Its Time For Jubilee

As I’ve spent numerous hours of my time watching cnbc and reading about the economic collapse that is occurring around the world, I’ve also thought about what my faith has to say about all of this.

And it turns out, it has a lot to say.

I’ve been wondering if there’s a bigger reason, maybe a Spirit led one, for the rise of the post liberal, new monastic, radical christians that seem to be popping up all over the place… your Shane Claibornes, Jesus Manifesto, and others (plenty of stuff online about these groups). I think that its time for us to stand up and and speak truth to power… to proclaim that its far past time to practice Jubilee. Whether the governments would ever do it, I don’t know. But there are plenty of people out there trying to figure out ways to fix the economy, and when we look at God’s economics, we realize that our system based on debt, is not quite the most just systems in the world. Sure we have the “freedom” to buy what we want, and work where we want, but the machine at the center of our economy, the government, promotes debt debt and more debt. Maybe its time for us to end this cycle. Maybe its time for debt forgiveness. All debt.

I don’t think its ever been clearer that the empires of this world exist for one thing: power. They don’t exist to protect us, they don’t exist to help us, they exist because people want to have power over others, and they will sacrifice any one of us to keep that power going. That is not the way of God. It is the way of evil.

So maybe we should stand up and let the leaders of the world, business and government alike, that its time to end the system of oppression, of debt slavery, of ENDLESS consumption. Let’s reset the clock.
What do you think?

Don’t Vote

If you’ve seen the video at college humor featuring all sorts of celebrities sarcastically saying “don’t vote”, and you think that’s where I’m going with this, you would be mistaken.

I’m actually telling you not to vote today.

If you are a Christian, the best option is not McCain, and its not Obama. The best option is to choose to live the life that you think people should live in the world.

God never desired human government’s for his people. One must only read through the Old Testament to see that. The Israelites begged and begged for a King, but God warned them that they did not want that. Yet the temptation to be like the rest of the world consumed them, and God granted their request. Let’s go to the text in 1 Samuel 8

1 When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges for Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn was Joel and the name of his second was Abijah, and they served at Beersheba. 3 But his sons did not walk in his ways. They turned aside after dishonest gain and accepted bribes and perverted justice.

4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead ^[a] us, such as all the other nations have.”

6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7 And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.”

10 Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattle ^[b] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day.”

19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.”

21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the LORD. 22 The LORD answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.”
Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go back to his town.”

This a a turning point in the story of Israel. God had set things up for their benefit… but they didn’t trust God. They saw their counter culture as backwards, they gave lip service to trusting God, but thought, “maybe we should have a little backup in case God doesn’t protect us.” They rejected their true, holy, and just King for a corruptible, power hungry self centered human one.

If we remember, the Kings of Israel brought just those bad things that God warned. Wars, high taxes, poverty for some and vast wealth for others. Slavery. And Israel, a nation that God intended to be a City on a Hill, placed in the middle of the known world at that time, became just like other nations. And eventually, their great Kingdom was overthrown by powers greater than their own.

Thus begins the exile.

Through years and years different groups invaded and conquered, or displaced the people of God. When Jesus came on the scene, the Roman’s brutal occupation of Israel was fresh on the minds of those who claimed faith in Jehovah. They knew that this was exile, and they hoped for the day when a Messiah would arise, lead them to victory against the Romans, and bring back the right status to the people of God.

But, that’ wasn’t exactly God’s plan.

Yes, Jesus came to fulfill the law, to institute the new jubilee, to set the oppressed free, to preach good news to the poor… just like the prophets foretold. But, the prophets also wrote of this day when “swords would be beaten into plowshares, and spears into pruning hooks” when the shalom of God would come in full. And Jesus fulfilled that.

Rather than doing things the way we wish them to be, by leading an army to defeat the evil Roman empire, and bring about the reign of God (as he was tempted by Satan in the desert) the logic of God’s revolution, while brilliant, seemed foolish to many. Jesus preached and taught truth, lived a blameless life, and then the rulers killed him.

To his followers, it seemed all had been lost. Messiah’s don’t die. Messiah’s lead their nation to victory. Jesus wasn’t the messiah. He was just like all the other failed revolutionaries, eventually killed by the Romans.

But. God. Wasn’t. Done. Yet.

On the third day, Jesus was raised, in the flesh, but a new kind of flesh and his resurrection marks the beginning of a new age, the center of history, where God begins to renew the creation. And those of us that profess faith in Jesus have a mission. And empty tomb means a lot of things. An empty tomb, most notably, means that the principalities and powers who claim to rule us, and who use death as their greatest tool to command obedience, these powers are shown to be what they have been all along. Powerless. God’s reign is a righteous one, that does not need to operate by the ways of the world to create lasting, loving, change. It brings salvation from the oppressors in that it frees us to be God’s people, no longer fearing death, and no longer needing to use violence to save ourselves from death. Death, the main result of the fall that led to the spiral of pain and hurt in the world, has been conquered. And in that, we are given a political manifesto. But its not the same as the one the world lives by.

Its one of non violence. We have no need to use evil to try to accomplish some good. Evil always results in more evil. We are charged to live better than the world. To be perfect, as our heavenly father is perfect. That means propping up the old system, supporting it, believing that it will in any way change things or make people’s life better is futile. Our job is not to work through the methods of a fallen world, but to operate in the ways of the TRUE Kingdom. The Kingdom that lays down one’s life rather than kills for it. The Kingdom that serves and loves those that the world rejects. The Kingdom that holds nothing as their own, but freely shares to those in need. The Kingdom that stands up to the injustices perpetuated by the rulers of this world who do not share our ethic of existance. The Kingdom that acts as a prophetic witness to the world… knowing that we don’t change things by having the right plan, but things will change one day by living out what we believe to be coming.

This is why, I ask you Christians: don’t vote. Don’t put your trust in horses and chariots, in people who desire power, in people willing to use violence to acheive their goals. In people who don’t respect the least of these in our society, no matter how much money they are willing to steal from others and give away to stay in power. Trust in the Lord our God, who IS our King. Who reigns forever. And who is working to make all things new.

Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on Earth, as it is in heave.

Amen.

Christus Victor and Penal Substitutionary Atonement

I just read this article from Greg Boyd about atonement theories. Most of you that have been around for a while probably know that I have a broader understanding of atonement than many, and I definitely have some problems with traditional PSA, namely, the idea that God was wrathful and punished Jesus for our sins. That doesn’t sit well with me, as it doesn’t make much sense that a God of love, a God of mercy would need to punish before he forgives. I tend to hold to the Christus Victor model which, to put it in a nutshell, says that Jesus’s death on the Cross defeated evil and freed us from oppression. It seems natural to me that Jesus death wasn’t needed in the sense that God needed to punish someone or something for forgiveness of sins. He has the power to do it if he wants (how many people were told by Jesus that their sins were forgiven before he died and rose?) but the sacrifice of blood was needed for US to understand what was going on. This is the point of sacrifices all through the old testament. God didn’t need a goat or a lamb to be slaughtered… WE needed that for us to truely understand what was going on.

Anyway, check out Greg’s post… and if you haven’t read any of his books or articles, I highly recommend them!

The Optimist Endorses Obama

ACU’s student newspaper, The Optimist, endorsed Barack Obama in their latest edition.

This comes as a surprise to any familiar with church of Christ universities, which tend to lean fairly hard to the right (at least among donors, and the student body).

While I was happy that the Optimist was willing to stand up to what I imagine was some pressure to not endorse Obama, I left this comment below the story.

I am glad that the Optimist isn’t afraid to anger the mostly conservative c of c members who donate to the school. That is something schools in our fellowship need to take note of.

Let me preface by saying I dislike McCain in a way I can’t quite describe… I will not be voting for him, or Obama, in this election. And this article is one of those reasons.

There’s a whole lot of “Obama wants change” and “Obama knows (fill in the blank) so he will be better at (fill in the blank). In my opinion, Obama knows little about economics and how to get our country out of this crisis. He knows about legalizing theft from people, such as my father, who will retire if Obama is elected, because his average tax rate on his income will go from roughtly 48% to 60%. 60 percent of his income will be taken from him in taxes, so that Obama can give a “tax cut” to me, and the rest of the 40% of Americans who don’t pay a dime in income taxes. That is not a tax cut. It is a welfare check. Its Robin Hood economics, and I for one believe it is unchristian to use force to achieve justice. It certainly was not what Jesus, or the early church were about. And besides that, there is a lot of evidence that this type of justice is no justice at all. Creating dependents out of people who are fully able to help themselves is immoral. It kills the human spirit, and if I remember correctly, there is also something in the New Testament to the effect of “if you do not work, you do not eat”.

Being rewarded wages by working… and then willingly giving up those wages to make sure there are “no poor among you” is true justice. Truely Christlike.

Now is our system biased against certain people? Absolutely. Do the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer? They have been for a while. But the answer is not redistributing wealth. The answer is not printing money to hand out to people, whether it be Wall Street fatcats or the poor. The answer is an economy of free choices, one of sound money that cannot be manipulated to make the wealthy wealthier in times of trouble.

But the ultimate answer, the answer we cannot get around, is that the church needs to actually BE the church. No more charity to make ourselves feel good, while never spending time with those Jesus did. No more voting for the guy who is going to take other peoples money, spend half of that on government bureaucrats, and give the other half away in substandard goods, services, and housing. Christians need to stand up and realize that government is inherently evil, exists for its own self interest, lives and dies for power and more power. The church is the alternate way. A way of love, sharing, and non violent resistance to the powerful who claim to be our lord. They are not.

What would have been a lot more ballsy of you, dear optimist, is if you had stood up and said… “No more will we vote for the lesser of two evils. No more will we silently sanction war and violence, against those who want to harm us, and against those who just happen to make more money than we do. Our call is to be a prophetic witness to the world, and show that the empire has no clothes.

Until that happens, chalk this up to a change in the tide of the political wind. Obama, McCain. They are all the same. Jesus Christ, who spoke truth to power, and let himself be killed rather than take power himself. HE is our King and ultimate example. Its time we started living it.

What Has Happened To Conservatism

Unbelievable. Even though knowing the questions that were asked to these people getting these responses are important, I think its still telling that these responses happened at all.

Been a while…

Its been a hectic, ridiculous, worrisome, couple weeks since I last posted. In that time period, I’ve gotten behind in school, partially because I’ve been glued to Google Finance, Clusterstock, and CNBC, and partially because I got the cold from hell.

I was sick for an entire week with the most flu-like thing I’ve had since I had the flu 5 and a half years ago. I spent 3 days on the couch, running 2 and a half degrees of fever. Missed a week of class, and one test, and I’m just not getting caught up. Its been ridiculous.

I saw this article over at clusterstock that I wanted to share. It talks about what situation our government has gotten itself into now that its propping up banks. What happens if those banks still fail? You can read the post, but it can be summed up pretty easily. The government is not going to let anyone go under ever, especially now that they’ve invested in said company. If a bank that they’ve propped up fails, they lose their entire investment. And only the government is powerful enough (at least at this time) to make sure the company they invested in does not go out of business.

Also, I’ve been doing a little studying history recently. I don’t have any charts, but I thought I’d mention that in most of our recessions, or panics, or whatever you’d call them, there are phases. A strong drop, a brief strong recovery, followed by another large drop. Guess where we are today?

Not to mention, most of the largest one day gains on the Dow Jones were during, you guessed it, the Great Depression.

Enjoy your day. And take it from me, its much easier to do that if you avoid financial news, so, uh, sorry.

I’m Kinda In Full Freak Out Mode

Its happened.

The myth of our free market economy has come crashing down.

Sure, they let Lehman fail, but they’ve bailed out

Bear Sterns

Fannie Mae

Freddie Mac

AIG

….

Who is next? WaMu? Wachovia? Could be anybody.

The way accounting is going these days, these guys are hiding what they can, legally, to try and buy time. Eventually, as we’ve seen this week especially, the truth always comes out.

Not to mention that the stock market has taken a nose dive, especially Monday, but really this entire year. Russia had to close its stock market today after a drop of 17 percent.

I just don’t believe that this is gonna be one of those things that goes away in a month or two. Something very bad is happening, and we’re gonna feel the effects for a long time.

One thing is for certain, we are seeing the end of the American Empire.

My New Favorite Show

I’ve been watching the TV show “Weeds”. Its a Showtime original series starring Mary Louise Parker. After I saw her in the West Wing and Saved, she became one of my favorite actresses.
Enough about the actual show. The theme song for the show is an old folk tune from the sixties, but its an amazing song.

Here’s the video of the intro

Why 20 Something Men Aren’t Growing Up

This article was fascinating to me, and kinda pointed out why I had trouble making friends with guys in high school and college.

Humor in News

Now, I don’t know what’s funnier. Fox News blatant bias, or MSNBCs. It was a good speech, but I just cannot believe the fawning that occurred afterwards. See for yourself…