Kingdom Patriot

 

I have to preface what I'm about to say with a clear declaration of my love for the United States. I'm partial to my homeland above others I have visited. Our country has numerous unique and admirable qualities, and, despite our failings, we’ve had many shining moments. The blood, sweat, and tears of those who have contributed and are currently contributing to the Great Experiment should be rightfully noted and celebrated. This being said, however, I find the fanatical brand of patriotism often expressed by the conservative Christian Right to be incongruent with the unambiguous and all-encompassing call to follow Jesus. He insists that our allegiance to him should supersede all other bonds, including our allegiance to our families and our own lives. As Christ-followers, we should love the people we dwell among (whether it’s in the United States, Afghanistan, North Korea, etc.), we should be a blessing to all around us, we should fulfill our civic duties, and we should respect and obey our political leaders (unless doing so would expressly violate our King’s command). Our true commitment to our King and his kingdom will make us the best of citizens wherever we live. However, the unquestioned hyper-nationalism that has become par for the course among American Christians is something different entirely. It seems to be laced with presumption. “God is for us,” we say. “He fights on our side.” “We are the greatest nation in the world, founded by God, and under his special protection.” God help anyone who suggests otherwise. The Constitution, flag, and founders—noble as they may be—are inappropriately defended with religious fervor. This brand of patriotic dogma has long found an unchallenged home in the American Church. It creates an “us” and “them” mentality with the rest of the world that is unbecoming of a follower of Christ. As kingdom citizens, our familial bond with Syrian Christians, for example, should be greater than our bond to nation. Additionally, our obligations as kingdom ambassadors to be hospitable to foreigners of any faith should supersede our political allegiances, or even our natural desires for self-preservation.

Let's look for a moment beyond the rose-colored glasses through which we often see ourselves.

Something like six million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany (an estimated 11 million people in total). The hearts of German citizens were predominantly calloused to the gruesome fates of their neighbors. As a result, Nazi Germany has maintained its place as the go-to example of a modern society blinded by and given over to evil. And yet the American people have staggeringly murdered more than 50 million of our own innocent, pre-born citizens (largely without pity or remorse, no less). It begs the question, how much innocent blood do we have to have on our hands before we become the “bad guys?” We are a religious people who worship God with our lips, but our hearts are far from him. We deal treacherously with each other in our pursuit of self. Our rampant consumerism has led to the complete commodification and exploitation of girls and women (in the process, our boys and men are also dehumanized). Our appetites for things and pleasure have made slaves of ourselves and others. “We need to tend to our own house,” we say, when met by a needy foreigner at our door. “Not enough to go around,” as we gorge ourselves on unprecedented excess. We bluster and thrash about over a redefinition of marriage while simultaneously mocking the same sacred institution with our own infidelity and ever-rising divorce rate. We stand before God and say “til death,” but we are not a people who keep our word. We are not to be trusted.

“God bless America!,” we say. Why should he?

Let’s not forget that the people of ancient Israel still worshiped YHWH right up until the day they were led away into exile. The problem was they ignored his heart for the poor and the outcast, they worshiped their wealth, they worshiped their pleasure, they worshiped demons and sacrificed their children, they worshiped themselves, and they pursued death and darkness while simultaneously carrying the holy name of God on their lips. “YHWH will save us,” they arrogantly said as the Babylonians surrounded them. A long-suffering and merciful God finally allowed them to be overrun by more wicked nations than they. It turns out a lukewarm nation of predominantly professed believers does greater violence to his holy name than a comparatively more evil society that doesn't pretend to represent him.

God of justice, have mercy on us.

My intent is not to disparage the United States, Christian Right, or even patriotism. My aim is to encourage the people of God to seek his kingdom first and to obey him with undivided loyalty—to understand the hierarchy of our true citizenship and its accompanying privileges and responsibilities. I also want to alert the American Church to the nationalistic syncretism that has taken root in our midst and thrived for as long as we've been a people. It is a dangerous syncretism that makes a virtue out of holding the traditions of men in higher honor than the commands of Christ. God forbid we presumptuously present him as our tribal deity when he has always had global intentions. May our love for our nation and all nations flow from our greater love for our King and his kingdom. May we see ourselves as ambassadors, even refugees, eagerly awaiting our “better country” (Hebrews 11:16). May we always and ever be true kingdom patriots.

Killing the Prophets

 

So it turns out we humans don't like being told when we're wrong. As a rule, we mostly don't enjoy having our deeply held beliefs and preconceptions challenged or even questioned either. We actually hate it—like “gnashing of teeth” hate it. Enter the prophet. These are folks who God has assigned the never-dull task of poking the hornet's nest of human insecurities and exposing the depths of our deeply entrenched rebellion against God. The prophet relentlessly advocates for the heart of God when his heart is being overlooked or ignored. The prophet unapologetic preaches repentance and reformation against the oncoming traffic of popular culture, even popular Christian culture. The prophet is ultimately more concerned with what God thinks than what people think. As a result, prophets are often seen as abrupt, stubborn, malcontents and agitators. As you can imagine, it usually doesn't go well for the prophet.

Prophets are a special breed. When we think of these men and women, we usually think of someone foretelling the future. While they are known to do that, the prophet primarily repeats what God has already said and has been saying for generations. The prophet reminds people of who God is and what he prioritizes and then points them back to what they should already know. When God gives the prophet a peek into the future it's usually just to establish their credibility (Isaiah 45:21) and not the primary message they are charged with delivering. Jeremiah explains the prophet's visceral motivation, “...his word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!" (Jeremiah 20:9b NLT).

Prophets are on the fringe. They're usually a little off, as they march to a different drum. It's not unheard of for them to exhibit oddities like wild hair and crazy clothing choices or unexplainable behavior (John the Baptizer ate grasshoppers and as an object lesson Isaiah preached buck-naked for awhile... just saying). Don't write them off because they're out of step. It's often this wilderness-dwelling, outsider lifestyle that makes them the ideal candidates to deeply commune with the heart of God and quickly identify our collective blind spots. Not to mention that you've gotta be a certain kind of crazy to look a king in the eye and rebuke him to his face.

As mentioned, prophets are against the status quo. When everyone else says “yes,” the prophet says “no.” They don't say what we want to hear. They say what we need to hear. They're definitely not winning any popularity contests. Nor would they care to. There's a funny story in 1 Kings chapter 22 where King Ahab of Israel is seeking affirmation from a group of faux-prophets for his proposed war with the nation of Aram. They all enthusiastically give him the thumbs up and tell him “full speed ahead.” But Ahab's ally, Jehoshaphat of Judah, wants to hear from a prophet of YHWH before they head out. Ahab's response cracks me up and is typical of our fallen, corrupted flesh. He says, “There is still one prophet through whom we can inquire of the LORD, but I hate him because he never prophesies anything good about me, but always bad.” Ahab apparently subscribes to the time-honored “what I don't know can't hurt me” philosophy. It reminds me of the guy who doesn't want to go to the dentist because they always find a cavity. So at Jehoshaphat's insistence, they bring the Debbie-Downer into the war room. After some coaxing, Micaiah delivers the word from God, and, just as Ahab predicted, it's bad news—like really bad news. He tells them that the military campaign will be a complete failure and will result in Ahab's death. Ahab has him promptly thrown in prison and orders that he be fed nothing but bread and water. Gee, thanks for your word from the LORD, Micaiah. Actually he got off pretty easy compared to many of his forebearers. Jeremiah is another guy who had an unpopular message. During the final years of Judah's sovereignty, when all the other prophets were predicting peace, prosperity, and liberation from their Babylonian oppressors, Jeremiah was encouraging the people to—get this—lay down their arms and surrender to Nebuchadnezzar, a guy who would undoubtedly knock their wall down, disrespect their king, desecrate their holy city, and probably castrate more than a few of the guys (just for good measure) before he relocated most of them to some far off foreign land. God had made it clear that his mind was made up, punishment was immanent, and the people of Judah were being instructed to obediently receive their well-earned whupping. For his unpatriotic suggestion Jeremiah was labeled a cowardly traitor and thrown in a dank hole. It could have been worse.

It should be noted that we don't so much mind when the prophets are speaking to someone else. In fact, it's in these instances that we're likely to encourage them to “bring the heat.” It's when they direct their rebuke to us that we take “offense” and become combative, feverishly scrambling for our favorite snippets of verses that instantly render their criticisms invalid to our particular case. We fancy ourselves as the ones who listen to the prophets, but I often wonder if we give ourselves too much credit. Would I have heeded the voice of the one crazy looking guy saying to go this direction or would I have followed the masses headed off the other way? I find that it's easy enough to sort things out once the dust has settled. We typically put ourselves on the side of the historical prophets, but do we stand with the contemporary prophets who are challenging us with the unpopular, but timeless, truths of God's word today? Jesus, who was—among other things—a prophet, points out this inconsistency in his detractors. “Woe to you,” he says, “because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your ancestors who killed them” (Luke 11:47). These Johnny-come-lately fanboys of the prophets were building monuments to the individuals their own parents murdered due to the inconvenience of the message they faithfully delivered. You see it's easy to pay lip service to a message from another time and to another people. We can interpret it in a way that's palatable and safe. It's an entirely different matter, however, when the messenger is standing before us with an uncompromising call to repentance, which inevitably will entail—gasp!—a reconsideration of our dearly held position and a drastic change in our current direction.

Let's be honest, throughout history the prophets have largely stood alone. Most abolitionists, for example, were Christian prophets, persistently calling the Church to repentance, pointing the people of God to the heart of God, and stubbornly demanding that they live out what they claimed they believed. While the American Church now widely praises these reformers, it was many of our Christian ancestors who made their lives a living hell and actively worked against them (in some cases murdered them). It was not uncommon to have sermons preached on the virtues of slavery and how it's one's Christian duty to know one's place and so on. Manifest destiny and all that. Others were just silent in the face of evil. Similar struggles, opposition, and indifference were faced by the relative few who fought for justice during the early days of the civil rights movement. Everyone is at the victory celebration when the war is won, and the “troublemakers” of today are often the heroes of tomorrow. Call them “bull-headed” and “arrogant” if you must, but thank God that the prophets have the grit and internal conviction to stay the course through the heaviest of the fray with little to no human backup.

I believe God has hard-wired the prophet this way for this express purpose. I love what God tells Ezekiel when he is prepping him for his prophetic mission. "You must give them my messages whether they listen or not." He goes on to say, "I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are.” And the super important part, “...let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says!’" (from Ezekiel 2:7a, 8b, 10b-11a NLT). Noting that these brasher traits are useful, maybe even essential, to the prophet is not to broadly excuse poor behavior. The Apostle Paul points out that even if he has prophetic revelations and understands all mysteries, but lacks love, he has accomplished nothing (1 Corinthians 13). That is to say there is a thin line between unyielding conviction and blind arrogance, refreshing frankness and an uncalled for verbal assault. It is true that untempered strengths often become destructive weaknesses.

Not all change is good change, and not every “reformer” is to be followed. This should be obvious, but I'll say it just in case. For every prophet who is faithfully advocating for the heart of God, there's probably a hundred who are misrepresenting him. God spends as much or more time denouncing the false prophets throughout Scripture as he does endorsing the ones he has commissioned to carry his message. It is imperative that the people of God know his voice, his word, in order to accurately identify the prophets he is speaking through. And we don't want to “know” his word like a Pharisee or a pro-slavery clergyman with an arsenal of proof-texts at the ready, the sort who can describe in great detail the bark on every tree but has never once seen the lush forest that they collectively and beautifully compose. We don't want to be like the guys who could quote the Pentateuch verbatim but failed to recognize the Creator of the universe when he stood spitting distance from their pedantic faces. We want to truly KNOW the Word of God which/who effectively describes the heart of a glorious Being who desires mercy over sacrifice—a pulsating Gospel over dead religion.

I don't want to paint a one-dimensional picture of the prophet. Their message is not always negative, critical, sackcloth, and ashes. They can cast a captivating vision of the way things could be, the way God wants things to be. The prophets gave us glimpses of the Savior, for example, centuries before he walked among us. Seeing that this post is an attempt to understand our hostility toward the prophet, however, I am naturally focusing on the stuff they say and do that gets our dander up.

I thank God for the modern prophets who are challenging me to rethink treasured aspects of the American Dream in light of my Savior's better invitation to take up my cross and follow him. I need my idols of safety and security exposed so I can repent and whole-heartily pursue his kingdom. I know a guy who has been faithfully challenging his friends and family on social media to pursue God's heart for the marginalized, immigrant, and refugee by welcoming war-torn Syrians in the name of Jesus. “Well, I'm fine with the nice ones coming,” I hear the objectors say, “but we can't risk terrorists coming in as well.” “It's just not safe, is all.” “Plus, I've seen on the news how many of them don't really appreciate the help they're being offered anyway.” My Jesus says, “love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (Luke 6:35). It's clear that the American Church needs to be reminded of God's heart for immigrants and mercy when we consider how Evangelical voters have been flocking to anti-immigrant presidential candidates as of late. We need prophets who point us back to what we should already know. I for one appreciate those who faithfully remind me of the beautiful and scary commands of Christ.

Prophets are a gift from God. We actually need the prophets in our midst. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul explains how “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (chapter 4:11-13). Jesus is the perfect apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. All these traits, or archetypes, must be collectively present in his Body if we are to accurately portray him. We're usually comfortable with the apostles (“sent ones” or missionaries), evangelists, pastors, and teachers. But when the music stops, it's often the prophet who is left without a chair. The prophet is good in theory but often unpleasant and inconvenient in reality. Unless we're masochists, we aren't so fond of having them around. They push us out of our comfort zone and consistently expose our idols. They're often perfectionists because they have their eyes fixed on the Perfect, and they won't let us settle for anything less. If all the Church were prophets, we could probably call it “hell” and not be too far off. But just like the other members of the Body, the prophet performs a unique and irreplaceable function. Let's not assume that they're “just not good team players” and as a result are constantly slowing the pace of the ministry machine. Like Ahab, we're not always concerned with whether or not we're headed in the right direction so long as we're getting there fast. Also, let's not forget that how well we can receive a rebuke is ultimately a measure of our maturity. So how 'bout it folks? Can we agree to stop killing the prophets?

Bacon Eating Vegetarian

A word to my Christian brothers and sisters:

I'm often troubled by what I hear coming from those who claim to be followers of Jesus. It makes me think of someone who proudly announces that they are now a strict vegetarian, only they have no intention of giving up bacon. The absurdity of a bacon eating vegetarian should be apparent to all. But wait... Not so fast. A simple reclassification of bacon as a vegetable and they're right back on track to becoming vegetarian-of-the-year. It should be obvious that this type of delusional self-deception is ultimately unhelpful to the bacon eating vegetarian. Perhaps they should think about whether or not they actually want to be a vegetarian to begin with. If so, they must acknowledge that a true commitment to vegetarianism will mean meat is off the menu. This may be a difficult journey, marked by peaks and valleys, for the would-be-vegetarian (bacon is delicious, after all). On the other hand, the bacon-eating-vegetarian may decide that they love bacon more than they love vegetarianism. Either of these two alternate outcomes (in lieu of bacon being reclassified as a vegetable) would be intellectually honest. You may think you know where I'm going with this. Don't be so sure.

Likewise, Jesus' invitation to "follow me" comes with an all-encompassing, non-negotiable decision on our part. He introduces a radical new way to be human. His treatment plan for the universal illness plaguing humanity is drastic: A life transplant. His for ours. Only it's no good if he pours his life into a hostile host, bent on rejecting the transplant at every turn. We are all born enemies of God. As such, it's no surprise that most of our intuitive responses and proclivities are in opposition to his original plan for humanity. Before he will proceed with our rescue, we must agree to an unconditional surrender. More than that, we must willingly lay down everything we are, our hopes and dreams, identity, most dearly held ideologies, and even our very lives. This is not a cruelty on his part, as some may think. He simply knows that the transplant will not take under any other circumstances. We have to willingly commit to his process, his Kingship, his way of thinking (even if, and especially when, it's at odds with our way of thinking). It's part of the deal. He'll have it no other way.

Here's where our conversation leaves the theoretical and enters the actual. This is where our deeply held beliefs/preconceptions are called into question by an uncompromising, radically thinking (as you would expect from a God-man living in a devastatingly broken world), unforgettable and unavoidable person named Jesus. Here's where we get "offended." To my Christian friends on the Right, who eat and breath Fox News as manna from Heaven, are hyper-patriotic (unquestioningly absorbing/endorsing/defending elements of the "American Dream" that are completely antithetical to the Gospel of Christ and speaking of the Constitution as if it were penned by Moses on Sinai), gleefully relish military and police violence (necessary as it may be at times), have a religious dedication to the Second Amendment, are advocates for racist and uncharitable attitudes toward neighbors and immigrants (documented and undocumented alike), are engaged in all out warfare against the sin of homosexuality (while maintaining polite/timid dissent against more rampant manifestations of sexual brokenness, such as, divorce, pornography, and the wholesale dehumanization of girls and women that is common in our mainstream culture), let me remind you of the guy we follow (by the way, he's headed in a totally different direction). If the first thought that comes to your mind when you hear words like ISIS or Islamic Fundamentalist is "Blow them all to Hell" or "'Merica!," then I'm talking to you. If your full-time, Facebook, article-posting campaign to "secure the border" or "stem the influx of Sharia Law (code word for Islamic immigrants)" leaves you little time to contemplate what obeying God's commands for hospitality to immigrants may look like in our context, then please lean in. Jesus was/is politically, socially, religiously counter-cultural (and he always will be -until his return). He spoke of a self-sacrificing, shared, commonality of goods and resources practiced among his people, for example, that would make any good Capitalist squirm. He demanded a devotion to him and his kingdom that superseded any other political affiliation. He insisted that his followers "love their enemies" and dramatically demonstrated this extreme pacifism of which he spoke wasn't just "figurative" in nature by praying for and forgiving his murderers as they went to work on him. He practiced a kind of holiness that attracted sinners to himself while simultaneously repelling the self-righteous. Can it be said of you that you're a "friend of sinners?" I'm not asking if YOU identify yourself as their friend. I want to know if THEY would identify you as "friend." Jesus is not overcome by evil. He overcomes evil with good, and characteristically destroys the real enemy in a counter-intuitive way. Like him, love him, hate Him -Don't you dare change him!

To my Christian friends on the Left, who champion Secular Humanism above the Word of God, those who are preoccupied with generic social justice with little to no mention of the God who defines justice (attempting to bring the Kingdom without the King), who are overly concerned with being "relevant" rather than being faithful witnesses of the Gospel of which they have been intrusted, who pervert the meaning behind "freedom in Christ" and ignor the holiness that Jesus modeled (ingesting irredeemable filth under the guise of being "culturally aware"), who would bend Christ's words to advocate any number of popular ideas, and who would fail to warn the broken of their brokenness for fear that it may be seen as "too harsh" or "unloving" (they would rather reinterpret/re-understand/reimagine the plain meaning of Scripture than cause offense -well intentioned as they may be), let me remind you of the King we worship. He dwells in unapproachable light. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Do not mistake his love of mercy as a disregard for righteousness. Jesus affirmed every Scripture that came before his incarnation. He is a consuming fire. The same Jesus who said "judge not" and "love your enemies" warned us not to fear man who can only harm the body but to reserve our greatest regard, awe, and fear for the one who has power to cast our body and soul into the Hell we all rightfully deserve. He will not update himself to appeal to the ever-changing palette of "modernity," and it does no one any good to follow apologetically behind him (far behind him), perpetually embarrassed by his politically incorrect perspective of reality.

The purpose of my post is not to debate and resolve the undeniably complicated real-world questions facing the church (i.e. violence to protect reconciled with biblically prescribed pacifism (just war theory, capital punishment, etc.), which known economic/political system/party is most in line with the Gospel, how best to affirm God's stated plan for human sexuality while fighting for justice for all in the "marriage equality" debate, what's the balance of Love and Truth, etc.). My purpose is to challenge the Christian heart that practices selective listening to God's Word (on both the Left and the Right). I fear for my Christian brothers and sisters who would re-frame the Gospel to be comfortably compatible with rabid materialism, war mongering, and racism as much as those who would make the Gospel a partner with sexual impurity, relativism, and universalism. If we're set on faithfully following the commands of Christ (especially the ones that we find distasteful, impossible or scary), then we need to stop mindlessly regurgitating Franklin Graham, John Piper, or Rob Bell's (or whoever your go to guy or gal is) opinions and courageously, unflinchingly look to Jesus with an obedient heart that really wants to know (with the intent of following). This honest, long look at Jesus (rather than quickly Googling a series of verses that seem to confirm what you already believed about racial reconciliation, same-sex sexuality, prosperity, abortion, etc.) will undoubtedly challenge some deeply held personal convictions. It will be a painful process. Dying often is. My hope and prayer for Jesus' church is that we would graciously listen to each other as we work through these issues, and that we'd look a little less like polarized, cartoony, caricatures of the Left and the Right and more like Jesus, who is better than we could have hoped or dreamed. If our plan is to follow him, though, then we need to be ready to part with any and all of our most deeply held convictions and preconceptions. We need to recognize from the start that following Jesus will be the death of us, and get right to the dying, so we can move on to the far-superior new life.

You can't be a vengeful/sexually immoral/greedy/self-righteous/etc follower of Jesus. Vengeance, sexual impurity, materialism, idolatry, pride, etc are in-congruent with Jesus and his Gospel. However, you can be a recovering vengeful/sexually immoral/greedy/self-righteous/etc follower of Jesus through the power of his Gospel. So what's it gonna be, bacon-eating-vegetarians?