There but for the Grace of God, Part II

The topic is child molestation not Jerry Sandusky, but as the latest public version of the problem,  he allows us a human face.

Simply put, as abhorrent as his behavior was, there is no room to cast stones at him. It is a human story of failure to recognize sin or to recognize it but fail a walk in the available grace of God. Perhaps knowing the meaning of grace is part of the problem. I contend Jerry Sandusky --no matter what he believed about God, professed about God, nor practiced in his religion -- did not understand the grace of God.

That is the end of the matter, however. Rewind to the beginning.

How did he manage to become ensnared by such vile desire? I'm guessing, but I am confident in the guess, to assert his sexual exploration began as a child with other boys, perhaps even pre-pubescent. In his teens while he acted oriented toward girls of appropriate age, he maintained some level of secret behavior involving boys. Some part of his soul driven by his fallen, flesh nature never matured beyond this. He developed heterosexually or pretended to do so, but a secret willingness to participate in homosexual behavior remained. The desire remained along with the knowledge some boys could be so coerced. With his advancing age, developing position and disposable income, he learned techniques of manipulation. This likely behavior pre-dated the start of the charity, and it is plausible he started the charity without plotting a way to groom a never-ending list of boys of the age he targeted. He may have even prayed, "God help me not use the charity this way." Such is the folly of self-denial.

I think something in him believed in doing acts of charity. This idea on my part is tied to my life experience of knowing we humans, Christian and not, are a mixed bag of good and evil decisions. How many church going folks will lie on their tax forms? How many folks would never steal anything but have very immoral sexual fantasies? How many pastors, policemen, judges, doctors, firemen, teachers, etc., went into their chosen vocation to answer some inner-drive to help fellow humans, and yet harbor feelings, desires, thoughts or out-right actions of wrong behaviors? Jerry Sandusky is not alone. He got caught because he abandoned himself to a lifestyle of self-indulgence in his prurient interest, which produced enough witnesses to incontrovertibly testify he did the acts.

Is the one who acts out a prurient desire worse than the dreamer of such? Perhaps so in most US citizen's eyes, but not when judged by the holiness of God our Father. Our actions may or may not be judged by the law. The heart is judged by God.

Next path in the Wild Wood will examine the nature of the grace of God, and Sandusky et al professing grace while living outside the same.

There but for the Grace of God...

The news is vile on most any occasion...or at least too many facets of it. Gruesome murders, scandals amid politicians and others of lesser note, child abuse, drug conglomerates leaving their piles of human debris. Sandusky couldn't be missed, eh?

The child predator appears one of the worst, no doubt. However, the unease of a man establishing a charity reaching for and lifting up under-privileged youth, who then picked his victims from the clients of the charity is peculiarly nauseating. That mask of overt goodness as a cover-up of pedophile predatory behavior ravages one's sense of trust in any goodness at all.

Raises some questions; no doubt about that at all.

How could others turn a blind eye?
How could this man's theology not scream at him he was in the wrong? (I read in the news he was a church goer of some regularity.)
How did he get himself involved in sex with minors to begin with, and why did he determine to start the charity?

I could go on.

It's all about sight, or lack thereof. I have some windows to wash so,

more later from the Wild Wood.

Reporting on an Unusual Week

I wrote a teaser on June 6. Thought by the weekend, surely, I'd have a new post up. Little did I know what kind of week I was about to enter.

The following piece of news from our little community actually went world wide:

On Friday, June 8, as children showed up for the last night of vacation Bible school (VBS), they began to play in the church cemetery. Like many small, country churches, the cemetery is located near to the church building with no fences or boundary markers of any kind. Anyone at any time can simply stroll through the monuments. A freak accident occurred and a twelve hundred pound, stone cross broke off the top of its monument and fell upon one four-year-old little girl. She didn't survive the trauma.

This child was the second child of one of my former students. The former student is from a family my wife and I have been friends with for over thirty years. In fact, the precious child who died so suddenly came to Christmas dinner at our house as a swaddled infant when our two families gathered to share a holiday meal--a tradition we had kept for one and half decades.

This event wrenched our hearts and commanded our thoughts and prayers for many days.

The day after the funeral, we received a call that my wife's mom had been admitted to a local hospital for emergency angioplasty. This was her second such operation in a little over a year. We packed and left for Clayton on Wednesday. I am happy to report my mother-in-law is doing well and getting better. The operation turned out to be needed to fix the first stent.

Friday, as we worked around Mom's and Dad's house for a few days, we heard the news from our hometown that a sixteen-year-old boy had been killed in an auto accident Thursday night. Once he had been identified, I learned he and the boy driving the truck were both former students of mine. Their faces were easy to connect to their names in my mind's eye.

I have been thinking much about death this week. Not morbidly or even sadly, though two of the events mentioned here are horribly sad for the families involved. I just find myself thinking it over.

I have been debating what to do after a couple of months of silence. I either start fresh or pick up in the middle of the last series.

Either way, just thought I'd rumble a bit and let the world know, I am thinking again.

"Cutting Edge" Christianity, Part Three

Two points in this series are the power of labels and the functional shaping of groups by fear and pride. On labels: Discussions and teachings that I hear on sin of mention the problem the heart while most of the real words and related concern focus on the behaviors acted out as a result or on the consequences of these behaviors and the costs. In other words, what tends to get our attention and energy are the surface, material issues we can see. The inside of the problem or the root issues are not effectively addressed even if identified accurately.

Today, consider the words "cutting edge" as a label. We use the phrase to mean that the thinking or action so described is beyond the common approach; it leads others. In Christian circles and applied to Christian experience this might mean a given church is unique in its programs or that its use of technology is at the forefront of such applications. Perhaps a "cutting edge" church is a mega-church with organizational approaches to management of huge numbers in membership and attendance.

There are not pure applications of the phrase "cutting edge" since it is not specific technical nor spiritual terminology. It is a phrase used both as a trend and in describing the beginning of trends. The phrase has a meaning -- it's in the dictionary -- but it's application is loose and not limited to Christian topics clearly.

The use here as the title of a series of posts is intended to raise questioning of Christian "trends". My question is, "Is there something inadequate with what God intended for church?" And a corollary question: "Can the current church actually be substantively moved into greater levels of effectiveness in its missions of providing the faithful with spiritual instruction and support, evangelizing those outside the family, and mitigating for people generally the impact of this painful world."

The label "cutting edge" applied to church is seen in various movements and particular expressions of church gatherings across American culture. It is a biased label without actual meaning. The bias simply put is one of perspective. One might label a church "cutting edge" for its programs and another church across town as "dead" for its teaching. Clearly these labels are not logical but emotional. They are not used based on measurable quantities, as each label is simply a subjective phrase which reflects the view of the label user.

This dynamic illustrates perspective on the Christian experience and subsequent descriptions are based on surface factors literally seen with the natural eye. We think these outward signs sparking our labels are evidences of the spiritual state of the groups under inspection. If we would be honest with ourselves, we would admit the failure of our labels to appraise spiritual reality. Why do we continue to trust in these labels and fling them at others...or posture ourselves under their tyranny?

"Cutting Edge" Christianity. Part Two

Once again I briefly was involved in a discussion of what it means to be a Christian. This occurred on a Facebook page initiated by a brother in the Lord which involved reading a book by Bonhoeffer entitled Life Together and participating in a group discussion. Greg invited me to join the group/page discussion, and as is typical for me, I read a comment and jumped in with a response. I didn't notice at first that a book was being discussed, nor did I make the connection that I had therefore not read the chapter under consideration when I went blathering off with my thoughts.

Anyway, the point here besides my thick-skulled willingness to talk without knowing what I am talking about, is the wonder and curiosity and immediate thinking provoked for me when anyone who knows Jesus begins to speak of that relationship and how such plays out in the simple reality of daily living. The idea that we as humans have far more in common with one another on the basic level of our humanity than all the attention given to our differences, this commonality of human experience, fascinates me.

The conversation in question was largely over the position Bonhoeffer takes in his book on how Christians are to relate to one another: we relate to Christ first then to one another. This developed into a lively discussion on how Christians relate inside the family, that is as a gathered group labeled "church".

In commenting about that topic...again...I failed fairly miserably in the Facebook discussions to encourage others in this. The lack of my ability sent me into reflection before the Holy Spirit, which became some notes, which is becoming this next series of posts in the Wild Wood.

Anyway, it all boils down to this: sin is far too much the focus of what church is all about in modern day practice. Therefore, when the church seeks those outside the family of God for the purposes of evangelism, it is a constructed outreach that is handicapped by sinful attitudes on sin. This impacts the fellowship of those so gathered.

"Cutting Edge" Christianity: the Maintenance of Holiness while Authentically Living Among Non-Believers

9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector's booth ; and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. 10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners ?" 12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. 13 "But go and learn what this means : 'I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners." 

The gospel author, Matthew (chap. 9), above recounts an interesting moment in the life of Jesus, a circumstance of spending time with "sinners"  Jesus revisits in other situations throughout the gospel accounts. 

We are called to mix with those outside the family of the Lord while knowing a sanctification of our souls which creates a revelation of the living Spirit of Jesus.

This next series of posts in the Wild Wood explores the tension between being separate from worldly desires while living among those who are still ruled by the same, and this accomplished without coddling  or condemning those with whom we interact daily.