Bible says that all authority is ordained by God and this was written during the time when Christians were being thrown to the lions for entertainment. We need to realize that we are not in this world to be comfortable, we are in this world to represent a savior who bled and died for sinners. We need to repent of our idolatry of placing our trust in politicians, pray thy will be done before we step into the voting booth, push the button the Spirit leads you to push, and step back out of the booth determined to be salt and light and full of the love of Jesus no matter who wins. Trust that God will give us the leader we deserve and get back to doing our job of turning the nation to God one soul at a time. Remember if every one of the American members of the church of the Brethren led just one person to Christ a year, it would take less than 17 years to evangelize the whole world. I know that seems like an impossiblility, but why not pray that God would use us mightily and see what happens.
