Culture or Cross?

[i]

Thursday, July 13, 2017

When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law.  And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it.  For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God.  It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.  Even Gentiles, who do not have God’s written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it.  They demonstrate that God’s law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts either accuse them or tell them they are doing right.  And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.  Romans 2:12-16^(NLT)

Decades ago Debbie Boone had a big hit with Joe Brooks’ love song entitled You Light Up My Life[ii].  The lyrics include:

It can’t be wrong when it feels so right

It’s just a little problematic to believe that.  A drug addict will tell you that “high” he feels when the heroin rushes into his blood stream feels so right!  A teenager who has just pinned the speedometer on his Mustang at 140mph will feel so right until the siren and lights start blaring in his rear view mirror.  And a person caught in believing that the wave of cultural acceptability for such things as pre-marital, extra-marital, or same-sex practices will also tell you that those feelings of love and community the culture provides are proof that it’s OK with God too!

They are wrong!  Deadly wrong!

Despite the increasing flood of normative-creating culture in favor of same-sex, trans-gender, and whatever sexual flavor of the month cause our world can generate, God’s Word still declares that the bonds of marriage are for one man and one woman for one lifetime.

As ever, we have choices to make about what we will believe.  Those choices are between believing the culture in which we live, so we can feel so right, or following the demand of living the life of Christ’s cross, honoring our Creator and Redeemer.

For You Today

A believer/follower of Jesus Christ, who is living the cross-life of surrender, conforms his heart to the will of Christ, which is found in the Word of God.  If my will, and what feels so right, conflict with what God has proclaimed, it isn’t God who is wrong!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i] Title Image: Pixabay.com and Pixabay.com

[ii] Joe Brooks ^©Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Figuring It Out

 ^[1]   

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness.  Ephesians 6:14 ^(NLT)

“Caitlyn” (formerly Bruce) Jenner has come out of more than one closet recently.  The newest revelation is that Ms. Jenner is a Christian…and a Republican.

Hmmmm.

Considering the cultural climate of American political correctness these days, it’s a little difficult to say anything without a backwash of complaints that you’re a biggoted, mean and ignorant right-wing (read that “typically-uninformed and so-last-century”) christian.

Okay. 

In the June 12^th edition of The Week magazine, Damon Linker makes a strong case that American Christianity is the perfect seedbed for the widespread, open-armed kind of theological ingathering of anything goes; in short, where else could Caitlyn go?

S/he couldn’t go to Judaism; neither could the Sharia-bound, sharp edge of Islam be her new home.  American, individualistic Christianity is the catch-all basin for the cast-offs.

What to say?

I believe Mr. Linker may have tapped-into the mother load of understanding about why Americanized Christian organizations are drying-up and shriveling on the vine of God’s Kingdom. 

Can we say Protestant? 

The word itself defines what may be a bitter pill for many conservative evangelicals.  And yet, this is our history.  To “protest” means to object strongly and show it by your speech and actions.  This is what Christianity’s face has been throughout the course of the last two thousand years; a group within a group objects, protests, and separates to form a new group under the title of “Christian”; it’s what we do.

And American Christians do it better and more often than anywhere, or anyone else.

And so, it’s natural that the somewhat unnatural approach of Bruce-Caitlyn should find identity with those of us who reject the status-quo and change everything.

Could this be more confusing?

Perhaps not more so than Christianity itself; Christ was hard on a lot of attitudes – hatred, judging, etc – but then he said to love those who did such^{(Matthew 5)} – and then he said to reject some ^{(Matthew 18)} who wouldn’t reconcile, but he came to die for everyone. ^{(Matthew 26:28)}

Figuring it out, navigating the orthodox amid the chaotic, is what Christians are called to do.  We are called to be the theological lens for social scientists, making sense of the intertwine of our times and God’s call, proclaiming a timeless message within a linear framework; the ethereal mixed in the mud of our messy lives. 

It aint easy!

But neither was the cross.

Perhaps it is best to look at our times, the headlines, the Jenner disclosures and Keeping up with Jenner’s Kardashian kids, as what it is – simply the chaos of human life that is searching for something to which you can hold onto…but not too tighly, for fear that you’ll get tied down to it, and then you won’t be free to change it all again next week.

And in light of all that confusion, chaos, changing and questioning, I will take the stability of the cross any day.

For You Today

What’s the greatest need of your life?  (Besides a good nap this afternoon?)

When you “figure it out” don’t be too quick to jump without checking to see if that change is anchored to the cross.

Like Caitlyn, you might have to buy a whole new wardrobe.

---

[1] Title images: By Duncan Rawlinson/ @thelastminute/ Duncan.co, via Wikimedia Commons and Illustrated Frazer Harrison/Getty Images in THE WEEK magazine, June 12, 2015