What If God Was a Democrat?

I enjoy perusing the Christian section of bookstores because I’ve found that it’s really interesting what the owners of secular stores tend to toss into the category of “Christian.” For instance, I was in Barnes and Noble the other day, and right next to books written by real saints was a joke book about how to become “saintly,” which highlighted all of the “crazies” who have been honored by the Church. While that sort of stuff really bothers some people, it doesn’t really get to me. The people who write these books usually don’t know what they are talking about and also generally have good intentions, so while it may be frustrating that they are missing the point, I have hope that God will show them the Truth.

However, there are some books in the Christian section that I have real problems with. For example, immediately after finding the saint book, I found another book entitled, Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America. Titles like these inspire me to invest in a Zippo to take on my next trip to the bookstore. Why does this bother me? Well, first off, the title (and I’m assuming the book) implies that God supports a certain political position. Really? God is Republican? Hm, that’s funny, last time I checked God didn’t seem all that interested in human politics. In fact, the last time God interacted with a human government, He was killed. Isn’t it funny how Christians for about 400 years were considered anti-empire? Anti-world? And now Christians are making power grabs and attempting to be empire? To be the world?

Now, hopefully at this point I haven’t made anyone mad enough to stop reading, but even if you are a bit ticked, keep reading. If you are mad, feel free to send me an angry e-mail later, but people need to hear this out: Christianity isn’t about making sure one party is in office and another isn’t. As Christians we shouldn’t be that concerned about politics at all. As is incredibly evident, this world is a very broken place, and it’s not getting better. Since the world is a broken place, then I think that it’s fairly obvious that the institutions and things of this world are broken as well. If that’s the case, then why do we trust in human institutions to fix things? Why do we think that if we support this or that political party, it’s going to make things better? Don’t let either party fool you: neither is working to make God more real in this world. They may have good aims and produce some good things, but overall, political parties are looking for political control, which they will very gladly take with your vote.

Saying all of this may make it sound like I don’t trust the U.S. government, and if you’re thinking that, then your spot on. I don’t. I don’t trust any government in this world. Why? Do I think that their trying to establish totalitarian governments and use thought control to make us do Big Brother’s every whim? Not at all. However, I do not trust any government with fixing anything about this world. I have given up on this world fixing itself, and I will not be fooled into thinking that the institutions of this world have its best interests in mind. That is why I’m a Christian. I have denied the forces of this world, and pledged allegiance to the only Kingdom that can do anything.

As the Church we are not supposed to be mini-politicians, fighting for this or that political party so that they may “fix” everything. Instead, we are supposed to be Jesus carrying the light of Truth and Salvation to the world. We are supposed to be the healers. We are supposed to be one restoring the world. Through God’s infinite Grace and Power, we are working to make all things new. While the powers of this world will ultimately fail, God will not. Instead of making the Church an agent of these falling powers, let us remember that we are serving a new kingdom with a new Lord whose goal is healing, and not political power.

Sam Hunley

Doing Nothing for God Can Be a Good Thing

Mark 6:31

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest."

Ok, so I haven’t exactly been writing a lot here lately, and that has partly been because I’m a college student moving back and forth between my home and a dorm. As many of you have experienced, it can be a little stressful having to change where you live twice a year, and all of that moving makes it particularly hard to make your thoughts stand still enough to get them typed in any coherent fashion.

However, while frustrating, I don’t think that these transitions were really the source of the problem. Rather, I think that God was preventing me from writing. Every time I would sit down to write, my mind would go completely blank. Even if I had something planned to type-up before sitting down, all thoughts and plans would seem silly and unimportant as soon as the computer screen lit-up. Here’s why I think that it was God, though: every time this would happen, I would be calm. Before when I’ve had writer’s block because of my own issues, I’ve been incredibly stressed and worried, but over the past month I’ve been incredibly calm and at peace with the fact that I was producing nothing.

While I’m not claiming to be under the same stresses as the Disciples (trust me, I’m not), I do think that Jesus was telling me basically the same thing that He told the Disciples in this verse: get some rest. Why rest, though? If we rest, that means we stop working, and if we stop working, doesn’t that mean that we’re not producing? And if we’re not producing, aren’t we being bad Christians? I know that I personally struggle with these questions. Hence, the reason I’ve had a really tough time trying to start taking a sabbath: I just can’t convince myself that I’m allowed to stop.

If you take time to look at the commandment regarding the Sabbath, it says, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:11). You know what’s funny about this command? It doesn’t have anything to do with what we do. In fact, the whole day is supposed to be dedicated to what God did and does for us. Why is this important? Because it allows us time to remember that this life is not about us. It’s not about what we do. Instead, we are shown that this life is entirely about the infinite mercy that God has shown to humanity.

By commanding us to take a break, God is reminding us to let go and to let Him be our ultimate guide. That is exactly why we are so afraid of taking breaks. We think to ourselves, “If I let go will everything be ok? If I let go, won’t everything fall apart? If I stop and rest, won’t I fall behind?” In this way, the Sabbath becomes one of the ultimate signs of faith. By committing time to trusting in what God has done and what He continues to do in our lives, we are declaring our faith that God won’t let us go. That He will take care of us, and has taken care of us. We are declaring that it is our faith that saves us, and while our work brings us closer to God and allows our faith to grow so that it does not die, it is ultimately not our works that bring us salvation. Instead, it is that one Work which Christ performed on the Cross that saves us.

That is why I'm going to try taking a Sabbath because when I forget to take a break for God, I tend to forget who God is. That is why I feel that God made me stop writing this summer: I can talk about who God is all day, but it's not until I truly see who He is that things change.

Sam Hunley

Between God and Men

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Timothy 2:5
For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

In the 1,976 years of Christianity’s existence, more than a few understandings of Jesus’ purposes on Earth have developed. You have the basic understanding of Christ coming to the world to die for our sins. Then you have the belief that Jesus came to show us how to live a life of sacrifice, and you have more organized beliefs such as liberation theology, which is characterized by the belief that the whole of God’s purposes can be summed in that He is working to free the oppressed. Of course, most people hold more than one understanding of Christ, and these beliefs change over the course of one’s life. In fact, one’s understandings of Christ changes throughout the year as church services move from discussing baby Jesus, to the acts of the adult Jesus, to Jesus dying and being resurrected, to the resurrected Christ working through the disciples. All of these times of the year bring to light different aspects of Jesus, and it is very normal and healthy for us to understand Him in different ways.

While there are many different, legitimate, understandings Jesus, there are some understandings that have definite flaws. For example, one understanding of Jesus see’s Him as a sort of super human that is better than other humans. OK, now I realize that what I’m saying sounds funny because Jesus was the greatest human being to walk the Earth, and He will be the greatest again when He returns; however, by better, I mean that they see Jesus as having a certain advantage over other humans because He was God, allowing Him to live the perfect life that He did.

On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with this belief because Jesus was definitely 100% God, but significant problems arise when one remembers that Jesus was also 100% man. Why is this important, though? For two reasons. First, the “Word became flesh” in order to fully participate in creation. By becoming human, Jesus was able to fully relate to our joys and concerns and also to show humans how they are to live. When Jesus calls us to imitate Him, He isn’t saying to attempt something that a human could never possibly do. He is calling us to do something that a human has already done.

Second, it is the fact that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man that makes Him the mediator between God and humanity. He is man’s representative before God and God’s representative before man. He’s a middleman, and how else could one be a middleman other than be in the middle? This fact becomes even more important when you consider the fact that Jesus was and is supposed to be like a second Moses. Moses represented humanity before God as a human, and he spoke to humanity for God. However, Jesus supplants Moses in that He was/is a human speaking for humanity and God speaking for God.

It is because Jesus made the connection between God and mankind that not only was God able to participate in our humanness, but also we are now able to participate in God’s holiness. Furthermore, it is because of Jesus’ participation in the pain, suffering, and death of humanity, that we are able to participate in the love, joy, and life of God. To forget these facts would be to forget the Gospel entirely, and to miss out on the fact that the Son of the God, humbled Himself enough to become fully man in order to save humanity.

Sam Hunley

Faith and Fear

Mathew 20:25-28

25Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

As many of you probably don’t know, I have issues with authority. More specifically, I have problems with other people using their authority to limit my personal freedom. In some situations, this zeal is a very good thing because it allows me to get fired-up about protecting and working for the freedom of individuals, especially within this country. However, in other situations this rebellious tendency can get in the way of serving Christ.

For example, last week I went to Summerville, SC to work at Salkehatchie, a camp that focuses on repairing the homes of those in need, but in order for me to go, I had to agree to not drive my car and to follow the direction of the camp director. Now, I could handle obeying the camp director. He is an awesome individual and is very reasonable, but I had a serious problem with turning over my right to drive. Why should I have to do that? I had just turned 19, I had completed my first year of college, and these people wanted me to act like I was a freshman in high school again? No way.

Needless to say, I went anyway. At the beginning of the week I kept my grumbling to myself, but when another person in a similar situation voiced his frustrations, I also spoke-up and told a few of the leading adults how stupid I thought the driving rule was. If we were legal adults, why did we have to give-up our rights? Well, it turns out that due to finicky legal issues regarding the insurance that covers the camp, those running the camp would be responsible if someone between a certain age range drove and was injured somehow. In other words, the camp insurance would cost much more and, therefore, hinder the work that the camp was designed to do. Meaning, if I was going to serve God, I was going to have to deal with losing a little freedom.

Of course, isn’t that what serving is all about? When we become servants, aren’t we essentially lowering ourselves to the level of a slave for the sake of another person? Unfortunately, I think many Christians, particularly American Christians, have forgotten this fact. Above all else, we want to be comfortable. Comfortable where we sleep. Comfortable where we work, and comfortable with what we do, and the best way to be comfortable is to be in control. Why did I want my car? I wanted to be able to control where I was, and I did not want someone else to control my mobility. If I wanted to leave, then dag-gummit, I wanted to leave! However, Jesus has called us to serve, not to control, and we can’t serve if we aren’t willing to demote ourselves because serving innately entails that one is putting his or her self below another. This many times means sacrificing comfort and sometimes means sacrificing liberty.

That’s not all, though. At what times do we call on Jesus most often? When we are afraid, unsure, or, you guessed it, uncomfortable. If you are constantly in control and comfortable with your situation, then why would you bother trusting Jesus. Think about Peter jumping out of the boat to walk out to Jesus on the water. Sure, he sank, but it was not until he took that leap that Christ was given the chance to take hold of him, and it is not until we are put into a situation where we are weak that we will see the power of Christ.

Sam Hunley

Giving Your Relationship Meaning

John 21:15
When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs.”

In my life, I have found that relationships often swing between two poles. On one end, you have relationships that work off an emotional buzz. Basically, whenever you’re around the person (be it a friend or a significant other) you are always excited and happy, but in the end, the relationship has no substance because neither person is doing anything for the other. On the other end of the spectrum, you have relationships that only involve action, they revolved around what each person does for the other, but in the end, there is no actual emotional connection between the two individuals.

Of course, neither of these poles represents what one would call “healthy” relationships. As I have found in my three years with Emerald, you really have to strike a balance because, if you work purely off emotions, the relationship dies as soon as things get rough, but if you work purely off of actions, then the relationship dies as soon as someone else remotely more interesting comes along. In my understanding, a truly good relationship has emotion and action. Now, sometimes both might not be present at the same time, but when one is lacking, the other picks up the slack. For me, this means that if I’m feeling the emotions, but lacking the energy/ability to do something, then I have to ability to tell Emerald in words how I feel for her, but if I am lacking the emotion, then I can do something in order to show her that I do care for her even though I can’t quite say it at the moment. The times that I have both emotions and energy, I’m lucky and am able to use both. This combination and balance of emotion and action is what I identify as love.

Now, let’s apply this idea to the disciples. As things got rough, they scattered, which points to a more emotion based relationship, bringing us to the conversation in the verses above. Now, in these verses (and the verses after them) Jesus repeats His commands three time to Peter, which is commonly interpreted as reinstating Peter after he denied Jesus three times; however, I think we can pull more from it than that. If you notice, in each of Jesus’ responses He emphasizes actions: He wants Peter to feed and care for Jesus’ lambs (a.k.a. the new Christian community that would be forming).

In our culture that has become so feeling-oriented, these verses carry great importance. Jesus knew of Peter’s strong emotions because He had witnessed them over the previous three years with Peter jumping out of a boat, quickly answering questions, and even at one point trying to stop Christ from allowing Himself to die. Jesus wanted more than that, though. He wanted Peter to live out His emotions because love is not a one sided thing: it needs both emotion and action. Sound familiar?

In order for us to have truly life changing interactions with Christ, we must love Him with both our emotions and our actions. As scripture emphasizes time and time again, we cannot say that we love Christ and then completely ignore His commands. Of course, we are not expected to be perfect either, and we are not supposed to try to earn our way into heaven. However, if we are to pursue the more abundant life that Jesus has called us to, the only true form of life available to us, then we must cultivate not only our emotional love for Jesus but also our actions. In this way, just as in an earthly relationship, we will be led to a deeper and stronger relationship with God.

Sam Hunley

The Discovery of the Obvious

Romans 12:1-2

^1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

OK, so I had probably the biggest no-brainer of my entire life this week. You know one of those where it just leaves you smacking yourself in the head because it was just so irritatingly obvious? Yea, one of those. However, in the end, I’d rather feel stupid and realize my mistakes than to continue doing the same stupid things over and over again. Anyway, what I realized is this: we are supposed to live our lives for Christ. See what I mean? Kind of a biggie that you would have thought I would have picked-up on a wee bit earlier, but stick with me here, I have a very serious point with this.

When I first became a Christian, I worked very hard to add Jesus into my life. I started going to church every Sunday, became involved in a youth group, started going to Bible studies, and later, I even started writing a devotional (just in case you didn’t know). I took my life + Jesus very seriously, and I tried to never miss any of these things, even if it meant losing sleep or missing other events. Now, all of these things have been great, and I am very glad that I stayed involved in all of them; however, something was fundamentally wrong. What I was doing was changing. What I was thinking about was changing, but my overall attitudes were not. Because of this stagnation, I was still committing the same sins that I had been before I was a Christian, and I didn’t feel any closer to Jesus.

What was wrong, though? Not only was I trying to do the right things, but I also had faith. If I was at least attempting to live rightly, shouldn’t God be holding-up His end of the bargain? These questions eventually made me pretty angry and frustrated with God, which I certainly let Him know about. After venting, I realized that if someone was at fault, it was me, not God, but even still, what was I doing wrong? As I thought about it, the problem became incredibly obvious: I wasn’t living my life for Christ, and simply doing more wasn’t going to fix it.

Here’s where my epiphany comes in. Living your life for Christ doesn’t mean doing certain things for Jesus. It means doing EVERYTHING for Jesus. In other words, the equation of Christian living isn’t “your life + Christ,” but “your life = Christ.” In a way, this news is kind of relieving because it means that you don’t have to constantly trying to make sure you have the right amount of Jesus in your life. However, on the other end of the stick, this realization is scary because, when you turn your life over to Christ, it literally means that you turned your life over to Christ. It is not yours any more.

This does not mean that you need to quit your job, leave home, and walk around preaching Christ. Instead, this simply means that Jesus should be present in every part of your day. When you work, work for Christ. When you interact with others, treat them as Christ would. When you play, play for Christ. When you relax, relax for Christ (which is actually sort of commanded in the Sabbath). When you live, you live for Christ. Jesus is not the icing on the cake, He is the cake.

Sam Hunley

The Difference Between Static and Stagnate

An excerpt from a comment on my blog…

Could you sometime write an article explaining [the title] "The Static Truth?" To me, that phrase is antagonistic to a progressive, academic, or welcoming view of the Christianity or Biblical commentary. Particularly, the word "static." Perhaps I am mistaken, but I would love to hear your take on this…I could write a book explaining the problem I have with your word choice as it illuminates a greater problem of contemporary Christian culture in America.

The above is a comment taken from my blog. Now, I think that this person has some very valid points, hence the reason that I reposted a section of his/her comment here.

Why would this person consider calling something “static” as problematic? Well, it implies that one knows the single, unchanging truth, which doesn’t sound bad on the surface but implies that everyone else is wrong. In a Christian context, this can come across as, “I am right. I know all the answers, and when you end-up in hell, you’ll know that I was right and you were wrong.” Harsh, huh? Now, what bothers me about this issue is that there are a lot of people who will gladly make statements just like this one. Heck, I even thought at one time that this form of argument was not too inappropriate, but why is it wrong? Well, for one, it’s not incredibly loving, and two, it implies that the speaker knows everything about Truth and that there is nothing left to learn.

OK, the problems with the first reason are obvious, so I’m going to deal with the latter. When the title “Static Truth” first came to me, I didn’t see it as a way of declaring my complete and constant spiritual knowledge to the world. As I realize more today than I did then, God is big. He is infinitely big, mysterious, and beyond anything I can comprehend. He is bigger than my life. He is bigger than this universe, and He is bigger than the Bible. Does this mean that I am rejecting the Bible as a valid source? No, I am simply saying that, while the Bible provides the lens through which we can interpret our experiences with God and provides us with guidance, it does not in anyway give us a complete picture of God. The Bible is holy, blessed, amazing, and beautiful, but it isn’t God.

What does that mean? That means that if our primary written account of God and His Son can not possibly give us a full picture of God, how can anyone else claim to do so? Let me make this particularly clear: my Truth is in no way static. If you look back to my older post, it is very plain that my understanding of God has changed over the years, and especially the past eight months. In fact, my understanding of God changes on a daily basis. So then, why call this the static truth? Because, even though my truth isn’t static, God’s truth is. While our understanding of how God works may change over the course of our lifetime, God Himself does not change. That is why I chose the name Static Truth because I hope to in some way describe some aspects of the infinite nature of God and to aid others in their pursuit of these mysteries.

Here is where I agree with the above reader: there is a distinct problem in contemporary Christian America. We have this issue where we try to find truth, nail it down to one understanding, and then, once we have done that, we believe that the truth can never change. Now, I affirm Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, but the problem we have today is very different. While these doctrines provide access to the mystery of God, Christians today are trying to kill mystery. When there is no longer mystery, it implies that we then completely know God, which is impossible. If we are to grow, we must hold unswervingly to the Truth of God’s eternal glory and salvation, but we must also keep our hearts and minds humble so that we may continue to learn and grow in Christ.

I hope this answered the question!

Sam Hunley