A Rejection of Focus on the Family's "Letter from 2012"

I recently started a Facebook group to protest Focus on the Family's "Letter from 2012." The link can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30055124462&ref=mf

This is what the group info says:

Focus on the Family Action recently put out a hypothetical letter that outlined what America would look like from the perspective of a Christian looking back on an Obama presidency from 2012. The letter starts off by saying, “Many Christians voted for Obama – Younger evangelicals actually provided him with the needed margin to defeat John McCain – but they didn’t think he would really follow through on the far-Left policies that had marked his career. They were wrong.” Here are just some of their scenarios Focus on the Family paints for us:

- The Supreme court leans liberal, 6 to 3.
- Terrorist attacks have occurred in 4 US cities.
- Christian doctors, nurses, counselors, and teachers have either been fired or quit.
- Iran perpetrated a nuclear attack on Israel, drastically reducing the size of is borders.
- Pornography is freely displayed.
- Inner city violent crime has dramatically increased due to gun control.
- Russia has occupied 4 additional countries.
- Gas tops $7 a gallon.
- Euthanasia becomes commonplace.
- Blackouts occur throughout the country.
- Homosexual marriage becomes law in all 50 states.
- Campus ministries, Christian adoption agencies and Christian schools nearly cease to exist.
- Home school families emigrate to Australia and New Zealand by the thousands.
- Bush officials are jailed and bankrupt.
- Taliban oppression overtakes Iraq and death of American sympathizers reaches millions.
- Homosexuals are given a bonus to enlist in the military.

As you can see, Focus on the Family has abandoned all reasonable appeals and resorted to shameless tactics of fear mongering. They have abandoned the belief that voters can make informed decisions and have instead appealed to fear as their fundamental motivator.

As Christians, we stand appalled and ashamed at such tasteless demagoguery. We believe that civil, educated, and compassionate dialogue should and can occur with the active engagement of our faith, but believe that Focus on the Family Action has, in this letter, stepped far outside of reasonable boundaries into pure sensationalism. We believe that such thoughtless expressions coming from an organization that purports to represent Evangelicals continues to mar our legitimacy and voice in the public arena, and damages our basic Christian witness.

Please let Focus on the Family know your thoughts by contacting them through email at citizenlink@family.org.

The original letter can be found here:

http://focusfamaction.edgeboss.net/download/focusfamaction/pdfs/10-22-08_2012letter.pdf

Please encourage your friends to contact Focus on the Family and to join this group.

Jesus, my Opiate.

“We may even discover that much of our image of God, and even our reasons for coming to religious faith, have psychological roots. To discover such things creates a great deal of anxiety and can even shake one’s faith. A faith unexamined, however, always runs the risk of being a faith in idols rather than a faith in God.” –Dr. Michael Mangis

We have lived under auspices of modernity and Fundamentalism for so long that most of us have grown up with this need to be “objective” and absolute with our faith. Our churches, the tracts we hand out, the apologetic books we read exist to solidify certainty in our minds, that our faith is logical and worth believing apart from our own needs, able to stand empirically against the “demons” of post-modernity, evolution, and moral decay. We defend our faith against statements like, “Religion is the opiate of the masses,” because it paints us as needy people, and we sure as hell don’t want to be viewed as weak by the world.

The more honest I am with myself, the more I realize I am not objective. Everything I think, say, and do is affected by my experiences, culture, and upbringing. It’s about time that the myth of objectivity lies down to die.

We are so fond of saying, “There’s a God-shaped hole inside of everyone.” Is it so scary to admit that the God-shaped hole might be partly psychological in nature? Is it so wrong to admit that we are indeed weak, and that God is simultaneously our Lord and opiate? Why does it offend our sense of competency to confess that we could not breath without Him? (After all, don’t all things hold together in Christ?) Does our brokenness and need for love and community necessarily make God any less real? The more I know about myself, the more I must confess that I am not strong, but that it is only His grace that is sufficient. It is His strength in my weakness. Actually, I believe that we are all weak. Some of us merely choose to acknowledge it.

In attempting to reconcile the “hermeneutic of suspicion” (recognizing that we are not capable of objectivity) with some Christian absolute truth, Dr. Mangis says the following: “A Christian hermeneutic of humility and confidence, therefore, will answer yes to the first question- there is an authoritative heart of truth- but will answer no to the second- we cannot know that truth with objectivity.” We then, as Christians, are in the pursuit of that truth, but cannot know it absolutely until we see Him face to face, since, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor 13:12). We live in the process of coming to know the truth.

In the end, the person and work of Jesus Christ is whom we hang onto. It is the one thing that I know. As Paul said, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

A quote from my journal:

“I’m so glad for Jesus. He keeps my feet grounded and my heart floating. He calls me to stay away from dwelling long in self-pity or anger. He calls me to lift my eyes beyond myself and shows me that there is more to this world than me. His love anchors me when my emotions throw me about. He is unchanging, yet our dynamic relationship is never stale. He is my Lord, for whom I am thankful.”

Hiphop Concerts and Israeli Terrorism

I went to a Talib Kweli concert last night at the Chicago House of Blues with some friends. A hiphop concert is an interesting place to worship. I love the power of a bass that rumbles through my chest, and words that spit truth without hesitation. One of Talib's songs, "I Try," has Mary J. Blige singing the following:

"An upside down kingdom where life is just not fair
So many suffering cuz deep inside they're scared
Fear pumped into their veins to keep them from their destiny
Where would they be if you and I don't care?"

Recently, news headlines have been pointing to Israel's injustices towards the 1.5 million people living in Gaza. If ever there was a good way of creating more animosity and perpetuating the cycle of hate, Israel continues to do a wonderful job at it. It's response, once again, is disproportionate, ineffective, and being resisted even among members of their own government, not to mention receives harsh condemnation from the UN and Oxfam. How, in the name of all things holy, can Christians just proof text their way to supporting Israel?

In an attempt to save the Gospel, we have truncated it. In an attempt to focus on the root, we consistently ignore or conveniently forget the deep implications of living in the Kingdom, a Kingdom that is more than just "me and my relationship with God" and opposes the powerful and the proud but belongs to the poor and the oppressed. We have neutered the Gospel and sapped its ability to free prisoners when we support those who imprison. We have lost the prophetic voice of the Body when we blindly toe political lines and fail to see that Christ desires Life not just after death, but in the here and now. Our compartmentalization of the Gospel, our dualistic understanding of ourselves and our blindness towards everything that has shaped our priorities, values, spirituality has made us think that life will be all well if people would just pray an acceptance prayer. We miss the fact that it is so often the powers and authorities, the systems in which we blindly participate in and benefit from, that causes the suffering of His children.

It is far easier to tweek our theologies so that our "passions" conveniently eclipse the real difficulties of gray areas and places in our own lives.

Apathy is easy. But ignorance is not bliss. It is not impartial. Does it make our modernist selves uncomfortable to think that we might not have concrete answers to everything, so much so that we are not willing to entertain the questions?

I think back to the time I tried to post on the Facebook wall of a group called "Christians Standing with Israel," and had my post deleted despite the fact that it was civil and simply raised questions. Is this what Christians are made of? Foolish dogmatism and desire to run from the truth? Are we really that afraid of anything that challenges our narrow understanding of the world? (Here's the old post about it).

We are the Pharisees. We are the Sanhedrin. We are those who pound our Bibles and claim to hold the absolute truth, yet sit in the seats of judgment against the sinners and gentiles, not knowing that all the while, we spit in the face of Jesus.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God."

"Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions."

Thanks Jerry Falwell, for that quote.

I spend too much time on Facebook.

I was recently invited to join the group, "Christians Standing with Israel." I wanted to post on the wall, without actually joining the group, since I certainly didn't agree with "unconditionally support" of Israel. However, I gave in just to make a post that gently stated the following:

- Christians should not just blindly support Israel based on religious ties and proof-texting.
- I challenged them to consider whether the secular nation-state of Israel is the same as the one mentioned in Scripture.
- I asked whether we should support Israel even when it goes against Biblical values like justice.
- Though I supported Israel's right to exist, I asked whether Israel had the "right" to oppress many of its own citizens who are even Christians, bringing to light the fact that there are such things as Arab Christians in the Middle East.
- I stated that if people had come to whatever conclusion they have through thoughtfulness, then I respected that, but challenged them to investigate more, mentioning Dr. Burge's book "Whose Land? Whose War? What Christians are not Being Told About Israel and the Palestinians."

Mind you, this was done in a non-threatening and gentle way. Just out of curiosity (and my Facebook addiction), I visited the group again today to see if there were any responses, but the moderators of the group felt it necessary to remove my post.

Granted, Christian Zionism bothers me, especially when if it blindly encourages the humanitarian abuse and injustice towards countless others, Christians and Muslims alike. However, when dialogue is stiffled so that a certain view or ideology might be presented without blemish or challenge, it makes me wonder if people value finding truth or if they just want to hear their own views supported with what they like to hear.

Of course, I already know the answer to that question... and I myself am not free of it. But for God's sake, Christians, at least *try* to fight it...