Beware the Orange Man

Even after the verdict, millions of Christians still cling to the orange man.

How can that be?

Christian conservatives are morally conflicted.

What is a Christian conservative? Anyone who reads the Bible as if it is inerrant.

As if it is a monolith.

As if literature written over one thousand years (and more) speaks with one voice.

As if the images of God from ancient Israel match the image we have in the teachings of Jesus.

As if Moses has the same authority for Christians as their Savior.

As if Deuteronomy is as important to Christians as The Sermon on the Mount.

Inerrancy breaks the first commandment. It makes the Bible an idol. It turns the Bible into God.

And it diminishes the authority of Jesus.

Jesus tells us to love those who don’t love us, even our enemies.

The Old Testament says God ordered the Israelites to kill their enemies.

Who wins out? 

Bible inerrantists take an average. Jesus loses. 

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

For Bible inerrantists, love is not an absolute standard. This puts them on shifting sand.

This is why Conservative Christians are vulnerable to the orange man.

And vulnerable to others who preach vengeance and self-interest.

Someone analyzed the sermons of a well-known inerrantist preacher. Over 90 percent of his scripture references were from the Old Testament.

Yes, the Bible is our authority. But it has within it an even higher authority.

Jesus.   

If you don’t know this—the orange man may get you.

A note from Jason: Hello, Saint Matthew family. With the storms that blew through our area on Tuesday morning Pastor Max was without Internet and couldn’t upload his article in time for publishing. I hope you’ll indulge me as I share one of my personal favorite Friday’s Word articles with you, published February 18, 2022, in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Did you ever notice how reasonable Jesus is?

In fact, he teaches us the principle of consistency.

“A bad tree cannot produce good fruit,” he told us.

“You cannot serve two masters,” he said.

You will end up cleaving to one and letting the other go.

Now let me test your awareness of consistency. Which of these words does not belong with the other words? Dog, Cat, House, Mouse, and Moose.

I know you got that right. The word “house” is not consistent with the words which name animals.

Now another test, just as easy. Scripture passages:

1-God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

2-God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

3-While we were sinners, Christ died for us.

4-God is love.

5- Then God rained sulfur and fire from heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Now, which of those statements is inconsistent?

Again, the answer is obvious. The last statement does not agree with the other four.

If God is love, if God is kind even to the wicked, then God does not rain fire down on anyone.

If God deals with our sin by dying for us, then God does not seek to destroy us. So, if the first four statements are true, the last one cannot be true.

And here’s the point:

If you are a biblical inerrantist, you must believe that all five statements are equally true.

In other words, you must believe nonsense.

In other words, you cannot accept what Jesus teaches us about the nature of God.

You are a house divided. You are trying to serve two masters, two very different ideas about God’s nature.

You can’t do that, Jesus said. So, stop trying!

Let inerrancy go.

Lord Jesus, Lead the Way

Funny—there is a kind of giddy hopefulness in the United Methodist Church now.

We’ve lost a third of our churches nationwide. Most of them are smaller churches, but some are very large.

But ah!—the freedom we feel! It’s like a great load has been lifted.

As Bishop Saenz put it, “We are no longer supporting homophobia in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Or as I have said, we are no longer promoting hate.

The vote at the General Conference was 93% in favor of removing the hateful language against gay people in our Book of Discipline.

It was placed there in 1972, a darker time, a time of greater ignorance about human sexuality.

Many churches are still trapped in that time. They push a gospel that excludes people for being who they are. And until recently, we United Methodists were in on that sin.

But God has delivered us. And we are reveling in the freedom to live for Jesus Christ.

You know, evil has an allure and it is the allure of power over others.

It leads to a perversion of Christianity.

Christians in Germany wanted power over the Jews.

White Christians in the South wanted power over black people.

Men want power over women—and in many churches, they still have it.

It is all wrong.

This lust for power over others who are different is a sin. And United Methodists have had a conversion experience.

Praise the Lord!

We are free now to love others as God loves us.

And we are ready as a church to go where God calls us.

Lord Jesus, lead the way.

The Great Miscalculation

Paul told the Corinthians, “We will not all die.”

He was saying that many of them would still be living when the Lord came again.

But everyone Paul was writing to died.

And so did Paul.

Paul was so certain Jesus was returning soon that he advised people not to marry (I Cor. 7:32+).

No reason to bother. Jesus was coming soon.

We are glad to say most Christians ignored him.

(Except the Shakers. They are all gone. There were no children to continue the faith.)

This was the great miscalculation of the early church—the idea that Jesus would soon return.

But instead of dropping an obviously faulty idea—the church hung on to it.

For 2,000 years!

And all that time, preachers have been telling people Jesus is coming soon.

For 2,000 years!!!

And this idea is based on another equally bad idea: that this world God has made is evil, cursed, hopelessly broken.

So God wants to shut it down. End it—as soon as possible.

But the first creation story tells us God looked at his creation and declared it “good.”

And in the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us we are all “blessed,” even with all the pain we may live with.

And God keeps sending us here—into his world.

It’s like the school all souls must go to. This world is where we have the freedom to grow in grace and understanding.

The world has a purpose.

The world serves God’s purpose.

Sorry, all you endtimers.

I don’t think God is calling it quits any time soon. Stop the nonsense.

The Lord has already come. He is with us now.

Free at Last! Free at Last!

Kerry was having a severe allergic reaction. She called her wife, then rushed toward the elevator to get to the hospital.

She died in the hallway.

She then found herself headed toward a white, limitless Light. A loving and gentle force drew her toward it. But her journey was interrupted.

She was stopped by her deceased grandparents. They were luminous and beautiful and she knew them immediately.

They wanted to tell her they were sorry. They now knew something they had not known in the world. Her family had caused her to live her life in fear.

Her family and her church had told her she was going to hell for being gay. She rejoiced that they now accepted her.

But her grandparents had some bad news for her. It was not her time.

Kerry wanted to stay in this abundant love. She wanted to get to the Light.

And she did.

There before God, “in deepest humility,” Kerry said, “I uttered seven words: ‘I’m gay, will you still love me?’”

God’s words to her changed everything: “You are my child. I love you, I love you, I love you. Go back and tell them.”

That’s what she has been doing, as have other gay people who have had near-death experiences.

Just this last week, the United Methodist Church at its General Conference got out of the hate business. We removed the anti-gay words placed in our Book of Discipline in 1972.

The chains that bound us have been broken. “Free at last, free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Free to live the Gospel of God’s unconditional love for all people.

Let us rejoice!