Love: The Highest Virtue

American culture has a high regard for practicing tolerance.  This shows a shift in culture. In part that shift brings a cultural freedom to allow people to be themselves without fear of being discriminated against.  Of course, we, as a culture, haven’t reached that ideal, but it is rapidly becoming a social norm. 

In the past, people still did the things that were not socially acceptable for whatever reason, but did them in secret.  Somehow we thought this preferable because we can ignore what we didn’t approve of and go on our merry way.  Now a new wave of cultural tolerance continues to take shape.  Enough time has not passed to see what the affects will be on society. 

C.S. Lewis once commented that church attendance at Oxford had been compulsory. He preferred the change of it not being mandatory, because now people could be themselves and not pretend to be something they didn’t want to be because society demanded it.  He said the former was helping no one, and the later created conditions for real change for the right reasons. 

A shift is happening in the Church as well.  Not in all churches, but in the environment of many churches across the nation and globally.  This shift can look like tolerance to the untrained eye, but there is something deeper something more life changing in this shift.  It’s a shift of love and freedom. 

A culture of freedom is being issued forth within some key international ministries.  This freedom is one that wants people to be who they are without fear of punishment, ostracizing, or discrimination. It is a freedom that loves enough to not require people to hide their junk.  This is accomplished through love. 

Perfect love cast out all fear.  Love is a value that is higher than the value of tolerance and requires more of the giver than tolerance.  However, true love is not something you have to work up for people it is something we acquire from experiencing God’s love.  Our heart gets filled up with His supernatural love and it pours out to people.  That love doesn’t expect people to hide their junk.  It also rejoices in the truth.  It doesn’t call bad good to make a person feel better, but it also doesn’t point out the faults of others.  It points out the truth about the real you. 

In contrast, tolerance leaves people in their bondage by celebrating it with them. It says, not only do I have no right to call anything you do wrong, I think it is totally awesome that you do what you do and I hope you keep it up and that you never listen to anyone that says it isn’t right. 

Love says I’ll be your friend no matter what your hang ups are. It quietly waits until the person wants to be free from those hang ups and asks how that could happen.  All the while, love speaks out the truth about that person. Love releases kindness, compassion, and peace to that person. Love builds them up, rather than tearing them down. Love makes their heart fly.  Love gently cuts the ropes that bind them.

It points out how special a person is. How good they are. How delightful they are to the Kingdom of God and how much God loves them.  It doesn’t rejoice in their faults, or tell them all about how much they messed up. It rejoices in who God made them to be and helps by coming along side them and walking out that true life moment by moment. 

There are times when rebukes, justice, punitive actions, have a place, but these would be few and far between in a culture of freedom and love.  These would be akin to the rare times a child would need a spanking rather than the predominate response to the junk in the lives of those living in our community or in relationship with us. 

Tolerance has been a response society has vied for in contrast to the religious legalism that was once predominating in America.  Now such people are looked at as fundamental fanatics are not seen in a good light by most anybody.  This is a good shift. There was an error in the response of the Church to people in and outside of church community that caused society at large to take measures contrary to that sentiment. 

The Church should have been the one to lead this charge of the way of love rather than needing a movement of tolerance.  I apologize on behalf of the Church for the necessity of a tolerance movement.  If we had been practicing love, there would have been no need for this.  I am excited to see and be a part of the shift that is happening in the Church to build a culture of freedom, honor, and love that will not only change churches and ministries across the globe, but the home and marketplace as well.  Great things are coming.  

Christianity & Culture

Historically Christians have taken five views of how our Christianity should be lived in society at large.

One view is that our life with Christ ought to be completely separated from those who do not share our faith and thus Christians shouldn’t mingle with non-Christians at all. Such a view point was lived out in monastic life and also in communities like the Amish who live separate from the rest of society.

The second view that the Church has had is to assimilate into culture allowing the culture to set the standards and the church to adapt to whatever those standards may be. This view is usually associated with those who are often identified as liberal Protestants.

A third view is that is that Christ ought to reign above culture in such a away that often lends to the ideology of institutionalizing Christianity into society as was done by Constantine. The Reformation challenged this idea and yet some still maintain this way of thinking.

The fourth view is found in the writings of Martin Luther in that Christ and Culture are in paradox and the two worldviews are always at odds and one only has authority over certain aspects of culture and the other has authority over others but the tension always remains between the two. The Christian, Luther argues, is to live out Christian morality in private by self-governance through love, but the secular world will still need enforceable laws to keep it in order.

The last view on this topic is that Christ transforms culture. This view dates back to the writings of Augustine, but is mostly found in Protestantism as espoused by John Wesley, John Calvin, and Karl Barth, as well as the Great Awakening ministers. In the twentieth century this view was championed by a missionary named Lesslie Newbigin. This approach follows the idea that God’s truth works for all people and shouldn’t be kept to the Church, but given to society to help transform society very much unlike an institutionalized Constantine way of looking at it. It is the view that God has principals that can help any society work better to maintain freedom, peace, justice, and happiness.

These principals when put into effect can create a healthier culture. But this view does not impose these principals, but works to teach them and show their validity by example. This is not a view that seeks to merge church in state, but a view that seeks to give contribution from the church to the culture in which it serves.

This last view has not been practiced much in Christianity, but is now gaining momentum in the modern Church. This last view is one I agree with in that Christians have something to offer the world and that something cannot be forced or institutionalized, but it can be freely given to those who are interested to try it out. If we really do know God and really do hear from Him then we shouldn’t keep that locked up inside our private sector, but offer it to those seeking to make the society we all live in better. However, within this view is the idea that if someone is offering a solution to society that works really well that the church should champion that person’s solution even if that person isn’t a Christian. People can tap into God’s order and God’s principals even if they are not Christian and Christians should recognize and get behind anyone who is working to make our society healthier.

(Source for Historical Data: Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution by Alister McGrath : Oxford Professor, theologian, historian, and biochemist)

Heavenly Reality

Being in relationship with Jesus is about living a heavenly reality with Him now and in eternity. Eternity begins in our hearts when we enter fellowship with Jesus and continues after we pass from earth. Living a life with Jesus cannot be simplified to mere moral living. It’s about living out a new reality and being harbingers of the Kingdom of God. It’s about effecting earth with heaven. When heaven invades earth, miracles happen. When heaven touches earth, earth transforms to take on the reality of heaven. Living a life with Jesus opens up doors to the supernatural world that allows us to effectuate change upon and within this earth to truly bring the reality of heaven to earth.

Too often Christians give the impression that Jesus only saves us from hell and helps us live good moral lives. Too often, I hear atheists think this the epitome of Christianity. Christians mistakenly produce this erroneous idea. Most mean well, but you won’t find it in Scripture.

Life with Christ is tangibly experiential as well as logically sound. Science has been elevated way past it’s realm of expertise to delineate that there is nothing beyond the natural world. However if the natural world is all science can study then science is claiming to know something it cannot know. If it is true that there is no scientific evidence for the existence of God or the supernatural world then that is because such evidence extends beyond the reaches of science.

Do we only know things by our minds? Do we not also employ our hearts, souls, and spirits in our quest for knowledge? Why do we elevate our minds so high that it trumps the rest of our being? Our reasoning isn’t so infallible as to be the end all way of attaining knowledge of the real. If we live by our heart and ignore our mind we are out of sync, yet if we live with our mind and ignore our heart and soul and emotions we are also out of balance.

Humans are spiritual and physical beings. We need both to be complete. If we ignore one and elevate the other we are out of kilter with reality. It is interesting to note, that only in Western civilization has atheism taken root. The only other place other than Europe and America/Canada where it has any life is in South Africa and only in predominately British communities. The rest of the world is teaming with spirituality and supernaturalism of all kinds. They have experienced that reality and atheism cannot take hold when there are so many tangible experiences of the spiritual world rampant in those societies.

That is the main reason why I could never be convinced of atheism. It’s not the compelling logical arguments that draw me to the Lord, though there are many sound arguments for His existence along with arguments to the contrary. It’s His presence that I have tangibly experienced and all the facets of my real relationship with Him that are impossible to deny. I haven’t just read the book written by the Lord, I’ve experienced its contents and I am pressing in to know more of Him and experience more of Him. It is because of this that I feel so compelled to help others come to know Him too. He is way too good not to share with the world.

Necessity of the Supernatural Life

It is amazing to me how society takes such aversion to anything supernatural. Popular culture tries to discredit anything that has Christian morality behind it or claims to be supernatural. I’ve seen two major examples of this in recent news. One is the continual barrage of articles attacking Sarah Palin’s competence based on her adherence to Christian conservative morality and her potential allegiance with ministries that support Christians being endowed with supernatural gifts of healing, miracles, and revelation. It’s interesting that I had no interest in either Presidential candidate until Sarah Palin was chosen as McCain’s Vice Presidential running mate. Actually, it wasn’t until all the negative press that I began to take note of this woman and began to like everything I was hearing about her that was being journalistically twisted as relaying her incompetence. This country was founded upon Christian principals. It’s a sad day to see people appalled by a candidate with Christian morality and theology as antiquated, incompetent, and destructive for the country. I’m not sure our nation realizes what it is asking for when it wants “progressive” liberalized morality with no foundation upon God. Do we really want such a foundation? Let us consider those countries with this kind of secularist anti-God foundation were known for their slaughter of millions of innocent lives. Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini are prime examples of government leaders who based their communistic dictatorship on Karl Marx’s atheism.

The second major example is the British host of the MTV awards making fun of the Jonas Brother’s commitment to purity with dripping vehemence. Have we gone mad? Is it not refreshing to see young men wanting to save themselves for their future wives and to care for them only without any baggage of past sexual relationships? We are talking young men in the Holywood spotlight! This is unheard of in today’s normalcy of broken marriages, affairs, fornications rampant in Holywood. Kudos to them for maintaining such a testimony of great character in the face of such immorality.

I say all this with understanding that is not fully society’s fault for thinking this way. It is the Church’s responsibility to shine the truth through the way we love. We have failed to show our society that God has the answers to its problems. The world looks at our problems and doesn’t see any reason to look to us for any answers.

How can we fix this problem and stop the deterioration of our government and country which is fast approaching the rampant secularism of modern Europe?

1) Christians need to take serious their responsibility to be lights in the darkness. Not to rise up in religious outrage, but to be examples of Christ love and the wholeness He produces in our lives. Let us be salt and light in this world by the testimony of our lives lived in open devotion to Christ with love for each other and everyone else being evident in our lives.

2) Christians need to operate in their supernatural giftings and not be afraid of praying for the sick. We must step out and do what Jesus called us to do, “heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons.” There can be no denying God’s existence and the evidence of the supernatural when people are rising from the dead, legs are growing out, cancer is disappearing, and people are being set free from the demonic influences in their lives.

3) G.K. Chesterton, a famous Christian writer, once answered an editorial question “What’s wrong with the world?” with the shortest editorial response “I am.” We need to look in ourselves and see the need for a Savior for the evil in our own hearts. We want to right the world and end injustice, pain, suffering, and evil. We need to realize that we ourselves have a plank in our eye that we need Jesus to restore us so that we can love our neighbor the way we should and see the love of God change hearts and minds. We can’t point the finger at others as the problem of the world. To think this way would be like expecting a child to potty train himself. We know the answer; we are more responsible for the world’s problems than those who don’t know Jesus. If we don’t rise lovingly to help our culture transform to the Kingdom of God, who will?

4) In keeping with that, our culture will not be transformed by physical force, but by the love of God. It will be by loving our neighbors as our self, by going the extra mile, by turning the other cheek, by not returning wrong for wrong, by doing good to those who persecute us, by loving our enemies, by praying for our nation, by healing the sick, and by preaching the Kingdom of God.

Rise up Church. Rise up in love.