World Vision announced that they will be supporting Marriage Equality in their hiring practices… in order to help unify Christians….
Westboro Baptist Church announced that their founder, whom they excommunicated, died… but they have no understanding why pagans are making sympathetic gestures towards them….
Something significant seems to be missing…. In both instances….
From the title…. From the name…. That seems to be very telling….
God is not necessarily centrally evidenced in either World Vision… or Westboro Baptist Church… at least not on the surface…. The name World Vision seems strangely appropriate…. A declaration of internal values….
Yet both seem to be trying to stake claim to controlling interests in Christian Morality….
World Vision is definitely not Hobby Lobby…. No Duck Dynasty…. No Chick-fil-a…. Very different ethos…. Different ethic….
Neither is Westboro Baptist Church….
But… the critical question seems to be… can God use such divers… such divergent… “Christian”organs…? Does God use them…?
Short answer…. God used Pharaoh…. So… yes… God can….
But… what does Scripture say…. Do of these two Contemporary Christian Extremes reflect Scripture… accurately…?
I am convinced both will argue that their values do… and the others do not… and thus… neither is likely to lead towards unity of the Body of Believers…. Because healing… requires Reconciliation….
I am sure that many Christians will see this as a case in which The Golden Mean applies…. Let’s meet half way…. Compromise….
That is perfect… from the Buddhist Perspective….
Buddha taught “The Middle Way”. In Pure Land Buddhism, the ideal is called “The White Path Between the Two Rivers”. The River of Fire on the right, which signifies submersing oneself in willful self-indulgence. The River of Water on the left, which signifies severe asceticism and extreme self-denial. And the White Way… the narrow path between the two extremes….
Here’s why I say that:
John 4:1-44 English Standard Version (ESV)
Jesus and the Woman of Samaria
4 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.[a]
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.[b] The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” 28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.
31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. 35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. 36 Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. 37 For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.)
Footnotes:
Many of us know this passage as “The Woman at the Well”. The woman in question, happens to be a Samaritan…. A half-blood syncretist…. Evidence of God’s destruction of his Chosen People for Infidelity…. And… that was certainly brought out by her sin….
Jesus’ Disciples were amazed that he was even talking to her….
First… she was a woman…. Not of his family…. Not someone he knew well… or even knew at all…. She was a Samaritan… so she was shunned…. A social outcast…. Racially discriminated against…. Far from salvation…. The Jews viewed Salvation as strictly their own possession… The Jews viewed themselves as better than their kin…. And… the Messiah… had been sent… to save only the Chosen….
Oh… and she was a SINNER!!! An Infidel…. In EVERY sense of the word….
So… how did Jesus treat this Sinner….
He didn’t condemn her… though he clearly identified her sin to her….
But… Jesus didn’t condone her sin either…. Jesus didn’t say: “You are a Sinner, but your sins are forgiven… just keep on doing what you are doing…. It’s OK…. My Grace covers all your sin….”
Jesus did not condemn the Sinner… nor did he condone her sin-filled Lifestyle….
But… shouldn’t we condemn her….
John gives another example… where Jesus is tested… on just this issue….
8 1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. 3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst 4 they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. 5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” 6 This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. 7 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. 9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 10 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Jesus does not condemn this woman either. Nor does he condone her actions or lifestyle.
Jesus instructs the women: Go… and sin no more….
Rebuke in Love. Leading to Repentance. Leading to Reconciliation.
The Church cannot be healed with Reconciliation.
Neither Condemning… nor Condoning… are likely to facilitate True Repentance….
I mentioned the White Way Between the Two Rivers…. Jesus never suggested we walk the narrow path between extremes….
God didn’t send Jesus as our Messiah as some half-measure….
The Temple… and the Sacrifice… the Law… those were half-measures…. Temporary…. Symbolic…. Ritualistic….
But Jesus… was the culmination… the completion… of the Law….
Jesus was fully man… fully God… and full propitiation for my sin…. Jesus’ death and resurrection paid my debt in full….
Jesus didn’t preach a half-way… or a Middle Way….
Jesus was a different way….
Jesus is… the ONLY Way….
Jesus didn’t condemn…. Jesus didn’t condone…. Jesus SAVED…. And… Jesus transformed….
the Dark Mirror: Reflections for Flawed Christians 