Hey
Pete,
“JUST
because I disagree on method does not
mean I do not care for my neighbor. A little
offensive to be called otherwise. “
I
am truly sorry to have implied that you are not Christian or caring.
That was not my intention. Please forgive me for making that
implication. I probably deserve a reprimand, these issues are both
very passionate to the two of us. My passion makes me an occasional
asshole. It shows me when it is time for me to back off. Again, I am
sorry. I admit that I offended you. I have apologized in this exact
manner to a few others. ...My sins are ever before me...
“Simple
questions for you then. 1) What should the immigration laws be, if
any? eg who gets in legally? (do we even have border patrol or do we
just close them down? 2) If we agree that there should be at least
some minimum laws, of if there is a law you agree with, what do we
call those that still break that law?
I
thank God I am not a politician. I have a friend who is the Chaplain
to the Idaho Senate. He is often at the US Congress, either house,
offering prayers and doing guest chaplain appearances. I was sort of
answering/asking those two questions as well. My friend began to
speak of the Christian brotherhood/sisterhood between members of both
houses. In 2006 he told me that their Christian faith never comes
between their radically different party ideology. Senators Helms,
Santorum and Clinton regularly prayed together and shared the word of
God together in bible study.
My
friend appeased my anger somewhat with Congress by citing the sincere
politicians on both sides of the aisle who are serving God by serving
the US. It gave me hope. It gave me a new passion to pray for them.
(2006 was during Bush's administration).
So,
I could dodge both questions with the same response: “Whatever it
is, it must be in light of the fact that Jesus' term for them is
`neighbor' and trust the politicians to fear God in the process of
making those laws.”
So,
perhaps we were both confused by what we were citing as either our
“straw man” arguments or our illustrative reports.
Perhaps
this is my answer: “We need just, compassionate, sharing the
wealth, recognition of the Biblical command to the ONLY nation with
Manifest Destiny to, after they possess the land, give complete and
generous access to any stranger or alien. And, if said alien joined
the Jewish religion, they were also immune from interest, and were
able to claim freedom in 7 or on the 50th year.” That
could be my answer to those questions, except the last one, whatever
that lawbreaker is, he is still my neighbor and if he broke that law
to serve the greater cause of justice (in the common sense) then he
is free to be one of us.
This
my biblical support: There is more than an OT command in Leviticus
19:33-34, there is also biblical principle (which means it trumps any
other passage) that commands them to be just to strangers and aliens
because of the way you were treated when you were strangers and
aliens. Every single Caucasian in the Americas is an alien. We have
lived here, and possessed it for a little over 200 years (I would say
we had complete control after Andrew Jackson pogroms against the
Native population). The native population lived here for 4-6 thousand
years. It is their land. We stole it from them by murdering 160
Million of them.
As
a truly Judeo/Christian nation, the least we could do after that
heinous genocide is stop the practice of preventing anyone who is
seeking a better life for themselves from getting the same chance
that we took by force for ourselves. That is at least some repentance
and acknowledgement of sin.
In
my opinion, all the law really has to do is limit criminals.
“3)
If someone disagrees on one point of that law, what makes you right
or them simply not christian?”
Again,
I am so sorry that I said it that way. I own it and ask your
forgiveness, my dear beloved brother. My love for you makes me want
to chuck all of my newer theological constructs just so that you and
I can live that dream together of being saints in our old age
together.
I
am paying another terrible price for these words of prophetic
perspective on our Evangelical American Culture.
I
have few friends left. I am gaining new ones, but we are a small
community, very small and our voice is just not really heard over the
shouting.
Did
you know that I am still a pacifist? I would rather die than take an
human life. War is evil, always evil. War is never good. It may be
necessary, but if it is, it is a necessary EVIL.
And
back to my “dodge” earlier because I really don't have the
answer, all I have is a principle. Same with war.
I
appreciate your exegesis of the good Samaritan. Good job. A parable
is designed to make one point and one point only (unless it describes
itself as multiple points like the seed sowed in different places).
The
point, I believe is the Pharisee raising the question to justify his
own lack of ability to love the enemy by asking “who is my
neighbor?”
The
Good Samaritan is Jesus answer to the dodge: “yeah, but just
exactly who is my neighbor?”
I
believe that the minute we use the term “illegal” we are
contradicting the very essence of that parable since at least one of
them was a hated “illegal” depending on what side of the border
the crime took place. The term “illegal” is an objectifying term
that contradicts the Biblical principle of “neighbor.” It isn't
going to be a valid excuse in God's eyes simply because it is one way
to interpret the Constitution.
I
feel a call from God to warn Christians that unless our collective
voices is heard as “They are STILL our neighbor” we cannot claim
ourselves to be a nation based on the justice that God speaks of in
the OT and explained in the NT. Again, Lev 19:35: “I AM THE LORD”
meaning “btw, I am watching this one closely...”
“Most
Christians do not take this lightly, and think that they have an
opinion that agrees with their concept of scripture. To their own
master they stand or fall.”
AMEN!
Permit
me a little 2 Corinthians Folly, if you will:
When
God called me, May 30, 1979 at Oubache State Park in Bluffton, IN. We
were all together. Randy and I were making plans to move to NJ. I
actually heard the voice of God say to me: “Luke 4:18.” It is
Jesus in the Temple quoting Isaiah 61:1ff. The last line of Luke
4:18, “...to set free the oppressed...” is indeed my life's
calling. Looking back, I can see it more clearly now.
It
started with the only time I was ever “slain in the Spirit.” It
was at Phil Mortenson's Church, but Pastor Martin was praying for me
and he began to prophecy. He said: “I see three branches of
ministry in your calling, and one of those branches will become the
biggest...” and then I went down in the Holy Spirit. I believe that
one.
At
my first church, the secretary for the Blackford County Welfare
Office was sort of the matriarch of the Church. Consequently, I got
to do lots and lots of ministry with the County's poor. They were all
white, most of them were either to stupid, mentally ill, and ignorant
of how to live and budget. Not a one was lazy. Not a one was beyond
help or redemption. I did a lot of good with that community until
Satan was awarded the chance to sift me as wheat.
I
went to work with Dave and made a shitload of money. The year I left,
my income tax return was $81,000. I started the Church in September
at $14,300 per year. So, I was on pace that year to make $103,000
-1988. Here was the big problem for me, we would attend sales
meetings and spend thousands of dollars on one single meal with $80
bottles of cognac, whole boxes of $10 cigars given away to all the
patrons in the bar. It was Roman opulence and all of that went on
while the factory worker was making $8.00 and living off of food
stamps and other assistance. I could not be complicit in such an evil
system. There was absolutely no way any person of color could have
that job at my level even though there were hundreds or thousands of
black builders in St. Louis, Chicago, and Indianapolis.
I
went to Pendleton and fought racism for 10 years. At the end, one of
the matriarchs sisters who earlier said to me “one of them may be
coming to the church, he had his wife who was white buy some property
from us and we had no idea she was married to a black man.” They
were Christians who are ignorant and need to understand the love and
justice of God's word.
Can
you imagine the joy I felt when that same couple of sisters shouted
with excitement to me that they convinced the man and his wife to
visit our Church? They couldn't wait to tell me! (It was right after
that Promise Keepers for Clergy event that you were in Atlanta for at
the same time as me. The sermon from that racial healing service was
what convinced them. Thank you, btw, for helping me with those
expenses!) So, my next level of setting free the oppressed was
working with white people against racism.
I
went to Ephrata and right away, God showed two more marginalized
groups. One was women. Probably ¼ of the Mohler Church was made of
families who were ex-Amish or plain Mennonite families where the
women were victims of rape and incest. All of it is quiet
victimization of women being brushed under the carpet that is going
on in this “quaint” little tourist trap.
That
Church effectively fired me for sticking up for a woman whose husband
was a convicted pedophile. His victim was a 15 year old girl in the
church. My youth pastor's childhood friend is in jail for trying to
kill the perpetrator because it was his girlfriend that he molested.
That was all 7 years before I came to the church. The man started
acting out again. I got a porno demon that hassles me. In his garage
with a lift and engine hoist, I was replacing the engine in John's
beater car and while I was taking a break, underneath his J.C.
Whitney catalogs was pubescent porn.
I
kept a close eye on him. Soon he started acting out. His wife who was
raised plain Mennonite and had a child out of wedlock by a rogue
youth in our church, and was now attending our church with this
pervert was on her “last chance” with her parents so she just
stopped loving him.
He
freaked out. On three occasions he threatened me with killing them.
On one of those, I literally stood between him and his wife without
moving while this extremely demonic force of rage was rolling over
me, Kathy and this man's wife. I was close to dying that night. Very
close. It was the night of the Janet Jackson boob shot at the Super
Bowl.
Eventually
the woman moved out and then the husband's violence forced her to
divorce him. The Church fired me for that.
I
got to work on setting oppressed women free.
But
before that was a man who came to the US legally. His daughter
married a US Citizen and he would have been legal in time if it
weren't for the fact that he came from Columbia and there were
terrorists in Columbia and his Visa ran out, he became “an illegal”
and finally, after 8 years of working with him, right before I left
PA, he got h is green card.
How
I met him is Divine. He was driving down the road past our church and
God told his wife to tell him to stop at my church because the pastor
there would help him. God knew what God was doing.
It
was blood sweat and tears. But God called me to set free the
oppressed and his story of oppression is absolutely wicked. Most of
it has happened here, most of it in Lancaster CO, PA. (But the worse
by far was in Columbia).
I
moved to Dayton to pastor a multiracial church that was racially
divided. At ladies aid, the 5 black women sat at one end of the table
and the 9 white women at the other end. They never intermingled.
But
oh did the black families love me!
The
white people at the Church came from the little town of New Lebanon.
An active KKK, and its school district is named “Dixie” define
the town pretty well. Most of them are Appalachians. The black people
came from the Dayton Metroplex. The Family Dollar was a half a mile
from the Church in the Dayton Metroplex. But, the Dixie school
district residents would literally drive 15 miles to go to a “safer
Family Dollar.”
How
did this get there? In the 60's the Church had a very progressive
pastor who marched with Dr. King. The Black folks who came to the
church then are now in their 80's and they were still coming out of
respect for the way that the church got integrated as a symbol in the
hillbilly side of Dayton. But the head deacon, who was black, was
convinced that they former pastor refused to wash his feet, changed
seats and other things to make him feel like he was being
discriminated against. Of course, not so with me.
They
came out of a sense of loyalty but the former pastor, whose best
friend was the rapist with the 15 year old girl was a committed
evangelical. He appeared racist to the black members of my church. He
instituted a contemporary worship service that still didn't retain
the youth. It had the power and it was not convinced that doing
justice was as important as saving souls. It had exchanged the
Anabaptist heritage for American Christianity. All their kids were
products of the Dayton Christian School and could not abide the fact
that some of our churches are very liberal.
The
church lost its heritage in a generation. The man who raped the minor
had the money to make the change. Did I mention that he actually got
over 61,000 votes in the 2010 US Senate race in Ohio? That was the
3rd highest vote count in the state after the Republican
and the Democrat.
Maybe
this is the source of my anger toward Conservatives. Who knows?
That
last one cost me my health, my sanity, my chance for a “worldly
successful” clergy career (no District Executive wants a guy who
has been abused like I have been), many very dear relationships, my
home with my children and grandchildren first out East and now in the
Midwest, my hope of any sort of comfortable retirement and many more
things. It is a complete miracle that I survived it.
But,
there is a 36 year old man at that Church who still loves me dearly.
He told me this: “After I came out of Dayton Christian School, I
was an atheist...” With tears in his eyes he continued: “...until
I met you.”
You
are in a lot of pain right now with your daughter and I do not want
to minimize that. So, please hear this next part in love from me:
“The tragedies in my life are at the point of absurdity.” I was
abducted and raped at 11, robbed and beaten almost to death in an
Azars at 18. And then the bizarre issues with all the kids, John's
burns, Philip's 17 leg surgeries, Timmy's tumor, Kathy's tumors, my
bowel, my brain tumor, my heart attack, my mental health issues and
my list goes on. The amount seems to me more than my share compared
to most people that I know. That is why it seems absurd. It seems
prophetically absurd to me.
But
I did all that because as a man of privilege simply because he is
male, white, ordained in the eyes of man and God, and by the world's
standards, wealthy, I could give up my privilege to fulfill my life's
calling. Maybe I shouldn't bitch and moan that others have not been
put to the test like me. I know everyone is tested by their own
Master and for their own Master's purpose, will and pleasure. And,
that Master will indeed make that person stand, even if he is on the
conserving instead of the generous (liberal) side of politics. I
indeed recognize that guys like me need loving voices to balance them
out.
I
gave up a lot. I had a lot taken from me. And I lost a lot. But the
one thing I did not do is lose my integrity. My wife, my sons, my
daughter, and my mother begged me like Job's wife did. But none of my
brothers ever did. Thank you! You guys know and appreciate the cost.
And
simultaneously, during that time of protecting a child from a
predator, black people from Christian racists, God moved me into a
prison and I got to work with that same verse as well.
I
have watched the general of the Aryan nation and the General of the
Crypts embrace in Christian love. I am working closely with a real
live German Nazi. His uncle still has a 6x9 framed in glass piece of
human skin with a Nazi Tattoo number from a Jewish body hanging in
his living room get set free from his evil and while he is in prison,
he has now become the Lord's free man.
The
circle of people that God calls me to help set free just keeps
getting bigger and bigger.
I
had this image in prayer a few weeks ago. You know the T-Shirt with a
picture of Jesus on the cross with His hands stretched out and the
caption reads: “He loved me so much He stretched out His hands and
died?”
I
love that image. Through the course of my Christian ministry, I have
seen those arms of Jesus stretch wider and wider to Catholics,
Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, blacks, rich, poor, prisoner, and
women. And now, because the head of my Congregation in GR is openly
gay, I get to work setting gays and lesbians from from oppression. It
is biblical.
All
of this, Pete, is my calling. I am sorry this passion offends you. I
am reminded that some of the things that have offended me most are
the things that have also changed me the most and there was someone
there for me loving me enough to sharpen me.
Here
is what I think is the biggest crack in my armor and perhaps the
biggest area to which I am blind. I can succinctly say that the
entire teaching of the Bible is this: “Love God and do that by
loving others.” Jesus said that His disciples would be known by the
way that they love people. I have not experienced that in the
evangelical church of my upbringing and I am convinced that it is the
result of Imperialistic/Dominion theological conditioning brought
about by the King James Translation which justified Imperialism. It
is pretty simple principle for them: since they were “the
righteous in God's” eyes they did not have to be just people.
SO,
I take a big exception to any Christian form of rationalization/
justification of unrestrained Capitalism as some sort of moral force
for good and the the markets are moral and people will eventually
figure out abusive markets and stay away from them.
No.
That is based on Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest
applied to economics. When it is applied to economics, it violates
the clear principles set forth in Scripture. In Darwin's system, a
person who starves to death dies because of the evolutionary
principle that since they can't compete, they die off.
Obviously
you see the Biblical inconsistency. Jesus quotes Deut when He says:
“The poor you will always have with you.” The Deut reference goes
on to say: “Take care of them, they are your responsibility.” And
the plethora of Jesus teaching is centered on taking care of the
least of these and loving everyone as we love ourselves and treating
people the way we want to be treated, which is oftentimes better that
we treat ourselves, isn't that what “pressed down, good measure,
running over means?”
Pete,
I understand the critical voice that I say these things with. I am
truly sorry for saying it with such importune candor. Maybe I am just
whining at the price I have paid for my faith and I want some credit
for it. But the absurdity of it all makes me wonder if I need to be a
louder prophet.
I
have my doubts. Serious ones. For example, what good, though, is an
angry prophet if no one is listening?
Isn't
a gentle Shepherd more effective? ...I don't know. God has not been
gentle with me for God's purpose and I belong to God. I serve at
God's pleasure and discretion.
And
the one about the angry prophet that is not listened to, if indeed
that is my lot in life, spells true judgment for Western Christianity
if it does not repent of its materialism.
At
this point, it seems as if it is one or the other. I desperately wish
for a third option that brings a true Isaiah 58 revival of justice
and mercy.
And
again, I am sorry for lumping you into a category of unloving,
unChristlike actions. It was not Christ like for me to do that and I
repent and ask your forgiveness again.
I
just have one question for you: 1). Why do Christian Republicans
constantly have to defend their love for the poor when Christian
Democrats don't?
Love,
Phil
