Dealing with Idolatry--ideology

"...fidelity to the gospel lies not in repeating its slogans but in plunging the prevailing idolatries into its corrosive acids. We must learn to address the spirituality of institutions, as well as their visible manifestations with the ultimate claim of the Ultimate Human." Walter Wink

The Real history of the Church

Myth and lack of historical fact checking often lead to a misreading and a misunderstanding of history. One of those places we've believed myth over reality is in the crusades. In his book God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades Rodney Stark takes on the myths that have been passed down through the centuries. Scholar Thomas Madden does a similar debunking in his article on the Inquisition. Here is a bit of the article:

"The Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions. Yes, you read that correctly. Heresy was a crime against the state. Roman law in the Code of Justinian made it a capital offense. Rulers, whose authority was believed to come from God, had no patience for heretics. Neither did common people, who saw them as dangerous outsiders who would bring down divine wrath. When someone was accused of heresy in the early Middle Ages, they were brought to the local lord for judgment, just as if they had stolen a pig or damaged shrubbery (really, it was a serious crime in England). Yet in contrast to those crimes, it was not so easy to discern whether the accused was really a heretic. For starters, one needed some basic theological training — something most medieval lords sorely lacked. The result is that uncounted thousands across Europe were executed by secular authorities without fair trials or a competent assessment of the validity of the charge.

The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition, first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184. It was born out of a need to provide fair trials for accused heretics using laws of evidence and presided over by knowledgeable judges. From the perspective of secular authorities, heretics were traitors to God and the king and therefore deserved death. From the perspective of the Church, however, heretics were lost sheep who had strayed from the flock. As shepherds, the pope and bishops had a duty to bring them back into the fold, just as the Good Shepherd had commanded them. So, while medieval secular leaders were trying to safeguard their kingdoms, the Church was trying to save souls. The Inquisition provided a means for heretics to escape death and return to the community."

On Being Safe and Culturally insignficant

I was looking back at some work I'd done in the book of Proverbs and came across the following words. I don't remember if I wrote them or if they came from another source, nevertheless they reflect a reality that many of us in the Christian community live in.

On the surface, cultural separation masks itself as a form of godliness, but a closer look reveals an enterprise driven more by self-preservation than anything. “We may bemoan a moral decline in the country. Our actual concern, if truth be known, is not to see a vital Christianity flourish, but rather to secure a more orderly and less violent society in which to live out our comfortable and self-satisfied lives.” In other words, we want a safer world. We are not as concerned about the salvation of those in the world as much as we want them to behave better around us for our comfort.

This is where so much of our current attitude and approach to the world differs from God’s will as expressed in the prayer of Jesus in John 17. We want to be safe in a safer world; God wants us safe in an unsafe world. We want to protect ourselves by removing ourselves from danger; God wants to protect us in the middle of danger. These differences may seem insignificant on the surface, but in fact they are huge, involving entirely different worldviews and ramifications.

This theory of safety through removing ourselves from the world could be one of the most dangerous doctrines to invade the church in recent years. It is now thought to be more spiritual to be safe from the world than to interact with it.

What would it look like if we traded in a doctrine of safety for a doctrine of engaging the world? What impact would it have on the way we raise our kids?

America: The Founding Fathers

There is a debate that seems to rage continually about whether the U.S. was founded by Christians or by secularists who used some Christian language. Both sides of this debate have much invested in their view since if their view wins the day, they can appeal to it to set directions and disenfranchise the other side. I've done some reading on this whole issue and have always been leery of the "Christian America" idea. At the same time it is clear that there some type of religious roots in the founding of the U.S. A recent article by Alissa Wilkinson helped me sort through a lot of the fog.

If this is something you've wondered about or fought for one side or the other it is worth the read.