Theology, the importance of

You can be honest, reader, I won’t berate you.  You can tell me that theology is boring, or stuffy, or gets in the way of real faith, or is best left to those in seminaries or academia.  Besides, it isn’t something that Jesus spent a whole lot of time on, so why should we? 

Aside from that last assumption, to which I will return to at the close of this series, I want to say that if you hold these opinions, I think you’ve fallen under a popular line of thought that tells us, among other things, that religion is a waste of time, that truth-claims are invasive and offend, that we should focus on our personal relationship with Jesus or serve to exhaustion rather than selfishly spend time examining our ideas about God.

I offer, in counter, this:

If you don’t know the God with whom you claim to have a relationship,

how can you love Him?  How can you serve Him?  How can you glorify Him?

The oft-quoted A. W. Tozer said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”  And I agree; because it is what we know, what we believe, what we think about God that drives us.  Our beliefs feed who we are, they inform how we live, and they compel us to act and think and speak the way we do.  An atheist or an agnostic both have a theology.  The atheist thinks God doesn’t exist, and lives his or her life out of this belief.  The agnostic isn’t sure, and lives his or her life out of this questioning.  The Christian believes God and Jesus Christ exist; and he or she and lives thusly.  It is what the Christian believes about God that informs his or her choices.  The idea of an angry, vengeful God spawns angry and wrathful followers.  The theology of a God that is only love breeds tolerance that would make the Corinthians blush.      

Thus theology is not merely the laborious task of systemizing  dogma and doctrine, best left to those fuddy-duddies in academia; theology, rather, is what we think about God.  And it is how we live our lives.  Our theology makes each one of us who we are.  Therefore, theological exploration isn’t just for the seeker, the new believer, or the apologist.  It is necessary for every believer. 

Why?

Consider the fact that (if you attend church), you are subjecting yourself to the theology of a certain denomination or teacher.  And you are experiencing their theology as it is lived out before you.  If you do not have a solid grasp on who God is, how will you know if your church’s teachings or practices are representing to you and others the God of the Bible?  Because your pastor says so?  Because you feel good when you’re worshipping?  Or, because you’ve examined the scriptures alongside the stated beliefs and practices of your church and they line up?  A grounding in good theology is the responsibility of every believer, should be the practice of every church body, and the foundation for a life lived in Christ.    

Have you, dear reader, ever looked at your church’s statement of belief?  In our increasingly electronic age, most churches have one somewhere on their web page.  Bear in mind a statement of faith is not the same as a mission statement.  A mission or vision statement is action-oriented and presumes the tenents of a doctrinal/belief/faith statement.  Last year, my family and I went to a local mega-church that does not list their beliefs online, merely their mission.  When we attended the church, we went to the newcomer’s desk and asked for a copy of their beliefs (this was part of an assignment for a class).  In response to our request, we were told, “We believe in the Bible.”  To which the Officer replied, “So do Mormons.”  Our thus flummoxed hostess encouraged us to speak to the lead pastor.  We did.  Sadly, he was equally helpful in directing us back to their mission statement.[1]  What does it say about a church whose senior pastor cannot articulate what his or her flock believes?  How can this pastor, the elders, or even the congregants be sure that they are staying within the bounds scripture, or that they are not creating a god in the image that suits their congregation and ideas best?  How can we know that we are worshiping and serving the One True God, if we can’t even say what we believe about Him?  These are questions with which I will wrestle in the coming weeks – what does it look like when we engage theology fully?        

I encourage you this week, even if you have done so in the past, look at your church’s statement of faith.  If they don’t have one online, shoot your pastor an e-mail requesting one (you can tell him or her to thank me for this).  Once you’re read it thoroughly and carefully, ask yourself if what they say they believe mirrors scripture.  Does what they preach follow scripture and their statement of faith?  Does how they behave? 

Consider for a moment a church that, in their statement of faith, says:

We believe that the gifts of evangelist, pastor and teacher are for the perfecting of the saints today to prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up. God supernaturally and graciously grants spiritual gifts to every believer for the purpose of serving the body of Christ.[2]

Sounds good.  Lines up with scripture.  Gives each member of the church a view of communal service and a hope that he or she may be used by God for His works.  Now, what if that church does not allow women to teach, nor to administer communion or collect offering?  Does this practice align with their stated belief?  Or, are they contradicting themselves with the subtle belief that the gifts God gives to women are not for the full body of Christ?         

 

As evidenced above, thoughtful examination of one’s theology and that of one’s church is vital to ensuring harmony in one’s living out the gospel of Jesus Christ and glorifying our Heavenly Father.  Thus, for the next eight weeks, I want to spend time examining scripture, and thinking deeply, in regard to a few key elements of Christian Theology.  And I want you to join me.   Don’t worry, this will not be practiced without proper guidance (I have at my disposal numerous mentors, both living and paper); and I’ll have some examples of what “bad” theology is and where is can lead.  As always, I’m open to questions and debate, so long as they are thoughtful and constructive.     

I look forward to diving into theology with you, dear reader.  I pray it draws each of us to a deeper understand of who our amazing and glorious God truly is.

 

---

[1] I use this personal narrative to provide anecdotal evidence for what goes on in some churches, NOT to tear down any particular group of believers or denomination.  While visiting this congregation (which I did over the course of a few months), they taught sound doctrine and appeared to live it out as well.  Thus, not every church that does not have a statement of faith on hand is bad.  This simply means that as a Christ-follower, you have the duty to pay extra attention to what is taught and practiced so that you are aware – frankly, it makes for more work on the individual’s part, but can be done.

[2] Chapel in the Hills, statement of faith // accessed 9/24/13 at 2:29 p.m.

Personhood - a response to lies embedded in the poems of our culture

I hate the words, “I’ll be honest,” because they insinuate a time when I’m not, yet they feel like the lead-in I can’t find right now. 
So,
I’ll be honest.

There are nights when I troll; and in the rabbit hole in which I invariably find myself, it is waiting.  Despite the neat, color-coded, glossy picture-framed schedule I’ve made for myself, the one that allots two hours a day for writing on any topic that presses itself on my heart, there are nights when I ignore these self-inflicted parameters because all I’m trying to do is find beauty in a world gone dark. 

Some people paint.  I am stilled before the muslin, the colors garish and too loud.  Choices swirling, overwhelmed and childish.  Some compose melodies.  And though I ache to inhabit the music, I can only appreciate from a distance.  Tuneless, with faded skills, I am an Alzheimer’s patient sitting idly at a piano, searching for chords that beckon from just beyond the fog of memory.

Instead, I bleed words.

                Bleed.

So I search poetry slams, clicking one after another, looking for the one that will lift me, one that will unveil beauty.  One that holds the words that will crack open my soul to let the light in.

And there it is.  There it always is.

Personhood.

On the tail of this word dangles a litany of reasons why legislators and men and those-who-haven’t-been-raped are not permitted to comment on this particular topic.  Yet, as a human drawing breath, one who started life as a fetus – like we all do -- and was given the privilege of developing into a reasoning, art-creating, thoughtful person, I am compelled to disagree at every point. 

Because one can’t stack evil against evil in hopes of outweighing the other.  You can’t say the race of human cannot address murder until we’ve legalized gay marriage.  You can’t say that the race of human can’t stop infanticide until we’ve given immigrants full access to well-funded medical care.  You can’t say that the race of human can’t stop killing babies until the child-soldiers and sex-slaves the world ‘round are freed.  You can’t say that the race of human must ignore the genocide in our midst until we have assigned value to every person this side of a cervix. 

You can’t say any of this as a means of delaying the already-concluded argument that ABORTION IS MURDER.  To do so evidences a nihilistic approach to life.  One which is impossible to maintain.  None of these reasons, despite the cheers and applause with which each was met, holds any logical weight.    

                Because from the time the race of human started keeping records, we have killed infants.  We have enslaved children.  We have prostituted women and girls.  We have made boys die for the ideals of old men.  We have violated every kindness ever shown to us.  The race of human is historically corrupt.  I am willing to wager my life that even before the race of human started keeping records we were corrupted, killing and enslaving and raping our fellows; it’s merely that we have no hard evidence to prove my claim. 

We are a bent and fallen race.  We are hosts of evil.  We are the wrong we find in the world.

Yet it was not meant to be so.  We were designed to be the good in the world.  We were designed to be the beauty, to be the incubators of life, of hope, of joy in a cosmos full of light and music and color. 

We can be again.  We have been given this chance through death.  Through bloodshed.  Through willful murder. 

It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Only Son of the Living God, that the race of human can be restored to beauty.  To life.  To love.  We can become the hosts of light and poetry and hope that we were originally intended to be.  If only we believe.  If only we recognize the evil in ourselves and flee from it.  If only we cry out, “God, forgive me!”  And then live thusly.

This means loving every other human on this spinning rock.  This means sacrificially giving of yourself for the sake of another human – one you might not understand, might not even like.  This means being the love and light that you desire to see in the world. 

And this can only be done through the power of the Holy Spirit, by the sacrifice of the Son, for the glory of the Father. 

So that every member of the human race, regardless of the proximity to the cervix that served as the gateway to life and death, is deemed a PERSON.

Because that is how GOD sees every single member of the race of human.  Regardless of whether we as a culture do or not.

 

        

 

 

Here's the thing: Modesty

This is a topic that I’ve been meaning to address in more detail, as it is one fraught with many-layered hurt on both sides.  But this morning, as I was sipping my coffee and scrolling through Twitter, I noticed Rachel Held Evan’s link to this article over at Her*mentutics, the feminine arm of Christianity Today:

A Dad’s Perspective: Why I Tell My Daughters to Dress Modestly

I read the article, which is thoughtful and well-articulated, as well as the early comments.  And once again, I found myself disagreeing with Ms. Held Evans (no, I will not turn in my feminist card, thank-you-very-much). 

You see, I am a late comer to this faith party, the Mowgli of Christianity.  I was raised outside of the nuanced, Louis XIV world of Evangelical modesty. I spent the first few years struggling under the weight of trying to catch up to these gilded-cradle royals; tugging at my skirts, folding my arms over my chest, keeping my eyes on the floor, and flushing when older women in the church talked to me about dressing modestly because their sons and husbands shouldn’t have to be confronted with the female form while they’re trying to worship.  Their eyebrows were raised in judgment at my plunging neckline and snug fit of my shirt; when all I wanted was to be done wearing maternity clothes so I could feel pretty and to have easy access so I could nurse my baby and get back into service.   

But, reader, I am also the wife to a man who, many years ago, struggled with lust.  I am too familiar with that haunted darkness.  So hurt by this sin that I began to objectify my sisters for the opposite reason.  I became the haughty judge of short-lengths and necklines, the disgusted tisk-er at barely-there swimsuits, the bent and frowning, bitter woman who loathed women dressing intentionally provocatively.  Because it might draw men’s eyes; it might somehow diminish my beauty.  Sin heaping upon sin. 

Sin has a way of devastating everyone involved - and causing all effected to stumble.        

As we healed from this, and the many other sins I inflicted on our marriage, I recovered my knowledge of truth.  That women, being created in the image of God, are inherently beautiful, our beauty a gift to be delighted in and shared.  For when this beauty is objectified, bartered, or shamed, it is not because of us – the debt of that sin is heavy on the one who acts upon it.  So I read articles like that above with great trepidation.  I have heard many voices telling their stories of shame – because they weren’t allowed to lead worship, lest their figure cause male congregants to lust.  I can’t imagine how much that must hurt.  To be told you can’t exercise the gift you’ve been given because of who you are.  And I have watched as good men fell head-long into the ocean of lust, dragging their families to drowning with them.  As a feminist, and mother of a soon-to-be-teenaged daughter, I do not want my child to objectified, to be seen as a sum of her reproductive parts – to be made less in the eyes of males.  Nor do I want my son to reduce any female to that either.

And that’s the thing: I struggle with how to honor God, both sexes, the beauty He created in them, and how to guide my children away from the miry pits of inappropriate seduction and lust.      

 

I agree with both the author, Peter Chin, and Rachel Held Evans in that lust is a sin in the heart of the individual.

The responsibility for lust cannot be levied on its object.

 I also agree with Rachel in that women should be dressing to please the Lord and not humanity.  Dressing to please the Lord must have as its inception one’s love of God and, therefore, love of others, as Jesus noted that these are the greatest commandments [Matt 22:37-39].  Paul’s exhortation in Romans 14 is applicable to the modesty discussion because he notes that our willful actions [dressing to attract the attention of either sex] can cause other believers to stumble.  Knowingly causing a brother or sister to stumble is not loving them.  As Paul asserts, the love to which believers are called requires the voluntary abdication of personal freedom for the sake of another; it requires self-sacrifice.

Therefore, dressing to please the Lord carries with it the responsibility of considering others and how our actions might affect them, as much as glancing at an attractive person carries with it the individual’s responsibility to guard against lust.

What are your thoughts, reader?  How do you address modesty – with your children (male and female), with your spouse, with yourself? 

Worship {An interlude}

I have spent these last few days in a posture of repentance, and of forgiveness. 

                It is no surprise that these two are so closely intertwined. 

I have written these sins in black ink upon linen paper.  These sins marked deep in the grooves of my heart.  And I have burned the vestiges of these wrongs – sending their ash to the heavens, to the Only One who can make each one right.  The One who Restores what has been lost.  The One who Redeems what has been Stolen.  The One who conquers the ground given to the enemy. 

These two, forgiveness and repentance, have to come before worship.  It is as Jesus said, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.  First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” [Matthew5:23-24] 

And it is worship to which my soul has longed to return.  That for which I, and you, dear one, have been created:

                Worship of the One, True God. 

And I have committed my heart to worship.  Not to singing and clapping and dancing as though joy were the only emotion I know.  But to worship – to be delighted and afraid of the God who gives birth to stars with merely a breath.  To be in awe and wonder of the God who numbers the days of my life, and those whom I love.  To love and revere the God who loves every person, though this love is rarely returned, and is never perfected while we toil on this barren rock. 

I have purposed my mind to knowing the God of all Creation.  That includes knowing of Him, knowing about Him, and seeking after Him as earnestly as I can.  For Theology is worship, as is music.  And Ontology can cause a heart to dance, as wondrously as a song.

I have set out to follow after the desire of my heart, no longer the confines of humanity.  I will not allow these bent children, though of Light themselves, to dictate what is and what is not worship.  That which draws me to my God, makes Him known to me, makes me humbled before Him, is what I will declare as my worship.  If my heart is not light, I will not clap my hands.  If my eyes will not weep, I will shout with joy that His love fills my soul. 

I will remember that God finds us where we stand.  He leaves the 99 to seek after the 1.  And I, and you, beloved, am the 1.  God meets us wherever we are.  And He loves us however we are – for while we were still sinners, God sent His Only Son to die for our sins, that we might be called the children of God. [Romans 5:8] 
 

Join me, children of God.  Join me in worshipping our God.  His is the Name above all names.  He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.  He is the alpha and the omega; the Author of our lives and the Creator of the universe.  And we were created to worship Him. 

Wherever you are, however you choose, worship the God you made you, the God who saves you, the God who, in spite of you, loves you. 

For the Glory of His Kingdom.

Amen. 

 

Here's the Thing: Porch Madness

[Psalm63:2-5]

Let’s just state the obvious, shall we? 

          It’s been awhile. 

If you’re still there, reader: Thank You.  Truly, I’m humbled that you’ve come back, too.

I have opened this blog almost daily these past two months, and have stared at the blinking cursor, waiting for all that’s in me to come flooding out. 

But that’s the thing: there wasn’t much in me to pour out.  Not for any reason other than inside was – quiet. 

I was – I am still – passionate about how God loves His children, regardless of their gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, sin-affinity, failings or achievements.  I will never acquiesce to even the idea that we can thoughtfully and logically say abortion is okay.  I love God’s church, Christ’s body and bride; but I still have such a hard time with how we treat one another, both inside and outside her walls.  I know that marriage was created by God, and as such, should reflect His perfect and loving relationship within the Trinity; and I believe (scripturally) that this is an equal and sacrificial love, that should neither dominate nor diminish either person.   I continue to delight in seeing God working in and through His children in spite of ourselves.    

I needed to delineate all of this because, for a while now, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit off track.  Like I took a turn down a winding path, that wasn’t necessarily wrong, but in a very Frost-ian way has made too great a difference in what these words have become.  It was only when I stopped, looked around and listened to where I was, that I realized this wasn’t where I’d set out to go.  Thus, I felt the need to articulate my path clearly, both for myself and for anyone still reading.    

I was listening to many different voices, some living, others gone to their eternity; and I found myself trying to appease each one.  To incorporate their influence, draw from their wisdom, and respond to their views.  Again, while this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it took my focus away from where it should be.   

Years ago, maybe five or six, the Officer and I decided to add a paver stone porch to our yard.  We measured. hauled sand, pounded it down, and began the tedious task of placing each square; making certain every single one was aligned and sloped away from the house at just the right angle so that water wouldn’t pool and the porch would be perfectly smooth.  The task was daunting, taking days to complete.  And because I have hidden perfectionist tendencies, I spent more time with each individual square than I should have.  I got mired down in making every single one as perfect as I could.  It wasn’t long before I found insurmountable faults with each one.  The tiniest discrepancy became something that was going to throw the entire design to ruin.   And I lost sight of the project as a whole; my vision narrowed so completely that it encompassed on the brick before me. 

Eventually, the Officer coaxed my eyes to see the entirety of our project: how far we’d come, how pretty our results were to that point, and the potential that was even more evident in light of our progress.  I needed to take my eyes of the task just before me and see a greater scope.     

I mention this story, because it’s indicative of what’s happened over the past few months.  I narrowed my focus too much, saw too many troubles before me, and lost sight of what I had set out to do in the first place:

To share the truth I have learned with any who will listen.

So in the interim, I have been slowing down, watching rainstorms and marveling at their inherent beauty.  Studying the faces of my loved ones and soaking in the God-in-them I see there.  I’ve also been doing some repenting (a lot, actually).  I’ve been doing some listening (probably not as much as I should, honestly).  And I’ve been working on re-adjusting my thinking. 

And I’m to the point now that I’m going to do what I started out doing, not what I devolved into.  I’m going to focus on a theme for a few weeks at a time, sticking close to Scripture and worship.  And because I have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time, I’ll be peppering these articles with an occasional with a segment I’m calling “Here’s the Thing,” in which I’ll comment on a topic with my unabashed personal (though one hopes Scripturally-informed) opinion, or review a book (of theological bent) I’ve read.   As always, I invite questions of all kinds and comments, so long as they are respectful and thoughtful.  I maintain sole ownership of the content here, so anything I deem rude, hurtful, or slanderous will be removed.

I hope you’ll join me. 

 

 

Diminished

I overheard a blogger I admire say that he’d “found” his words again.  I clung to that.  Because for the last few weeks, I have lost mine. 

The churning inside me is placid.  The burning in my bones smoldering, smoking embers withering – not even hissing – in the chill evening air.  I am missing the stories, gilded threads I would unravel as I worked, unwound from their spools and all disappeared.  Lessons etched onto my skin fading as henna, though I took them for inked beneath the surface.  I have grown weary of my own voice in my head.     

        I have lost my words.

There is much that needs to be said.  My heart, once full of conversations aching to be revealed, is still.  My mind, so full of lessons, is prickling at the edges of ideas.  I am weary of the chatter of spheres outside my immediacy.   

I want to write.  To bleed words again.  But there is nothing.  Not for sorrow or for busyness.  Simply because there is nothing there.  It’s not a block.  It’s not an avoidance.  It’s a vacuous chasm into which I peer, dauntless, with no existential reasoning for its presence.

It is what it is.      

When I scrawled them across that white wall, I had no idea the truth behind them:

The profound is diminished by the pressure to produce. 

I have hope that the words will come again.  The lessons and the conversations and the passions will return.  For now, I will wait.  I will give myself time.  And space.

Perhaps now is the time not to speak,

                But to listen. 




 

A Watery Gospel

A few weeks ago, I wrote this post outlining 6 ways Christians should deal with the topic of abortion.  A good friend, whose thoughtful insight I respect, responded to my social media wall, in part:

“One problem is that we have watered down the gospel message to make it palatable to the non-believer as opposed to letting the Holy Spirit change the hearts of people. Jesus called for repentance of sin (Go and Sin no More), yet our churches talk about love being sufficient…Though there is no need for hate speech, preaching the true gospel as Jesus did, is not hate speech and unfortunately it seems to be labeled by the world AND A LARGE PORTION OF THE CHURCH as such.” – Jason Laurie, of School of Fish {www.schooloffish.wordpress.com}

I then read this post by Rachel Held Evans, and have been ruminating on the pendulous views of these two believers; for I see therein the scope of contemporary Christianity regarding abortion.  Thus I return again to the topic, for clarification, for those who may not yet have the courage or ability to speak, and for those who simply aren’t sure what to say.

                   

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD…

There is no price for which I would kill my only son.  There is no price for which I would sacrifice my only daughter.  Frankly, should you all be damned, I will never sacrifice my children on your behalf. 

                Thank God I’m not Him.   

But God, in His love, sent His Only Son, Jesus Christ, to die for you and for me.  Yet before Christ was sentenced to death, He sought out people who were ravaged by sin, so mired in it, so broken by it that the religious people of their day would have nothing to do with them.  And He saved the lost.  He healed the broken.  He restored the sinners.  Jesus, Divinity incarnate, sought out these people not to demand repentance of them so that He could heal them; Jesus healed them so that they could repent.  And when Jesus admonished the adulteress woman to “go and sin no more,” it is only after her accusers have dispersed (John 8:2-11).  It was a moment shared between only God’s Son and this sinner.  Meant for her heart – not for public consumption.  Meant to work out her salvation in her, meant to form her spirit, meant to protect her from the further evils of which each human being drawing breath is capable.  Repentance is not a clarion call the religious folk are told to make prior to offering God’s Grace – it is Christ’s, it is the Holy Spirit’s, it is God’s.  For each one of us is filthy and decrepit and worthless.  Each one of us is a condemned sinner.

                                                BUT FOR THE BLOOD OF JESUS.

  Of the 75 times the Bible calls for repentance, 48 are in the books of the prophets.  These men issued the call for repentance to the Nation of Israel because she had abandoned her primary role of caring for the “least of these” (Jeremiah, Daniel, Matthew 24).  Effectively, most Israelites were leaving those who had no standing in the patriarchal society that was bent on keeping the outcast, foreigner, single woman, and orphan from the promised blessings of Yahweh (land, generational proliferation, relation to the messianic kingdom) to fend for themselves.  Abandoning those who, without assistance, would never be able to be free from their poverty, station,  or un-cleanness.  Forsaking these people so that they were without hope, without protection, without help.  Yes, the call to repent was a call to return to Yahweh; but that return required behaving as Yahweh had instructed: to care for these who could not care for themselves and who were just as loved by the Almighty as those who brought fellowship offerings out of their abundance.

In the contemporary context, one must admit that the unborn must be among “least of these.”    

But what about the women, pregnant and frightened, who feel they have nowhere else to turn – that they have no one other than the friendly folks down at Planned Parenthood to trust?

 If women in crisis feel their only hope lies with the Kermit Gosnells of this world, what would God say to His church in light of this?

 

Dearest one, let me be perfectly clear: Love is not accepting or tolerating or enabling sinful behavior.  Love is recognizing that not a single person is free from sin – save JESUS CHRIST, Himself.  Love is the truth that every person ever is guilty of sin unto death.  Be it murder of the unborn or self-focused pride.  Every single one of us deserves death.  I, beloved, deserve to die.  As do you. 

                                                BUT FOR JESUS. 

Jesus first healed, restored, and saved people from their illnesses, demons, and sins, because no person can come to the Lord righteous and clean without this work of Christ first.  Jesus didn’t require public repentance, didn’t first demand righteousness from those in need of Him.  He knew that He was their only hope.  As His followers, should we not emulate Jesus and seek these people out where they are – to find them in their hurt, to minister to them in their confusion and brokenness, to go ourselves into the sinful places so that we might bring this hope and light with us?  

One wonders – How many Christians have sat in the waiting rooms of Planned Parenthood – ready only to hold the hands or catch the frightened tears of those in line to exterminate their babies?  How many Christ-followers are there now, wanting only to show love to these lost and broken women? 

Yes, that is an extreme thought, but dial it back a bit: HOW MANY CHRISTIANS HAVE EVER EVEN CROSSED THAT THRESHOLD?  Or stood outside, not in angry picket lines, but with a tender smile and the offer of a cup of coffee over which to talk and a listening ear, not to preach, but to know – to witness – the hurt and fear of the woman struggling with this life-ending choice?   

It’s safer to sit behind our computer screens and pass judgment, to meet in our coffee shops and blast the lost for being deceived, to smugly pat ourselves on the back for not being one of those.  Or, worse, to posit such ambiguity and confusion regarding the topic of abortion under the guise of I-don’t-know-what-to-do that we are left impotent and useless on a national stage. *

I’m going to suggest, dear one, that until we as a church can say that we have done this, until we’ve taken a deep breath and ventured into a Planned Parenthood Clinic {dear, God – WHY are they most prolific in the poorest neighborhoods?!  What does this say about whom we as a society value—the richest, the whitest, the most suburban of all children?}, we cannot sit self-righteously in condemnation.  For the propensity of this evil lives in each one of us: we are all capable of murder.  Jesus said thus in his Olivet Discourse.  We are all guilty of murder in our hearts.  And only God is righteous to judge. 

Friends, we must remember that it is not our place to accept anyone into the kingdom – that honor rests solely with Almighty God, for it is His Kingdom, and His alone.  We are the adopted children, filthy sinners, who have been invited in and covered in His Son’s clothes of bloody righteousness.  We are not the arbiters of who’s in and who’s out.  And the moment we forget this, we become the Pharisees.  We have been given the distinct privilege and honor of sharing the Gospel, and of rejoicing with the angels when this truth is rooted into another life.     

Because, as capable of evil as every human is, Christ followers -- empowered by the Holy Spirit are capable of the most beautiful light.  We have the power and ability, through the resurrected Christ and the Holy Spirit indwelling us, to alter this world for good.  To change one life at a time.  To save one baby.  To rescue one mother.  To restore one father.  To advance the glorious kingdom of Almighty God, for the good of all humanity and creation, by the power of Grace within us.    

May we ever be amazed by the Lord’s Grace.  May it never cease to be as magnificent as when we first received it.  May we, like a fount, overflow it into the darkest places in our fallen world.  For the coming of Christ and the Kingdom of God. 

~Amen.

 

*{This article by Rachel Held Evans and all the comments thereto are a tragic example of what contemporary “progressive” Christians think about abortion.  I am compelled to clarify that I generally admire Ms. Held Evan’s work on behalf of women, and advocate for her views thus.  But as this article and its comments show, an entire generation of Christians (and non) have absorbed the lies spouted by the abortion industry, yet try to hold this view in conjunction with their faith and end up with a discordant struggle because the two are necessarily, mutually exclusive.  Confusion of the issue, as Ms. Held Evans presents here, is exactly why we are a nation in desperate need of truth – both in their realm of science (no self-respecting embryologist would claim that life begins at any point other than at conception) and in our churches.}