How do you solve the world's problems?

I am a Christian -- sometimes in spite of myself.
I've never been one to fit neatly into a box. The T-shirts with the logos on them are usually a horrible fit for me.

But at the end of the day, you have to be *something* and I am a Christian.

As a Christian -- in order to call myself that -- I have to believe in Christ. So what does that mean: "believe in Christ"? Part of it means, I have to believe that, as the old bumper sticker said, "Jesus is the answer."
I always used to joke around about that, saying "what is the question"? But the truth is, it doesn't matter.

In order to be a Christian, I have to believe that Christ was right. I have to believe that the basic principles of Christianity are accurate. I'd be an idiot to knowingly be a Christian and still believe that Christianity is wrong. Can you imagine? "well, I believe that Buddha is probably right about how to live, so I'm a Christian".

When I look at the world, and the church, I don't see much of this "Christ is the answer" attitude, though.
Listen. Go to church, watch TV, read the newspapers and listen. Tear it apart, bounce it off of the sayings of Christ and think.

What you hear is that Christ is the answer, unless you're talking about money, then you need a good financial adviser. What you hear is that Christ is the answer, unless you're thinking about politics, then you need a good political agenda. Or that Christ is the answer, unless you're talking about saving your marriage, then you need a 10-step plan which involves Dr. Phil. ("How's that working for you", by the way?).

How do you address the poverty in Africa? What programs do you believe in to really solve the aids crisis? What do we do as a nation about the political instability in Central America? How do I plan for my retirement? How do I live a more healthy and active lifestyle? How do I win my lover's heart?
Christ is the answer.

We want laws. We want movements. We want organizations. We want plans and strategies. We call in the military. We apply economic pressure. We consult the pop-sages. We join Jenny Craig. We apply sound, academically approved economic models to our businesses. We set up our youth groups to mimic the way the boy scouts are organized. We read articles on how to be promoted at work. We embrace political candidates and ideas.

These are all great and everything. But Jesus didn't do any of it.
None. Zero. The closest thing to His financial adviser was Judas. The nearest He ever got to a political campaign was "Render unto Caesar...". The closest He got to starting an organization was "go ye, therefore".

And Christ is the real answer.

How do you address political corruption in Central America? You show them Christ. You help them. You serve them. You show them that there is an alternative to hatred and greed.

How do you address the aids crisis? You show them Christ. You help them. You serve them. You show them that there is an alternative to hopelessness and abuse.

How do you plan for retirement? You look at Christ. You help others. You serve them. You show people that there are other things in life besides 401Ks and early retirement.

All of the other things we chase after are great. We need to vote in November and so it is important to vote responsibly. But we need to move beyond the naivety of thinking that a President can have the answer. Presidents can impact the world, but they cannot fundamentally change it. Only Christ has that power.
Presidents can do good things or bad things that help people or hurt them. Of course, the truth is that they will do some of both. But in the end, after a zillion Presidents and Princes and Shahs and Kings, we are basically the same. The boarders change, the power shifts, the people rise and fall, but the world doesn't really change much.

Christ is the answer.

And if you believe anything else, then I would humbly assert that you're either not a Christian or a fool for following what you don't really believe.

Sin

I've been thinking about original sin. Seems to me there are 2 kinds of original sin. There is the original sin – that is, Adam and Eve in the garden and the apple and all. And then there’s “Original Sin” as a systematic doctrine. That is, the sin we’ve inherited what Calvin and(as usual, Wikipedia has an nice section on it).

It always seemed strange to me that we could inherit sin. I mean, how could we be held responsible for something someone else did? Not that we don’t have enough sin in our lives anyway, but the idea that a newborn baby is guilty of “Original Sin” has always confused me. So I started thinking about what “Original Sin” really is. Maybe it has to do with power.

The sin of Adam and Eve was that they wanted to be “like God”, knowing the difference between right and wrong. This is really strange, since they clearly knew that eating the apple was wrong. So didn't they already know the difference, but weren't acting on it?

But I am thinking the "know good from evil" is a bigger question and somewhat of a paradox. I think it may be more like "wanted to proclaim good from evil." In a sense, isn't that what we do? We have our opinions on good and evil about everything from ethics to wars to politics to people's choice in clothing. I *think* they may have wanted to know it all -- to be in a position where they were able to sit and proclaim right and wrong in every situation. And perhaps, the implication is that they wanted to have the power to make it so.

Perhaps the real thing maybe was that they wanted to be “like God” -- not in that they wanted to be Godly. They wanted control over the universe. But they weren’t gods. In some ways, they were given control over the universe. And even today, we pretty much control everything. But they didn’t have God’s “Godness”. So they were left trying to control a universe that they didn’t understand and couldn’t really master.

Perhaps that desire, that need to push along what's right -- to know emphatically the best course every time about everything -- and the the "God-like-ness" to be clever enough or powerful enough to carry it out is the Original Sin.

We are born into a world that is ruled by those who are trying to play God. So, from birth, we’re taught that we’re in control and we’re not taught about God. And we have to deal with the world system controlling parts of our lives, but this isn’t God. We are rewarded as "leaders" if we take charge and enforce "good." We pass laws to force people to obey the "good." In that, we proclaim that we know good from evil and that we have the power to force people to obey.

I'm honestly not sure I'm right, but it does seem to make sense to me. To be less "Adam-esque," we should be less convicted of our own discernment. I'm not saying we should never render a thought on what is good or evil, but that our focus should be on how we live that out, not how we can enforce our ideas on someone else. Had Adam & Eve just focused on how to live what God had already told them was good, they wouldn't have gotten into trouble. The irony is that they did what was evil in the name of the good. But that seems so natural in our world, doesn't it?

On the other hand, I don't see how a baby can be "sinful" as the Calinists teach. I am still not sure this answers that.

I've thought a lot about how we use the ends to justify our means the way that Adam & Eve did, but I'll save that for later.

Speechless

I saw this today:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080303/od_nm/italy_saint_dc_2;_ylt=ApYlTTQxGAPAlxl9krcavvoE1vAI


I was going to blog my thoughts on this, since it touches on a question I've long wondered -- how do evangelical Christians explain miracles outside the evangelical Christian faith?

But I'm left so speechless by this, that I can't even add to it. Let me know what you think.

the end of the world is near

One of our local mega-churches is running a "we are in the final days" series, complete with TV adds showing a ticking clock.

Do you think the congregation realizes that people have been convinced we were in the final days for two *thousand* years? It's clear that the early disciples were generally convinced that the world would end in their lifetime.

I am convinced that, had I been alive in 1940, I would have been absolutely convinced it was the end. Adolf Hitler seemed to fit the "anti-Christ" model so well, that I can't believe he wasn't. The persecution of the Jews, the alliance of nations build on the rubble of the Roman Empire (it was the Germans who sacked Rome, after all), the mark of the beast (Nazi flag), the persecution of Christians (Bonhoefferand others), how could you think otherwise. The whole 666 thing was not quite as simple, but just about everything else seemed to fit.
But, the best information I can find is that the world didn't end in 1945. Perhaps we will look back from eternity and find that this was the beginning of the end -- the starting of the Jewish state, the ushering in of atomic war. Or perhaps we will find it was not.

But I wonder whatever happened to the bookcases filled with books about the end of the world being in the year 2000 or in 1988 or 1955 or 1970 or whenever.

And I wonder if the people in the congregations actually think that maybe the pastor may not know the exact day or the hour or even the century. And if he doesn't, he would be in the company of 20 centuries of others just like him