Can We Minimize the God-Forsaken Comments?

I recently re-read N.T. Wright’s The Day the Revolution Began. There are many things to say about the quality of Wright’s thinking about atonement in this book, but in particular, today, I’m thinking about how he chooses to summarize Luke’s primary intent in the Book of Acts.

In Wright’s understanding of Acts, Luke is focused on the idea that as new creatures in Christ, followers of Jesus are called to worship God, bear witness to God’s redemption, and to do those two things in hope. I’m intrigued by that summary – but the word that I’m drawn to right now is witness. What in the world does it look like to witness in hope in our current world?

The Bible doesn’t seem to be confused about the fact that humans were made in God’s image, intended to reflect His image in all of creation. The Bible is also not confused about the fact that humans have not done that well. The whole Jesus story ultimately points to the restoration of our human vocation as image bearers to all of creation, as we await in hope the reappearing of Jesus and the renewal and restoration of creation to its God-intended purpose.

The whole Jesus story ultimately points to the restoration of our human vocation as image bearers to all of creation.

Wright suggests that we should view ourselves as mirrors – and in that context, should spend our lives adjusting the mirror to precisely reflect God’s image to creation and creature, one and all. Scot McKnight, in a similar vein, suggests that we are “broken icons” (icon is an English word from the Greek word ikon, which means image) that are being put back together by the atoning work of Christ on the cross.

If I accept the idea that my human vocation – from God’s point of view – is to be a reflection of God to all of creation, then that is going to put some constraints around lots of things. This includes the God-forsaken comments we casually say or post for one and all to hear and read, but which are extraordinarily poor reflections of who God is.

Here’s an example. A week or so ago, while scrolling through Facebook, I saw a person who claims to be a Christian and serves as a pastor of a church say this:

Never fear Far-Left Loonies, Progressives, Marxists and Snowflakes! RBG has beaten cancer 4 times AND George Soros’s doctors are her doctors. This ole bat will live to be over 100 and will serve on the court until the day she dies (probably in 2037).

You might guess, if you keep up with the news, that he was commenting on the fact that earlier that day, the United States Supreme Court had announced that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had been hospitalized. If you know anything about Justice Ginsburg’s health, she has beaten colon cancer, lung cancer, and pancreatic cancer, fought other serious illnesses, and now has a tumor in her liver.

Justice Ginsburg has been on the court since 1993. I have no idea how many court decisions she has been a part of over those many years. I know she has been on what is often called “the liberal side” of the court, and she has no doubt voted for and often written opinions that I would disagree with.

Yet, that statement on a pastor’s Facebook page made me want to vomit. Oddly, perhaps the most conservative justice on the Court in our lifetime (maybe alongside Justice Thomas), Justice Antonin  Scalia, was great friends with Justice Ginsburg. They went to all sorts of social and fine arts events together, including the opera. Justice Scalia was a deeply committed Roman Catholic, and I can find no example of his making such “godforsaken comments” about people with whom he disagreed. Apparently, he learned in his faith upbringing what this fundamentalist evangelical pastor either wasn’t exposed to or deliberately rejected as a way of being Christ-like.

Pastors like this one are quick to tell me, “Pray for President Trump.” That is always followed by some quote or reference to the New Testament’s admonition to “pray for our leaders.” I do pray for President Trump, just like I prayed for President Obama, and President Bush, and President Clinton, and every other president in my lifetime. This pastor – and I’ve met many like him – would apparently ignore that injunction when it comes to justices of the United States Supreme Court. But I would bet my paycheck that when Justice Scalia died, this pastor managed to do some “praying” of sorts. And those prayers would have included asking God for the “right” kind of judge to replace Justice Scalia.

Go back a paragraph or two and think about what I said: “What in the world does it look like to witness in hope in our current world?”

“It looks like a lot of things,” is likely how I would begin to answer that question. But I know one thing it does not look like is the posting of such God-forsaken language on any social media site. It shouldn’t be too complicated to understand why we seem to be losing in our efforts to transform the world. If my only exposure to the Jesus story looked like that quote, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be a Jesus follower.

Ironically, both Jesus and Paul, as well as other New Testament writers, lived in a world where the government was guilty of atrocity after atrocity. Yet, I can’t seem to find a comment in the New Testament that would warrant our making the kind of comment quoted above. That simple fact alone betrays a sense of who really is Lord for people who say things like this. It’s Caesar, not Jesus.

I’ve been studying Colossians in recent days. Colossians is a power-packed little piece of literature that speaks to how believers address the challenges of evil, false doctrine, and the opposition to our faith that seems to permeate all cultures. Rather than making a nasty, God-forsaken comment like the one above, Paul says, “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” (Colossians 4:5, ESV)

The word walk in that text is from a Greek word that seems to be Paul’s favorite word to describe the Christian life. Outsiders could easily be defined as “those ‘outside’ the body of ‘the called out ones.’” I’m having a hard time trying to think of a single “outsider” I know who would see that pastor’s statement as so wisdom-filled they would choose to follow Jesus. Remember – we are called to witness to who God is.

The phrase “making the best use of the time” is similar to a phrase Paul uses in Ephesians 5:15. Time has to do with the age we live in – the age of the kingdom of God – and making the best was a marketplace word that means “drive a hard bargain.” Again, I just can’t imagine anyone on the “outside” thinking that I was driving a hard bargain – in this age of the kingdom of God – to bear witness to the love of God in a wise manner by making such God-forsaken comments.

Some will quickly say, “It’s just social media.” Or “It’s politics, that’s how it’s done.” Or even, “He really doesn’t mean it.” All of that, of course, suggests that the power of the gospel to transform us doesn’t really work in some areas of our lives. A more technical term may be “compartmentalizing” certain things. You remember that word, don’t you? It’s the same word pastors like this one used to tell Bill Clinton he couldn’t “compartmentalize” his relationship with an intern and still be president!

I know that the so-called left is quite capable of making some pretty offensive “God-forsaken comments,” too. I wish they would quit, but at least they don’t normally do that while insisting what faithful followers of Jesus they are, or do so in the name of a church for which they pastor.

There is no verse in Scripture that says “Be obnoxious, insensitive, and insulting for Jesus.”

There is no verse in Scripture that says “Be obnoxious, insensitive, and insulting for Jesus.” But there are some verses that say things like “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13) and “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you.” (Romans 15)

I hope and pray that when the story of American Christianity in the early twenty-first century is written down, there will be a story that says that these God-forsaken comments were heresy, not gospel.