Clarify

Let me pause to clarify, because I'm sure you're asking why
I stand before you and proudly claim to belong to what this song complains
I'm part of the problem, I must confess, but I got to get this off my chest
Let's extinguish the anguish for which we're to blame,
And save the world from going down in flames

-Relient K, "Down in Flames"

Before I go on another tirade against know-nothing evangelicals, I should probably pause to clarify. I was brought up to believe all kinds of things that I no longer profess and I hope I can explain why without being overtly offensive to those who still hold those positions. I'm all too aware of my ability to get things wrong.

What bothers me to no end is when we divide everything and everyone into camps that are right and wrong, and everyone believes they are in the right one.

For instance, I was raised a conservative evangelical who was adamantly pro-life, pro-gun, anti-gay marriage, anti-taxes, and somewhat of a Calvinist. None of those labels describe who I am. They simply described some of my leanings on certain political and spiritual issues. The fact is, abortion cannot be boiled down to those who support "life" and those who support "choice". I firmly support both without a hint of contradiction. The same goes for all the camps I mentioned (of which I must renounce them all).

There comes a time when you have to put away the labels and the simplifications because you realize life is too complex for that. God is certainly too complex for your theological camps. I believe we all want to identify with a group that shares similar values that define us and give us meaning. We draw ideological lines and insist that people join the right team to reinforce our worth and the sense that we have it all figured out.

It's BS. As Don Miller writes in "Searching for God Knows What", there is NO lifeboat. For everyone trying to argue why they ought to be in the lifeboat to the detriment of others, you can shut up now. We are all on level ground at the foot of the cross.

One of the many things I love about Jesus is that He came into our world but He didn't join our camps. He didn't become the leader of the Pharisees or the Sadducees. He didn't join an Essene sect. He didn't become a Roman centurion. He established the Kingdom of God. He called us into a spiritual kingdom where there is no dividing lines, where there are no racial barriers, or political barriers, or gender barriers. Where this no ethnicity, theology, social status, or self-made merit of any kind. There is only Christ and in Christ is our complete identity.

Oh that the church of God would not be co-opted by politicians or fear-mongers or even priests and pastors who would not lead us to Christ alone. That the evangelical church has been hijacked by the politically conservative - wedged by moral issues of abortion and marriage - issues that our "small government" should have no say over, is largest blight on the church in America today. I can no longer wear these labels. Conservative, evangelical, Republican - no more. Christian no more.

All I can put my identity in is Christ - a King and Kingdom, that transcends all partisanship and divisiveness. However, my King clearly defines a New Order that is very much political, social, economic, and theological. It is radically transformational in all these ways but it will not be subject to any human principality or power. That any human institution should claim God's holy mantle as theirs alone is the height of hubris and folly. There is no Christian nation, no Christian church save the people of God universal, holy, and catholic.

The question is not whether you are evolutionist or creationist, Democrat or Republican, Protestant or Catholic. The question is, is your life hidden with Christ in God? Is your old self that relied on camps and divisions for identity dead and is your new self alive in God? If it is, then you will be set free to a life centered on love, justice, peace, and grace as you are wrought in God to His perfect will.

The journey back to God requires yielding to selflessness and placing your worth in God alone. God has removed all boasting about ideology by laying bare our insufficiency to even comprehend the complexities of our broken world. I am part of the problem and I don't have the answers. But I press on to a life centered on a King who is advancing His Kingdom and pointing to a day when all things will be put to right when the Kingdom comes to Earth.

I won't shrink back from professing what I perceive as reason based on Kingdom values, though I may often err, but know that I cannot speak from a place of boasting. Instead, I humbly seek to be a prophetic voice in a world gone wrong. May my allegiance always be with Christ and not some party of people.