Often in the world of politics we hear various candidates accusing the other of “playing the race card.” Both sides of the political divide in our country are quick to bring out that phrase in what appears to be a little self-righteous indignation about something the other side has done.
You can keep reading – this isn’t about politics or the race card!
It does seem, however, that sometimes Christians are quick to pull out the “spiritual card.” When some part of our lives gets a little sticky – we are at least tempted to retreat to “look how spiritual I am” as the do-all clean-up operation for whatever mess we’re in.
When students end up in my office to deal with “sticky situations,” more than once I’ve heard, “I can’t believe you think I did that, I read the Bible and pray every day!” Somehow some sort of arbitrary standard about spirituality becomes the defense of behavior that can’t be defended.
I’ve noticed over the years that some of the public failures of church leadership – the ones whose names we all know because they were in the news – are rebuffed by “but I’ve preached against that all my life.” I remember reading, several years ago, about a church financial secretary who embezzled large sums of money from her employer church, only to donate it to a new church start she was a part of. Somehow “putting it to good use” (her “spiritual card”) was justification for stealing from another church.
Sometimes church staff members find themselves caught in the cultural temptation to not “put in their 40 hours.” When challenged about better work habits, our spiritual cards can be anything from “I don’t make that much money anyway” to “I had to take care of the kids who were out of school.” In the name of some warped sense of spirituality, we find ways to be dishonest with the very people we seek to lead to a deeper relationship with Christ.
We can use the “spiritual card” to explain our poor giving habits, our poor work habits, our failure to prepare our own material, and just about any other moral failure imaginable. In the same way that anyone, regardless of ethnicity, can play the race card; anyone who is a believer can play the spiritual card. In neither case does such behavior ever lead to correcting wrongs.)
Jesus must have anticipated our tendencies in this area. Near the end of Matthew’s version of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21, NRSV) In Luke’s shorter version of similar material, Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46, NRSV)
Paul echoes much the same message in Ephesians 4:1, “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, be you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” (NRSV) Apparently if you and I are going to call ourselves “Children of the Lord” there is high expectation that we live in a way that is genuine – thus making “playing the spiritual card” unnecessary!
17 November 2011
09 November 2011
Maybe There Are Sexual Ethics After All
Any of us who follow college football at even the most casual level know about the long and storied career of Joe Paterno. In so many ways he has been the model of what a college football coach should be. Anyone who can do that job at the same school for 60+ years must be a pretty amazing person.
But the most recent news releases suggest that he will definitely no longer be the Penn State coach after this season, and some are still suggesting he may not make it to the end of the season.
This very tragic ending to an amazing career revolves around sexual misconduct – not Coach Paterno’s conduct, but someone in the program.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
If you’re watching the presidential campaign at all, you also know that one of the Republican candidates – Herman Cain – is embroiled in a scandal revolving around “sexual harassment.” Cain demands that we think that he is innocent – and he may very well be. His accusers demand that their claims of harassment be taken seriously. One of them described Cain as a “serial denier.”
Whatever the ultimate outcome of this blip in the race for president will be – the very fact that it is an issue revolves around sexual misconduct.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
Over the past ten years or more, if you have kept up with religious journalism, you no doubt remember reading about leaders in the church who fell victim to the problem of sexual misconduct. To make matters even more complicated and ultimately harmful to our witness to the world, these leaders are all too often people who put family values, sexual purity, and anti-homosexual ideas at the center of their ministries.
At some level, among at least more Christian leaders than we would care to admit, there is a lot of reaction formation going on – we preach hard against the very things we are tempted by and often do.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
Reading through Dave Kinnamon’s UnChristian, you quickly discover that one of the black eyes the word Christian has in our culture is that we are perceived to be “anti-homosexual.” I’m convinced that a part of the reason for that perception is that we tend to be more tolerant of heterosexual misconduct than we are homosexual misconduct. We give selective attention to texts that condemn homosexual behavior, while ignoring or at least not giving the same attention to those that condemn heterosexual misbehavior.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
I don’t want to be guilty of a kind of simplicity that misses the point, but it seems to me that the New Testament is rather clear about sexual morality. We often focus on talking about sexual immorality – but would do much better to talk more about sexual morality.
Simply put that means that if we are single, we live a celibate lifestyle. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul seems to suggest that is difficult to do and likely requires a spiritual gift. If we are married, sexual morality demands that we have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with our spouse – one man and one woman. That’s God’s ideal. Like living a celibate lifestyle, the ideal marriage probably isn’t going to happen without the aid of the Spirit as well.
That’s it. Any other sexual behavior must fall into the category of immoral – and be viewed as undesirable by believers. Every example noted above would simply not exist if those involved were committed to a view of human sexuality described above.
Unfortunately young people and young adults are living in a culture where it is entirely possible they have never heard sexuality talked about so plainly. They live in a culture where almost every aspect of media – from movies to television, literature to advertisement, Facebook, Twitter, and everything else – bombards them with the idea that sexual conduct is simply a personal choice. If it seems or feels good to you and your partner at the moment, then it must be okay.
If that’s the modus operandi of our culture when it comes to sexual behavior, don’t be amazed at how many stories we see in the news, hear about at work and church, and maybe even experience in our own family settings where it suddenly dawns on someone that “maybe there are sexual ethics after all.”
But the most recent news releases suggest that he will definitely no longer be the Penn State coach after this season, and some are still suggesting he may not make it to the end of the season.
This very tragic ending to an amazing career revolves around sexual misconduct – not Coach Paterno’s conduct, but someone in the program.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
If you’re watching the presidential campaign at all, you also know that one of the Republican candidates – Herman Cain – is embroiled in a scandal revolving around “sexual harassment.” Cain demands that we think that he is innocent – and he may very well be. His accusers demand that their claims of harassment be taken seriously. One of them described Cain as a “serial denier.”
Whatever the ultimate outcome of this blip in the race for president will be – the very fact that it is an issue revolves around sexual misconduct.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
Over the past ten years or more, if you have kept up with religious journalism, you no doubt remember reading about leaders in the church who fell victim to the problem of sexual misconduct. To make matters even more complicated and ultimately harmful to our witness to the world, these leaders are all too often people who put family values, sexual purity, and anti-homosexual ideas at the center of their ministries.
At some level, among at least more Christian leaders than we would care to admit, there is a lot of reaction formation going on – we preach hard against the very things we are tempted by and often do.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
Reading through Dave Kinnamon’s UnChristian, you quickly discover that one of the black eyes the word Christian has in our culture is that we are perceived to be “anti-homosexual.” I’m convinced that a part of the reason for that perception is that we tend to be more tolerant of heterosexual misconduct than we are homosexual misconduct. We give selective attention to texts that condemn homosexual behavior, while ignoring or at least not giving the same attention to those that condemn heterosexual misbehavior.
Maybe there are sexual ethics after all.
I don’t want to be guilty of a kind of simplicity that misses the point, but it seems to me that the New Testament is rather clear about sexual morality. We often focus on talking about sexual immorality – but would do much better to talk more about sexual morality.
Simply put that means that if we are single, we live a celibate lifestyle. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul seems to suggest that is difficult to do and likely requires a spiritual gift. If we are married, sexual morality demands that we have a healthy, fulfilling relationship with our spouse – one man and one woman. That’s God’s ideal. Like living a celibate lifestyle, the ideal marriage probably isn’t going to happen without the aid of the Spirit as well.
That’s it. Any other sexual behavior must fall into the category of immoral – and be viewed as undesirable by believers. Every example noted above would simply not exist if those involved were committed to a view of human sexuality described above.
Unfortunately young people and young adults are living in a culture where it is entirely possible they have never heard sexuality talked about so plainly. They live in a culture where almost every aspect of media – from movies to television, literature to advertisement, Facebook, Twitter, and everything else – bombards them with the idea that sexual conduct is simply a personal choice. If it seems or feels good to you and your partner at the moment, then it must be okay.
If that’s the modus operandi of our culture when it comes to sexual behavior, don’t be amazed at how many stories we see in the news, hear about at work and church, and maybe even experience in our own family settings where it suddenly dawns on someone that “maybe there are sexual ethics after all.”
02 November 2011
Thanksgiving
I recently saw an article declaring that “November is the month of thanksgiving.” I wish there had been a capital letter beginning the word thanksgiving. That way, the statement would have been less bothering to me. November is the month our culture celebrates Thanksgiving Day, but surely those who belong to God don’t wait until Thanksgiving to be thankful!
Psalm 92:1-4 is one of hundreds of biblical texts that remind us of our need to be thankful.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to you name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy. (NRSV)
We live our lives surrounded by testimony in the world God created of His goodness to us. Exactly how God created this world is unknown, and as Hebrews 11:3 declares, By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. However God chose to make the world, what is not a matter of dispute is that we live in a world that is wonderful beyond belief.
Morning and night we have reason to recognize that “it is good to give thanks to the Lord.” The same physics that allow the space shuttle to dock with the massive space station in outer space allow air rushing through the pipes of a pipe organ to make music. That there are predictable laws in sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, botany, astronomy, and all the others says something very significant about how God made the world. “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God . . .”
How could we not be thankful morning and evening? God has placed us in a universe that is marvelous beyond description and we haven’t even made it to “the new heaven and new earth” yet!
If I have to wait to Thanksgiving Day to be reminded to be thankful, then perhaps I need to be more observant of the world around me, to be more observant of all that has been done for me in God’s grace through Jesus Christ, to be more observant of all that the people of God have done for me, and to be more observant of the testimony of Scripture itself.
The psalmist was right! It is good to give thanks to the Lord.
Psalm 92:1-4 is one of hundreds of biblical texts that remind us of our need to be thankful.
It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to you name, O Most High;
to declare your steadfast love in the morning,
and your faithfulness by night,
to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy. (NRSV)
We live our lives surrounded by testimony in the world God created of His goodness to us. Exactly how God created this world is unknown, and as Hebrews 11:3 declares, By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. However God chose to make the world, what is not a matter of dispute is that we live in a world that is wonderful beyond belief.
Morning and night we have reason to recognize that “it is good to give thanks to the Lord.” The same physics that allow the space shuttle to dock with the massive space station in outer space allow air rushing through the pipes of a pipe organ to make music. That there are predictable laws in sciences like physics, chemistry, biology, botany, astronomy, and all the others says something very significant about how God made the world. “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God . . .”
How could we not be thankful morning and evening? God has placed us in a universe that is marvelous beyond description and we haven’t even made it to “the new heaven and new earth” yet!
If I have to wait to Thanksgiving Day to be reminded to be thankful, then perhaps I need to be more observant of the world around me, to be more observant of all that has been done for me in God’s grace through Jesus Christ, to be more observant of all that the people of God have done for me, and to be more observant of the testimony of Scripture itself.
The psalmist was right! It is good to give thanks to the Lord.
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