Our letter closes with statements based in perhaps the most important of all cultural influences on the American church.
This is something I didn't understand until I left the country 13 years ago and began meeting Christians from other nations. There exists a decidedly American world view that goes something like this:
* God has chosen America out of all nations because it was founded by Christians seeking to follow Him.
* In the past, the country was blessed because it honored Him and tried to follow his ways.
* In recent years, the country has begun moving away from Him, taking prayer out of schools and other public venues, approving of abortion and becoming tolerant of homosexuality and sexual immorality in general.
* If the country continues on its current path, it will lose its blessed status and incur the wrath of an angry God.
We won't go into detail, but there are a few main problems with this thinking.
1. America is not Israel. The Bible never says anything about America being specially blessed or chosen for the purpose of blessing the world. This is a culture myth that has been repeated across time and across the world. The Romans thought this way. Hitler spoke of Germany as a special place with a divine calling. The list goes on. People naturally seek divine justification for their very human desire to be superior to others. Americans don't realize how much more Roman they are than they are Biblical when they fall into this thinking.
2. Even if it were true that somehow God had chosen America as a special place, can we honestly look at our history and believe that the country was morally better in the past than it is now? This is where most African-Americans, though often socially conservative, differ decidedly with white America.
Was America following God in massacring the Indians and enslaving Africans and others? Were people god-honoring through years of publicly approved lynchings, discrimination and subjugation of a people?
We could go on to consider the treatment of women, of immigrants, of the poor in general during the industrial revolution ... Was America following God better in those days than it is now?
Did God look the other way on these issues because we may have prayed in school back then or because homosexuality was kept quiet and hidden?
Just what was better about back then? This totally depends on your cultural glasses.
BACK TO THE LETTER
You will notice this general line of thinking in the closing parts of our letter.
So what does all this mean for the nation?
In the past when the Lord brought someone with the beliefs of Obama to lead a nation it meant one thing - judgment.
Read 1 Samuel 8 when Israel asked for a king. First God says in 1 Samuel 8:9 "Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do."
Then God says
1 Samuel 8:18 " When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day." 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. "No!" they said. "We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles." 21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, "Listen to them and give them a king."
Here is what we know for sure.
God is not schizophrenic
He would not tell one person to vote for Obama and one to vote for McCain. As the scripture says, a city divided against itself cannot stand, so obviously many people are not hearing from God.
Maybe I am the one not hearing but I know God does not change and Obama contradicts many things I read in scripture so I doubt it.
For all my friends who are voting for Obama can you really look God in the face and say; Father based on your word, I am voting for Obama even though I know he will continue the genocidal practice of partial birth abortion. He might have to nominate three or four Supreme Court justices, and I am sure he will be nominating liberal judges who will be making laws that are against you. I also know he will continue to push for homosexual rights, even though you destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah for this. I know I can look the other way because of the economy.
REPENT, OR ELSE
First off, you will see that fear of judgment is a major motivation in this cultural interpretation of faith. It's based on the idea that God judged Israel in the Old Testament when they didn't follow his ways as prescribed.
But what are those ways? If you come from a certain part of American culture, you will assume, as has our writer, that this pertains to abortion and homosexuality.
In the passage listed in our letter, God was warning Israel (a special nation with a special calling in God's plan) that they should not have a king. Period. Any king.
They were supposed to follow God directly so that God could reveal himself to the world in a special way through this peculiar nation that would be unlike any other.
His goal was to bless the entire world through this nation and they were messing it up by trying to be like everyone else.
WHY DID GOD DESTROY SODOM?
The writer mentions Sodom and Gomorrah and the often repeated idea that God destroyed these cities because of homosexuality.
Again, culture informs us here more than Scripture. If we read the texts again, we see simply that God says that there had been an outcry against evil in these cities.
It never specifies that that evil was homosexuality. We see elsewhere that there was violence and bloodshed in these cities. And then we see that a gang wanted to have sex with the men (angels, in fact) who were visiting Lot.
So we assum that God's judgment was about homosexuality. We completely miss the evil of a gang forcing sex on anyone, regardless of whether it was homosexual or heterosexual behavior. Lot was willing to offer one of his daughters for the mob of men. Could God have been angry about that, too?
The assumptions we make about why God destroyed the cities are of course not entirely illogical.
Except for the fact that Scripture removes any reason for assuming.
Look at Ezekiel 16:49:
"Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy."
Wow. Arrogant, overfed and unconcerned with the poor and the needy. Does this sound like Western society in general? It does not mention homosexuality here. Is it biblical to say that economic justice issues are not important compared to homosexuality and abortion?
Look in Isaiah 1 when the prophet speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah.
"... learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow."
Some have argued for defending unborn children here. I can see that. But I see nothing about homosexuals.
I understand the Bible does have something to say about homosexuality. We're not debating that here. But should we be afraid of judgment because of its existence?
WHICH GOD DO WE BELIEVE IN?
Regardless of whether homosexuality is a major concern of God's, we have to ask a more basic question.
Do we believe, as we like to preach, that Jesus has paid the price for sin and that God is now primarily concerned with inviting people, as they are, to enter into relationship with Him?
Or do we believe that God is primarily concerned with bringing all of humanity into conformity with his laws and punishing sin and sinful nations?
It seems that many American Christians are afraid of this coming judgment on their nation. That may be legitimate, but I would ask Christians who believe this way to consider whether God might have just as much grace today as he had on their forefathers who committed many of the injustices mentioned above.
If we realized how graceful God has been to us and our ancestors despite some pretty horrible actions, perhaps we would be more amazed at this God than we would be afraid of Him.
And perhaps we would be much more willing and ready to extend that same type of grace and love to those we think are violating God's laws today.
A great teacher I read about said something about how those who have been forgiven little love little.
If we live under a myth that says we were good in the past, we won't seek forgiveness for the past. And it stands to reason that we would stand in superior judgment over others in the present.
FINAL PRAYERS
On this election day, I hope more American Christians will step back from one culture group's narrow list of Biblical morality issues into a broader vision of what "His will on earth" includes.
I pray that they would then decide which issues matter most to them and then freely, humbly and gracefully choose the candidate whom he or she believes best represents the best chance for the nation and our world to be shaped and impacted by God's love and grace.
I pray that they would not be motivated by fear or by selfishness but by a true desire to see His will done on earth as it is in heaven.
I pray that they would recognize that while God is not schizophrenic, we are severely limited in our ability to discern clearly what comes from him and what comes from our culture.
Thanks for joining me over the past week or so and for reading all I've spewed your way. Thanks as well for all of your comments. It was challenging and fun. I hope it stretched you as much as it did me.
Go vote!
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