7-15-13<\/p>\n
One of the severe downsides of living in a prosperous society is\u2026 \u201cWhat? Downsides? Can\u2019t you see the glass as half full?\u201d (I have never really understood that one. Half is half, period.) \u201cWe have achieved the greatest material prosperity in world history. America is the Promised Land for millions, and what people throughout history have dreamed about!\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, all true. We are, on the whole, prosperous, well-off. And happy, even joyful. Just look at some of the signs: an epidemic of obesity proves we are well-fed. Divorce rates, suicide rates, infanticide, all at record levels in human history, indicate that were are happily well-adjusted. We are told that prejudice and hatred still run rampant; \u201chate crimes\u201d are codified to resist those emotions. Even in the church: how many preachers think we are not prosperous ENOUGH, so now the \u201cProsperity Gospel\u201d is preached.<\/p>\n
And meanwhile, large sections of the church, while absorbed in such \u201ctheology,\u201d surrenders its former domains of charity and morality, while governments and courts and media decide standards for the culture. A militant Compassion Police, without uniforms.<\/p>\n
As I was saying, one of the downsides of living in a prosperous society\u2026 well, I have listed several already. But I think the biggest danger is the tendency of prosperity to dehumanize people. It might be ironic, but tends to be true, that the less we THINK we have to worry about sickness, poverty, hatred, and death, the less sensitive we are to those facts of life. Less aware of their implications. Less worried about those effects on other people.<\/p>\n
The less we tend to think about eternal rewards and damnation, the less we think about Heaven as a goal of life\u2019s long, hard journey \u2013 that is to say, less long and hard than it has been for the majority of humankind \u2013 the more irrelevant Heaven becomes.<\/p>\n
Not obsolete, just seemingly irrelevant. What about this anomaly? Do we prohibit complacency and prosperity? Of course not. But it becomes more important a job of the church to increase the preaching about righteousness. Just as patriots, from the Founders to Ronald Reagan, recognized that Liberty is never more than one generation away from extinction. <\/p>\n
Believers around the world are bearing unbelievable burdens these days. The last century saw more Christians martyred for their faith than in any previous century. Today, persecution, torture, slavery, displacement, ethno-religious cleansing, legal harassment, and spying are added to the deaths. Many churches in prosperous Western and first-world countries like America argue amongst themselves about Absolute Truth vs relational truth; and whether the Bible\u2019s teachings about, say, homosexuality should be silenced, so to encourage new members to stop in; and whether there is a hell or not. <\/p>\n
The remnant \u2013 today\u2019s People of the Word \u2013 in America have a job that is somewhat easier, but also more challenging, than members of the persecuted church in other lands. In China, North Korea, Pakistan, and other societies, Christians risk their lives to worship and fellowship. They meet in secret places, sometimes each member hiding, then exchanging, one page of the Bible to avoid detection of the whole Book by authorities. Believers in America increasingly do battle with powers and principalities of the air; hard to see, hard to fight.<\/p>\n
How many of those foreign believers DO those things for their faith? How many of us here AVOID things that would nurture out faith and service? <\/p>\n
If it were against the law to be a Christian in America, would there be enough evidence to convict some of us?<\/p>\n
Hebrews, Chapter 11, is nicknamed \u201cthe Hall of Fame of Faith,\u201d listing many of the Old Testament heroes who were chosen, who were persecuted, who battled, who overcame, for their faith and their God. But, interesting to note, not every man and woman in the list reached the putative goal or version of the Promised Land. Some were rejected and persecuted, even killed for their faith; yet they fought on.<\/p>\n
“These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on earth” (Hebrews 11:13).<\/p>\n
A prosperous America is a fine place, but it can be finer still \u2013 as fine as it was in our earlier days \u2013 if we keep our eyes on a yet finer place indeed: the life of God\u2019s commands, the Heaven of God\u2019s promises.<\/p>\n
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Today\u2019s musical clip is a musical encapsulation of this message. Sung plaintively, solo, by the late Rich Mullins, it sounds like an ancient biblical strain, or a slave song of the primitive church, or the lonesome sound of the Sacred Harp songbooks in America\u2019s past. But it was written about a half-century ago by Albert E Brumley Sr\u2026 and has been embraced by the white and black churches, rural and \u201cmainstream,\u201d in church services and concerts alike. It calls to us. If you \u201ccan\u2019t feel at home in the world any more\u201d\u2026 maybe your spirit is in a good place.<\/p>\n