Journeys Along The Way

We are all familiar with the Pledge of Allegiance that has been recited in public schools for years and years now.  For all of you that do not remember all the words to the modern rendition of it, here you go: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

At what point does a Christian stop saying that pledge and start showing the allegiance to God’s Kingdom?  We can go to church on Sunday mornings and sing worship and praise songs, but then afterward go home and start complaining about the economy and dicussing which Presidential candidate we want to win.  Where is the discussion that shows that we care more about God’s Kingdom? 

I don’t believe that I am the only person to say that America is not “God’s country.”  God’s country is the hearts and lives of Christians all around the world.  Why then do some people look at Barack Obama or John McCain and hope that they will “take America back for God?”  Greg Boyd talks about this subject in his book The Myth Of A Christian Nation in the following light:

“… If we are to take America back for God, it must have once belonged to God, but it’s not clear when this golden Christian age was.

“Were these God-glorifying years before, during, or after Europeans “discovered” America and carried out the doctrine of “manifest destiny” – the belief that God (or, for some, nature) had destined white Christians to conquer the native inhabitants and steal their land?  Were the God-glorifying years the ones in which whites massacred these natives by the millions, broke just about every covenant they ever made with them, and then forced survivors onto isolated reservations?  Was the golden age before, during, or after white Christians loaded five to six million Africans on cargo ships to bring them to their newfound country, enslaving the three million or so who actually survived the brutal trip?  Was it during the two centuries when Americans acquired remarkable wealth by the sweat and blood of their slaves?  Was this the time when we were truly “one nation under God,” the blessed time that so many evangelicals seem to want to take our nation back to?

“Maybe someone would suggest that the golden age occurred after the Civil war, when blacks were finally freed.  That doesn’t quite work either, however, for the virtual apartheid that followed under Jim Crow laws – along with the ongoing violence, injustices, and dishonesty toward Native Americans and other nonwhites up into the early twentieth century – was harldy “God-glorfying.”  (In this light, it should come as no surprise to find that few Christian Native Americans, African-Americans or other nonwhites join in the chorus that we need to “Take America Back for God.”)

“If we look at historical reality rather than pious verbiage, it’s obvious that America never really “belonged to God…”

Should we as Christians vote in the coming election?  Can we be residents of both this world and God’s World without them colliding?  What happened to the adage of “give to Ceasar what is Ceasars, give to God what is Gods?”

How can we overcome this split personality of sorts that we as Christians face when it comes to politics?

In a coming post series I want to examine these and more issues within the realm of politics and the Kingdom of God.

(The style of this post can be attributed to JR.)

Today was a unique day at Lemstone. About 11:20 in the morning a female in a wheelchair comes up to the door. As the gentleman that I am, I decided to walk over and hold open the door for her (since we do not have automatic sliding doors). As she was wheeling in she said that she was looking for a guest book that she could use at her late husband’s funeral that is tomorrow. I showed her where books along those lines can be found in our store, and was about to do the typical thing at Lemstone (where you show the customer where something is, then let them decide and walk away), then she commented on wanting something to place in the coffin with her husband. At this point my brain was not really wanting to do much, and my co-worker started to assist her. She then started wanting to locate other things in the store, and started to ask questions about some books we have for people that had lost their loved ones. Then my co-worker started to talk with the store owners and our manager (and the sales rep. that she was talking with). By the time the lady left the store, every person that was working had helped her in some way.

Later in the afternoon I was talking with one of the store owners, and she said the lady in the wheelchair had been through a lot in her life. The thing that got in the wheelchair was a spinal cord injury. Then she was diagnosed and overcame ovarian cancer. Within the past few days, her husband passed away. Then my boss shared with me that this customer stated that she never said, “Why God? Why me?” during all of those instances.

For the first time since working at Lemstone (that I can remember that is) this customer affected us all in some way. I have this feeling that I will not forgot her, simply because she held strong to her faith during some of the hardest things that I can think of to have happen to a person.

She got me to think that I often time take the relationships I have in life for granted. I want to apologize for the times when I could have said ‘Thank You’ and did not. I am sorry for not always showing that I care for you, but in all honesty, I do.

Maybe it’s the amount of time that it has taken The Crossing to go through unChristian, and the possibly the fact that I am reading it as well, I’ve been thinking a lot about how non-Christians see the Christian church. The more and more I think about it, the more I am easy to blame people like Brother Jed for the negative things, and that bugs me.  Every chapter of unChristian covers a different topic that by subject matter alone makes me think about how I influence people’s opinion of Christians.  From what I have read of the book so far, I feel that is the point of it.  It’s suppose to make Christians think how either in a positive or negative way we influence life for the world.  Aren’t we all in some way like Brother Jed?  Confusing the world with hate when we are told to love.

How can we show the world that Christians are not hypocritical, conversion happy, antihomosexual, too political, sheltered, and judgmental?

This past weekend was Chi Alpha’s Second Annual Fall Retreat and it got me thinking about God in a new way unlike ever before. I know that we some times go to church and just go through the motions of the whole thing. For example we will go, stand there during song service, stare off into the corner and never really mean the words that we are singing. Then we sit down go in and out of focus with the pastor’s sermon on something we may or may not want to think about. Then after the whole thing is done, we hop back into our car and head off to home and not think about church again until the following Sunday. I will admit it, that is how I’ve been at times at church, where the only thing that I can think of is what I was going to do when I left the halls of the building. At Retreat God tapped me on the shoulder and basically made me think about that attitude in church (and life in general actually). Sometimes, I feel like the people in the following two videos:

There have been times in my church life that I walk into the building and do not feel like going after God, I have felt at times that whatever is going on, it needs to be about me. But at Retreat, God stopped me, and pointed out that that is the incorrect thinking. That whatever is going on in life, that I should turn my attention to Him, and be thankful of the things I have and pray for things God has in mind. I feel at times that when we get the wiring in our brains backward, and think of God last, we don’t realize that the world in which we live is partially to blame. We get spoon fed this feeling in our culture that we should want what others have (but it is not okay to steal it). We should follow the crowd in all that we do… boy, am I glad that God is more concerned about us following Him than culture. If He was more concerned that we followed culture over Him… we might have one messed up world.

Which do you hear louder, the noise of the crowd or the whisper of the cross?