Of Glue and Grease (mice and men was taken)

We all have a theology whether known or not. It is there. We all live our theology whether good or bad. A theology being the study of the nature of God as revealed, discovered, understood. For some it is a systematic, disciplined, grounded study based on scripture, history, logic, and hermeneutic principles of interpretation and discernment. For others, their theology is derived from the Three-O's: Opinion, Oprah, and Osmosis.  So everyone believes something about the nature of God, whether immanent or transcendent, close or distant, engaged with humanity or indifferent.  And we all act on what we believe. If I believe God doesn't exist, I act as though He doesn't. If I believe He does and cares about what I think and do, then this, too, affects what I think and do.

Bad theology can kill you. You're not sure about that. Your theology doesn't have God that close to care about daily, living things. Your theology isn't sure God is that judgmental. Your theology has God meeting "spiritual" needs. He is a God of Sunday, not business. He is a God of niceness, not politics. He has a hell for Hitlers and serial killers and child molesters, not little white lie people, not minor tax cheats, and not people who had rather play golf than go to church, not people who spend more gaming than giving.  You like the God of grace and mercy and love. You are put off by some people's God of judgement and discipline. Never mind that the Bible puts love and discipline together. Never mind that the Bible recognizes evil whether big or small, in me or in dictators, and will judge that evil. You like a God who saves, but the One who calls to holiness, the One who wields justice, well, let's just wait and see about that One.

Bad theology can kill you. If you are not sure just check out America. Do you even recognize it's lack of morality? Can you believe what entertainers "get away with?" Can you believe what ballplayers of professional games make? Did you realize that 35% of internet use is porn? Why are 30 million Americans on antidepressants, many because of fear?  Did you notice the churches in an uproar over the pain of drug abuse, the scandal of sex slavery in our country, the pain of half of marriages ending in divorce, the struggle of young people looking for work, joy, purpose and trying to find it in bottles, violence, pills, and suicides? Why the silence? If not outcries why not tears? This is based on bad theology. America's theology didn't allow for God to create humanity, to create in humans a life of joy, freedom from guilt and sin. Their theology didn't see much of anything as sin. Our national theology hasn't seen God as caring enough to be involved with them to love and discipline them and lead them in a righteous path. And we are reaping what we have sown and hasn't yet even broken our hearts.

I found it interesting how our bad theology played out in the recent New Mexico supreme court case of some professional photographers, the Huguenins, who decline to photograph a same sex marriage because of their Christian views. They were sued. They lost in New Mexico's highest court. Said Justice Richard Bosson's in his majority opinion, " In the smaller, more focused world of the marketplace, of commerce, of public accommodation, the Huguenins have to channel their conduct, not their beliefs, so as to leave space for the other Americans who believe something different. That compromise is part of the glue that holds us together as a nation; the tolerance that lubricates the varied moving parts of us as a people...it is the price of citizenship."

The theology of the New Mexico supreme court says God and your beliefs about Him have no place in business decisions. The marketplace, commerce sets the rules not God or your beliefs about God. Christians are merely glue and lubricants, to use his terms, to hold the machinery of the marketplace together and grease the cogs of commerce. Why were those who held certain beliefs reduced to glue and grease? Why could not the gays be asked to accommodate the religious values of the Huguenins and simply find photographers who would shoot their wedding? (It's New Mexico, there would be many) No, their theology  subservient to politics, popular opinion, and relativistic morality held no place for the Huguenins. This is bad theology. It will kill America.

God of heaven and earth, who knows, loves, and judges, forgive us and help us. May we as individuals and as a nation come to realize that Christ is before all things and in Him all things hold together. May Your church be not silent but speak the truth in love of His grace, mercy and justice.  And if it be that we Christians must be squeezed out in our culture and out of our culture, may our dying breaths and last drops of blood point to the very words and blood of Jesus  who still calls mankind to righteousness found only in Him. 

Cos