Empire (Part Four)

The Bible is a story with several smaller stories that tell the story of insignificant nations being conquered by large Empires, and God’s provision for groups of people who cry out in despair for His aid (see this book for more). The problem is, after several generations, people begin to accept Empire as a normal way of life.

At the arrival of Jesus, many of the Jewish people were on pins and needles for God to intervene on behalf of their Hebrew nation to rid them of the Roman Empire. The Disciples craved Jesus’ end to the Roman occupation of their borders, but Jesus rarely acknowledged the Romans explicitly (though he implied such in many encounters, including the Gadarene Demoniac). Jesus told his followers to pray for God’s Kingdom to come, which was a very political statement (just ask the Romans, who executed Him).

After Jesus’ resurrection, his followers began to build this Kingdom Jesus proposed, but it wasn’t built with bricks. Instead, it was built with people (or “living stones,” as Peter called it). With their swords beaten into plowshares and their spears traded for pruning hooks, this people, known as “The Way” began constructing a different kind of Empire – the Empire of Christ. It was a community that chose love, had respect for the dead, gave before it took, and would die for their cause. Borders meant nothing, for this was to be a global nation.

One of their leaders from Turkey named Saul (later Paul) wrote something interesting to a mega-church in Ephesus:

We don’t fight against people. We fight against the Kingdoms and Kings of spiritual wickedness, darkness, and blindness.

This letter-writer was advising his fellow builders of Jesus’ Empire to lay down their guns and recognize their real struggle. It wasn’t Nero on the throne of Rome, it was the systems and spiritual inflences that made Nero do what Nero did. It was the structures and sources of Anti-Kingdom.

Another of Jesus’ followers, John, got in so much trouble for spreading this Empire that he was sentenced to die on an island. While there, he wrote a letter to other Kingdom builders, giving them a different perspective for their journey. This was a Revelation from John that saw the Roman Empire as a giant beast that arose from the (Mediterranean) Sea to swallow up their movement and destroy them, but the bigger struggle wasn’t with the political Rome, but the system Rome brought with it.

Everything from buying and selling to safety and homeland security required those within the Roman Empire to pledge allegiance to Caesar Nero and take a mark on their head or hand on the way (known to prophecy gurus as 616, possibly the true rendering of the infamous “666”). Worse, though, was that Rome was part of the world system of vengence, revenge, war, violence, and power structures designed to dehumanize.

John was so worried about this that he called this system a prostitute and cautioned Kingdom builders about her temptation. All the other cultures had been “drinking the wine and wrath of her sexcapades, and the CEOs of the multinational corporations have propheted greatly through her endeavors. John warns (in Revelation 18), metaphorically:

Get your bodies out of that prostitute before she brings you sexual pleasure, too. You’ll become just like her if you don’t!

The Christians did build a great Kingdom, one we share in today. But what happens when that Kingdom, designed to be a spiritual Kingdom and an alternative community within society, is made to be a literal Empire with borders? And when it happens, and we live in the tension of these Kingdoms, how shall we live?

Stay tuned for the final installment of “Empire.”

Sexual Screw-ups & Church Authority

I was reading a friend’s blog about a news story out of Jacksonville, Florida. A woman from a church has been living with her boyfriend in a sexually active relationship and is slated to be “outted” by the church on January 4th in front of her friends and children for refusing to repent and change.

The church has followed a process they call the “process of loving accountability,” wherein they first have someone talk to her privately, then with a group of women, all encouraging her to sever the relationship with the man whom she says she loves. With her refusal, they have given her one month to change before her dirty laundry is aired before everyone.

The story is written from her side to make her good and the church evil for this process. The truth is, the church is doing what is probably in her best interest. Human beings aren’t made to have sex without commitment. There are no worse break-ups than those that stem from a sexual relationship that lacked both sides committing to give each other everything they can, from their possessions to their dreams. Sex without commitment could be thought of as assisted masturbation – its designed to pleasure yourself rather than someone else.

That being said,  Paul wrote a letter to the church of Corinth (commonly called 1 Corinthians) to deal with a church member who was sleeping with his step-mother. The process this church is following is actually what Paul prescribed to deal with the situation right down to the letter. The person had been spoken to personally, mentored by a church member, and even outted to the entire community, but refused to change his lifestyle. Paul recommended full excommunication until the person changes his lifestyle.

The purpose of this was not to undermine the individual, but to maintain the integrity of the community, ensure that the church was different than the Vegas-like Corinthian culture, and ensure that the person isn’t in sexual sin (which makes the person’s heart a heartbeat from a heartbreak).

2 Corinthians was later written after the incident. The person who’d been sleeping with his stepmother finally repented and wanted to change his life. Paul used this book to prescribe a discipleship and grace process to restore him into the community.

This woman is going to be outted in front of Grace Community Church, but its the church’s way of trying to help her. One of the downsides of the Protestant Reformation has been the death of excommunication, the removal of a person from full participation in the community (such as activities, communion, and more). Since there are 30 churches in town, the First Baptist Church’s excommunication means nothing when a parishioner can drive down the road to First Episcopalian or Jesus Tabernacle the following week. 

Churches must find ways to re-establish the value of their authority. Churches must instill a belief that this isn’t for their benefit so much as the individual’s benefit. Telling someone not to do something just because the Bible says so won’t fly to a postmodern world. But making your truth become their truth will always fulfill a need for both parties.

As for the church in Florida, I hope to get an update on the result soon. Should be interesting.

An Open Letter to Baby Boomers

Dear Baby Boomers (click here to find out what a Baby Boomer is),

I write to you while sitting in a chair at my local public library. Having had a conversation recently with my parents, aunts, and uncles, I am compelled to notify you that I would appreciate it if you would join me in analyzing your generation’s collective experiment and the ramifications of your choices for Generation X, Millennials, and other future generations.

Your generation began to emerge into prominence during Vietnam and following JFK’s tragic death and became rather vocal about your displeasure for American society. Piggybacking off the Beatnik movement, you challenged cultural assumptions en route to transforming culture into your own mold. With the bluster of change that could only be classified as a cultural revival, you challenged everything and brought America to its knees at your very presence thanks to your numbers and the noise your voices created.

I can’t speak well for you, as I wasn’t born after World War II, but I think I understand what you were after. Yes, the 1950s were really, well, plain. Everyone had the same car, same haircut, and same Levitt & Sons house that all screamed “conformity.” To spice up life, rock the boat, and try new things, you discovered new means to live. LSD became your new sugar cereal. Rock & Roll was amazing. Being more open about sex became your norm.

After Woodstock, you grew up. It was time to move on to bigger things: conquering a nation. Your older cousins, the Silent Generation, let you trample them miserably on your way to becoming CEOs, storming politics, packing the courts, and industrializing the nation. Its amazing how just 20 years or so of your generation has made such an impact on culture.

However, my purpose in writing this letter is to ask you a question that may haunt you, but I feel it is valid. Can you honestly say that you will be leaving America better than you found it?

Today, my generation is beginning to enter your workforce to take over your newly created cubicles as you retire, though we are moving into a different workplace. At one time, a corporation existed to improve people’s lives and communities. Today, by definition in college, a corporation exists to “raise shareholder wealth.” Thank you very much for your sweat shops that imprison children, the corporate landfills you created, and thousands of acres of forests you removed to build bigger buildings. We couldn’t have have made it without that.

Thank you very much for accepting the notions of philosophers who would have better been found in other places in time. “If it feels good, do it” has really helped decrease the number of people in prisons. “God is dead” really raised the bar for hope. “Sex, drugs, and rock & roll” has improved family lives for everyone.

Thank you for selling us to day cares so you could work. We appreciate the bigger houses, cars, and 200 TV channels we got for the trade, but really, your time would have been a lot more. You chose to work to “make ends meet” that you never had to create, so we decided that since you didn’t want us, we’d have to raise ourselves. Its okay – without you guiding us, we found ways to increase teen pregnancy, STDs, high school dropout rates, and juveneille crime without you. As we move out of your homes, we hope your 61″ HDTVs, boats, and Hummers were worth the price. They cost us a lot.

Thank you for deciding how schools should train us for your “real world.” Learning to think for ourselves by taking tests, learning how to type instead of handwrite, training us that spellcheck is better than phonics, and removing the concept of failure from our lives is wonderful. Not only can we not function in society, but we refuse to believe that we can’t function. At least we have our self-esteem. Go ahead and fire us in your workplaces – you never taught us commitment, anyways.

Thank you for all the prosperity you have brought to America by working your tails off. We really appreciate you earning your social security, though we’re not sure you made it into a system we can leave for you. Fortunately, you’ve all been saving all the pay from your overtime hours to make up the difference when we are forced to shut it down because you turned it into a bankrupt system.

Thank you for leaving us with a world where we are respected by other nations. The Europeans can’t wait to work with us in diplomacy, the Islamic World will forgive us really quickly for killing all their civilians, and the Africans didn’t want help with AIDS, anyways. They realize that spending $15,000 for toilets and other necessities you signed into law are more important.

As we take over your jobs, we look forward to finding all the problems you’ve left for us and transforming our world to what you were supposed to make it. Don’t worry – all the experts say we’ll probably do more for society than even our grandparents. You just sit back and enjoy the reality TV you created in your excessive homes while we’ll take care of everything.

Who are the parents now?

Sincerely,
Millennials