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Friday, January 23, 2015

Government Has Become A Church

Sad Jesus frowns on their shenanigans.
Billy got involved in the ministry because, well, he wanted to minister too others as he had been ministered to as a child.  He came from a broken home where his father had died in an automobile accident when Billy was a small child and the church had stepped up to the plate and provided comfort and aid to his family.  The pastor would regularly visit with his wife and give Billy's family an opportunity to openly and candidly share their grief.  Over time, Bill realized that what his pastor and church family had done was what he needed to do as an adult.

Billy graduated from seminary and accepted his first post as an associate pastor at a large, established church in an urban setting.  Within a week at the new job, Billy began to see a whole lot more political happenings than ministry happening.  Before long, he was disenchanted with the concept of ministry and left completely to work as a telemarketer.  

One of the biggest problems the Church faces in America right now is that of identity.  The Church is supposed to be a place of respite, a sanctuary for the sick, peace for the lost, and a location where the homeless are fed and the poor have their needs met.  Today, that New Testament visage of what the Church is truly supposed to be has been sacrificed at the altar of political or financial expediency.  After all, meeting need and caring for the least among us isn't as sexy as a rally at the capitol building steps protesting the alleged "gay agenda." 

There's the financial motivation to be a political church rather than a New Testament Church:  Meeting need, caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, and caring for the sick actually costs money and frankly, many churches would rather keep that money to pay for parsonages, campaigns, and the like.

Look, I'm not saying for a second that I have this "faith" thing down because I don't.  I've failed in every way imaginable.  I've been a lousy father, a terrible husband, a mediocre friend, and a mean spirited jackass.  But regardless of my myriad failures, the truth is still the truth and church leaders who become elected officials have proven time and again that ministry is the last thing on their minds, but rather creating a theocratic environment that will supposedly usher in the 2nd Coming has become their real agenda.  Forget feeding the hungry because that's someone else's "calling." To hell with healing and helping the sick because, after all, that's what doctors are for, right? 

Where in the New Testament is there an edict for the Church to become political activists?  Good luck finding it because it simply doesn't exist.  There's an incident where Paul appeals to Caesar during prosecution in the hopes of absolution, but it is a far cry from Jesus saying, "Go out and pass laws that show how much you hate supposed sin."  That's not what He said - He commanded us to "make disciples." 

What we DO know is what Christ had to say about the religious political leaders of his day...here are a few samples.

"Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger." ~ Mt. 23:1-4.
He said that they have "seated themselves in the chair of Moses," which means that they have set themselves up as the ones who are the arbiters of the Law.  He also points out their hypocrisy because they make laws and commandments that they see as right, but not seeing the sins they themselves commit.

"But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments." ~ Mt. 23:5
Press conferences, public hearings, press releases and news stories of their righteous indignation - all for the purpose of gaining notoriety.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves." ~ Mt. 23:15
This pretty much speaks for itself, but in this passage Christ is calling the Pharisees out and underscoring the fact that they are scumbags and their disciples are scumbags as well.  

Matthew 23 continues with some of the harshest, most condemning language in all of the New Testament and all spoken by Christ himself.  And it makes one wonder what these Pharisees think when they read it and because of the fact that they act like sociopaths, they cannot believe for a second that it could be about them.  It's sad, it's tragic and the people of Oklahoma end up paying for their idiocy.

For this new breed of "Christian soldier" who are neither truly Christian nor soldiers, government is a means to an end.  Like the Pharisees, they use the law to create what they interpret as a religious world versus a secular world.  They will use government as a place to worship, to be worshiped and their sacrament has been the sacrifice of common sense.  Whether they believe it or protest the fact, for them, the government has become their church.  Many of these Pharisees condemn the government for caring and feeding the poor, but the government does it because the Church is too busy with their shenanigans to do what they have been commanded.

Of course, I could be wrong but I seriously doubt it.

Gorilla