Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
I'm sick of the pain
I'm sick of hearing
Again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth
(continued from previous post...)
So you're a disciple of Christ (if not you should be)? You're waiting for that great "gettin up morning" when we'll "fly away."
I don't blame you. I'm sick of sorrow, I'm sick of the pain. A great friend and I talked last night about the great Gospel song, "I'll Fly Away" last night. He's said that while growing up he always wanted Jesus to tarry in his return. He didn't want Jesus to return before he got to experience marriage, kids and well those things that create kids. But now he wouldn't mind Jesus coming back at anytime he so decides - especially after the horrible last year he's experienced
And I don't blame him. I think as Christians we all want to see Jesus return, but what about the interim?
"Now if there is a life of heaven and we can choose it, then there's also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be. We can bring heaven to earth; we can bring hell to earth.
For Jesus, heaven and hell were present realities. Ways of living we can enter into here and now."
"For Jesus, the question wasn't, how do I get into heaven? but how do I bring heaven here?
The question wasn't how do I get in there? But how do I get there, here?"
"Jesus' desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth."
"As a Christian I want to do what I can to resit hell coming to earth. Poverty, injustice, suffering - they are all hells on earth, and as Christians we oppose them with our energies. Jesus told us to."
"The goal for Jesus isn't to get into heaven. The goal is to get heaven here."
This gives a whole new meaning to "On earth as it is in heaven." Eric and I have talked about this idea numerous times as it relates to our different faiths. Why do so many Christians see welfare and social programs as an evil, liberal agenda? Are the means the problem or is it the end? Thoughts, comments?
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4 comments:
Well put.
The problem with turning to welfare and social program is that it is the legislation of morality, living in the Law in Paul's terms. We are saying that in the Law, if we implement the proper take from one and give to another regime, we can call ourselves righteous.
Even better, if the majority votes for representatives who want to take 30% of everyone's income (or more or less depending on the progressive/regressive nature of the tax code) and then provide substantial assistance to the poor with that money, we can tell ourselves we have done our duty and wash our hands of the poor. Social programs don’t force us to address the problem; they sweep the problem under the rug in some substandard part of our city.
After all, dealing with the poor has become the government's job and one we don't want to see the government doing. Especially in Dallas where they are legislating volunteers out of existence: http://crawfordpeace.nfshost.com/node/2306. And although I’ve never been given a ticket, I’m still not certain that I won’t be handed one next time I give a homeless person a dollar.
Direct personal action is the proper means to solve society’s problems; not giving someone else’s money to have a bureaucrat try to do the right thing.
"Direct personal action is the proper means to solve society’s problems; not giving someone else’s money to have a bureaucrat try to do the right thing."
I agree. Personal action is the best means... but who will look out for those who are being left behind by the rest of society or even the world (i.e. Iraq or Sudan)?
I would ask the broader question: "What is a biblically-based Christian foreign policy?" and take a longer view, rather than couching this in an ahistoric dichotomy between contemporary notions of right and left. The Bush administration’s foreign policy is merely a continuation of Eisenhower-Kennedy era containment re-badged as neoconservatism, and combined with Kissinger’s realpolitik. He can dress up the rhetoric, but we Americans are not doing anything different than we have been since 1945. To me this comes down to whether the United States of America has the moral authority or a biblical mandate to go on a crusade to save the world.
I’m not sure. Personally I think overthrowing tyrants or ending genocide is a good thing. I’d like to see it happen now. I would probably be Zealot if I were a first-century Jew. However, Jesus didn’t too much in the way of direct action against cruel genocidal tyrants (and to be fair, He was too late to save the Carthaginians anyway), at least looking at it from the point of view of his contemporizes described in Christ’s book. But in rejecting the political solutions to overthrowing Rome, he subverted the authority of the Law (both Jewish and Roman) and created a subculture that lived beyond the Law that would come to dominate the Roman Empire. So by sacrifice and turning the other cheek, He and His followers did what the armed Zealots could not. But while it easy to understand the role of Christian as subversive, the role one should take as the one with power, be it Bono or George W. Bush, seems less defined and that lack of clarity is what has convinced many Christians that the political arena is off-limits.
Playing the devil’s advocate -- Does taxation take anything from a person when every dollar is stamped “United States of America” anyway?
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