Something's wrong ... Part 1

I feel a bit weird tonight. Last week I had a 'chance' lunch with someone close to the situation with Ted Haggard. The day before the story broke I read this article in Harpers: http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html . It had been forwarded to me by a friend. Since the story came out this link is plastered on blogs all over cypberspace. Tomorrow is a big political/religious rally at Mt. Rushmore to influence voters concerning the upcoming vote on abortion and same-sex marriage (among other things). Even James Dobson will be there. It's not the sin that's making me feel weird. It's the use of power and trust in power that is uncomfortable. There's something within me that says if Jesus were still walking the earth he would be avoiding Mt. Rushmore tomorrow.

While in a convenience store today the clerk showed me the back page of the local newspaper. A full page add called people to gather at Rushmore to listen to Dobson and show support for pro-life, traditional marriage legislation. Under the faces of the presidents carved in stone was Luke 19:40 - 'I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.' A quote was given from each president - Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln - about the sanctity of life. Clever, though a gross misuse of Scripture. I'll try to walk up to the rally tomorrow to take some pictures.

As the culture wars get hotter and hotter (and this is really about culture more than faith or morality), I keep thinking back to my time living in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks we can legislate morality needs to visit Saudi Arabia. Sharia' law demands a morality far more strict than the Religious Right, yet even it can't change the human heart. As the title to one bloggers entry reads, 'Haggard, Foley and the GOP Preaching Against the Very Vices They Can't Shake' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/haggard-foley-and-gop-pr_b_33179.html There's some truth in the headline. We can't shake sin off. All we can do is ask for forgiveness and continue to take our own discipleship seriously. Maybe it's time to start paying more attention to the heart and less to the ballot box, folks.

Recently I heard someone pray, 'Lord, help us make this world into the place you created it to be.' That sounds a bit Islamic to me as well. It's time to get back to the Great Commission, which means we have to help people follow Jesus and love like Jesus. It means helping people become students of Jesus. We need to get beyond Sunday School classes that have endless cycles of 'How to have a better marriage,' 'How to raise happy kids' and 'How to manage your finances.' Instead of asking how we win the culture/political wars or how we can defend a way of life for our families, we need to start asking how we become disciples of Jesus and how we can help others disciples as well. I need to ask it, and you need to ask it. This needs to be the question that drives us.

For my birthday, my roommate bought me a copy of 'The Politics of Jesus' by John Howard Yoder. Yoder says (and I'm trying to quote from memory), 'We need be a transformed society more than we need to transform society.' Our mission is to be an alternative community - a community of discipleship. Are we?

Anyway, I'm starting to rant now, so I'd better stop ... I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.