Posted on 01/02/2009 11:02:52 PM PST by AlaskaErik
Jesus, the prophet and teacher from Nazareth, was killed by a group of Jerusalem elites who collaborated with the Roman Prefect, Pontius Pilate. Jesus was an irritant to every person who had a privileged position in the political, religious, social and financial system. His reputation as a critic of the dominant officials of his day was well-earned. He leveled his criticism of the wealthy and the powerful in almost every teaching session he led.
“Jesus died for our sins” might be an acceptable theological statement, but it is fraud as a statement about how and why he was martyred. The rich and powerful of Jerusalem had heard about this rabble rouser from the north before he came to Jerusalem for the last time. The last straw was when he went to the Temple and created a public disturbance of monumental proportions. Jesus was horrified with what was going on in the Temple. His creation of chaos in the courtyard is a classic example of street theater. In a society in which protest was not allowed, the fate of Jesus was sealed. They killed him.
My father-in-law was a great, one-of-a-kind man. He was a highly principled man. He was one of the most generous men I have ever known. His confession of faith was simple. “My maker and I are on good terms.” Even though he gave generously to the church, as an adult he never attended public worship. He could not tolerate the community elites who served as church officers and to whom the churches catered.
Christian churches have made friends with all the wrong people. As a result, our Christian pulpits are silent about almost every critical social issue and especially about money, wealth and the dangers of being selfishly rich.
Money and wealth were central to several of the parables that were told by Jesus. We read the parables and usually miss the point. We do not understand or relate to the economic system of first century Palestine. One parable is less difficult to understand. It is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Lazarus was a miserable beggar who sat at the gate of a very rich man. The rich man lived the good life. He ignored the needs of Lazarus. Lazarus died and went to be with Father Abraham. He was content at last. The rich man died and went to hell. He was in torment. He called out to Abraham for help. Abraham told him it was too late.
Every time I read the story of Lazarus and the rich man I ask myself, “What is so difficult to understand?”
Rich people who fail in matters of generosity are going to hell. That is what Jesus taught. As I understand his style of ministry, Jesus told this story over and over again. He probably repeated it a few times in Jerusalem before he went to the Temple and created chaos.
As I understand the teachings of Jesus, he believed that none of us own anything. Everything belongs to God. The wealth we privately hold is held in trust. We are expected to use wealth wisely and generously. In his parable of the talents, people were given wealth in varying amounts, but everyone was held accountable.
America is not a Christian nation. America was never intended to be a Christian nation. However, religious people are American citizens. We religious folk have a responsibility to speak about the moral and ethical standards of our faiths. It is appropriate to bring our moral and ethical understandings into the public square and join the debate about how we as a nation will behave both nationally and internationally.
The United States and the world are headed into financial crisis. Is this a time for Christians to bring the values of Jesus to the discussion table? Yes. Here is the message.
Americans have made a lot of people rich. In our recent history, we have made it easier for people to become rich. They have become rich at the expense of the poor.
The United States has recreated the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
The year 1980 was critical. At that time nations such as Sweden and Japan began asking questions about economic inequities. Ratios between the wages of workers and executives were considered. In Sweden the ratio settled in at 8-1. In Japan, where worker/shareholders are common, the ratio became 16-1. In the United States the right to attain unlimited wealth triumphed. The top federal income tax was lowered from 70 percent to 28 percent. The ratio between earnings of workers and executives quickly rose to 145-1. That ratio is modest compared to 2008. By 1990 the top one-fifth of the American population was receiving more than 50 percent of the nation’s income and held more than three-quarters of the nation’s wealth. In the past eight years, all of the economic growth in the United States has ended up on the balance sheets of the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans.
Our churches are an embarrassment to Jesus. On issues of economics and wealth, our pulpits are and will remain silent. The rich and powerful assassinated Jesus for speaking out. Just now it is not easy for preachers to tell their wealthiest members that they are going to hell.
The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor emeritus of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.
You have hit the target area.
I think a larger point to consider is all the prattling from the pulpit these days - and this is definitely where this pastor gets it wrong - about using a leviathan government as the means to achieve the social justice ends in the message of Christ. Think of all the wealth transferred since the New Deal - or even the Great Society. It has accomplished precious little to being about equality between the richest and poorest.
Why? One reason is that because the people who coronate themselves with the title of wealth redistributionist assume themselves worthy of worship. THEY replace and become God.
Jesus’ message was about changing hearts and minds one at a time. He knew the minute you try to enforce those feelings by governmental fiat, you create resentment and ultimately resistance and rebellion to the idea.
When did Warren endorse Obama?
As a tangent:
“Giving 10% of your pretax income to charity is specified in the Bible as tithes and is required by God”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Pretax?
Just a question. In the old days the marginal tax rate on wealthy was about 80% (+ or -). Paying 10% on top of that and your are left with basically nothing on the marginal income. Government takes 80%, you contribute 10% to God. Do you think tithing might be 10% on your increase. If the government doesn’t give me a choice but confiscates it, it really isn’t my income.
There are some who argue the 10% tithe was given to God which was administered by Israel as a nation of God. Accordingly, if the US were upholding its faithfulness to God, 10% would be more than enough for both the government and to serve God.
Our paying any more to a nation independent of God merely manifests the incompetence of any organization functioning independently of faith through Him.
What makes you think he needed to endorse Bama?
Of all the preachers/priests this nation has to offer how did it come to be that Bama selected Warren to be his lead preacher in prayer? Was no accident.
I did a bit of inquiring during Clintons administration, to some of my Baptist 'friends' how could it be Clinton's approval ratings always stayed around 66%. Well the responses were always using the words Billy Graham used when he fawned over how old Bill was so charismatically gifted and if he wanted he would have made a wonderful preacher.
Then somewhere in the midst of the Clintons out comes Warren's book and these friends invited me to do their 40 day/week book exercise. And then last year I hear that Hillary was the one, and when she did not make the cut they were off to the races to help Bama get elected. Now they were getting this direction from somebody someplace.
All I can tell you is that my County is predominatly Southern Baptist and that the Whites here voted app. 90% against Obama. So at least here, a large majority of Baptists are at least “somewhat” Conservative. All of our County Offices are GOP.
False.
The author of the article is reading into Scripture and manifesting his own sin. The scribe who asked Jesus what he needed to do to be saved, since he had kept the Commandments since his birth, was told to give away his possessions and this proved too much a challenge for his fate, might be a candidate for such a false conclusion, but not the report of Lazarus and the rich man.
The reason the rich man was condemned and never received salvation was that he was already condemned from birth, without anything righteous to be identified with God for permanent relationship and because he never submitted to God in his heart, mind and soul, he didn;t even have faith which could be identified with the faith of Christ.
Lazarus did believe and went to Abraham's bosom or Paradise upon his first death. The rich man did not.
The same situation may happen today, but if a rich man today receives Christ through faith in Him, he still has salvation.
Those who are saved might lapse back into sin and arrogance, submitting to the natural man instead of the new man, the new creation, but that doesn't mean their new human spirit will not be saved.
The author hardly presents either a Protestant or Baptist soteriology. Worse, it tends to equate the charity of the believer with salvation. Such a policy results in God being made a debtor, rather than glorifying the Son who has paid the debt in full, allowing God the opportunity to righteously and justly give the believer eternal life by his grace alone.
I do not doubt you, but here in Missouri, and I guess they are Southern Baptist, I do not know how one knows, these people are apparently generational democrats in spite of their pro-life claims. These people love Bill Clinton and were all about getting Hillary elected. Then they did not miss a step in taking up for Bama.
I do not know how their system works but they hold Billy Graham in the highest esteem he speaks they listen as well as that Warren character. Now the Grahams were silent during the election and was not until after the election word came down from the mountain that Graham would not be advising Bama. I took that to mean the hand off went to Warren to be the democrat religious voice.
It's fairly obvious the author hasn't studied much Bible doctrine or theology. Jesus Christ went to the Cross in strict obedience to the will of the Father. All the injustice and hysterics by the crowds and those taunting Christ were merely efforts to distract our Lord from remaining in fellowship with God the Father through God the Holy Spirit.
Salvation is NOT morality, nor is or has any person of the human race ever been or will be saved by morality. Salvation is by faith ALONE in Christ ALONE.
Once one has eternal life, a regenerated human spirit and remains in fellowship with God through faith in Christ, morality happens by us following the commandments and our charity from our position of faith, not by legalism or making God a debtor.
The author might want to bone up on some good Baptist doctrines which came from the Reformed camp regarding the death of Christ on the Cross and who actually determined when his death would occur.
Probably because he's a popular preacher. Billy Graham gave the benediction at GHWB's inauguration, and he was a personal guest of the Gipper's at his.
I recently heard some studies on the Modern Church which had some interesting linkage on the ideas espoused by Rick Warren. Here are a few of the names associated with his ideas which evolved from one stage to another, but they all are based on some bad doctrine.
The origins of those ideas aren’t new. Thay may be traced at least back to Phineas Parkhust Quimby’s New Thought which taught an occultic spiritism and mesmerism, leading to influence Charles Fillmore and Mary Baker Glover Parker Eddy(add a few more names if one likes) and the formation of Christian Science.
EW Kenyan thought Christian Science didn’t have enough of Christ’s blood in it, so he took it and added a number of Scripture verses to it to form the faith movement.
Norman Vincent Peale (a 33rd degree mason) who received some of his inspiration while visiting a Shinto Shrine, developed false doctrines which were picked up by Robert Schuler.
Robert Schuler a decade or so ago commented on a Larry King interview that he had been mentoring Rick Warren. This was just after Schuler had been promoting his ‘New Reformation’, attempting to preach the gospel without any reference to sin or atonement, so as not to offend the self esteem of listeners. Schuler sent a copy of his book to every pastor in America to promote his ‘New Reformation’. Warren followed Schuler’s lead with his Purpose-Driven Life message.
All of these movements link a way to God other than through Christ and emphasize an ability to create reality from our thinking or words independent of Christ.
IMHO, the entire Warren/Obama affair smacks of masonic ties and attempts to manipulate worldly power structures. If they turn around and perform through faith alone in Christ alone, there’s no problem, only blessings in store for them. If they seek any other path, they just manifest for all history the foolishness of those who rebel from His plan.
Two issues are discussed in Matt 19:21-24.
First, salvation is not based upon works or morality. If the young scribe had exercised simple faith in Christ, then regardless the cost in a worldly fashion, there would be treasures awaiting him in heaven. That faith was tested when Christ Himself told him to give up some wealth to the poor and there would be treasure for him in heaven. This didn’t preclude any heaven for the man, but emphasized the issue of faith.
Secondly, Christ tells the disciples that there is tremendous difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. This emphasizes how we tend to scar our own thinking by placing other things before God in our living. When we focus continually upon worldly advancement, our gains and losses directly observable in the world easily influence our thinking and distract us from exercising faith through Him.
Nevertheless, through God, all things are possible, even for a rich man to enter heaven, but again, it must be through faith in Christ.
There is a lot of truth to the statement made during the Wright controversy that most Americans don’t realize that what Wright was saying was not all that controversial or uncommon in many African American churches.
If faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, then why didn’t Lazarus go to hell, since he never heard of Christ? And why wasn’t he resting in the bosom of Christ, instead of the bosom of Abraham? Sounds as though Jesus was preaching Judaism rather than Christianity!
He had faith in the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God. Also known as the Word, the Memra, and the Messiah.
Interesting post. I am familiar with some of the people named and the notion of ‘winning friends and influencing people’. The mixing of ideas to present a religion as popular and enticing does not surprise me.
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