The Foreignist

Here’s part of the problem I have with the way the rapture is taught (to be accurate, let’s call it the “rapture theory”).

This is not one of those church signs you can make up online. I obfuscated the name of this house of worship because I don’t know the people there, and they might be great people. BUT state employees and politicians better watch out. You’re gonna get yours!

I just don’t like how focusing on the rapture brings out the tendency towards an us versus them mentality. It’s definitely not something we want to advertise to passersby. Even “A dusty Bible makes for a dirty life” would communicate something a little less belligerent.

It’s a different way of expressing us versus them-style Christianity, but this was WEHTJS Part 1.

“For God so loved U.S. Americans that he…..”

Somewhere, Lee Greenwood sighs deeply.

Although it was a huge drag to not spend Christmas with our extended family when we lived in Croatia, I did enjoy some of the Croatian and Catholic aspects of the Christmas. The biggest difference is that the Christmas season gets started on December 6th - St. Nicholas Day. This is the day when, in their tradition, the bearded old saint comes to leave (small) gifts in the children’s stockings. No businesses shut down, kids still go to school - but everyone honors the saint who stood in defense of the poor and of children in the face of persecution from Diocletian (the Roman emperor who built Split, Croatia). Children exchange chocolate Santas with their friends. I like this tradition because it gets “Santa” out of the way before Christmas rolls around. Children get to have their Santa and not be confused as to what Christmas is about. AND parents get full credit for Christmas gifts.

Croatians also start growing a small patch of grass or moss inside their house a few weeks before Christmas. It’s used as part of the nativity scene that they set up in their house. It makes it look more natural and symbolizes the life that came at Christmas. Most of their nativity scenes stand in stark contrast to ours in their simplicity - ours this year being the worst I’ve ever seen. The one we put up this year looks like the old TBN set including a stained-glass window.

Croatians wait until Christmas Eve to set up their Christmas tree. The family works on it together as they get ready for their big meal together. Of course, most people go to mass that night because it’s Catholic tradition that Jesus was born on or around midnight on December 25. Another tradition that I really like is that as the parents put their children to bed on Christmas Eve they tuck a little bit of hay under their pillows. Of course it’s just symbolic, but it’s to remind the children how our Saviour came into the world - in a barn. I love multi-sensory teaching tools like that. We ate the seder meal as a family for a Passover/Easter lesson this year. If the Croatians don’t mind, I’m borrowing the hay thing.

Many of the more devout Catholics also honor St. Stephen on December 26th, acknowledging the first of many martyrs.

Then Christmas lasts until the Feast of Epiphany, a.k.a. day of the three kings, which I was never clear on when it was - somewhere around January 6th. You are supposed to take your tree down on that day. The streets are literally line with trees since a majority of people take them down on that day. You don’t have to take it down then, but you don’t want to leave it up much longer. Eastern Orthodox Christmas season starts in just a few days and you DO NOT want to appear to be celebrating THAT.

Now for a moment of gratuitis self-disclosure - I’m not afraid to expose my ignorance. Bible verses like Romans 10:17 leave me flummoxed (see context). Because I’m not a Greek scholar, I have no idea what the original manuscript says. But after looking at the different translations into English, I’m not sure anyone understands exactly what the original manuscript means.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. -NIV

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. -NASB

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. -NKJV

Yet faith comes from listening to this message of good news - the Good News about Christ. -New Living

So then, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message comes through preaching Christ. -Good News Translation

(Belief you see, can only come from hearing the message, and the message is the word of Christ.) -JB Phillips Translation

The point is, Before you trust, you have to listen. But unless Christ’s Word is preached, there’s nothing to listen to. -The Message

So faith comes from hearing the Good News, and people hear the Good News when someone tells them about Christ. -New Century Version

I think this verse is parenthetical (Phillips actually puts the verse in parenthesis). The context of the verse is that people have to hear about Jesus before they can believe in Him. Paul uses this verse to restate, in a few words, what he just took half a page to say. The main theme of the verses before and after are very obvious, so why are the older translations so confusing? Entire sermons have been preached (especially in Charismatic circles) that you get faith by hearing the Bible. In fact, it’s taught you can get increasing levels of faith by hearing more and more of the Bible. In another stunning confession of ignorance, I must confess that I bought into it for a while. Verses that are parenthetical are probably not the right ones to form a whole doctrine around.

Maybe this is another example of how I think Bible translation scholarship is getting better, and the science/art of expressing the original Greek manuscripts in English is improving. I know there are KJV purists out there, but KJV English is a barrier to people understanding the the Bible.

I’ve been tipped off that we might be getting a Wii at our house for Christmas. I don’t know what games are available for Wii, but if at all possible I would like to get this one. See the press release here: http://tominthebox.blogspot.com/2007/11/preacher-hero

Politics always aims at some kind of a harmony or balance of interest, and such a harmony cannot be regarded as directly related to the final harmony of love of the Kingdom of God. All men are naturally inclined to obscure the morally ambiguous element in their political cause by investing it with religious sanctity. This is why religion is more frequently a source of confusion than of light in the political realm. The tendency to equate our political views with our Christian convictions causes politics to generate idolatry.

I can’t handle it any more. We have an old TV, so I can’t figure out how to delete the religious stations the TV scanned in when I first set it up. I am flabbergasted nearly every time I let the tuner stay on one of those religious stations for more than 10 seconds.

Aside… I would like to point out a fun game that my friend Brandon Wood pointed out to me. Switch on the religious channel and see how long you can go before you hear the word “seed.” Average time is about 20 seconds.

However, being flabbergasted stops short of the full-fledged outrage over what I saw the other night on James Robison’s show. Now I must preface my comments by saying that in the past I’ve had some respect for James Robison. He was one of the few TV evangelist that didn’t seem like a actor portraying a preacher or a southern-fried used car salesman with a Bible degree from Hillbilly Backwoods Bible Institute. He actually seems to be doing some good with the money that is being sent to him by reaching out to the poor all over the world. Because I see this in him, I can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume his heart is in the right place.

But what I saw the other night was at first confusing. Bill O’Reilly was in his Factor studio and was having a conversation with James Robison. O’Reilly seemed to be leading the discussion, so I assumed I was watching Fox News Network. After a while I noticed the little Daystar Network icon down in the corner of the screen and it hit me — James Robison is interviewing Bill O’Reilly on his religious TV show. WOW!! As I watched it more I found out that Robison wasn’t just interviewing O’Reilly, Robison was pimping O’Reilly’s new book Culture Warrior. As O’Reilly sat there stumbling through the interview as he tried to phrase his answers in the most religious way possible. He was clearly schmoozing with Robison since Robison had taken his own program time to pimp O’Reilly’s book, something his own Fox News producers probably don’t give him much of. I could no longer sit. I was getting so angry, I started pacing the room. Could a Christian possibly find a bigger asshole to partner with? James Carville, maybe? It made my skin crawl to see a so-called “Christian” leader aligning himself (and by extension, all of us in the eyes of the world) with one of the slimiest media figures in the world. How do Christian leaders keep missing it so badly? Whether you agree with O’Reilly or not (and I don’t on most issues), he isn’t Christian. So why give him time on a Christian show? I’m guessing because Christian leaders think it is their duty to push the “Christian” political agenda forward. And therein lies the problem.

Ever since Jerry Falwell died, so-called “Christian” leaders have been making a push to replace him as the mouthpiece of the conservative Christian right-wing branch of the Republican party. James Dobson probably has more influence in Christian circles but doesn’t have the unofficial role of right-wing Christian political “spokesperson” the way Falwell did. When Larry King needed someone to interview about so-called “Christian” issues, Falwell was always there. Who’s going to replace him in this role remains to be seen. In the meantime, upstart Christian rabble-rousers are doing their best to carve out a niche for themselves in the political limelight.

Meanwhile, when Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you a king?” Jesus answers, “My kingdom is not of this world.” In other words he’s telling Pilate that his kingdom doesn’t involve Pilate’s pitiful political power. Jesus didn’t reach for political power when Satan offered it to him in the wilderness, and he still understood his mission and purpose when he met with Pilate. Why can we not understand this now? C.S. Lewis said that true power is never political — never has been, never will be. I think that by identifying ourselves with either one party or the other, the church loses its prophetic voice in the culture. I am not Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Green Party or anything else. I am an ambassador of a different kind of kingdom, and getting myself entangled in the ridiculous American political sham confuses the issue and pulls us away from our real mission as Christians.

Just like it would have with Jesus in the wilderness, reaching for political power renders the church powerless to do the things it needs to be doing.