A Harvest Of Righteousness.

 James 3:18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

 

Once again evil is abroad in the world, innocents are murdered with unspeakable weapons, and we are being called to address this injustice with instruments of war. These are words that could have been spoken at any time in history.

If we stand by and do nothing we become complicit in the slaughter of innocents, starry eyed dreamers of peace only allow murderous tyrants to work their will we are told. Advocates for peace are unrealistic. Force must be met with force or evil triumphs. We must have “Just War”.

Maybe we should consider waging a “Just Peace”.   

When Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” Mathew 5:9,  He was calling us to action, to make peace, not just passive non-violence. There are movements growing up around us waging peace and we can add our voices to them. Start or join prayer groups, Take action. Reap a harvest of righteousness.

Evil Afoot

Yesterday I got caught up in a discussion with some Christians agitating for military intervention in Syria, and when I pointed out that Jesus said “Love your enemies” Mathew 5: 43,44 something occurred that happens so often in these disagreements. They began quoting (mostly) Old Testament scripture to support their positions. And when I called them on that asking “Do you believe Jesus is Lord, and if so are you a believer or just a fan?” they got quite irate.

You see, as Tim Tully puts it, if Jesus is Lord, when the Bible describes the example Jesus sets, and when the Bible narrates the commandments from the mouth of Jesus, I understand these as the highest revelation of the Father.  There is no quoting Old Testament prophets out of context to explain away the words of Jesus.

Those Christians were basically espousing “Just War” theology which basically states:

A just war can only be waged as a last resort. All non-violent options must be exhausted before the use of force can be justified.

A war is just only if it is waged by a legitimate authority. Even just causes cannot be served by actions taken by individuals or groups who do not constitute an authority sanctioned by whatever the society and outsiders to the society deem legitimate.

A just war can only be fought to redress a wrong suffered. For example, self-defense against an armed attack is always considered to be a just cause (although the justice of the cause is not sufficient--see point #4). Further, a just war can only be fought with "right" intentions: the only permissible objective of a just war is to redress the injury.

A war can only be just if it is fought with a reasonable chance of success. Deaths and injury incurred in a hopeless cause are not morally justifiable.

The ultimate goal of a just war is to re-establish peace. More specifically, the peace established after the war must be preferable to the peace that would have prevailed if the war had not been fought.

The violence used in the war must be proportional to the injury suffered. States are prohibited from using force not necessary to attain the limited objective of addressing the injury suffered.

The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and non-combatants. Civilians are never permissible targets of war, and every effort must be taken to avoid killing civilians. The deaths of civilians are justified only if they are unavoidable victims of a deliberate attack on a military target.

And there is an allure to "Just War" theology that appeals to many compassionate Christians.  There is, after all, real evil afoot and defenseless innocents must be protected. There are no easy answers to the dilemma between a call to protect the innocent and the words of Jesus.

I do know this, just war never stays that way. In World War Two the battle against the evils of Hitler ended with the mass slaughter of civilians in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and the fire bombing of Dresden in Germany.

So for right now I’m sticking with Jesus is Lord, and I believe He meant what He said.

Getting It Wrong

Revering Paul and having reservations about him are not mutually exclusive. Entire denominations, pastors, and theologians discard Paul’s teachings when they don’t conform to their world view and yet venerate him when they do. Why should I be held to stricter standards?

For example, Paul’s teachings on the role of women in marriage and in church, his views on slavery, homosexuality,and his evident disdain for the institution of marriage have been explained away, rationalized, or agreed to, based not on their merits, but on the world view of those doing the explaining, rationalizing, or agreeing.

What if Paul meant exactly what he said? What If he didn’t believe slavery was evil, but slave owners and slaves just needed to do it right? What if he meant it when he said women should not speak in church, should obey their husbands? What If he really believed it when he said people should not marry, but since that wasn’t gonna happen, here’s how to do marriage right? Shouldn’t we practice discerment when reading Paul, especially when he goes all theological on us? Much of his theology, after all, is found nowhere in the teachings of Jesus.

Naturally, what followed was pick and choose Paulism. Which leads me to an important point. We, I believe, totally get it wrong when venerating Paul.

What truly merits veneration, If not outright awe, is his missionary work. Even more important, it was Paul who fought the church in Jerusalem about Gentiles being allowed into the faith without condition. Without him, millions would have perished without knowing Jesus, including me. Paul changed everything and millions live in Christ. That’s more than worthy of veneration.  

So yes, I’m not worthy to carry his sandals. I am moved to shame when I read that passage where Paul describes all he endured to carry the message of Christ Risen and coming again to a lost world. Beatings, floggings, shipwrecks, cold, hungry, imprisoned, and eventually martyered. Could I suffer like that for my savior?

Rampant

As he signed into law North Carolina’s new repressive voter legislation, the governor stated it’s purpose was to address rampant, undetectable voter fraud. Which begs the question, if it’s so rampant how come you can’t detect it?

When I hear the word rampant I think widespread, out of control, prevalent, epidemic, flagrant, and uncontrollable. I never think undetectable. Undetectable makes me think infinitesimal, unnoticeable, insignificant, and ephemeral.

In fact, I can’t imagine a set of circumstances that would cause me to use the words rampant and undetectable to describe the same event.   

Now if what you’re really doing is enacting legislation to make it more difficult for people who oppose your policies to vote, it makes perfect sense. Of course you can’t actually say that, at least not in public, so you make up some fictional problem and fix it with legislation that makes it harder to vote. For your opponents that is.

The only rampant voter fraud in this country is that being perpetrated by republican legislatures on their own citizens.

I Love This Guy!!

So Pope Francis spent some time in South America hangin out in one of Rio's most violent slums. He drove around in a Fiat instead of an armored vehicle, and just generally went around pissing off conservative Catholics and the homophobes in his church.

"He told  35,000 pilgrims from his native Argentina to make a "mess" in their dioceses, shake things up and go out into the streets to spread their faith, even at the expense of confrontation with their bishops."~AP news service.

Anytime the elites spend time explaining away the comments of their leader, “Yeah, that’s what he said but he really didn’t mean it the way it came out”, you know you’ve got a winner, a change agent of magnificent dimensions for a church desperately in need of a tectonic plate shift.

 God, if it's not too much trouble, can we have one?

Someone with depth and weight, possessed of genuine  love for the least of us. Someone who can stand and say enough!  Cause right now God, we are blowing the moment. We are preaching a version of Christ that cannot be found in the Bible to a people that are crying out for the Christ that is present in the Gospels. We are preaching to a dead church what the corpse wants to hear, while outside the sanctuary people who desperately need the Christ who was an advocate for the poor and the powerless can't figure out how the church they see at Value Voters conferences has any relevance to their immediate needs.

So please, send us one just like Francis.