Division – Human Style

You might think I would be getting pumped up for all the upcoming movies and TV series.  We’ve got Batman v. Superman, the Marvel Civil War with headliners Iron Man and allies squaring off against Captain America and allies, and Netflix’s Daredevil v. some uber vigilante.  But, more and more, I see my father in me.

When I was a kid, I used to ask my father if he was going to watch Marcus Welby, Doctor Kildare, General Hospital, or one of the other medical dramas.  And he would say, “Tom, I deal with that all day long, why would I want to watch it for entertainment?”  In much the same way, I know art (even comic book series art) helps us work through real life issues but I see enough division in the real world to want to go watch made up division (especially of the “good” guys).

Jesus Christ came to reconcile the world unto himself, scripture tells us.  Jesus was the peacemaker.  When the world threw the worst it could at him, Jesus took it and brought it to the next level.  It was not about defeating your opponent.  It was about making your opponent your ally and your friend.  The prodigal son doesn’t come home to displace the elder son who was obedient.  He came home and through the love of his father was meant to be a brother again.

We live in a time where we are urged to pick sides.  Let’s not.  Let us be God’s people.  Let us be against division.  Let us come together and stop trying to pick the right team to be on.

I know many of my friends will go and enjoy the upcoming comic feast.  But I’m going to skip it personally.

How do you think we can come together more as a society?

Until next time,

Tom

 

 

Sex as the Generational Divider in Church

Note: The following is not about Parkway or even about the Presbytery of South Louisiana.  It is about how I see Christ’s larger Church in our culture today.

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Yesterday, at the Presbytery of South Louisiana’s Presbytery meeting, there was a breakout session on three different topics (pensions/health care – packed; synod mission and grant programs – packed; and youth ministry – half full).  It may just have been in my rotation because everyone was supposed to go through all three break out sessions.  But it also seemed fitting as youth ministry always has usually not to be a top tier issue in the larger church.  The conventional wisdom seems to be that youth ministry is an issue for youth, and their parents, but not for the larger church.  We have “more important” topics to consider.  But the conventional wisdom is coming at a higher and higher cost.

In the breakout session we got to watch a video by the Barna Group called “You Lost Me.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jitHsBPGtUY .  Barna asserts that the divide between generations has come for a variety of reasons but I believe when you dig into it, the largest  dividing issue is Christian sexual ethics and it eclipses all other differences between young and older Christians today.  If we are ever to address it, we need to address it before our youth become young adults and are likely gone.

In many churches, I think we use the old southern culture maxim of “not talking about anything uncomfortable” most of the time. It was like when I was back in school and somehow, mysteriously, each year history class would end with World War II.  No need to talk about the messy Korean and Vietnam conflicts (not to mention the Civil Rights movement and everything else that happened in the 50s and 60s).  It was just more comfortable timing it out to end with World War II.  In much the same way, I believe most churches simply don’t talk about sex (yet it is a major topic to most young people).

Some young people in my breakout session talked of their experience with another option their church tried.  Their church did raise the issue and drew the lines between right and wrong very very clearly.  The only problem is the young people, much like the cartoon characters in Barna’s Youtube video, went straight to the internet and found that many people today have different answers than they were hearing at church –  it isn’t all so black and white.

Use this simple statistic – the large majority of couples today live together before getting married.  This was not the answer for many older Christians when they were in their 20s and 30s.  Add onto this some substantive disagreements over homosexuality, marriage, women’s careers, and child rearing and you have a gumbo full of potential discord.

And so, for many people of faith today, the answer is to stay away from Christians who have different views and the easiest way to do that is to stay away from church.  And we are all weakened in the process.

Church needs to be the “Google” of moral questions.  People need to be able to come to church and in a very non-attribution and nonjudgmental atmosphere – and ask some of their deepest questions.  And together, we also can wrestle with the fact that if any of us were born 20 years ago we would likely have different views on some big topics than if we had been born forty, sixty, or eighty years ago (with a variety of answers even within those groups).  Still, God loves us all.  Jesus died for us all.  The Holy Spirit dwells within each of us and calls us together.  How can the best answer be to stay away from one another?  I often think today when I hear adults outside of the church question their faith it comes from the fact that their image of God is like that of a mid-teenager instead of whatever their age actually is.  Frequently, this is because that is just when they stopped going to church and their image and understanding of God largely stopped changing at that point (even though all of their other knowledge kept growing).

I also remember back in the 90s hearing a speaker say it was time for the church to sit down and openly discuss what Christian sexual ethics should be in the 21st century.  A number of people attacked saying, “It is the same answer as it was in the 1st century. What an immoral question!”  So, the conversation went nowhere.  We didn’t end up really talking about it then.  And we largely don’t talk about it today (except for people in extreme positions who seem to want to only talk about such topics one way or the other).

I simply believe Jesus would talk about it if he were here.  He would not let sex divide his people.  Maybe it’s finally time for us to talk about uncomfortable topics.

What do you think?

Tom