On Friday night round one in the culture war slugfest that is the Jennifer Knapp dilemma took place.  It happened on Larry King Live of all places.  It included Jennifer, Larry King, Bob Botsford, and Ted Haggart.  The event was cordial and polite with all parties in this round attempting to be on their best behavior, (I guess aiming for style points from the judges mostly).  The politeness with which it took place might allow one to think it was not a bare-knuckled brawl of the highest order, which it was.

It was a polite brawl is the best way that I can describe it.  All the people involved looked exactly as I figured they would, cheap dime store caricatures of who they were.  Everyone looked petty and small in my estimation.  No one came out looking like a rose.  Everyone took serious wounds coming out of the altercation.  The cause of Christ was set back on Friday night.  And new reasons to think Christians are mean-spirited were given to anyone watching that needed one.

It was hard for me to watch.  I wanted to yell, ‘just shut up’ at my television, but I couldn’t, as the rest of my family was sleeping at the time I watched it.  I wanted to turn it off, but I couldn’t.  It was like watching the train wreck you know is going to happen that eventually does.   It made me sad.  And I think it made all of Heaven sad.

Let me explain why…  Everyone involved made the work of the Kingdom all the more difficult as a result of the broadcast.  It made it harder for people truly trying to help their neighbor wherever they find them.  It made it harder for anyone carrying a cup of water in the name of Christ.  It hardened hearts, and closed ears.  It cast mud on the name of Christ, and left every believer trying to be about the calling of their creator with a black eye.

There were no successes as a result of the broadcast.  It wasn’t possible for there to be any.  Why Mr. Botsford went on the show at all is beyond me?  He knew he wasn’t going to be able to change Ms. Knapp’s mind.  He knew he wasn’t going to convince her with rhetorical flourishes and sound logic.  It just wasn’t in the cards.  She wasn’t going to break down in tears and repent on national television.  If the goal was to convince Jennifer on the subject of Biblical truth, then going on Larry King was the wrong venue for it.

These sorts of things have to happen in private.  They have to happen in the context of a relationship.  It is only in the comfort and security of a meaningful relationship that one person can share truth with another one, with any hope of success.  This is something Mr. Botsford I assure you already knew.  Which leads me to ask, why did he go on the show at all?  Why did he seek the confrontation?  I don’t know the answer to my questions right now.  I can only guess at his possible motives, and my mind won’t let me assign pure ones to his actions.

The right way to handle this issue is to show the love of Jesus.  People have to know how much you care before they will ever care what you think.  People of faith need to be expressive of the love of Christ to the wounded and the broken among us.  We need to live the lessons of the parable of the Good Samaritan.  That man didn’t ask how the victim came to that place.  He didn’t query the nature of the victim’s perspective on hot button issues to determine whether or not his neighbor was worthy of his aid.  He rolled up his sleeves, and cleaned his wounds, and bound his injuries.  He took the man to a place where he knew aid could be rendered to the injured, and the paid for the care.

So our response to these issues must be…  We must hold the broken and the battered.  We must help them with their wounds.  We must take them to the healer, (which we aren’t by the way), so that they can get the care they need.  In this description, you haven’t heard one ounce of judgment or condemnation.  That isn’t our role.  That isn’t ever going to be our role in these situations!  Our only role is to be there in the midst of pain and agony.  Our only role is to share the essential nature of our spirit with those in need.  Our job isn’t to judge or condemn.  Our job is to be the hands and feet of God’s grace in difficult circumstances.

It won’t be easy to do this.  We won’t feel comfortable in the process.  Our lack of ease or comfort with the task at hand doesn’t relieve us of the requirement of doing so.  It makes the clarion call upon us all the more urgent to step up to our task.  The more we love without pretext, and share the wealth of our hearts without precondition the less the stereotypes and caricatures will  fit us.  The less we act like heartless bullies on steroids, the more we will be able to help people and actually advance the Kingdom of Christ.

Acting in this fashion doesn’t justify the sin of others.  It accepts that our role has nothing to do with judgment or condemnation.  The task of making people aware of their sin, the righteousness of God, and judgment to come belongs to the Holy Spirit.  Our impersonation of the Holy Spirit is pathetic at best, and comes off as petty and thuggish.  We have none of the Holy Spirit’s deft and delicate touch.  We are the spiritual equivalent of a bull in a china shop in these circumstances.  We need to seek first to love and to comfort those in desperate need of the Grace of Almighty God!  Anything less doesn’t measure up to the calling that has been place upon our hearts, minds, and souls.

When she left, she was largely a Contemporary Christian music artist.  She has accompanied her return with an announcement, in extensive interviews in both Christianity Today, and The Advocate  , that she is a lesbian, so most experts are unsure as to where to classify her music right now.  Is it pop, is it rock, is it still contemporary Christian music, most don’t know and aren’t sure.  And when our culture isn’t sure how to label something, isn’t sure which category, which pigeon-hole in which something belongs, chaos ensues.

I sincerely hope I am wrong about what seems to be coming down the pipeline to a theater near you and me, but…  I believe that in the coming weeks and months there is likely to be a heated discussion between the gay community, and mainstream Christianity revolving around Ms. Knapp.  It is likely to be angry, vitriolic, vicious, and bloody.  We are likely to hear some of the worst things possible from both camps about each side.  It has happened before and it is likely that it will happen.  It’s almost as if we can hear the knives being sharpened on both sides for the rhetorical bloodbath that is to come.  It’s as we can almost hear the tools at work preparing the battlements, digging the trenches, and filling the moats to defend each position.

And if that is what this situation boils down to, I think it will be a disgrace.  If this whole matter becomes nothing more than another culture war slugfest between these camps, it will be another black eye for both communities.  It will end up being a box on both houses.  And it will serve as a distinct reminder to the world of how cold and callous we all can be to one another.  It will remind everyone that for six thousand years of recorded history we have advanced in brotherhood so very little.  It will be as repugnant is it repellant to the broader world if this situation devolves into that sort of melodrama.

And let me be clear, I am not taking sides in this debate, and I do not favor any one individual perspective.  I do not favor people of faith not speaking the truth.  My problem is that these debates always seem so far away from the manner and tone in which Jesus responded to them.  When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well, there was not condemnation in his voice for her.  He didn’t bang his fist into the side of the well, and speak judgment of her situation, as was his right.  He showed a deep and abiding compassion for the woman.  He was willing to break all the laws of Jewish society in his time in order to speak with her.  From the text it is obvious that Jesus displayed a delicate and tender touch as he laid out the truth.

And that delicate and tender touch is, from my perspective, what is missing from how mainstream Christianity deals with this issue in general.  The leaders of most faith communities pontificate on this issue more akin to the Pharisees of Jesus time with their vicious hate filled diatribes.  I can almost see them ceremonially rending their garments and covering their heads with ash as the customary Pharisee might have as they speak their position.  It makes me cringe every time I hear these people speak.  It makes me wonder about the sum total of my faith if that expression is what Christianity is supposed to be about.

Honestly, I wish the hate-mongers and religious zealots and downright whack-a-loons could just shut up.  It makes me reach for my remote every time I hear it.  In truth, I think the Church should not engage in this debate at all.  I believe that Christianity is ill-served in every encounter on this subject.  For obvious reasons, the tenderness with which our savior would approach this situation is absent in our discussion of it.  There is little if any love or compassion in our speech on this subject.  And all it does is leave those who fall into this category feeling ostracized, feeling like an outsider, and feeling like a leper.

That isn’t the character we see abundant in the ministry of Jesus at all.  Jesus dealt with these situations usually quietly away from the crush and press of the crowd.  In the rare instance in which he was forced to deal with it publicly, he didn’t take the sinner to task.  He took the accusers to task.  He challenged their right to stand in the judgment seat at all.  He said powerful things like, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.”  I picture him with a stone in his hand saying that, ready to offer it to the first person willing to step up to the plate, knowing full well that none could or would.

I would be remiss if I didn’t say that Jesus did speak the truth to the individuals in these narratives.  However, as a member of the Trinity he had every right to.  He was there at creation.  He was present when God turned the lights on.  He was present when God recorded the details of the lives of every human being to ever live.  He knew everything about Jennifer Knapp before she ever came to be.  He will one day be part of the great white throne judgment of all humanity.  He will be sitting on that throne.  Neither I nor anyone that acts as an accuser in this life will.  It is God’s right alone to judge humanity.  The power of acceptance and condemnation fall solely in the realm of almighty God.  And we as Christians should get truth.  We should bathe in it.  We should let it sink into the fabric of our being.

Christianity should be spending more of its time trying to live the life they claim to.  They should be spending their life smoking what they’re selling.  They should be dwelling in the rich and verdant garden that is a life spent in communion with their creator.  They should be seeking to ensure that the Fruits of the Spirit are growing in abundance in their lives.  They should be spending time learning to show the love of Christ to others.  Not the phony, fake, plastic thing that passes as love, but leaves people feeling cold and alone, but rather the warm, nurturing, and dare I say intimate, kind of love that leaves no one feeling as such.  The kind of love that was abundant in the ministry of Christ.  The kind of love that turned ordinary Galilean fishermen into apostolic giants in their time is what’s needed here.  The kind of love that turned the world on its head in the first century, as it upended the political, social, and cultural world of its day is what’s called for now.

If you need evidence for this, the people of Antioch called the followers of Jesus, ‘christians’ because they had love one for another.  The nature of the faith they espoused was so characterized by the love of their rabbi that the world couldn’t help but label and identify them as such.  (As an aside, it is worthy of noting that the text says that the people, not the followers of Jesus came up with that moniker.)  The apostle John also says that we show our identification with Christ when we have love one for another.

How does the venomous diatribes that those who claim to lead our faith, measure up to this standard?  How do we measure up to this standard, when we do the same?  I know I am painting with a broad brush here.  I do however feel comfortable in doing so, because the brush I am using also covers me, as I am just as guilty of being like this as anyone.

The path out of this quagmire is simple though.  We need to accept that we are all broken and battered recipients of the stunning grace of almighty God.  We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God.  We have all failed God in numerous ways.  And the collective sum of our failures put Jesus on the cross.  There is no single sin that put Jesus there more than any other.  The sin of homosexuality is no more revolting to God, than any other sin under heaven.  The truth is that all sin is an abomination to God.  All sin serves to separate the sinner from their creator.  I am no better than anyone else and my sin God finds just as nauseating as any other person’s. 

Honestly, if I haven’t sinned numerous times before I leave the house in the morning, it’s a good day.  I thank God daily for the grace he displays for my sin.  Should I be any less graceful to others?  Am I being the unmerciful servant when I refuse to accept the grace of God as it falls on others, or in my dealings with others that have committed more obvious sin?  My sins committed in secret being just as detestable to God as any other.  How big is my God when I approach my life in such a fashion?  Is there room for the omnipotent God of heaven and earth in such a faith?

We shouldn’t allow this situation to become a binary black versus white debate.  We shouldn’t allow Satan the power to divide us in such a fashion.  A black and white debate fails to bring healing, and unity, and brotherhood.  It fails to provide a vehicle for the love that should be the hallmark of our faith to be expressed.  In the end, such a debate leaves everyone and everything looking like some dime store caricature of what our creator intended.  It allows the wolves in sheep’s clothing in both camps to lead us into the abyss that is a morass of hate and anger and failure.

In reality, the truth of the situation is obvious.  The facts are clear.  We members of the community of faith don’t need to fight to express them here.  What has to be said has been said.  It doesn’t need to be spoken again and again and again.  What we need to do now, is defy the stereotype that people have for us.  We need to show that are not small minded bigots and homophobes.  We need to focus on showing the love of Christ wherever and whenever we have the occasion.  We need to reach out to all our neighbors, regardless of where we find them.  We need to remember that we have planks in our eyes, and we can’t extract the speck in our brother’s or sister’s eye without causing harm to them.  The work that needs to be done here belongs to God.  All that we can and should be doing right now is show the love of God until he comes again without comment or controversy.

In truth, what Jennifer Knapp chooses to do with her life, and how she is working out her salvation with fear and trembling, is not for me to judge.  At the end of her life, she will give an account of herself to her creator, and it will be in the midst of that intimate private audience with the one who breathed the breath of life into her nostrils that it will be conducted.  I won’t be there to accuse her, and no one else will either.  The one that knew her before the foundations of the world, the one who loved her with an abundant and awe-inspiring grace will.  I don’t know how it will turn out precisely, because distilling a mysteriously righteous and holy yet loving and benevolent God is a hard thing that doesn’t fit easily into our finite temporal brains.

At least for me, I plan to pray for her as I do many people.  Not because she is in any more need of prayer than me or anyone else, but rather, because I want to ask God to show His love for her.  I want God to remind her how much He cares for her.  I want her to feel the sheer abundance of that love falling on her like a flood, such that she could never deny from whence it came.  I also plan to enjoy her music.  I plan to revel in her success.  I plan to weep with her failures.   Just as I think God in heaven will.  The rest is beyond my right or my role to comment upon.

The last few months of my life have been a transition from a theoretical understanding of this principle of the activist God to a more genuine understanding of this principle.  I don’t say that as a point of pride, or as something of which I am proud.  I didn’t set out to end up here, and I certainly wouldn’t have chosen to come here, but I am here nonetheless.  The transition from theoretical to practical can be summed up in a single word, uncertainty.  A life in which the things that were certain before become uncertain now, is the definition for this.

Before this period began, I could say with some measure of confidence what the immediate future held.  I could say that our bills were going to be met without difficulty.  I could say that our healthcare was assured.  I could say that I was a valued member of a team that made a difference in state government.  Today, none of that is true by default.  Each day carries with it a direct measure of uncertainty.  Today, and every day since this period began I am forced to confront the uncertainty that is incumbent in this situation armed only with the convictions of my faith.

I enter each day and have to reaffirm my faith that God is my provider, and that he cares for me and those he has entrusted to my care.   Each day I have to believe that this activist God has a plan, and that his plan is what is best for me.  Each day I have to accept, sometimes grudgingly and sometimes not, that God’s timing is perfect and that my timing isn’t his.  I have to dwell in the moment, and know that the God of Genesis 1:1 is working on my behalf for my best end, and I have to accept that no other end than this is what’s best.

Some days, like today, I find myself struggling with what God has promised and his timeline for fulfilling that promise.  I find myself, not unlike Sarah in the Old Testament, wondering when God is going to fulfill his word.  I find myself wondering about my value before and to this activist God.  And sometimes, I wonder if my prayers are breaking through the ceiling at all.  And on my worst days, I wonder if God has forgotten my number. 

And so it is on my worst days, like today, I have to struggle to believe in the activist God.  I have to struggle to believe that the God of the Bible still works that way today.  I have to struggle to believe in anything at all for that matter.  In a situation that from the outside looks bad trending worse, I worry, and I fear that it will never get better.  And the sum of those worries and fears become a smothering flood that threatens to drown me.

In the midst of those days, my solace, my comfort, my guide has become the knowledge that what I am experiencing is not uncommon to the human condition, and the human experience.  People before me have suffered this, and people after me will suffer this.  I have to recognize that this is a time in the crucible of life.  I am being exposed to intense heat right now; my distaste for this status quo notwithstanding.  I have to recognize the value of this time.  I have to somehow; as the writer of the book of James puts it, rejoice when I fall into trouble of various kinds.

And it has been in finding the joys of this time in the crucible that I have found relief from my fears and my worries.  It has been in being reminded of all that I have and how dear those things are to me, that the flood is swept away.  It is in participating in the simple joys of family life, that all that weighs upon me is relieved.  It is in watching my children find joy in playing cards, or watching a movie, or riding their bikes and scooters that I realize that things aren’t so bad.  It is in realizing what a wonderful woman I am married to, that I find the man I was meant to be.  It is the journey to becoming this man that God deemed it important to bring this time of woe upon me.  This activist God led me to this place.  And this activist God has deemed it important that I dwell here for a time, the exact duration of my stay is as yet undetermined.

I have found my place in the domicile that God has built up around me, and I relish it.  I have become actively involved in it, and it is a wonderful thing.  I have my good days, and my bad ones, but I love it for what it is.  And in all honesty, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

While surfing the internet, I happened upon the blog of an atheist who was asking the following question of her readers:

 “How many people would believe in a god if there were no rewards promised to the self for doing so?”

This rather loaded question is a complicated one. It is actually not meant to be a question, but rather an attack on the principles of Christianity. The atheist is suggesting that the Christian faith is a selfish one and insinuating that if there were no promise of Heaven, there would be few, if any, Christians. There is no chance I could ever answer the question to this particular atheist’s satisfaction because I suspect she believes she already knows the answer. Furthermore, I’m not sure there is a way to know the answer. Since there is a promise of Heaven, I have no idea how many Christians there would be if that promise was ripped out from under us. I suspect, rather sadly, there would be less. Possibly much less, but that is just a guess. I know that in my own experience, Heaven did not enter the equation. I chose to believe in God because I had an encounter with Him that began to make sense to me intellectually. I then chose to believe in Jesus Christ (and the Christian faith) specifically for an abundance of reasons – none of which were Heaven. I sort of see Heaven as the icing on the cake. Don’t get me wrong, I am glad the promise is there; but my faith doesn’t hinge on it.

I believe we can examine this question introspectively in a way that can help us examine our faith. What if today, we pondered the following question?

Would you still follow Jesus Christ if there were suddenly no promise of Heaven?

If our answer to this question is ‘no’, I would suggest that we may be on shaky ground spiritually. I spent the majority of life before Christ creating a particular version of God in my mind and then imposing those values on the real God. For instance, the God I created was all knowing and all powerful. He had created this world and then stepped back to see what would happen. He was a fair God who would allow pretty much let anyone into Heaven provided they tried to live a good life (you know … paid their taxes, supported their children, didn’t kill anyone … that sort of thing). It was only when I humbled myself that I realized I had no right to impose my beliefs on God. If God were real, I had to allow Him to teach me about Himself and accept even what I didn’t understand. I had no business trying to invent God in my image. I had to understand and apply the old Axum that “Father Knows Best.” In other words, if God, in all His wisdom, suddenly decided there should be no Heaven, I would have to accept it – even if I didn’t understand it. I can’t worship God because of what He promises me, rather, I must worship God because He deserves it.

I am so thankful that my God has promised me Heaven. I also believe there is a hell. Hell, in my opinion, is proof that God loves us. How’s that you might ask? Well, if what we really want is a place that is free from the presence and influence of God, he will provide it for us even though it breaks His heart to do so. That place is hell. It’s not God that makes hell such a terrible place … it is the complete absence of God’s influence that makes hell so bad.

Even though I have a concrete belief in Heaven and hell, I can’t make that the focal point of my faith. Why? Well, if all I do is think about the future … someday far in the future … I am ignoring one of Jesus’ most powerful lessons. Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. What did He mean by that? I think He meant that we can experience Heaven right now in our mortal life. If hell is the total absence of God, then Heaven is living in God’s presence. In fact, Heaven is more than just the presence of God – it is a place where God’s Will is done. We can experience God’s presence and live in His will right now. If we spend all of our time looking towards the future, we will miss out on the beauty that is Heaven on Earth.

Think about it … we all know the bitter and depressed Christian who lives a miserable life and constantly talks about Heaven in the future tense. My heart goes out to these people. Thank God they have the promise of eternal life from the One True God to keep them going. I am not suggesting that it would be healthy to totally forget about our promise of Heaven; I just pray that someday we can all experience a shadow of Heaven right now!

And it has flourished.  TV ministries have exploded in size, scope, prevalence, and popularity.  There is a problem though.  To date, they have failed in what I see as the primary purpose of the medium.  The current and historical extrapolations of TV ministries have amassed prominence and power to the head of the ministry, but have done little to advance the cause of Christ.  These ministries typically reach the already reached and as such end up in a preaching to the choir mode.

They end up taking the kingdom where it already is and as such the best if can do is function as an adjunct to what is already going on.  The down side to these ministries relates to the numerous character flaws of the people who’ve lead them.  When the medium builds up someone it also magnifies their failures as well.  From Jimmy Swaggart to Jim Baker and beyond the character failures of these few have harmed the cause of Christ greatly.  These failures have hardened the hearts of those these ministries should have focused on reaching in the first place.

The failures of this medium didn’t deter me from my belief on this subject.  Rather, I believed it was implementation and the people behind it that were responsible for the failure.  I still ardently believed in the efficacy of technology to advance the gospel.  I simply transferred my preferred implementation of technology as the vehicle.

Next, I believed that radio could serve as the next vehicle.  Radio as a technology was mature.  It was cheap to obtain and it was everywhere.  So much so, that it is hard to find a place anywhere on the planet that isn’t served by radio in some form.  However it suffered from the same weaknesses as TV.  It elevated men with serious character defects and their fall was just as disastrous with the same down side as TV.

After two colossal candidate failures, I should have been deterred from continuing this quest, but I wasn’t.  The next candidate to enter the fray was the internet.  In this day and age, the connection divide at least in industrialized nations has largely been erased.  The medium erases transmissional barriers.  It allows for instant dissemination to anyone with a connection to it.

Much to my chagrin, it has failed also.  In part, because the developing world largely has more pressing needs than surfing the web.  In part, this is true because the developed world is more interest in using the internet as a porn delivery system.  And in part it’s true, because the character of those attempting to lead such movements always comes up short.

Recently, I was forced to accept that technology can’t ever revolutionize the way the gospel reaches the world.  Technology is about an engineered solution that transmits the exact message of the sender.  It is about the movement of ones and zeroes from point A to point B.  The gospel is about sharing the heart of God with the world.

It’s spiritual. It’s relational. It’s intimate.  It’s done best in the context of one life touching another as directed by the divine.  No implementation of a protocol can replicate that, regardless of how well intentioned or engineered.

Simply put, I had to accept that my overall premise was flawed.  Any technological solution will only serve as an adjunct to what already exists.  What I should have learned are the lessons the Bible teaches from the Tower of Babel narrative found in Genesis.  The story tells of the desire to build a great tower that reaches the heavens.  And so a united humanity decides to undertake this mission.  God then steps in and confuses their language, thus preventing its completion.

The text points out that God was concerned that a single unified humanity was a threat, because nothing would be impossible for them.  I have often been troubled by this narrative.  It doesn’t fit the mold we have for God.  God steps in to deny them the completion of their tower.  It seems petty of God.  It seems capricious.  It’s not logical for God to intervene in this matter in this fashion.

My problems with the narrative were resolved when I realized a few simple things.  The builders of the tower were operating in defiance of God’s command to scatter across the globe, multiply, and subdue the earth.  Their building of the tower was to avoid being scattered and to amass a name for themselves.  They attempted to use their technology to thwart God’s will.  God responded by insisting on his will and denying them the power of their technology by creating communication barriers.

God wasn’t concerned with just the tower.  He was concerned with what a united people might be capable of next.  If they could build a technological marvel in defiance of God’s desire for them to the contrary, then what else was possible for these humans?  What need would these people have for God?

The answer is simple.  They wouldn’t need God at all.  They could place themselves on God’s throne and do as they pleased.  Subsequently, God moved to prevent this, and every time since, when man has developed his dependence on a better mouse trap for him that cuts his dependence on the divine.  God has moved in to show his creation how little he really knows and understands.

How does this impact technology and God you ask?  Is God really calling us to a Luddite existence?  Should we all become Amish?  In a word, no.  What God is seeking of us in this venue is to seek him first.  We should set aside technology and live within the context in which we are planted.  Technology shouldn’t seek to revolutionize how the gospel is disseminated.  Rather it should be an adjunct to its flow.  It should be subservient to the spirit of God.

In other words, I learned that technology will always fail when it isn’t the servant in the relationship or when it is implemented by those seeking anything other than God’s will for this lives and those they are in relationship with.  The flow should be from God to his servants and from his servants to those God deemed it necessary to be reached.  In this flow God is sovereign and we serve him and any technology we use serves that end.  Anything else perverts this flow and makes a mockery of the proper process.