That’s Good News

I find myself in witness to two groups of people:

The first is conservative Christians who break the first commandment. They place another god above the only God there is.

Their god is the Bible.

They see it as inerrant and infallible. It all speaks with equal authority. If Jesus does not agree with a passage in Deuteronomy, then Jesus must shut up and fall in line.

He can rise no higher than, nor say anything different from, what has been said before him.

Inerrancy strips Jesus of his authority to preach a unique message of God’s unconditional love and forgiveness for all people.

There is not a biblical inerrantist in the whole world who truly believes Luke 6:27-36—including this word: “[God] is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

Conservative preachers seldom preach from The Sermon on the Mount.

It is simply irrelevant to them.

But there is another group I find myself in witness to: Christians on the far left.

These folks reject the meanness of right-wing Christianity. They know what love is. They just don’t think God does. God is seen as impersonal, uninvolved.

These good folk have taken an overdosed of Bart Ehrman, Marcus Borg, and Elaine Pagels.

They don’t believe in a God who does anything.

And I am calling both extremes, left and right, to a new place—not between.

Not in the middle.

But above.

To a Christianity rooted in the experience of God. The God we meet in experience is the God we know in Christ.

And this God is neither mean nor impersonal.

And that’s Good News.

Good News All Around

You know—I talk about the dangers of biblical inerrancy.

Yes, many good people are biblical inerrantists. But many good people are very selective about the neighbors they will be good to.

And they support their unkindness to gay people and other minorities with scripture.

For the inerrantist, all scripture is of equal value and authority. No priority is given to the teachings of Jesus Christ.

His message of God’s unconditional love for all people is overruled.

Scripture itself is used to silence Jesus.

But I see signs of hope in the church. Yes, the church is in decline; but conservative, inerrantist Christianity is declining at the fastest rate of all.

“Evangelicals” are down to 14% of the population from a high of 25%.

And they are the oldest group–average age, 56.

That’s what makes the future of the churches who recently broke from United Methodism look uncertain.

They have joined a doomed group. Doomed—because their opposition to gay people and love for Mr. Trump leads to a moral dead end.

It has no future.

And that’s good.

Unkindness needs to die.

The worst thing that could happen is for the far-right church to flourish.

A. W. Tozer said of the racist white church in the 60s, “We do not want revival of this. A revival of the kind of Christianity we know today in America might prove to be a moral tragedy from which we would not recover.”

So, the good news is that hatred and ignorance are becoming harder to sell.

We do need revival.

But only if Jesus is at the heart of it. +++

Join us for worship.

“An Evening With The Gospel” Concert

I’m giving a concert Saturday night, 6:00 p.m.

This Saturday—the 9th.

St. Matthew has two of the best singers around, our choir director and our “star soloist.”

They are in on most of the shows in our new concert series, but not this one.

It’s just me.

So, tell me again why I am doing this?

It’s a fundraiser to keep Friday’s Word going and to support our music program.

We consider this little box in the paper a kind of ministry. It’s a way to reach—well—you with a sane message about faith when there is so much nonsense around.

But it ain’t cheap.

That’s where our Second Saturday Concerts come in. We’ve had two, and they seem to be working.

But this one is just me.

Ol’ Max.

Or old Max. And can Old Max still sing?

Or could he ever?

I’m clearly not the one to answer that. But I have been doing something like it all my life.

As a teen, I almost had a career singing How Great Thou Art.

When the great Dr. Charles Allen came to our small town to preach, I was trotted out to sing—yes—How Great Thou Art.

I sang it at 17 funerals in a two-year period.

But in recent years, with great singers around, I haven’t done much solo work.

So, why am I doing this concert? Want the truth?

I love to sing. It’s a spiritual experience for me to bring a song to life.

The concert is called An Evening with the Gospel.

It lasts an hour. It’s free, as is the dinner after.

We will take an offering. Consider coming at 6:00, tomorrow night, Saturday the 9th, at St. Matthew.