In this instance, the friends I’m praying for are the folks preparing and gathering for the 2013 Spring “Contending for the Faith Lectures.”

I had such hope when I saw on the sponsoring church’s home page that the topic this year would be “Christ – The Great Controversialist.” I dared to think that the practices of the past might be done away with in this year’s lectures, and that the presentations might actually be Christ-centered, and elaborate on His controversial teachings, life, death, and resurrection – the gospel that saves us.

But here’s their list of topics and speakers, and I greatly fear that the topics (in many cases, at least) indicate a focus on repeating questionable doctrines generated by men and attributing them to God as if scripture relayed them from Him word-for-word, and no human logic or inference or deduction or conclusion was involved. And I suspect that these topics will serve as an opportunity for lambasting as apostate those who disagree with the speakers’ logic, inferences, deductions and conclusions — as well as disagreeing with their insistence that these constitute God’s own doctrine.

I fear these things because of the tenor of these lectures in the past (2012, 2011, 2010, etc.), and so many of the names are the same, and the odds of a change of heart among so many are not very good, really.

So as speakers and attendees prepare, I will again be praying for them the same things I have prayed in years past — and these are the same things I pray for myself and anyone else who desires to speak about, for and in partnership with God, His Son and His Holy Spirit.

I would so very much like to be proven wrong about the things I fear.

I’m probably much closer to a conflict-avoider than a peacemaker, and I don’t have any real hope that Jesus’ blessing in Matthew 5:9 to include conflict-avoiders like me.

But, apparently, arguing — and arguing persuasively — is very much essential to the spread of the gospel. At least it is, if you’re looking at the example of Paul.

When on a mission trip, he almost always went first to a synagogue. (Acts 9:20; 13:5, 14; 14:1 – “as usual”; 17:2 – “as was his custom”; 17:10; 18:4, 19; 19:18.) That makes sense:

1. It’s what Jesus did (Matthew 4:23; 9:35; 12:9; 13:54 and parallel/other references in the companion gospels). And Paul was all about imitating Christ (Philippians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 11:1). 
2. Jews and proselytes in the synagogue would already have a basic familiarity with one God, the law and the prophets. So Paul could start from there to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, who had to die and to be raised from death. Maybe the most complete sermon of this approach was to Pisidian Antioch, recorded in Acts 13:13ff.
3. There, the folks in the synagogue asked for a word of encouragement; Paul preached the gospel, but he did so proving each point from scripture. Not a bad example to follow.

In many instances, he encountered opposition. That means he couldn’t just preach. He had to argue with the Jews who refused to believe (Acts 14:2-7; 15:1-2; 17:1-5; 18:5-6). It was important to demonstrate, both to those who believed and those who doubted, that there was no backing down from the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Once again, Paul was imitating Jesus — who would not back down from persuading people to reach the conclusion that He was the Messiah, the Christ, who had to die and live again.

He didn’t argue much with pagans; there was too much teaching to do. And God had a tendency to either defuse tense confrontations with pagans (often with miracles) or to place Paul in them under circumstances of trial as a Roman citizen so he could teach, as Jesus had prophesied in Matthew 10:19 and Mark 13:11 (which he did, often with remarkable humility and humor – see Acts 26).

So I find that the teaching of scripture is that believers who want to share the gospel …

1. need to spend their words and passion teaching those who do not know God, not so much arguing with them.
2. may have to argue from time to time with those who believe in the one God — sometimes even those who believe in His Son Jesus (as was the case with the circumcision party in Acts 15) — to prove persuasively that the gospel is not a matter of obeying man’s law, but of accepting the forgiveness of God through the grace shown in Jesus Christ.

This is difficult for me. I don’t really like to argue.

But, sometimes, that is what I am called to do.

I understand this is sensitive, especially this close to a Roe v. Wade anniversary, but …

Surely at least you folks who assured everyone that gun control laws will not stop mass shootings must understand that criminalizing abortion will not put a stop to the practice?

I’m all for repealing legislation that requires taxpayers to fund abortions against their consciences — it’s just wrong.

Yet if we really want to reduce the number of abortions, we Christians need to quit putting all our eggs in the anti-abortion law basket. We need to be about the much harder business of meeting, befriending, loving and accepting young unmarried women who are pregnant — especially those who have no history of parental love, no knowledge of a loving and forgiving God or His Savior Son, and no visible means of financial support. We need to be willing to open our hearts, homes and maybe even wallets to help them to choose a better option. We need to be willing to set up vocational training and day care opportunities through our churches. We need to establish fellowships for adoption and scholarships for career-seeking young women who intend to keep their babies.

We need to be willing to provide foster homes for babies given for adoption, and legal assistance with fees, and help in connecting birth-mothers with adoptive families.

We need to be ambassadors of God’s grace in this world, not spigots of judgment and condemnation, and/or legislators of morality.

Anyone can sign a petition, cast a vote, badger a legislator to pass a law, and go back to their lives the next minute, able to salve their consciences that they didn’t make a wrong choice that led to pregnancy and they’re not responsible.

If we’re really serious about saving the lives of unborn children, then we need to face the hard choices, too.

I’m a parent of two awesome adopted children, and I owe more than I can ever repay to some exemplary people who made some very tough choices.

We can try row upstream against the river of public opinion with nothing but anti-abortion legislation, continue to wade through it, or hoist sail by expressing the love that explains why we oppose it and also Who died so that God’s family could grow.

I’m fine with you owning one, but if you do, or own a permit for one, or are licensed to carry one:

I think you need to be as rigorously tested about your knowledge of guns and gun laws as anyone who gets a driver’s license is about laws regarding driving a car.

I think you need to be as insured for gun ownership as any auto driver is required to be against accidents, withbenefits payable to the victim(s) of any crime or accident that occurs with any gun registered to you.

I think you should store your guns unloaded and locked up securely. A glass display case with a decorative key-lock is not secure. (If you don’t own a gun, you should lock up your prescription medicine the same way.)

I know this will not stop violent gun crime, but if you own and carry, you owe it to the people who do not to be as responsible as you can be about your right, to help keep stolen and illegal weapons out of the hands of violent criminals, and to prevent accidents due to loaded and unsecured weapons.

Now for the shock:

I don’t think this ought to be law.

It ought to be the recognized, self-enforced responsibility of every gun-owner to observe these suggestions as the natural course of living in society while owning a gun.

Guns don’t kill people, but people with guns do kill people.

The plain fact is, when disturbed and angry people set out to kill a lot of other people, they don’t generally reach for a baseball bat or a knife or set about the complicated process of securing the materials and building a bomb. There are exceptions, and history is full of them, and the news takes note of them because they are the exceptions.

I don’t know what the breakeven number of murders is to classify a crime as “mass murder,” but we have tended to become numbed to news stories of three, four ,five, six and even more people being shot to death as just a part of life to flinch at but not remember.

We’re saddened when we read a tiny news story buried back in the paper — or an obituary — about a child who was killed by finding a loaded gun in the house and playing with it.

But we don’t take note of it or remember it in the same way that we do when stories of multiple killings are broadcast over and over again on the news and splashed on the front page of the newspaper.

If you own one gun or many, please:

Do what you can to keep guns out of easy access to people who want to kill people — or who don’t know how to use them.

Public prayer in public schools sounds like such a good thing.

I say: No thanks.

I’m a Christian, but I do not want government to have the authority to regulate public prayer in schools. It sets a precedent that allows government to decide what kind of prayer takes place there. It would be fine with a lot of people if Christian prayer had exclusive rights to our schools, but they would not feel that way if the prayers of other faiths and religions were given exclusive rights.

No, it’s best for prayer to remain a private matter in schools. No one is going to send a child to detention for a silent prayer. And to claim that a lack of public Christian prayer keeps God out of our schools is simply inaccurate. He’s God. He goes wherever He wills. And as long as there are those who pray – whether in public or in private – He is welcome in their hearts. And they are testifying to their faith in Him.

If we believe in equal opportunity under the Constitution, but a little more equal for Christian publuc prayer in schools, then we don’t really believe in it.

If we shrug, “Majority rules,” then we’re not facing the reality that Christianity is a fast-shrinking majority.

Plus if we feel that it’s Christian duty to impose our beliefs and practices on others through government, we’re supporting the kind of government where political issues become religionized as well as religious issues becoming politicized.

Governments that sleep with religion lead to corrupting power, not public choice of faith in a free market of ideas. They leave the impression that the favored religion has no intrinsic power or advantage, unless it’s sleeping with government.

Don’t take the United States of America even one step in that diection.

Let freedom ring. Let the power of individual choice rule.

And let your religion prove its power to change and improve lives through your own example.

It seems like everyone who blogs and is my age or younger and attended there has an opinion about the choice of Bruce McLarty as the new president of Harding University, or about the institution’s direction or mission or future.

I can’t say that I really do.

I wish the University well and Bruce McLarty well and that’s just about it.

Sorry if that violates hopes or expectations.

I am grateful for the fine education I was offered and received at Harding from 1973-1977; for the wonderful friends I met and made there; for the experiences one cherishes for a lifetime.

But I must confess I was never really comfortable there.

I think I was too young to perceive the politics or religious convictions attached to the university then, but I was not too young to perceive that a little freedom was regarded as a dangerous thing.

From the way the dorms were locked and bed-checked at night (some without fire doors back then) to the ominous restrictions on attire, decor and behavior, it was pretty obvious that deviation from a well-described norm would not be tolerated. Individualism would be frowned upon. Self-expression would be patrolled.

I’m sure that many of these restrictions have been removed, loosened, or modified to become more socially-acceptable in modern society.

But Harding and I have gone separate ways, and awkwardly since I vacated my dorm room. We have an unspoken deal: They don’t send me any alumni publications or e-mails, and I don’t send them any money, children, or home addresses.

Mostly because, at the heart of it, I think that a really excellent education requires a little bit more freedom for students and trust in their ability to think, provide, and act for themselves than I could have ever hoped to experience there at that time.

That made it, in some ways, a very long four years. Back then – as I’ve shared before – Harding’s motto was “Educating for Eternity.” And one of my roommates observed, “It’s really just four or five years. It just seems like an eternity.”

parsimonious – adj. – exhibiting or marked by parsimony; especially : frugal to the point of stinginess. 2. : sparing, restrained. ~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Parsons and politicians are the folks we generally associate with this blessing, and I have come to see it as ultimately stingy, selfish and sanctimonious. (You can look up that ‘un yourself.) But it’s not just them. It’s sung, and sung loudly, at sporting events and church services and civic gatherings by the rest of us common folk. A stingy blessing. This is the one I mean:

“God bless America.”

All due respect to Irving Berlin, it’s rattled off at the end of stump speeches and sermons and congregations of all sorts with, I suspect, the merest whiff of intention or recognition of its gravity.

God bless our nation. Us. The U.S. Not anybody else. They can fend for themselves, those godless folk who don’t even ask blessings on their country. Phooey on ’em.

I know it’s not meant that way. However … don’t you think it sounds that way to the folks who aren’t Americans? You know there’s quite a few of them out there. A good number of them speak English … sometimes in addition to their own language(s).

Shouldn’t Americans be concerned about what them foreigners think?

So why isn’t there a pol or a pastor somewhere who’ll close an address with a wider, more generous blessing? Someone who’ll step up and say:

“God bless America. But not just America. May God bless the people of every nation … with good health and prosperity, a greater measure of freedom, a deeper perception of responsibility, a more heartfelt sensitivity to the needs of others, and a brighter hope for the future.

“May God bless all of His children, wherever they live, whatever they have been taught to believe or disbelieve, with a mind and heart more open to His will, the good He wants and intends for them.

“May God bless all of creation with balance and sustainability in every conceivable way, so that all the earth may indeed be reconciled to Him.

“And may those who believe always reflect His glory by living their lives as conduits of His love, light and goodness in His world.

“May God bless America. But not just America.

“May God bless His world.”

I’d vote for somebody who did that.

Their work is often thankless. It rarely can get done within 40 hours a week. It’s comprised of many hours in hospitals, in counseling chambers, in prisons, in study, in preparation, in prayer, in anguish. It’s called for at any hour of the day when someone in the church family has a need. It sometimes takes priority over the minister’s own family needs. It can challenge the minister’s heart, soul, mind and strength … sometimes all in the same day. Sometimes all in the same hour.

It can take the form of wedding the betrothed, consoling the bereaved, burying the dead, baptizing the penitent, mentoring the willing, soothing the suffering, rejoicing with the triumphant, empathizing with the disheartened, seeking with the seeker, reconciling the discordant, persuading the sinner, teaching the curious, leading the lost, following the Savior — all these and many more.

If your minister’s work is burdening, share it. Help with it. Take on the yoke in the Spirit of Christ and be Him for your minister. Pray for your minister — lovingly, wholeheartedly, deeply, frequently.

Your minister is a part of a diminishing breed of believers willing to shoulder that burden for, usually, much less than could be made ministering in another profession. Cherish that dedication. Recognize the honor it gives God.

Don’t deny your minister the refreshment of silence and solitude … of time away on ordinary vacation … of the fellowship of others in ministry and the opportunities to learn and grow at conferences, workshops, lectures; and to speak to other churches and organizations.

Don’t muzzle the ox while treading out the grain! Pay your minister well.

Remember that your card or letter or even e-mail of appreciation and encouragement can make your minister’s day. A compliment on the sermon is nice, of course, but different sermons reach the needs of different people. Be supportive of your minister’s other ministries, family, personal choices, example.

If you must be critical of your minister, let it be in private and face-to-face. Be critical of yourself first. Examine your motives in being critical. If you disagree with your minister, let it be handled the same way. If you must correct or reprove, do so in love … care … concern. Be willing to accept reproof yourself, humbly and without guile. You could be wrong, and this could be an opportunity for both of you to ferret out God’s will together.

And, because it bears repeating: pray, pray, pray.

I’m afraid that’s how I think of them.

One party believes that the answer to America’s problems lies in giving more power to the people who already have power.

The other party believes the answer is to give more money to the people who already have money.

Each has become so ideologically entrenched that they have both espoused platform planks that are clearly absurd — simply for the reason that they are diametrically opposite to the other’s.

We’ve bought into the easy lie that we can hire someone to fix it all and vote them into office and they’ll fix it all … and those who vie for the money and power have been eager to sell us the lie.

Government ain’t the answer to our problems. A government-free economy ain’t the answer to our problems.

We’re the answer to our problems.

Our faith in each other has been shaken by terrorism, the longest war in our nation’s history, natural disaster and failure to respond well to it, outsourcing of jobs and production to other nations, corruption/cheating/scandal among the power-and-money brokers left unpunished, too many years of exorbitant overspending and digging our nation deeper into debt — on the part of ourselves individually, corporately, and governmentally.

And our economy is built upon our faith in each other. Not in gold. Not in silver. Not even in the solvency of our government or the rates set by the Federal Reserve Bank.

Each other.

If we trusted each other to be willing to work hard; produce good products and services; buy them, pay for them what they are worth, invest in them; pay off our debts; have a long-term economic view toward our assets (including our environment and labor force); educate, care for, mentor and look after those who are disadvantaged; not to overinflate prices in order to generate undue profits … well, we’d have an economy that no other nation and no act of terrorism and no force of nature could unseat.

But we don’t, and we shouldn’t expect to.

Because our economy is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and our government is based on fulfillment of self-interest, and we obviously don’t know what is best for the whole country … only what we want for ourselves. We buy what we want and we vote for what we want, personally, with no particular perception of — or concern for — any larger picture.

As long as we fail to see in current and historical perspective the vision that our forefathers foresaw when they wrote our founding documents and laws … built our nation from raw materials, hard labor, innovation and willpower … repudiated wrongs like slavery and injustice and bigotry … well, we’ll just slog along in the same downhill direction, led by the party of power and the party of wealth blindly squeezing at each other’s throats.

So we can vote like we mean it come November … but as long as we don’t see the vision of America long-term, live the vision like it’s our last best hope, and believe in each other as Americans, it won’t matter one mite which party wins and which party loses.

It’s a set of simple but powerful words in the English language that most every school-child of speaking age in the United States knows by heart:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Our Pledge of Allegiance has an interesting history and has stirred many a patriotic and religiously faithful heart to strong emotions, and sometimes conflict.

I used to be among those reticent to repeat the Pledge, after years of unthinkingly doing so — having been a teen of the querulous Sixties and having forgotten Red Skelton’s exposition of it — on the grounds that it might, in some way, supercede the overarching supremacy of the Kingdom of God, who is sovereign forever and ever.

But I re-examine it these days, and find no such language. It is a pledge of loyalty to the nation into which I was born, which protected and nourished and educated me … which preserved my rights and freedoms and insisted on my responsibilities as a maturing individual … which required my taxes to do so but in doing so returned much more to me as an individual of average income than I could possibly have paid back … which accepted the sacrifices, willing and unwilling, penultimate and ultimate, of many a brave soul on its soil and beyond to assure the rights and freedoms that should be for all people of all nations — blessings which can only be described as priceless.

The pledge does not require that my loyalty to the United States of America supercede my loyalty of the Kingdom of God. To not pledge some allegiance of some measure to such a nation of nurture, of soaring hopes and high ideals, of openness to diversity and dreams, of empowerment to the enterprising — whatever their resources might or might not be — would be the mark of ingratitude.

Whatever shortcomings this nation has (and there are many, for it is comprised of many imperfect citizens), the United States of America remains an ideal to be accomplished … a declaration of independence from tyranny … a constitution for a more perfect union … a quality of equality worth aiming for and worth hitting dead-center with every single attempt.

So I have dropped my qualms about the Pledge of Allegiance. It does, after all, describe a human republic with hopes for many of the same attributes that are realities of the divine Kingdom:

… one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.