The Politics of God’s Kingdom

For a long time I have said: Wherever there are people, there are politics. Politics are the distinctive ways of organizing a community, ensuring justice and fair treatment for all members, and creating social structures to make it possible to live into those supreme values which the community serves. And make no mistake: Every community has its supreme values, its gods and masters, which it sacrifices for and serves. It may be power or profit or praise or pride or possessions or position. It may be God or gods or kings or supreme rulers or parties or free markets or liberty or control or ideology. But every community serves some set of supreme values. And every community creates structures and strictures and sanctions and stimulus packages to enact those values. 

So, unless we are going to live alone on a desert island, we will have politics because we will live with people. We were made for community. So it isn’t a question of IF we will be political, but HOW we will be political. And this is where I think the Way of Jesus offers a different kind of politics: A Way of Love. Not a way of imposing politics on others by force, but a way of inviting people into a politics of full human flourishing. Not a way of violence and exclusion and coercion. But a Way of healing and inclusion and persuasion. Not join us “or else death!” but join us “because of life!”

The Politics of the Kingdom of God is wholly different from the politics of the world and its crumbling fiefdoms. It calls God’s people out of partisan politics and into a deeper walk with Jesus; Out of step with the world and into step with Christ’s Spirit; Out of faith in parties and politicians and into faithfulness to the Father. Where each decision is not made to advance an ideological platform, but to love our neighbor in concrete ways; To judge situation by situation, and person by person, so we choose the most good and the least evil; The most life and the least death; The most love and the least hate; The most compassion and the least apathy. Because, as Saint Irenaeus reminds us, “the  glory of God is humanity fully alive”, but the death and destruction and degradation of any of God’s children dishonors the One who made them. So vote with ballots as a necessary evil when you must. But vote with Christlike words and deeds every day in every situation with every person God brings into your life. 

Creating Goals to become your Best Self

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3.12-14)

I originally wrote this as part of a training manual for how to integrate physical training with the rest of our lives. But I realized this section deals with ideas and practices that will help us attain excellence in any part of our lives. Because most of us want to be the best version of ourselves. But we often lack the tools to develop goals and plans to help us get there. And "failing to plan is planning to fail". To attain our best self, our strongest self, and our wisest self, we have to intend to become this, imagine what it might look like to be this, and plan the best way to get from where we are, to where we want to be. The material found here is helpful for this. And although most of the examples used here come from physical training, the underlying substance applies to becoming great in any endeavor.

Hope in a Hollow Culture

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1.2) 

It is easy to lose Hope in a counterfeit Consumer Culture like ours. Outwardly, we appear to have every resource and luxury, but inwardly so many of us are hollow and empty...

The Crumbling Metaphysics of Mammon

Despite radically different starting points, both the secular and religious person are duty bound, by the very fundamentals of their worldview, to oppose the absolute claims of the Market Economy to rule the affairs of humanity. Furthermore, they are even more duty bound to harness the powers of the economy to bring abundant life to humans. For money is created to serve humans, and not humans to serve money. The wealth of a nation is the health of its people, and the health of an economy is the health and well-being of the people served by that economy. There is no other metric that is meaningful or worthwhile. Is the economy increasing the life and health and wellbeing of those who live within it? Then it is a good economy that needs to be strengthened. Is the economy decreasing the life and health and wellbeing of those who live within it? Then it is a bad economy that needs to be reformed.

The Abolition of Man after a decade (or more)

Tonight I re-read CS Lewis’ “Abolition of Man” for the first time in over a decade. I now realize that, just as “Mere Christianity” has implicitly shaped my fundamental assumptions in theology and epistemology, so also “Abolition” has shaped my fundamental assumptions in ethics and education. For instance:

Begin with the End in mind?

To begin with the end in mind: This was an ideal of Christian ethics long before it was a catch phrase for design thinking, an axiom of corporate management culture, or a technique for scientific application. Although many Christians have forgotten this, much to our detriment and the world’s. 

Religion is in retreat! All hail the new gods!

Recently a spate of articles have come out showing, yet again, the rise of “The Nones”, who have no religious affiliation, while traditional religions continue to decline. While there is truth to this trend-- predominantly white Christian expressions in the USA are in decline in terms of numbers-- this is not the whole story. For a better insight into the polling data, I would look at Pew Religion. They offer some explanations to go along with the current American data, which is reflective of the European decline of religion last century, but not reflective of the growth of religion in Asia, Africa, and much of South America. However, there is no definitive explanation of why the decline in some places, and rise in others. So, let's take a look at one theory...

Heresies Alive!

This weekend I was honored to teach seminarians about the Age of the "Ecumenical Councils" and help them understand the heresies which helped define orthodoxy in the Imperial Church. One of the persistent problems in teaching this material is the interconnected and confusing convergence of different groups in the early Church and the specialized terminology they used to explain themselves and condemn each other. 

So, to help students understand these issues and concepts, I find it helpful to discuss how we find these heresies alive and well in our churches today. We tend to think of heresies as something that happened "back then" which are only of academic interest today. But the fact is, the same heresies pop up over and over and affect people in profound ways. Thus, I created the chart above (and available in PDF HERE) which helps students connect these heresies with the contemporary world. 

Truth is always Stranger

Tertullian once said “I believe because it is absurd”. It is the strangeness of an idea— it’s undeniable texture and inconsistent density— which is a hallmark of its truthfulness, and not the smoothness and consistency of an idea. The old quip that “truth is stranger than fiction” has much in common with Tertullian here. Fictions have smoothness and consistency, clear beginnings and symmetrical endings. But reality makes twists and turns which, while they do not contradict reason, neither can they be predicted by reason. Real things are irreducible, and defy being fully encapsulated in a conceptual system, to be rendered completely predictable, and hence controllable. 

The Lombardi Trophy and American Civil Religion

This Sunday I was fascinated by the presentation of the Lombardi Trophy at the Super Bowl, and how it becomes the final sacrament at one of the High Holy Days of American Civil Religion. As a scholar of religion, it was a particularly vivid example of how American Values can be concretized into a set of rituals and even in a central sacramental object. As a Christian pastor, it also kinda horrified me as an act of explicit idol worship. As many have pointed out, sports have become a functional form of religion in our culture, even if they may lack an explicit religious hierarchy or creed.

Idol Therapy

When taken at their best
Which is unfortunately far too rare
Religion and Skepticism
Are after the same thing
To smash the idols
Which ensnare the mind
And blind the eyes
And bind the heart
To oppression and addiction
To cruelty and hate
To death and destruction

And if you can ignore
The glaring exceptions
To these generalizations

So-called Western Faiths
With prophetic fury
Obliterate the idols
Which obstruct our eyes
So our Vision is clear
To see the Transcendent Source
Who lies beyond sight

While the so-called Eastern Paths
Show us that all creatures under heaven
Even the gods themselves
Are finite images
And partially opened windows
To see glimpses of the Infinite
Beyond yet within

All while Agnosticism groans
Whether and what God is
Is beyond what we can say
And Atheism bluntly declares
Nothing is God
And
God is Nothing

And taken at their best
Despite all their worst
They are all
Correct

Always Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

A Sermon For Year C, Easter 5
Copyright © 2010 Nathan L. Bostian
Based on John 13:31-35, Acts 11:1-18 and Rev. 21:1-6

The duty of every good pastor is to clearly and concisely teach and preach what God desires for our lives: To teach it clearly, in such a way that anyone can understand; To preach it concisely, in such a way that anyone can remember.

And although I feel I have been very clear about what I have taught you these last four years at Canterbury, I fear I have not been very concise. Our two hour Bible studies, while deep and intense and even hilarious, desperately resist being put into a "nutshell".

And now we are coming to the end of one Journey of Ministry, and we are beginning another. But before I leave, I want to give you the nutshell. The big picture. The cliff notes of what this has all been about.

Should Christians use images?

Today one of my college students sent me this question:

_________________________________
Hey... got a question for ya, I'll try to keep this short:

I attached a picture of the triquetra, one of my favorite trinity symbols. I was recently looking at the symbol on google, trying to find one that I think would look good on a t-shirt or something.

However, in what could only be God trying to compel me to delve further into religion, I discovered that in Acts 17:29, it says, "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill." Am I analyzing this way too much, or am I looking at a verse that basically says that I shouldn't, for example, wear a ring with the triquetra symbol on it? If you could maybe clear this up for me, that'd be yet another awesome point for ya. Thanks!
_________________________________

To which I answered...

Santadolatry?

Alright, I am not the biggest "anti-Santa" fanatic in the world.  I used to be, then I became a youth minister that occasionally has to work with young children, and I had a young child of my own.  I mean, I see the Consumerism in the whole thing.  I also hate the Santa-Claus view of God, in which God is benevolent grandpa in the sky who only gives good gifts to good girls and boys.  And, I think that Santa, as we know him in 21st century America, contributes to both consumerism and the Santa ideal of God.

Yet, just as the idea of Saint Nicholas as been co-opted to become the Santa Claus of mass marketing, so also the Santa Claus can be co-opted back to teach about Saint Nicholas and the Spirit of selfless giving that flows from Christ.  If the "Santa Myth" can be "spun" for bad, then it can also be "spun" for good.  So, I do not mind Santa so much anymore.  He is a morally neutral tool that can be used used to serve Jesus just as easily as he is used to serve selfishness.

Really? I hate that "god" too!

Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens--what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave--what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. (Job 11:7-9)

But Moses protested, "If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' they won't believe me. They will ask, 'Which god are you talking about? What is his name?' Then what should I tell them?" God replied, "I AM WHO I AM". Just tell them, 'I AM has sent me to you.' ...This will be my name forever; it has always been my name, and it will be used throughout all generations." (Exodus 3:13-15)

Will the real God please stand up?

When I talk to people who say they do not believe in God, or that they hate Him, one of the first questions I ask them is "What kind of God do you not believe in"? This may sound like an odd question, because it is clear what we mean when we say "God", right? Wrong. There are lots of misconceptions out there about who and what God is. Some of these misconceptions have, sadly, even been taught to people in Church. It is no wonder they have turned from "god", because their "god" is not really "god" at all, but a very poorly drawn caricature of the God who reveals Himself in the Bible. It often turns out that I do not believe in their "god" either. In fact, I often hate the god they hate too, because their god is a false, harmful lie that drives people from the real God.

So what are some of the misconceptions? I will mention a few: