Thinx 123: Two Christmases

Every year two Christmases are celebrated in parallel. 

One is about eating, drinking, making merry in the here and now, and some fat man with a white beard in a red suit.

The other is also a feast but has both here-and-now and transcendant elements. God made a promise thousands of years ago to destroy death, the "shroud that covers all nations"¹. At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation, the enfleshment, of God: Jesus, "conceived by the Holy Spirit [of God], born of the Virgin Mary"² as the Apostles' Creed (and early summary of Christian teaching) says. This Jesus in his death, resurrection and ascension, lived (and lives) the perfect life our forefather Adam failed to live.

There was no death when God created the world. It came into existence as the consequence of rebellion against God by the first humans, Adam and Eve. God calls that rebellion "sin" and it's been part of mankind ever since, a disease of the heart, will and mind with many symptoms.

Those who turn away (and keep turning away) from their sin and believe (and keep on believing) in this Jesus are given eternal life. Jesus himself said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."³

Thinx 122: The preacher couldn't see the irony of what he was preaching

I was at a Baptist church recently. The pastor was preaching on prayer and the text for the lesson was Acts 4:23-31. By Acts 4:23-31, the Jerusalem congregation numbered almost 10,000 people (if Acts 2:41, Acts 2:47 and Acts 4:4 are anything to go by.) The pastor told us that the apostles along with their congregation disobeyed the civil authorities so as to be obedient to Christ's commands. These were authorities which had been instituted by God (as per Romans 13:1-2.) Nevertheless, the congregation disobeyed the authorities, and apparently with God's blessing: Acts 5:32 says that God only gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him and Acts 4:31 relates how the Holy Spirit was poured out afresh on the congregation. They disobeyed the civil authorities because to obey them would have meant disobeying Christ's clear command, including the command to make disciples, baptise in the triune Name, and teach obedience to Christ's commands.

The pastor seemed oblivious to the irony of what he was teaching. His church had just come out of a two-year period where the civil authorities effectively banned the church from meeting. The state told the church to disobey Christ's command not to give up meeting together (Hebrews 10:25) and the church obeyed the state without question. And in doing so, the church forced those whose conscience demanded that they meet together to act against their conscience. Not a good look, given Romans 14. It would have been far better to have permitted those who wanted to stay at home to stay at home and permit those who were convinced of the need to obey Hebrews 10:25 to do so.

He went on to speak glowingly of the power of Christians praying, referring to Acts 4:24-30 which records the church praying for boldness, the meeting place being shaken and the Holy Spirit equipping the members of the congregation to continue their work. But where was his church's boldness during 2020-21? Whatever power may be in prayer, the example he and his church had given to the wider community was that the state rules the church and that the church lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of Mark McGowan and his Chief Medical Officer. Should another pandemic come along (monkey pox perhaps?) where will their local community find the church? Probably hiding under the table, as much enslaved by the fear of death as anyone else (Hebrews 2:15).

Thinx 121: The New Apartheid

Full disclosure: I have received two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. When Novavax can be used for boosters I will probably get one. I am hesitant about receiving another mRNA or equivalent-technology dose. I am yet to understand how a vaccine developed for Alpha helps me with Omicron and whatever other strains may follow. I opted to receive the first two doses due to co-morbidities -- a childhood full of respiratory diseases.

Lots of sad news in the world today. I heard this week that one of the larger churches in my city, Riverview Church, had chosen to implement a Proof of Vaccination in the 9am gathering. Accompanied by a video the announcement applied to services starting this Sunday 13 Feb 2022. I hope someone put up a marquee outside and provided refreshment and teaching for those who were excluded from the main meeting.

About four months ago, there was an interesting opinion piece in The Sydney Morning Herald written by one Phil Colgan, the senior minister of St George North Anglican Church in Sydney. It was entitled, "The word from a vaccinated preacher: we don’t urge law-breaking, but we cherish religious freedom". The summary read: "Our churches support emergency action during the pandemic. Longer term, the idea that Christians would exclude anyone from church is extremely problematic."

And it is problematic. As Colgan goes on to say:

It goes against the very essence of the gospel. Jesus sought to welcome the “sinners” of his day – the people who the self-righteous elite sought to exclude from their temple. When we seek to include people, it is not an affirmation of their viewpoints, but an expression of love for them, with the hope that they might come to know God’s love shown to them in Jesus, and then even change their manner of life. Given that reality, of course churches want to talk about whether a vaccine passport is a good and necessary step.

What worries me in this whole experience is that it seems we can’t even do that – that is, talk about it. Perhaps I was unclear or unhelpful in my words? However, to arrive at good outcomes, people need to be free to discuss things in theory, disagree, listen to others and then seek to arrive at some sort of consensus. This is not possible when we demonise people with whom we disagree (or perhaps who don’t even disagree, but only raise the issue?)

I've just come from being on the side of a conversation between some vaccinated Christians talking about this very category of people: those who are vaccine-hesitant or even actively resistant to the political, societal and peer-group pressure to be vaccinated, and specifically those who claim to be Christian. What I heard was not love, nor any willingness to bear with the weakness of other brothers and sisters, in the Romans 15 sense, but rather demonising and stereotyping -- lumping them all together with home-schoolers and Trump supporters. They even went so far as to suggest that Christians who refuse to be vaccinated or delay their boosting for whatever reason should go and form their own churches. 

I'm strongly inclined to try and find such a church just so that I can join it. Identifying with the leper-class seems to me to be something that Jesus would do. Talking up an "aren't we great, we're triple-vaxxed" line seems so Pharisee and Sadducee.

As Colgan says, we don't encourage law-breaking. We don't. We strongly urge obedience to the laws of the land as per Romans 13. But we don't necessarily encourage obedience to the law when that law goes beyond its God-given limits. When the government starts telling Christians how to be Christians, when they start talking religio licita and illicita, then the church needs to ask itself whether being obedient to the state at the expense of obedience to Christ is worthwhile. Of course, disobedience to the state will mean great suffering for the church. When the believers disobeyed the Sanhedrin in the months after Pentecost they experienced persecution of all kinds including floggings, imprisonment and execution. God occasionally stepped in to save, miraculously releasing Peter from prison for example, but generally, that wasn't (and isn't) the case. 

I've been telling people for years that these days were coming. Now they're here. The time to chose whether you worship the state or Christ has come. We can make a god of the state or we can resist that urge and worship and serve the Creator who is blessed forever. The secret police aren't breaking down our front doors yet, so there's still time to pray and think things through, but the time to sweep the issue under the carpet one more time has passed. Many prayed for (and died for) the end of apartheid in South Africa. How many for this new apartheid?