Tag: church and politics

Separate Church and Hate

Evangelical Christians, in believing about a coming Armageddon, must take care lest they actually cause an Armageddon as self-fulfilling prophecy. #separatechurchandhate

If I did a second doctorate, my thesis would be the role of well-intended souls who thought they did God’s will in forcing God’s hand to usher in the Kingdom. This was the devil’s temptation to Jesus. This was replayed in Judas’s betrayal to force Jesus’s hand. The Spanish and French Inquisitions, The Crusades, the Canadian Indian Residential Schools, and Conversion Therapy groups sought to enforce their brand of “pure religion.”

From Cronkite news

In contrast, Jesus taught – Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world” John 18:36.

Jesus answered, “My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”

John 18:36

The Third Reich sought its pure Millennial Reign. False zealot messiahs have historically proclaimed a salvation by brute force over grace. Give me the lowly, the despised and rejected, for of such is the Kingdom of God.

Jesus revealed his political party by saying, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Well-intentioned zealots have historically promoted forcing Jesus’s hand as the Messiah, including Judas Iscariot on the betrayal in the Garden of Gethsemane. In a world of hate for those of a different political bent, different ethnicity, or orientation, consider how you can enlarge your border and replace resentment and hate with grace. Consider also Jesus’s choice of disciples. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fisherman and involved in the fishing business. Matthew was a hated tax collector, whose money was considered unclean. Judas Iscariot likely worked in bookkeeping. Simon the Canaanite was a stubborn zealot who wished for an insurrection over the Romans. Some of the disciples we don’t know what they did. Later Paul was a Pharisee and persecutor of the church.

Begin this week following Jesus’s example by making space in your life for those different from you. Remember, “Resentment and hatred have imprisoned more people than all the jails in the world combined.”

-Pastor Jim

Sunday School Party Animals

My Texan Sunday School teacher was a Democrat who managed to work the Party’s platform into of every lesson to captive Baptist seminarians. Democrats ruled Texas for 100 years, voting last for Jimmy Carter in 1976. After all, “Jesus rode into Jerusalem, not on an elephant, but a donkey!” Another ancient and frequent visitor was an old geezer member of the “Temperance Movement,” spouting the evils of any alcohol. Looking back, I wish I would have listened more to the geezer but found a another Sunday class. You may say, “Jim, God could still use that teacher.” Yes, God even used the jawbone of an ass to slay the Philistines. Ergo, I know, Samson was a proto-Democrat? Don’t get me started.

How Texas Voted

I arrived in seminary in January of 1981, with the Democrats stinging from their defeat to Ronald Reagan. As I consider separation of church and state, I remember my old teacher and his taking liberty to mold young seminarians in the ideal that God was a Southern Democrat.

Republicans and Democrats need not worship together like the feuding Hatfields and the McCoys. Let us beat our political swords into bowls to catch the new rain of God’s Spirit to a thirsty world. In this we can find common ground.

-Pastor Jim

Emperor Worship

St. Peter addressed Simon Magus who attempted to convert the laying on of hands into a “for profit” (first mistyped “for prophet”, which would fit) enterprise:

20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.” – Acts 8:20-23

Three false doctrines bow before the dais of emperor worship: 1. God wants you to be wealthy, 2. The wealthy politician is truly blessed by God, 3. The politician is god. Prosperity preachers serve as priests at this altar dispensing sacraments of “dough” and the “fruit of the wallet.”

The first Beatitude of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount did not teach, “Blessed are the winners, for they shall never hang with losers.” Rather Jesus taught, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,  for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 5:3).

You may say, “Pastor Jim, are you a flaming Lib?” No, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. Vote your conscience. I am pro “First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me” (Ex 20:3), which includes politicians and megachurch pastors in Texas.

You may say, “Pastor Jim, are you a flaming Lib?” No, I am neither Republican nor Democrat. Vote your conscience. I am pro “First Commandment, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before me” (Ex 20:3), which includes politicians and megachurch pastors in Texas.

Be Blessed,

-Pastor Jim