Category: Podcast

This piece was originally published at Patheos on April 9, 2013.

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Many people respond to questions about undocumented immigrants by saying that they must be deported if the law says so: always obey the law—no questions asked. But what if the law were to be changed to say that all people should be let into our country–no questions asked? Or what about if it were changed to not allow any immigration at all?

Hopefully, those who say under the current system that undocumented immigrants must be deported, no questions asked, would adhere with the same consistency to each of these alternative rulings (that is, no one should be deported or no one let in): the law is the law. If they balk at the new law and say we should disobey it by deporting or roadblocking immigrants or sneaking immigrants in, they would be inconsistent. But why are they inconsistent? Is their adherence to the current law based more on prejudice or lack of personal or profitable connection to the people in question than principle?

Then  there are those who only favor breaking the current law for how it benefits them and/or their community economically. What kind of justice is that? All people, including those who come here illegally, have inalienable rights as humans; their value should never be based on their presumed profitability. There are laws whose merit transcend market value and societal peace, among other things.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told his fellow clergy from his Birmingham jail cell that an unjust law is no law at all. They pointed the finger at him for disturbing the peace, but for King, it was an unjust peace he was disturbing. There are laws, and then there are laws. We who are Christians must always be true to what we believe are the highest laws: those that confirm the Golden Rule (Matthew 7:12) and Great Commandments (Mark 12:30-31)–regardless of the consequences, no questions asked.

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I am grateful to the Christian Post for its invitation to me to write a piece calling for Evangelicals to develop a consistent pro-life stance that accounts for gun control. The following entry is my response to their invitation:

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have exhorted Evangelicals to develop a pro-life stance on gun control. They argue that “the growing preponderance of lethal weapons on the streets” is a pro-life issue that deserves the same kind of attention as abortion. Christian conservatives have often resisted those environmentalists who have sought to brand mercury pollution as a pro-life issue. Will Evangelicals by and large resist similar attempts to view gun control as a pro-life issue in spite of the recent mass killings in Newtown, CT, and elsewhere?

In response, I believe it will be very difficult for Evangelicals to develop such consistency, and for a variety of reasons. Here are two reasons. First, we do not have a well-developed theology of life and/or public theology. Unlike Evangelicalism, the Catholic Church is known for its consistency in affirming a pro-life stance on a variety of issues, including abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and gun control. We are more agenda-driven than the Roman Catholic tradition given our failure to seek to provide a rigorous, sustained, comprehensive model of a theology of life. As a result, we are more prone to shoot from the hip on issues and ask questions later.

Second, another reason is that the Catholic Church has an authority structure in place that helps it craft a consistent series of platform positions on important ethical topics. While Catholicism has orders that began as movements, Evangelicalism as a whole is a movement without an overarching, orderly structure. Charismatic leaders, not cardinals, bishops, popes and ecclesial traditions, often serve to drive the Evangelical movement. Movements like this one experience greater levels of ambiguity and inconsistency as a result.

So, would it ever be possible for Evangelicals to move beyond shooting from the hip to develop a consistent theology of life? Might a more consistent approach start with a call not to take another person’s life? The Evangelical movement has often argued that it is wrong to take the life of a fetus. No matter if there are disabilities. No matter if there is a lack of opportunity awaiting it after birth. No matter if its environment will have a negative impact on it and through it on others. Apart from extreme circumstances such as a threat to a mother’s health or rape as the cause of impregnation, Evangelicals tend to shoot down arguments made in support of abortion. Why don’t we do the same with gun control?

Perhaps there is a place for arguing that one could own a gun and use it to kill an intruder who is trying to harm one’s family member; still, it only takes one bullet to do so, not thirty rounds. Legally, Americans have the right to own guns, but should we have the right to stockpile guns with multiple clips and ammunition? At least in the case of abortions, the person performing one–a doctor–is not doing so accidentally or randomly or in rage, as in the case of many of the senseless civilian gun deaths in our culture.

No matter what the United States government might say (and the founding fathers were not even thinking about semi-automatics or the likelihood of guns that someday will be able to fire nuclear bullets), the Lord Jesus does not say anything about the right to take up arms to kill anyone–not even exemptions! While Jesus does not talk about abortion either, he does say quite a bit about turning the other cheek (Matthew 5:38-39) and laying down one’s own life (John 15:13, for example), not that of another. Although what Jesus is recorded as saying does not provide answers for every question on ethical stances on gun control and abortion, his words should at the very least cause us some angst on using guns on others and stockpiling guns and ammunition as Christians. The greatest virtue, of course, is learning to wrestle with Jesus’ words and actions, rather than discounting them. Any efforts toward creating consistent stances and ethics should be, first and foremost, based upon Jesus’ teachings. I will admit that I often struggle to honor Jesus’ words, such as loving my enemy and praying for those who persecute me (See Matthew 5:44).

Before I close this post, I want to make clear my intent. I am not trying to shoot down in some random and pointless manner the arguments of those advocating against greater gun control. I don’t want to be guilty of shooting first, senselessly seeking to destroy the positions of those who argue differently than I do. Perhaps my arguments are not bullet-proof, but I do present them in good conscience and without intent to do harm. All of us, myself included, should open ourselves up consistently to sincere questions about our respective positions on policy and making it possible for healthy discourse on such matters as gun control. If we ever want to move our society beyond the rise in senseless deaths, we will need to become much more consistent on not meaninglessly shooting down other positions. With this point in mind, it is important that I state that I believe both sides–those who advocate for greater gun control and those who advocate against such control–wish to affirm the right to life and guard against senseless deaths. Which stance helps us get there more effectively, which stance is more consistent and more rationally sound, is what we should seek to discern and put in effect, pursuing truth wherever it leads us, regardless of what it spells for ideologies and agendas. Civil and constructive discourse that takes us beyond simplistic and illogical agendas to consistent and comprehensive positions is in order.

Still, in the end, after all the position statements have been written and intellectual consistency in whatever direction is attained, we still must account for the complexities and frailties of human life; human life is not a position statement. Even the adherent of the most consistent position must come face to face with the facts that one does not know how one will respond in the moment when faced with life and death scenarios. If we are not aware of the potential within each one of us for irrational reactions during crisis situations, we will likely be the ones most prone to shoot first from the hip.

This piece was originally published at Patheos on April 2, 2013.

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According to the New Testament, whether people are aware of it or not, they are living in Jesus’ matrix. This is how Paul sees things: Jesus is the firstborn of creation (Colossians 1:15) and the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18). He has supremacy over all things, whether people acknowledge his reign or not (Hebrews 2:5-9).

As I wrote in the volume Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths,

All people cry out for God. They cannot get out of the matrix of God’s framing of life. Whether they are in confessional booths at churches during Lent or in confessional booths on Reed’s campus during Renn Fayre [as told in Donald Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (Thomas Nelson, 2003)], they cry out for God. No matter where they go, in one way or another, they are looking for God. A statement often attributed to G. K. Chesterton puts it well: “every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is looking for God”—not just those who enter churches and confessional booths. In fact, some may even argue that we shouldn’t presume that all those who knock on the doors of churches are necessarily looking for God any more than those who knock on other doors. Some knocking on church doors might be trying to make sure that God is looking in their direction, trying to get him to take note of how righteous they are, and how great the need is for people like them. What they (and often I) fail to account for is that it is not the Pharisee in the temple standing proudly and thanking God for his self-righteousness who goes home forgiven and justified but the tax collector beating his breast and asking God for mercy (Luke 18:9–14).

Total depravity does not imply that we have lost the image or that we can never do anything that is good or true or beautiful or that we have no dignity. Rather total depravity implies that sin impacts every area of our lives, including the affections, will, and reason, and we can do nothing to cooperate with God to save ourselves. We are in a state of total desperation and dependence on God’s mercy for forgiveness, cleansing, and new life.

Having said all that, God is not left without witnesses in the creation. No matter how far we run away or how well we hide and pull on the wires, God pursues us and finds us and reaches out and rewires and restores us. In fact, as his creation we are wired to glorify him in one way or another—even though we have fallen. We cannot escape his goodness. Those of us who are Christians must repent of our brokenness bound up with religious pride and with it our failure to see the beauty of those who are not yet believers in Christ. We need to approach them—no matter their belief system and behaviors—with faith and hope and love, always hoping for the best (1 Corinthians 13:4–13), always longing for God to make all things and all people new. In view of God’s transforming work of the creation in and through Jesus in the Spirit, we must never look at anyone from a merely human point of view (2 Corinthians 5:16), be they Christians or not, for Christ’s work impacts all creation in various ways (Connecting Christ: How to Discuss Jesus in a World of Diverse Paths {Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2012}, pp. 43-44).

We Christians should not become arrogant based on the perspective that Christ reigns over all, whether or not people at present acknowledge his lordship. After all, the only basis for our bearing witness is God’s radical grace in the Spirit that makes it possible for us to witness to Christ. We do not have the capacity in and of ourselves. Just as we Christians should not be arrogant since our witness to Christ is dependent on God’s working in our midst through Christ in the Spirit, so too we should not be surprised when we find people outside the faith bearing witness to God in Christ from one angle or another. The same God who makes it possible for us to bear witness makes it possible for others to bear witness, whether they are cognizant of their witness or not. God in his grace makes it possible for them to bear witness. Moreover, all truth is God’s truth and originates with God’s living Word—Jesus—who is the universal logic that serves as the creative ground of all truths  (John 1:1-4).

I believe the Apostle Paul operated by way of an awareness of the Jesus Matrix. While he grieved over the idolatry he witnessed in Athens (Acts 17:16), he also sought to build bridges with the philosophers at Mars Hill in Athens, as he drew from their poetry and philosophy to make connections with them (Acts 17:28). He also made creative use of the statue dedicated to an unknown God (Acts 17:22-23). Paul did not shrink away from bearing particular witness to Jesus, his resurrection, and his lordship over all things (Acts 17:31). Many rejected what he said, but some of those gathered wanted to hear more (Acts 17:32-34).

In my experience, one of the best contemporary exemplars of seeking to guard against arrogance in Christian witness on the one hand and being attentive (rather than surprised) to the unexpected witness of those outside the church to Christ on the other hand is Tony Kriz, whom many know as the Beat Poet of Blue Like Jazz. His recent book Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places (Thomas Nelson, 2012) and his fresh, fine article “Can a Muslim Be God’s Voice to Me” in Leadership Journal model well this posture. Readers of Blue Like Jazz will want to read what Tony has to say in these works. I have been blessed to know Tony, a gifted evangelist, who is part of a long list of model evangelical witnesses who have served in the Pacific Northwest, including Rebecca Pippert, Joe Aldrich, and Luis Palau. Portland is, as Tony has said elsewhere, a wonderful living lab to bear witness to Christ. Portland is our own Mars Hill, where we seek through Scripture as well as philosophy and poetry at pubs and cafes and on the street and in temples to bear witness to Christ in contemporary culture.

As America becomes more and more spiritually and ideologically diverse, and the Bible Belt shrinks around our collective waist in America, Christians will find Tony’s approach to be instructive and beneficial in their attempt to bear witness to Christ. Although Christendom will continue to shrink, the Jesus Matrix never will. We need the kind of humility and confidence that Scripture promotes and that is centered in Christ so that we can speak meaningfully as well as truthfully in these changing times.