Tag: Faith

Standing for Life

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I grew up in the first state in our union to legalize physician-assisted suicide.  When Oregon passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1997, which allowed a terminally ill patient to administer lethal drugs to him or her self under the direction of a doctor, it stirred a lot of controversy.  Though other states and regions have since followed suit, even nearly twenty years later, laws like the Death with Dignity Act still stir a lot of controversy and concern.

Our nation’s capital is now joining the fray of this debate with the D.C. Council readying themselves to vote tomorrow on legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill people. Fenit Nirappil of The Washington Post explains:

A majority of D.C. Council members say they plan to vote for the bill when it comes before them Tuesday.

But chances for enactment are unclear. The council will have to vote on the bill twice more by the end of the year.  Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) has not indicated whether she will sign the legislation, although her health director has testified against it, saying it violates the Hippocratic oath. It is not certain that proponents have enough votes for an override. And Congress could also strike down the legislation.[1]

Many in the African-American community of Washington D.C. strongly oppose the legislation.  The charge against the legislation is being led by Rev. Eugene Rivers III, who is leading a group called No DC Suicide.  Rev. Rivers calls the legislation “back end eugenics,” and believes it is aimed at eliminating poor blacks.  Leona Redmond, a community activist, echoes Rev. Rivers’ sentiment, saying, “It’s really aimed at old black people. It really is.”  Proponents of the law have made countless assurances that there is no racial component to the legislation.  Donna Smith, herself an African-American and the organizer for Compassion and Choices, argues, “This just isn’t a ‘white’ issue.  This issue is for everyone who’s facing unbearable suffering at the end of life.”

Certainly, any move by any group to end people’s lives based on their race is repulsive.  Indeed, if this legislation is enacted and, even if unintentionally, disproportionately affects a particular race, serious questions will need to be asked and stern objections will need to be raised.  The problem for the Christian, however, extends beyond the boundaries of race to the dignity of humanity itself.

In the third article of the Nicene Creed, Christians confess, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.”  Fundamental to what we confess as Christians is that God is the giver of life.  When the apostle Peter is preaching a sermon on Pentecost day, he says to those assembled, “You killed the author of life, but God raised Him from the dead” (Acts 3:15).  Because God is the author of life, Christians believe that life is a sacred gift from God to us and ought to be stewarded carefully and lovingly by us.  This is why orthodox Christianity has consistently stood against the taking of life whether that be through abortion at life’s beginning or through physician-assisted suicide as life may be nearing its end.  Both of these practices treat life not as a gift to be stewarded, but as burden to be manipulated and, ultimately, destroyed.

It is true that life can sometimes become burdensome.  But when a young lady becomes terrified at the specter of an unexpected pregnancy, or when a person is suffering through the throes of a terminal illness, we must remind ourselves that life itself is not the culprit in these types of tragic situations.  A world broken by sin is the culprit.  So attacking life itself doesn’t relieve the burden.  Instead, attacking life actually succumbs to the burden because it capitulates to what sin wants, which is always ultimately death.  To fight against sin, therefore, is to fight for life.

As Christians fight for life, it is very important that they fight for all of life and not just certain moments in life.  All too often, Christians have been concerned with fighting for those at the beginning of life as they stand against abortion, or fighting for those who may be nearing the end of life as they stand against physician-assisted suicide.  But there is so much more to life than just its beginning and its end.  Christians should be fighting against human trafficking, which treats lives as commodities to be traded rather than as souls to be cherished.  Christians should be fighting against racism, which trades the beauty of a shared humanity for the dreadfulness of discriminatory distinctions.  Christians should be concerned with genocide in places like Aleppo, as Syria’s army continues to launch indiscriminate military strikes against its own citizens with horrifying results.  To celebrate life means to celebrate all of life – from the moment of conception to the moment of death and everything in between.   

So let’s stand for and celebrate life.  After all, after this life comes everlasting life through faith in Christ.  Life will win out in the end.  So we might as well surrender to and celebrate life now.

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[1] Fenit Nirappil, “Right-to-die law faces skepticism in nation’s capital: ‘It’s really aimed at old black people,’” The Washington Post (10.17.2016).

Comfort in Stormy Times: Reflections on Hurricane Matthew

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The people of Florida are picking up the pieces.  Along with the people of Georgia.  And the people of the Carolinas.  And the people of Cuba.  And the people of Haiti.  As Hurricane Matthew churned its way through the Caribbean and up the east coast, it left a path of destruction in its wake.  In Florida, mandatory evacuations were issued before the storm.  Grocery store shelves were stripped bare.  Gas stations were pumped dry.

It could have been worse.  They eye of Hurricane Matthew skirted much of the eastern seaboard, sparing these regions from what could have been even greater damage.  But even if things were not as bad as they could have been, this storm was still a whopper.  For a brief time, Hurricane Matthew reached Category 5 status, making it the first storm to reach a hurricane’s most powerful potential since Hurricane Felix in 2007.

Whenever a natural disaster of this magnitude strikes, it presents a unique set of struggles and questions.  When we suffer a man-made disaster in a shooting or in an accident or even in a terrorist attack, we can point to the source of the calamity and explain that the person who created the catastrophe is unstable or incompetent or even evil.  When a hurricane strikes however, there is no one from whom we can demand a mea culpa, save nature and nature’s God.  And such a mea culpa is tough to come by.

So how are we to process this disaster?  Here are a few things to keep in mind.

We cannot control everything.

In an election year such as this one, it is easy to live under the illusion that we wield a great amount of power and authority.  We do, after all, have a say – even if it is a small one – in who the leader of the free world should be.  But for every bit of control we think we have, there are so many things that simply fall outside our hands.  Hurricanes are one of these things.  We can forecast them, but we cannot steer them.  They strike where they may.  They strike with the energy that water temperatures give to them.  The smallness of our power when compared to the scope of something like the weather should lead us to marvel at the bigness of God’s creation.  There is still so much we cannot tame.

We can help others.

Though we do not have power over all things, this does not mean that we can help in some things – like in hurricane relief.   My congregation, Concordia Lutheran in San Antonio, has set up a relief fund to help those in Haiti.  We are exploring opportunities to help those in other areas as well.  You can donate by clicking here.  Part of our calling as Christians is to be a neighbor to those in need.  Being neighborly need not be constrained by proximity, nationality, economy, or any other earthly barrier.  To help others is to love Christ!  Rolling up our sleeves by opening up our pocketbooks is a great way to get involved.

There is someone who is in control.

In a world that seems shaky, it is important that we remind ourselves that just because we are not in control does not mean that everything is out of control.  Christian theologians will often describe God as omnipotent, a word that means “all power.”  In other words, God has all control.  When a storm like Matthew strikes, it serves us well to consider the many instances in Scripture that remind us that God, quite literally, guides the weather.  In the case of His disciples, Jesus saves them from a storm on the Sea of Galilee by calming it with just a word.  In the case of Jonah, God saves him with a storm that forces some sailors he is with to toss him overboard so God can send a giant fish to take the prophet where he needs to be.  In the words of the Psalmist, God can also save people through storms as they seek refuge in Him:  “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2).  God, then, does not use storms in the same way in every instance.  Sometimes, He saves us from storms as weather patterns change.  Other times, he saves us with storms as these trials turn us toward Him.  Still other times, He gives us strength to make it through storms, even if they hit us straight on.

Ultimately, it is important to remember that no matter what storms – whether they be literal or figurative – this world may bring, we have assurance in them because of Christ.  When Christ was on the cross, the Gospel writers tell us that “darkness came over all the land” (Matthew 27:45).  In other words, it stormed.  But what looked like a storm of death became a storm that gave way to life three days later.   Jesus overcame the storm of the cross so that we would never be lost to the storms caused by sin.  For even if a storm takes lives, as did Hurricane Matthew, we can be assured that those who die in Christ go to a place where there is “a sea of glass, clear as crystal” (Revelation 4:6).  In other words, in heaven, the weather is a flat calm.  There, every storm has been conquered by Christ.

With the extent of the damage from Hurricane Matthew just now becoming clear, there is still a lot – economically, emotionally, and theologically – to sort through.  But this much is clear:  God does not abandon us in storms like these.  He is there.  And He cares.

Is Being Christian the Same as Being Religious?

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Last week, as I was going for my morning run, listening to music, a song with this lyric started playing on my Pandora station:

I still hate religion. Why you think I’m a Christian?

I’ve heard this distinction between religion and Christianity used before used by pastors, pew sitters, and Christian artists alike.  This Christian artist explained the distinction between religion and Christianity as he continued:

The peace between God’s been broke for my sinning.
Religion is man using his good deeds tryin’ to close the distance.
But we could never reach Him,
Only Jesus came to get His men.

Religion, according to this artist’s definition, is people trying to reach God by their works.  Christianity, on the other hand, is God reaching people in Christ.

Now, it is most certainly true that trying to reach God by means of your own works – regardless of your religious affiliation – is a futile effort.  And it is true that the hallmark of the Christian faith is that rather than waiting for us to reach up to Him, God has reached down to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Still, exegetically, this kind of distinction between religion and Christianity troubles me because religion is not so widely panned in the Bible like it is in this song.  If you ask the brother of Jesus what he thinks of religion, he will tell you:

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

If you ask the apostle Paul about the importance of religion, he will explain:

If a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (1 Timothy 5:4)

In both instances, religion is cast in a positive light.  Religion, at least according to Scripture, is not always bad.

But my concern with the distinction often drawn between religion and Christianity is not only exegetical.  It is also missional.

If a non-believer asks a Christian whether or not he is religious and he responds by saying something like, “No, I’m not religious; I’m a Christian,” he is really doing little more than pulling a bait and switch in his witness.  Here’s why.

For most people, the word “religion” carries with it particular connotations.  People who attend worship services are religious.  People who read holy books are religious.  People who pray regularly are religious.  And Christians do – or at least should be doing – all these things.  So for a Christian to claim that he is not religious sounds like little more than a verbal sleight of hand to an unbeliever.  To say that you are not religious because you are a Christian probably sounds to someone who is not a Christian like a distinction without much of a difference.

Rather than quibbling over whether or not Christianity is a religion, perhaps it’s time for us to explain to people who are not religious why we are religious in the way that we are.  After all, Christianity, even as a religion, is utterly unique.  Most other religions are generally concerned with making people better by means of their own efforts.  Christianity, by distinction, is concerned with making people righteous by the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection.  The difference in Christianity is not found in whether or not it can be classified as a religion.  The difference in Christianity is found in what it confesses about God and His Son, Jesus Christ.  This is what we ought to be emphasizing.

Allow me to offer one additional thought on the uniqueness of Christianity.  Jesus was clear that people would know who His followers were not because of some semantic game that distinguishes Christianity from religion, but because of their love (John 13:35).  Unfortunately, whether they are called “religious” or “Christian,” people who claim to follow Jesus are not always known for their love.  They’re known for their self-righteousness.  They’re known for their hypocrisy.  They’re known for their raging fury at our secularized culture.  If this is what believers in Christ are known for, it matters little whether people think we are “religious” or “Christian.”  People’s opinion of us, no matter which word is used, will remain negative.

In some instances, a person’s opinion of Christianity may be negative simply because he doesn’t like Christ and His teaching.  Jesus Himself taught us to expect hatred from others when He said to His disciples, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first” (John 15:18).  Sometimes, we are hated through no fault of our own.  But let’s do everything we can to ensure that a person’s opinion of Christianity is negative because of Christ and not because we are acting foolishly, selfishly, arrogantly, and sinfully.  Let’s do everything we can to instead be known for our love.  Because then, whether people think of us as “religious” or “Christian,” they will ultimately move past us altogether and look to Christ Himself.  And that’s the goal.  He’s the goal.

The goal is not a game with words.  The goal is to point people to the Word.

Terror Hits Brussels: How Should Christians Respond?

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It happened again.

Just four days after Paris terror suspect Salah Abdeslam was captured by Belgian law enforcement officials, two coordinated attacks – one at the airport and another on a subway – were carried out in Brussels at approximately 8 am local time.  ISIS is taking responsibility for both.

Most of the scenes on the news right now are coming from the airport attack, and the pictures are ghastly.  Physicians treating the wounded are describing severe nail injuries, indicating that the explosives were packed with materials designed to inflict maximum injury.  As of the posting of this blog, CNN is reporting the provisional death toll at 34:  14 dead at the airport with 20 people killed in the subway bombing.  We do not know whether or not the toll will rise.

At a time like this, it is always worthwhile to pause and reflect on how we, as Christians, are called to respond and react to a tragedy such as this.  Christians are, after all, in a unique position to respond and react to tragedy, for our very faith was born out of tragedy, as this Good Friday will remind us.  Our faith is rooted in “Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2) – a gruesome thought if left by itself.  So here are a few things to keep in mind.

Pray for Brussels

When terrorists attacked Paris, I wrote, “Pray for Paris.”  The first thing we should do in an event like this is pray – always.  For the vast majority of us, there is no help we can offer Brussels physically – we are not omnipresent.  And there is no way we can thwart another attack in this beleaguered city – we are not omnipotent.  So we must entrust Brussels and its future to the One who is omnipresent and omnipotent.  We must entrust Brussels and its future to the One who can actually help.  Such is the power of prayer.  It not only offers real help to hurting people because it turns to a God who is in the business of helping hurting people, it also grows our faith when we cannot take charge of a situation like this because it teaches us to trust the One who is in charge of every situation like this.

Mourn for Brussels

The old saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”  We have become all too familiar with terror attacks.  With another one in the news this morning, although we may not be tempted to become outright contemptuous of what has happened, we may be tempted to respond to it with a mild dismissiveness.  We see.  We react with a bit of a groan.  And we move on.  I would encourage us to saunter at the scenes from Brussels for a bit.  Look at the damage done at the airport.  Look at the horrified faces of the people escaping from a bombed subway car.  And grieve.  Terror may be common nowadays, but that shouldn’t make it any less tragic in our hearts and minds.  What has happened in Brussels is worth our grief.  It is worth our sadness.  It is worth our pain.  We worship a Savior who shares in all our pain.  He never passes us by “on the other side” (Luke 10:31).  We should be willing to share in each other’s pain as well.  For when we do, we “carry each other’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2).

Hope for Brussels

Christianity may have been borne out of the tragedy of death, but it is carried forth by the glory of life.  This is what this Holy Week is all about – death on a Friday followed by life on a Sunday.  The hope we have for Brussels, then, is the hope we have for all the world – that no matter how many people terrorists may kill, they cannot win by death because “death has been swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).  Christ portended our ultimate ends when, on Easter, He conquered His would-be end by walking out of His grave.  We now share in the promise that our graves will not be our ends.  Resurrection is coming.

One of my favorite Bible stories is the story of Armageddon – that great cosmic battle between good and evil at the end of days.  The reason I love it so much is not just because of who wins, but because of how the battle is fought.  The forces of evil, John says, are gathered “to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon. The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and out of the temple came a loud voice from the throne, saying, ‘It is done’” (Revelation 16:16-17).  And that’s the end of the battle.  There are no swords drawn.  There are no bullets fired.  There are no bombs dropped.  The forces of darkness combine to bring their worst.  But they are no match for God’s simple declaration: “It is done.”  In Greek, the declaration is just one word:  gegonen.  It turns out that even just one little word, to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther, really can fell Satan and his sympathizers.

We live in a world where deranged terrorists wage twisted jihad.  But as Christians, we hope for a kingdom where battles are not won by an armed detachment, but by a divine decree: “Gegonen.”  “It is done.”

And it will be.

Christianity, Culture, and Comparison

ChurchThere can be little doubt that Christianity is losing its place of primacy in American culture.  According to a survey conducted last year by the Pew Research Center, Americans are becoming increasingly less religious and less willing to affiliate themselves with any particular religious tradition.  As The Washington Post reports:

The “nones,” or religiously unaffiliated, include atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe in “nothing in particular.” Of those who are unaffiliated, 31 percent describe themselves as atheists or agnostics, up six points from 2007.[1]

A six-point increase of the religiously unaffiliated in eight years is not only statistically significant, it is an irreligious coup d’état.  Consider this, also from The Washington Post: “There are more religiously unaffiliated Americans (23 percent) than Catholics (21 percent) and mainline Protestants (15 percent).”

Even among those who self-identify as religious, identifying as a faith does not necessarily correlate to the practice of that faith.  One of the most striking demographic factoids of this presidential election cycle has been how evangelicals who attend church more frequently differ substantially in their candidate preferences from those who attend church less frequently.

Clearly, the religious terrain of America is experiencing tectonic shifts.  What was once America’s so-called “moral majority” is now an apprehensive minority.  So what is the way forward?

Myriads of options have been proposed and tried.  Some people want to fight the secularizing spiral of American culture while others are more amicable to bargaining with and even capitulating to it.  Still others, such as Rod Dreher, argue for a limited withdrawal from American culture, eschewing what they see as the culture’s inherently dangerous facets and foci.  In many ways, these tensions and postures toward the broader culture are nothing new, as a read through H. Richard Niebuhr’s famous book, Christ and Culture, will reveal.

As worthy of discussion as all of these options may be, in this post, I would propose that it is just as important that we look at what we should not do as it is that we look at what we should do.  Here’s why.

At the root of our anxiety over shrinking Christian cultural influence is our penchant to compare.  We look at the political arena and we notice that we don’t wield the power we once did.  And we compare the influence we had to the power we have.  Or we look at demographic studies and we begin to notice that non-believers are on the increase while we’re on the decrease. And we compare the assembly of the despisers to the flock of the convinced.

Martin Luther has some great guidance when we are tempted toward comparison:

They surpass us by so many thousands, and all that we have seems to recede into nothing. But do not compare yourselves with them. No, compare yourselves with your Lord, and it will be wonderful to see how superior you will be … They would easily overcome us, but they cannot overcome that Christ who is in us.[2]

Comparing ourselves with the world as a starting place for responding to the world is dangerous business.  It can lead us to an arrogant triumphalism if the world seems to be persuaded to our side.  But it can also lead to an angry despair if the world rejects us.  It is little wonder that the apostle Paul once wrote, “We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves” (2 Corinthians 10:12).  If we are to compare ourselves with anyone or anything, it should be with the One who reminds us that even if we are a “little flock” in this age (Luke 12:32) – with little power, little influence, and little prestige – we are a “multitude that one one can count” (Revelation 7:9) in the next.

What strikes me about so many of our responses to Christianity’s diminishing cultural influence is not that they are wrong per se, but that they flow from the wrong place – they flow from anxious comparisons that grumble over Christianity’s diminishing cultural capital rather than from faith in Christ’s commandments and promises.

Perhaps it’s time to work less out of fear and more out of faith.  Perhaps it’s time to stop comparing and start trusting – not because the decline of Christianity isn’t sad, but because the victory of Christ is certain.

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[1] Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Christianity faces sharp decline as Americans are becoming even less affiliated with religion,” The Washington Post (5.12.2015).

[2] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, vol. 30 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1967), 289