Wandering the savage garden…

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Response to an Open Letter to Franklin Graham

Someone posted An Open Letter to Rev. Franklin Graham on Facebook, expecting it to be controversial (it came with a warning!) and I read it with interest. I commented on the letter itself, but I wanted to preserve it here just in case it got moderated away for some reason (I don’t expect it to be, but still, it’s my thought and I wanted to keep it. Plus, I wanted to be able to edit it to add some relevant information that I didn’t include when I wrote my original comment.)

It was an interesting letter, but it missed the mark on a few things.

For one thing, the sarcasm was appreciated by, well, me – because I love sarcasm, and I say that without sarcasm – but it’s directed at a man who publicly supported Trump. Sarcasm is not only wasted on such people, in my opinion, but it actually occludes the point; they don’t recognize it.

I thought this sentence was well done: “We just preach the good news of Jesus Christ; love one another the best we can (which sometimes isn’t very well); feed the hungry that come to our doors; care for the sick; comfort the dying; and bury the dead.” But… it ended up diminishing the role of the “good news” (the freaking Gospel, our whole mission and the point of everything for Christians) and emphasizing service. I know evangelical Christians who’ve forgotten how to help the needy, and I know people who call themselves Christians because all they do is help the needy. Between the two of them, as I understand the New Testament, the former are wayward Christians and the latter are just wayward.

See Matthew 7:21-23, using the HCSB for once:

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in Your name, drive out demons in Your name, and do many miracles in Your name?’ 23 Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you! Depart from Me, you lawbreakers!’”

The loss of religious freedom is a fundamental point, and it’s where the pastor goes most astray. It’s not a loss of religious freedom to refuse to bake a cake for someone, but it’s also not discrimination to refuse to bake a cake, in the legal sense. That’s not a loss of religious freedom, it’s a loss of personal freedom, which is a much deeper issue; Rev. Graham is conflating the two, and in error… and Peter (the author of the letter) is mistaking civil liberty for a mandate to help the needy.

Funny thing: when I was married, we had a cake. But if we didn’t have one, I’d still be married. Having the cake was nice, it was traditional, I guess, but did I need it? Were my needs met by having a cake? No, they weren’t, apart from an abstract desire to have my wife’s wishes for traditionalism fulfilled.

So is denying someone a cake the same as denying them food? No, it’s not, and the President at the time of the most well-known cases of this nature asserted the same thing, by saying that we needed to feed our children something other than cheap slop in our schools. A wedding cake is a poor choice for the hungry; they’d be better off with chicken noodle soup or something like that. When the hungry come in demanding wedding cake, the reasonable response is not “sure, have a $200 cake” but “Hey, let me spend $12 on a bunch of soup cans and feed you for a week.”

On Trump… I agree. I do not understand how evangelical Christians can support Trump actively; I can understand that they might support Trump in opposition to Mrs. Clinton, but that’s reactive and not active; that’s “any other port in a storm,” and not “preference for the port with a whirlpool in it.”

savage
May 20, 2017
Lifestyle
5 comments
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Re-emerging?

Wow, it’s been something like nine months since I’ve last posted. I’m not sure why – there’s been a lot of turmoil in life, but it’s not like I haven’t been thinking, or praying, or living, for that matter. I just haven’t posted anything; most of my thoughts have been so focused on the moment I’m in that none of them have really been worth preserving.

I had lots of thoughts about the recent election in the United States – one that resulted in our election of the “Honorable Donald J. Trump,” with few apparently recognizing the sarcasm inherent in that phrase. However, my thoughts tended to be negative – I have a hard time accepting the election of a President with whom I’d be unwilling to leave my wife alone. I try to keep negative thoughts away from this site, so I curtailed the subject.

My sons have been enduring their own challenges, based on their maturations; my youngest entered high school, my middle son is finding out about life as an adult, and my oldest is trying to determine a direction in life. They’re all struggling, in their own ways; I’m proud of all of them, but they’re all having to endure sea changes of their own.

They’re doing it with as much support as my wife and I can manage to offer them, as far as we think it proper to give. (At some point, they’re adults – or young men, at least, in my youngest’s case – and too much support from their parents would stunt them.) However, something my wife said a couple of days ago was one of the saddest phrases I think I’ve heard in a long time.

We relied too much on the church.

In a way, she’s right. We expected the church to support us – instead, the social structure of our church actually worked against our kids, even though the church was (and is) sound theologically. They mean well. They were just not successful with our kids; our kids ended up being marginalized by the church, relied upon without compensatory support, expected to lead against their wills and before they were ready to commit to such leadership.

Make sure your church pays attention to every one of its members – even you.

savage
March 21, 2017
Lifestyle
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Goats in Sheeps’ Clothing

People don’t know who Christians are, and I think that’s largely because people don’t know what it actually means to be a Christian. As a result, a lot of people think that they represent Christianity, when they … just don’t. Nonchristians see the disparity between people who are actually Christian and people who claim Christianity, and confusion ensues.

For an example, one person I know (and respect, actually) claims that he was raised as a Christian, but when given a chance, is free to condemn Christianity… while never praising Christ. There’s nothing wrong with the former, honestly; Christianity isn’t perfect by any measure that I can see. (Our righteousness – such that it is – comes from Christ, not the church itself.)

There’s nothing wrong with saying that Christianity isn’t perfect – but there’s a lot wrong with not showing Christ in how you live.

Another person proclaimed that Christians – sorry, “Christians” – he knew had told him that he’d be a great Christian despite his atheism, because of his attitude toward the poor and disenfranchised. I suppose that he – and they – thought that a liberal outlook makes one a Christian worthy of the label. This same person said that Christians didn’t bother him – but evangelicals did.

I’m horrified by both people. (Well, not by the people, but by their attitudes towards Christianity.) I can’t judge the former person’s life – they say they’re Christian because they were “raised Christian,” but I can’t say that they don’t have a relationship with Christ. They just don’t show it much. (And obviously the atheist would claim otherwise in any event.)

The first fellow is someone who thinks he’s a Christian because he’s been told he’s a Christian – he’s been labeled, and he accepts that label because it fits into the narrative of his life. Rejecting that label would become a rejection of his own past, so he doesn’t evaluate whether the label was applied properly or not – and since he doesn’t actually care about Christianity, he does no investigation to understand whether the label was justified.

The latter person is one whom I struggle to understand, and honestly, that’s an aspect where Christianity has truly failed: this is an intelligent person who misunderstands the simple axioms that make Christianity what it is. Christianity has failed this person on a grand scale, by not being clear about itself. (See? I have no problem criticizing Christianity! What a Christian I am!)

Here’s the thing. Christianity is not:

  • Feeding the hungry.
  • Housing the poor.
  • Healing the sick.
  • Teaching the uneducated.
  • Sheltering the homeless.

Christianity is:

  • Having an individual relationship with Christ such that you believe He died for your sins.

If you are a Christian, then it follows that you might feed the hungry, or house the poor, or heal the sick, or teach the uneducated, or shelter the homeless – because those are the things that flow from the love of Christ reflected through you. But people who say that they’re Christian because they do those things – who make the relationship with Christ optional – aren’t really espousing the love of Christ.

They’re acting Christian, not being Christian.

A Christian can be a Christian while doing none of those things – but a Christian also lives for Christ, such that others might see Christ in them. And Christ loved everyone, enough to die for them… and loving someone means feeding them when they’re hungry, or housing them, or … helping them, showing them the love of Christ actively.

That’s how they’ll come to Christ, through that act of worship. Just helping someone, with no motivation of Christ, is better than doing nothing, I suppose, but the motive of a Christian should always be the display of the love of Christ.

And I don’t mean forcing it down someone’s throat, either. Loving someone through Christ means showing them the love of Christ, not telling someone about it, especially if there are contextual reasons they might not accept the words – imagine helping someone who’s been victimized by the church, for example.

My prayer is that people would understand Christianity for themselves, and then live it.

savage
July 4, 2016
Lifestyle
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Repentance

If you tell someone else that they need to repent, you are usually missing something important: the meaning of “repentance.”

I was reading “Christians Must Repent for Devaluing L.G.B.T. People” from the New York Times this morning, and the tone was really sad.

It said that Christians created a world in which LGBT people are worth less than… straight people, I suppose, and bear guilt for that corporately, and should repent.

The author is right, in a lot of ways; Christianity should value all sinners, regardless of their sin, be it murder, robbery, adultery, or any other sin. The Bride of Christ is made of sinners, after all, every last bit of it. None of us are in a good position to judge, except to admonish and exhort in love.

After all, don’t we use “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone” as a common refrain? Of course we do – even non-Christians use it, even though they seem to think that it means “the one who wants to throw a stone is a sinner, and the target is innocent.”

But here’s the thing: the target in that story (and in every story) is not innocent. Forgiven, perhaps, but not “innocent.” And Jesus didn’t tell us to ignore the speck in our neighbor’s eye – He told us to remove the log in our own first (implying that after we’ve acknowledged our own flaws, we might be in a place to help address others’ weaknesses).

It’s true that you, dear reader, need to repent… of something, I suppose. (Statistically speaking, it’s quite the safe bet that you’re not perfect in every way.) But for me to tell you that you need to repent, and of what… that’s me judging you negatively, and it demeans both of us.

savage
June 16, 2016
Lifestyle
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