Speech seasoned with salt

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (Colossians 4:5-6)

Towards the end of his letter to the Colossians, the imprisoned Paul asks the faithful congregation to pray that God would “open a door” for Paul to herald his message of salvation (called the “mystery of Christ”) to the world in a clear, understandable manner. Notice: Paul doesn’t just ask that the door might be supernaturally opened for the message to be preached, but that the preacher of the message might be supernaturally allowed to make the message clear and plain. I think we churchgoers today would be much more likely to pray that our dear Brother Paul might be delivered from the unjust chains of oppression than for his vocabulary when presenting the gospel, but Paul sees the two as equal in their necessity to be brought before the throne of God.

But it doesn’t end at prayer. It never ends at prayer. There has to be a response, an action. Here the action is for the Colossians to be ever-mindful of how their conversations with everyone – regardless of standing in the church – must be continuously “full of grace.” This is more than advice that Paul is giving; this is a command from the Spirit-inspired pages of Scripture.

So what does this have to do with us? I wonder sometimes how we Christians can spend hours and hours cooking up evangelism strategies and outreaches on the one hand and then have anything but gracious conversations in our churches, in our homes, and around our company’s water coolers on the other.

With all due respect to the mid and late 1990s, our nation is right now more divided than it has been in any period since the Civil War. On one extreme we have those who are showing an almost militant devotion to their avarice. On the other extreme we have those who refuse to talk about any groups or individuals of a different ideology without resorting to cheap shots about intellect and childish name-calling. Our nation is mired in an inability to discuss important matters of politics and religion - don't get someone from our ESPN-saturated culture started on sports! - without neck veins being protruded and insults being hurled.

Paul says it shouldn’t be this way with the church. Our mission is just way too important to have our people caught in the mire. These people not only make up the mission field, but they make up the church: liberals and conservatives, Tea Partiers and Big Blue Dots, Alabama and Auburn fan. As counter-cultural as it is, we simply cannot afford to be biting and divisive within our fellowship if we intend to be about the mission of saving souls and brining glory to our God.

Flatline

In my reading of current events this morning I stumbled upon the news that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) will not seek another term in the U.S. Congress. Rep. Stupak is a nine term Democrat from the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan. While he has dealt with relative anonymity in the House for almost his entire career, he appears to have always been a somewhat popular Congressman in his district. (As American voters, we tend to hate Congress while typically voting for our incumbent Congressmen and Congresswomen...it has something to do with bringing bacon home or something like that.)

Of course, Stupak's life and career changed dramatically within the past few months. He was really the single politician who could best de-rail President Obama's entire domestic agenda (and, therefore, presidency) by influencing a handful of fellow pro-life Democrats to vote against the mammoth healthcare reform package because it did not contain language banning tax dollars from being used for on-demand abortions in the U.S. Out of our entire 535-member, star-studded, bicameral Congress, it was this unknown anomaly from northern Michigan who suddenly held an incredible amount of power.

Stupak became an immediate sensation. The GOP threw their arms around him as he teamed up with Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) to attach a pro-life amendment to the original healthcare bill. Conservative talk show hosts clamoured to get the old Democrat on the air. The more I read and heard about the guy, the more I really liked him. Like him or not, Stupak was suddenly the picture of principled ethics within the larger sausage-making documentary known as the healthcare legislative process, and our nation loves it when our politicians seem committed to their ethical moorings. Up until the 11th hour, it honestly appeared that Stupak & Co. were willing to put principle above party, loyalty to life above loyalty to president.

Then March 21 came. The calendar said it was the first full day of spring, that season which reminds everyone of new life. As Stupak's group of pro-life Democrats gave a new breath of life to the administration of Barack Obama, it came at a terrible cost: the death of any lingering pro-life movement within the Democratic Party. I fully believe that one day the American pro-choice movement will be derided and placed on the ash heap of our history--right there next to racial segregation and slavery--and the Democratic Party is doing itself few favors by excluding any anti-abortion mentality from its ranks. In the meantime, on March 21, Bart Stupak did himself absolutely no favors by going against his own amendment and voting for the pro-abortion Senate bill.

I suppose we could continue to pile on this man, but I think he's had enough. Stupak is "retiring" (that is, quitting with some trace of dignity) in the same way that LBJ did in the spring of 1968, as a beaten, lame duck politician whose ethical principles vanished we he began to doubt them. Peer pressure is an incredible thing, and is only increased when those in real positions of power begin to lean in on you. We will likely never know what those in power (such as President Obama and Speaker Pelosi) said to Rep. Stupak in the days leading up to the passage of the healthcare package. We will probably never know if hard-line threats to dissolve his political career were made or if bended-knee pleas to save the party and the president were given.

I think that we can be confident of the following: by March of this year Bart Stupak was either going to sacrifice his political career for the principle of the right to life for all or he was going to sacrifice his political career for the life of Barack Obama's fading popularity. He exercised his right to choose and went with the latter. And now his overall quiet, principled political career is a flatline.

Of Nukes and Men

One of the biggest political news items of the day has to do with President Obama's push to limit the accessibility of our nation's stockpile of nuclear weapons for future use. More indirectly, this new course will have our nation's defense eliminate much of the stockpile, unquestionably cutting into US dominance in the arena of nuclear proliferation. And so we approach this issue with the same question that should pervade our examination of any political or cultural question: how should a Christian think about this issue? (Note: the question is not "WWJD?")

This is a tough one. On the one hand, world citizens - let alone Christians - should despise the very notion of nuclear weapons. By mastering the elemental forces of the universe - those elements upon which God chose to found everything in the cosmos! - scientists in the 1940s developed a weapon which could wipe away entire cities in literally half a second. The extensive presence of such weapons has long brought fear into the hearts of well-meaning humans, those who understood that a misunderstanding could eradicate huge chunks of world civilization in mere moments. Those of us living on the other side of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Dr. Strangelove, the international reaction to the Reagan build-up, and so on, are familiar with the dangers. Furthermore, those believers who realize that Nagasaki was actually brought to life by the great Catholic missionary Francis Xavier (and, therefore, had the largest population of Christians in all of Japan in 1945) know the long-term implications that the use of nuclear weapons has on the propagation of the gospel.

But I am still left hesitant after reading the story above. President Obama, who received his much-discussed Nobel Peace Prize primarily because of his talk about nuclear limitation in the 2008 campaign, clearly wants our nation to set an example to the world. The question is, does our example matter? When North Korea is spotlighted as a rogue state willing to exchange nuclear material for much-needed supplies? When a schizophrenic and bellicose Iranian government is on the verge of developing their own nuclear weapon? President Obama is correct in his assertion that we no longer need Cold War-style nuclear arsenals, but does his administration honestly believe that our "example" will deter the enemies of our generation: terrorists? People who blow themselves up in an attempt to kill a dozen or two civilians don't value or follow examples.

And so what are we left with? If responsible nations can't keep their leverage with the bomb, then what would prevent rogue nations from investing their technology in radical terrorist groups? (An important note: Iran and North Korea are both exempt from Obama's pledge due to their non-compliance with the nuclear non-proliferation agreement...both are still potential targets of US nuclear weapons.) And what about the Christian witness and example? As a believer, the very presence of nuclear weapons is abhorrent, let alone the use of such weapons; yet, in a nuclear age, if our federal government has been good at anything, it has been in showing reservation and prudence when given opportunities after August of 1945 to use an atomic bomb.

Ultimately, this is a sphere where two worldviews must collide and, I think, remain unsolved. I believe that there is honestly no way to think "Christianly" about the proliferation/use of atomic weapons (or any weapon for that matter!), yet if the government cannot protect its citizens, what is the point of government in the first place? And, perhaps ironically, for millions of American Christians, there is a place where nuclear proliferation means protection from global nuclear war, even in this post Cold War era.

Bro. Paul on the Resurrection

If it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

1 Cor. 15:12-19

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God!

At the Cross

Why do so many of our most popular hymns about the cross have such bright, peppy tunes to accompany them? Certainly because the cross is not ultimately a scene of defeat, but of victory. Still, I feel the need to be reminded on this Good Friday that what happened at Calvary was a brutal execution where our perfect Messiah literally poured out his blood for us. It was not a pretty scene, just as my sin which was washed away at the cross is not pretty.

A Baptist favorite, "At the Cross," is one such hymn which sings about the brutality of the cross with a light and happy tune as it calls to mind the good news of our redemption. But the song we sing is based originally on an Isaac Watts poem which leaves us at the blood-stained foot of the cross. Just for a moment, I ask that the Lord will lead you to linger at the cross and experience the heights of love which our Savior displayed on that first dark, bloody, horrendous, Good Friday. Easter Sunday will come, but not before the darkness of Friday and the emptiness of the longest Sabbath Day in history.

Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed
By Isaac Watts

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such as worm as I?

Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, Thine—
And bathed in its own blood—
While the firm mark of wrath divine,
His Soul in anguish stood.

Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide
And shut his glories in,
When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
For man the creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While His dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe:
Here, Lord, I give my self away
’Tis all that I can do.